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In addition to articulating assumptions, it also helps to articulate the purpose of the comparison. Michael Stausberg lists many purposes pursued in comparative designs in general, including category formation, generalization/systematization (including by challenging previous categories), construction and testing of hypotheses, interpretation, explanation, and construction of typologies/taxonomies.1 In fact, these purposes are extensions of what comparison itself does, as noted in the previous part. Larger categories can be formed for understanding two or more things similar in a given respect. This is an exercise we humans engage in all the time and we engage in debate about “edge cases” by doing comparison and contrast to say that this case is more similar to category A than category B. Of course, comparison can also lead to undermining the precise content of an established category, or even the category as a whole.
When such category formations are carried out on a larger scale or contribute to larger-scale projects of more general, cross-cultural comparisons, the purpose can be described as generalization/systematization. For example, one could compare the category of asceticism among Coptic Christians and among a given group of Buddhists in order to make more generalizing observations about asceticism across religions or as part of a wider-ranging comparative project looking at these two religions. Of course, in the process of this larger-scale work, one can also find reason to undermine previous attempts at generalization/systematization, such as if one were to find problems with how “asceticism” is defined and thus how this category is made to include phenomena that are too diverse.
As such, one can also see how comparison can be undertaken for the construction and testing of hypotheses. In my own field of NT studies, there has been a kind of multivariant comparative work repeated for many years now on the question of which of the Pauline works in the NT are, in fact, authored by Paul. Arguments on this front rely on comparing the Pauline works to each other, often with the six other letters being compared with the seven undisputed ones (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon), as well as with other cases of authors producing multiple works. The evidence is also compared to what is otherwise established about cultural conventions of authorship, including cases where it is known that an amanuensis is involved. Such comparisons contribute to constructing and testing hypotheses about Paul, his life, his works, his theology, or, alternatively, those of his successors that adopted his mantel for their own works. These comparisons also contribute to constructing and testing hypotheses about Christian origins and the first century of Christian history.
Comparison can also be undertaken for interpretation, including in offering comparison of interpretations themselves. This is crucial for hermeneutics in determining the similarities and differences between given hermeneutical frameworks and practices, which can illuminate one’s own hermeneutics in comparison to an interlocutor. And as we have already noted, good comparison requires looking at the comparanda from multiple perspectives.
Relatedly, comparison may have the purpose of offering explanation. In fact, that is often one of the purposes, if not the main one, people often have when comparing things: to explain the reason(s) for the similarities and differences. In my own dissertation I have sought to explain the similarities and (more importantly) differences between the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on the common ground they share of resurrection belief. Even among those who I am inclined to think are engaging in comparative work in bad faith (as noted previously), the purpose is to explain why X is the way it is, usually by appealing to a Y it borrowed from or was influenced by.
The last purpose that Stausberg lists is really more of a subset of the first. Constructing taxonomies involves hierarchical classification and typologies might do the same, or they might simply be based on structural characteristics. As Stausberg explains, “the very act of taxonomical classification is a comparative weighing of like and unlike, distinguishing homologies from analogies, traits that are shared (for example caused by historical genealogy) from others that are not.”2 Indeed, biological taxonomy, the context in which people are perhaps most likely to encounter this term, relies on making comparisons and stratifying those comparisons.
To Stausberg’s list, we could add a couple others that can also provide more specificity. Although it is not a purpose I necessarily support, it is crucial to recognize that there is often a polemical purpose in comparison. That is, comparison is undertaken in order to contribute to an ideological, cultural, philosophical, or other kind of conflict. One example I have noted previously on this front is Alexander Hislop’s influential The Two Babylons, in which he makes all kinds of strained comparisons, such as the association of Astarte/Ishtar with Easter. Such comparisons, and many others, were directed to his ultimate purpose of arguing that Roman Catholicism is essentially a reskinned Babylonian religion, and all comparisons simply needed to contribute to that purpose. Nothing was going to get in his way, such as the truth of the matter or the need for substantiation. Other polemically driven comparisons are not so distorted as Hislop’s sloppy work, and polemics may indeed drive to a clearer articulation of similarities and/or differences in a given comparison, but it is critical to be aware of this purpose in comparison and the influence it can potentially have on the process.
From my own field of NT studies, John Barclay describe his famous project of Paul and the Gift as having the purpose of presenting “the familiar in a new light (‘to see ourselves as others see us’) and thereby to generate the possibility of new understandings, including better understandings of ourselves as the people conducting that comparison.”3 This purpose is not necessarily to replace the familiar, but to supplement it. Another example from my own work is my comparison of the Christology in John’s prologue with Wisdom theology, which has been undertaken by many other scholars in articulating Wisdom Christology. This comparison is able to illuminate John’s text in ways that are not immediately obvious if one does not engage in this comparison or a similar one (like Word/Logos theology). Hence, even in the earliest centuries of the Church teachers made this connection of Jesus as the Word of God with the personified Wisdom they found in other texts.
Similar to this is how Troels Engberg-Pedersen—known especially for his comparisons of the NT and Stoicism—describes his own method of comparison as heuristic, meaning that his comparison is for the purpose of understanding one comparandum through its comparison to the other, as opposed to genealogical or analogical designs.4 Of course, as I find significant problems with so much of Engberg-Pedersen’s comparative work, especially where it intersects with my interest in resurrection belief, I am inclined to add that a heuristic purpose can be distorting if left to its own devices. In my own work, I found it helpful to have a primary heuristic purpose accompanied by a secondary analogical purpose. That is, my purpose was primarily to explore the implications of the comparison for understanding one comparandum, but to do so properly, I also needed to explore each of the comparanda on their own terms first.
Michael Stausberg, “Comparison,” in The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion, ed. Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler (Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 2011), 33–34.
Ibid., 34.
John M. G. Barclay, “‘O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others sees us!’ Method and Purpose in Comparing the New Testament,” in The New Testament in Comparison: Validity, Method and Purpose in Comparing Traditions, ed. John M. G. Barclay and B. G. White, LNTS 600 (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 9–10.
Troels Engberg-Pedersen, “The Past Is a Foreign Country: On the Shape and Purposes of Comparison in New Testament Scholarship,” in in The New Testament in Comparison: Validity, Method and Purpose in Comparing Traditions, ed. John M. G. Barclay and B. G. White, LNTS 600 (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 55–61.