The choice of the evidence-based (EB) perspective stems from the belief that any form of interpretation—regardless of discipline—should be proportionate to the available data. This principle is common to evidence-based management, accounting, contract law, and textual criticism. Just as financial statement notes must stem from documented economic events, and an accounting contract is based on clearly defined obligations and facts, so too should the interpretation of the biblical text be a function of data, not prior assumptions. Similarly, in clinical medicine, a single case report cannot outweigh the results of multi-center studies; the strength of a therapeutic recommendation remains proportional to the quality and quantity of evidence.
EBBS represents an attempt to systematically apply evidence-based logic to the field of biblical studies. In this approach, meaning is not the product of autonomous speculation or a simple consequence of tradition, but the result of weighing manuscript evidence, linguistic data, historical context, and reception. The strength of an interpretation remains proportional to the strength of the evidence. Where the data are stable and consistent, the conclusion can be unambiguous. Where the text remains uncertain, however, conclusions must be drawn with an appropriate degree of caution. It is estimated that genuinely uncertain fragments of the NT text constitute approximately 1% of the total; it is in this limited area that transparently weighing variants and openly defining the level of certainty become particularly important.
The imbalance between claim and evidence fosters the creation of pseudoscientific narratives and factoids, in which marginal variants or hypotheses with little source support are elevated to sensational "discoveries." A similar mechanism is visible in the field of pseudotherapy, where isolated anecdotal evidence replaces controlled studies, and a strong emotional narrative masks the lack of reliable data. In such cases, conviction precedes evidence, not the other way around. Pseudotherapies often employ the language of apparent scientificity, selectively citing research or isolated cases of success without disclosing the full context and quality of the sources. The result is an inflation of claims in the absence of evidence. EBBS opposes this logic by adopting the principle of explicitly weighing data and proportional conclusions to their empirical support.
In this sense, the choice of topic is not merely a theoretical decision, but a methodological manifesto. EBBS reminds us that the credibility of an interpretation depends not on its rhetorical force, but on the transparent relationship between the data and the conclusion. Where the strength of the interpretation is equal to the strength of the evidence, scientific reflection retains its integrity.
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