On method
Every claim on this site is traceable to a document. The method below governs how sources are weighted, how scholars are cited, and what honesty about the hard texts means in practice here.
The argument being made
The strongest form of this project is not "the texts plainly affirm" the recovered reading — it is that several dominant readings are demonstrably secondary overlays on older, more capacious ones, recoverable by ordinary historical and textual method, and that the contested texts admit charitable construals on legitimate linguistic grounds, even where they do not compel them.
This site argues the genealogy, not the verdict. Its defensible claim is always historical — "this reading existed earlier," "that one was a later development," "here's why the winner won" — not "the traditional doctrine is false," which is theological opinion a website cannot settle.
How sources are weighted
Primary sources first, from real editions. Every quotation traces to an actual edition (PG/PL/CSEL for the fathers, the critical text for Scripture), not to a quotation aggregator. One fabricated patristic quote discredits the whole project, and the internet has thousands of them.
Weigh the work by its own day. A scholar is judged by the rigor available in their time, not penalized for lacking what came later. A strong argument from 1955 is not weak because it is old; it is read alongside what the decades since have added.
Separate the point from the person. Citing a discrete, checkable claim — a text, a date, a documented position — asks little of a source's character. Holding someone up as a model asks much. We do the first freely; the second only where it is earned.
Cancel only for the universal, not the local. When a figure held views now uncomfortable but ordinary in their context, we read them in context and cite the point that still stands. When a figure committed wrongs recognized as wrong in any era — above all the abuse of power or of the vulnerable — we neither build on them nor lionize them. The test is whether the objection rests on a timeless standard or merely a local one.
Honesty about the hard texts
Every pillar on this site names the hardest text for the recovered reading and engages it directly. The "Honest flag" card in the rewrite sections is not decoration — it is where the recovered reading does not settle everything, said plainly. A case that's candid about its hardest texts is more defensible than one that isn't.
Corrections
If a citation is wrong, a date is wrong, or a claim is not traceable to the source given, this site wants to know. Errors will be corrected and noted. To submit a correction, use the contact form on the about page. Corrections are taken seriously; they are part of what honesty looks like in practice.