Talk:prooftext

Isn't "through an appeal to authority" out of place and somewhat gratuitous? If you prooftext your belief that Antarctica is losing ice (when in reality it is gaining many billions of tons per year for many years now), and you quote a meteorology text that says as the planet warms, polar ice will melt, you are guilty of the logical fallacy of an appeal to authority. Yeah, I don't think that belongs in this definition. Thoughts? BobEnyart (talk) 03:53, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Prooftexting has two elements: 1) appealing to the authority of some source, and 2) misrepresenting what the source says by quoting it selectively. If it weren't for the first, the second would be meaningless. No one prooftexts pop lyrics- only scripture and other texts asserted to be authoritative. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:19, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

The use of a prooftext is not "misrepresenting". Quoting texts out of context is a standard interpretive technique, both in certain religious modes of interpretation (such as midrash), and in certain types of modern literary criticism. Many modern literary critics dispute the very idea of a "true" interpretation. There is no deception involved, both the writer and his audience fully understand and expect the technique. 2A0D:6FC2:4630:E000:B023:2F2D:63DC:83F8 13:28, 12 June 2023 (UTC)