George: On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 5:00 AM, George Athas <[email protected]>wrote:
> Karl Randolph said: > > "I don’t know Longacre, nor Rocine’s model, but Buth demonstrated on > this forum that he doesn’t know Biblical Hebrew very well, because he > doesn’t know Hebrew Bible. He made grammatical and syntactical errors." > I debated within myself whether or not I should include this sentence, but finally decided to do so because it is already public record. Several times he was corrected publicly on this forum with references to Bible verses that demonstrated his errors. I included it to encourage Ruth to think for herself, and not depend on anyone else for having all the answers. > > I take exception to this, Karl. This is somewhat slanderous. While you > are entitled to your own opinion, this kind of thing is best kept unsaid in > a public forum. I realise you place little importance on scholarly > recognition or consensus, as you have said many times, but Randall Buth is > a recognised scholar and contributor on the level of international > scholarship and pedagogy. Disagree with him, sure. But to say he doesn't > know Biblical Hebrew is bordering on malicious. Those of us who know > Randall will bear out just how untrue such a statement is. A little > contrition is probably in order, I think. > > Yes I know his reputation, or at least some of it, and I heard nothing but praise for him before he came on this forum. But we mustn’t let reputation blind our eyes and cloud our minds. All of us make mistakes. Ruth came down on me because I was (still am?) butchering linguistic terminology. I realize I have more to learn there. Randall Buth admitted publicly on this forum that he read Tanakh through only twice, and that was 35 years ago. That’s barely an introduction to Hebrew Bible. And he stopped there. After more than 20 times reading Tanakh through, I still notice things that I somehow overlooked in my previous reading through of the text, so how is reading it only twice decades ago sufficient to knowing Hebrew Bible well? Why shouldn’t his numerous errors call into question how well he knows Biblical Hebrew? (I wrote, “…he doesn’t know Biblical Hebrew *very well*”, not “he doesn’t know Biblical Hebrew.” Please be accurate.) But he also corrected me on some issues, which helped me understand Biblical Hebrew better. One of the big things for me is that he demonstrated that I still had a residual thinking according to the aspectual model of Hebrew conjugation, and he demonstrated that that was wrong. But enough of him. It’s a distraction to make an issue of him, so I don’t want to discuss this further. If we want to resurrect issues that he brought up, let’s do so without attaching his name to the issues, so we can discuss the Hebrew and not the personality. > > *GEORGE ATHAS* > *Dean of Research,* > *Moore Theological College *(moore.edu.au) > *Sydney, Australia* > > Karl W. Randolph.
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