No Karl, Jerry is not a 'perfect medievalist'. The 'ad fontes' ('to the
sources') motto of the Reformers did not mean to pass over or ignore all
commentators, or to consult them second. On the contrary, if you read the work
of the Reformers you will see just how indebted they were to previous
commentators, especially the Church Fathers. They studied the sources in
conversation with the contributions of others. Jerry is doing exactly what the
Reformers were doing. He is engaging in a conversation over the meaning of the
sources, acknowledging previous contributions with appropriate credit and
critiquing them where he deems it fitting. He refuses to do his scholarship in
bleak isolation with the sources only, as though he needs to 'invent the wheel'
on his own and then maybe see what other 'wheels' people came up with. He is,
rather, doing the wise thing of listening to others before he speaks—a wholly
appropriate way of dealing with the sources. It's called scholarship.
I can't see where Jerry has committed a logical fallacy, but I can see where
you wilfully choose to sideline the contributions of others in order to trump
up your own opinion formed largely in isolation. Rather than misperceive
Jerry's approach and clang publicly over it, I suggest your limited time would
be better spent going to the commentators in order to glean some of the wisdom
that might be on offer. This does not mean surrendering your faculties to them.
It just means joining the scholarly conversation. If that's not something you
see as valuable, then I question your need to be on this forum, where we are
interested in constructive conversation with valued contributions. Perhaps you
should do as I have suggested many times to Jim Stinehart, namely move your
views to a blog where you can simply air them without having to engage in real
conversation.
GEORGE ATHAS
Dean of Research,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia
From: K Randolph <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Thursday, 1 August 2013 3:25 AM
To: Jerry Shepherd <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: B-Hebrew <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ezek 3:26
Jerry:
On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Jerry Shepherd
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Karl,
Here's my reply to the rest of your post.
You ask: "Why do you think I normally don’t read commentaries?"
I don't know the reason, but I am sure it is not a good one. It is not to
one's credit to ignore the wealth of scholarship of those who have devoted
their lives to examination of the biblical text.
You say: "If you reported accurately concerning these commentaries (not saying
that you didn’t, just using this as a rhetorical intro), here we find
commentators have not done their homework vis-à-vis the Hebrew language is
concerned."
You sound like a perfect medievalist, i.e. one who follows medieval way of
thinking. They studied commentaries before making their own opinions.
The Reformation turned that on its head, go to the origin first, in the case of
theology to the Bible, only after then look at commentaries and evaluate them
based on how well they followed Scripture.
In going to Scripture first, I find I just don’t have time for most
commentaries. I’m not a professional theologian with scads of time on my hands.
Let me assure you, the scholars I quoted, Wilson and Block, are quite well
known for definitely doing their homework. And they have especially done their
homework with regard to work on the Hebrew text and the understanding of the
Hebrew language. Comments like these are ill-informed and needlessly
denigrating.
I’ve forgotten the name of this logical fallacy, but if you look at my message
from July 19, you’ll see that my statement refers not to what followed my
statement, but to “The grand majority of translations and commentators” that
preceded my statement, to which your quote also disagreed. You conflated my
statement to a context other than to where I applied it.
You say: "First of all, this is a participle, used as a noun. This is not a
verbal use of the word."
This is incorrect. To be sure, it is a participle and it is a noun, but the
participle is a verbal noun,
That’s still a noun.
and there is still a verbal content in the noun. The only difference between a
finite verb and a participle is that the finite verb refers to the action, and
the participle refers to the one performing the action. There is no semantic
difference with regard to the meaning of the verb.
Not necessarily. A participle can also refer to the acting out of an action
when used as a noun. E.g. “The searching for words in a dictionary can be
frustrating” and as far as I can tell, Biblical Hebrew uses participles in a
similar manner.
You ask: "Secondly, is the reason that he is not someone who is one who puts
forth a case for God to this people because God had no use for him to do so, or
was it because the people were not ready to listen? Is not the answer in the
context, namely that the people were defiant until their reason for defiance,
namely Jerusalem, fell?"
Your questions here suggest that you have not understood the problem or the
context. The book of Ezekiel is fairly chronological.
Duh!!!
In the verse in question, 3:26, if Yahweh is telling Ezekiel that he will not
be putting forth a case for God, then that doesn't correspond to the fact that
for the next seven years (and the next twenty-some chapters), that is exactly
what Ezekiel does – he presents the case over and over again as to why Yahweh
is going to judge the people, bring a siege against Jerusalem, destroy the
temple, and send many more Israelites into exile.
Sorry, … ah, what’s the use?
You said: "Or to put it in a more exacting definition, based on discussions
with Ruth, it is used for a wide variety of functions, hence it has a wide
semantic range."
When linguists use the term "wide semantic range," they mean exactly what I
have been arguing for, that a word has a wide variety of meanings. But this is
what you are denying.
Are you claiming that I’m misusing another linguistic term? I have repeatedly
defined my understanding of “wide semantic range” as meaning that can be
applied in many different contexts.
You said: "I just looked up Gen. 20:16 and 24:14, 44 and in all three cases the
consonantal text is consistent with נכח and not יכח. Further the contexts are
consistent with נכח and not יכח. Therefore you can’t include those in your list
for יכח. It looks as if you have documented some cases where the Masoretic
points are wrong. . . . Your case is greatly weakened by including examples
that are not from the root of יכח."
While I appreciate the attempt, and while it is possible that everyone else in
the whole history of interpretation is wrong and you are right, I consider that
possibility to be very remote. Perhaps there is a lexicon or commentary on the
text of Genesis out there that takes the three cases, Gen 20:16; 24:14, 44, to
be places where the verb is נכח rather than יכח, but I haven't come across them
yet. And there are no occurrences of a verb נכח in the Hebrew Bible.
I’m nine time zones away from my concordance, but I have listed Exodus 14:2,
Isaiah 57:2, Ezekiel 46:9 and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more.
I know you think there are, but you need to demonstrate this rather than
simply stating it and taking it for granted. יכח does fit the occurrences in
these three Genesis passages, as an extension of the idea of rendering a
decision or issuing a judgment, choice, or decree.
Blessings,
Jerry
Jerry Shepherd
Taylor Seminary
Edmonton, Alberta
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Karl W. Randolph.
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