Honest exegesis

I'll be presenting a paper at the German-English Tübingen Colloquium a week Monday, on Christology in 2 Cor 3:16-18. In the first part I suggest that the repeated kurios in these verses indicates the risen Lord. In the second part I attempt a rather unusual analysis of the christological significance of these verses.

I feel that my case is pretty good but not water tight. Max Turner, at our last LST NT conference, gave a bit of advice for researchers that has stuck with me. He explained that it is better to simply be honest about the strength of the arguments you proposes, even if they are suspect. Don't over press your case, in other words. Obvious, but the truth of this somehow 'got through' to me in a new way recently. I must say, over pressing is something I have been guilty of in the past, and his advice liberated me to construct a more honest argument. To be honest, whatever one claims in relation to 2 Cor 3 needs to be advanced with a good deal of humility; it is a very complex and hotly debated passage.