1.4.7 Internal and External Validity
The internal validity of a social science study refers to its objectivity. Intersubjectivity is the criterion for objectivity in social science. This infers that the presentation of the study must enable others to reconstruct or duplicate it, to arrive at sufficiently similar results. An internal valid study requires that it be consistent in itself. Besides, it must sufficiently explicate the used presuppositions and procedures, the approached research population and the results derived, and the conclusions drawn from the collected data. The presentation needs to be unambiguous and accessible for verification and falsification (Swanborn 1987: 329).
The transparency of this study is limited, because for two reasons I feel I have to conceal the identity of groups and individuals. First, as I did not reveal my intent of study to my respondents, I cannot feel free to reveal their identity. Secondly, and more important, the movement as a whole currently experiences growing hostility and even physical violence, presumably from a violent minority of ultra-Orthodox (Maoz 1998). I am aware that this limits the controllability of this study partially. Still, because the movement is not at all that big, reduplicating this study should not be difficult. However, while I can describe in detail how I studied, I cannot reveal whom. Some few individuals could form exceptions for two reasons. They have already exposed themselves extensively to the Israeli public, and, they believe this conflict deserves greatest visibility. They took the bull by the horns, made public statements and appeared in the media.
To limit the bias of my own subjectivity I took measures of discipline. One was to write down observations the very same day I made them, often late at night. Also, I checked my perceptions and interpretations gained from one respondent against those of others. Triangulation shall strengthen a study's internal validity (Swanborn 1987: 335). It refers to using different sources of information, methods of research and theoretical perspectives. By interviewing different respondents, by participant observation in different groups and by the study of literature from varying sources, I attempted realising triangulations. In addition, the fourfold typology with the modified framework for the study of religion combined different theoretical perspectives. It guided my attention to consider integration, differentiation and fragmentation, the cultural, the social-structural, relational power, and the importance of history, events and dynamics of interaction between individual and collective actors.
I could not realise a triangulation by different researchers (Teunissen 1985: 84). By purpose I interviewed not only leaders but also members, not only men but also women. Occasional interviews with competent outsiders became valuable points of reference and control. The selective use of literature added to these methods, which fitted the initially explorative and descriptive intent of this study (Swanborn 1987: 335).
Another method of triangulation was to collect data from the same sources at different times (Swanborn 1987: 334). With intervals of more than one year I revisited individuals and sites for data collection. By this, the study gained a certain longitudinal dimension, which permitted considering processes and developments that a one-time data collection would have concealed. I continually considered how different groups and individuals actively related to another. This allowed distinguishing structural elements from incidental occurrences. In all this, the fourfold typology and modified framework served as improvisational guides (Swanborn 1987: 337).
According to circumstances, I wrote observations by hand or on a computer. Back from the field, I typed also the handwritten notes on the computer, assembling all in one huge file per year. In the resulting documents I visibly distinguished field notes from later remarks and interpretations. Some core interviews recorded on tape I conserved also on a hard disk. Some interviews I typed out thoroughly, others I summarized, and again others I did transcribe not at all. Yet, also the latter I listened over several times and used them for description and analysis.
The external validity of a study refers to the possibility to generalise its results. As I collected the data and worked them out, I reshaped „reality”. Unobtrusively structured interviews allowed respondents to make their point. Some cared not at all whether I liked their view, yet some were more insecure, attempting to please, or at least not to embarrass me. The sources to draw data from were not randomly chosen. As I got ever more contacts, I let intuition and common sense guide me (Van den Eeden 1994: 40-44). I could not completely cover the existing field. Some generalisations in a few directions appear nevertheless justified. As the movement has its roots in the evangelical movement and in Judaism, one can compare descriptions and conclusions with those two realms inside and outside Israel, and consider generalisations and applications. However, I perceive one important difference between the situation of the movement in Israel and abroad.
Abroad, as minority in a wide diaspora, in a „four-thousand-year story of survival on four continents and in six major civilizations” (Dimont 1962: x), Jews developed „culture-producing” behaviours. To many Jews, assimilation formed and still forms the ever present threat to the continuation of the Jewry (Donin 1977: xvii, 3-6, 186). Messianic Jews outside Israel may be regarded as „naturally” to share in this felt need to assert the maintenance of an accordingly religious Jewish identity (Sobel 1974).
In Israel, the signs appear reversed, because Jews form the majority. The relationship between the secular, nonobservant majority, the hilonim, and the pluriform minority subcultures of Orthodox Jews, the datiim, will remain interesting to observe. It may be particularly interesting, because the majority apparently still accepts the balance of power held by the minority (Beit-Hallahmi and Sobel: 1991: 1-2). It seemed to me as if many Israelis are not yet very conscious of their advantage of this cultural reversal of signs. Maybe one can ascribe this to the very long experience of exile against a very short experience as a nation. However, for Israel one may expect a reversed function of assimilation. Already Weiner observed that the Christian minority pulled towards Judaism. It seems to me that evidences for it have ever grown since he first observed and described traces of „Judaisation” of Christianity in Israel (Weiner 1961: 114-116). Particularly the synagogal types of the movement may be an indication for that. Yet instead of self-assured and patiently awaiting the events, a few fundamentalist extremists of the Orthodox Jewry display serious, violent aggression towards Messianic Jews and Christians. In the light of the long and unfortunate relationship between Christianity and Judaism, this may be easily apprehensible. Still, it appears totally out of place within a democratic constitutional state founded on the rule of law (Habermas 1995: 153-155).
It required another interesting study to check if the Messianic Jewish movement really bares inversed traces inside and outside Israel. This means, if the movement's parts inside and outside Israel embrace their Jewishness differently. For example, Messianic Jewish immigrants appeared to ascribe greater importance to physical Jewish expression, like wearing Jewish cloths, than Messianic Jews born and raised in Israel, or had lived there most their life. Or, as one Israeli leader put it,
what should I still prove my Jewishness? I risked my life in two Israeli wars.
One could compare also the relationship between the ecclesiastical and synagogal types of the movement abroad, and compare them with the findings in Israel. I perceive that the ecclesiastical type may less likely occur outside Israel, as Jewish believers in Jesus may more easily find their way into any of the Christian churches. This, as Sobel (1974) described and I observed myself, usually results in the total loss of any religious Jewish identity. 12Only once in the Netherlands I observed a man wearing something like phylacteria, tefillin, during a Christian church service. Though they appeared differently from how Orthodox phylacteria usually look like. I had no opportunity to inquire into that observation. So I cannot say whether it was a Jewish expression at all, or some other kind of religious, or still other expression.) I assume that abroad the synagogal type would be more common, and the ecclesiastical type more rare. The former would probably better meet the need to identify oneself jewishly. The latter would probably be more easily embraced by churches and be less visible.