Dust off your cannons

To speak of a cannon is to refer to traditional assembly of texts. Dungan writes that it would be foolish of us to expect cannons to be neat packages when it’s often messy with ambiguity. The “cannons” we see today are often remnant of texts and scriptures that previous communities found important and thus came to be preserved. We typically think of cannons as final and closed while Dungan tells us that they are in fact fluid (2). As we have discussed in class, we think the Bible is finite and closed and say similar things in different translations, but there are new renditions of biblical stories that are created in the modern times. Perhaps modern writers and ancient scribes share certain qualities. Modern writers place their own additional information in stories to answer questions they have, maybe like ancient scribes altered biblical stories to not only extend their mind and creativity, but to also answer cultural questions communities at the time have. 

I wonder what these societies that have shaped our “canonical” bible would think of it. Would they feel that additional stories should have been preserved to better serve modern times? Would they think we are completely wrong in our interpretations? Would they tell us that we are right and everything essential is all bound into the holy book that we have? Or would they tell us nothing matters? Cannons are fluid and all that bounds them is the readers so perhaps we should change our point of view.