Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Doug Kasten <doug.kasten AT juno.com>]

Lee,

It seems to me that Peter's effort was to define a 'default' text, and
not to focus on the nature of inspiration itself.  It seems also that he
went some distance to keep a battle over the nature of inspiration OUT of
the issue by putting quote marks around 'inspired' in his posting.

I find his approach quite rational, not rationalistic, and one which
seeks to address some real issues; differ if you will, but address what
he wants to address and let's not hop on down some bunny trail.  Here
seems to me to be the question: Can we use the source texts MT and
others, in the way he suggests or not?

I for one use the MT as the default and the other texts as potential
correctives to the MT.  I'm not saying it's the only way to do it, but
methodologically it's at least one sound option and I've yet to see an
option I find better-suited to my purposes.

Warmly,
Doug

On Thu, 08 Apr 1999 10:09:29 -0400 "Lee R. Martin" <lmartin AT vol.com>
writes:
>The view that you have stated seems to be a very mechanical, 
>artificial,
>rationalistic, western, non-biblical view of inspiration, but very 
>much in line with
>American evangelicalism.  It is not my view of inspiration.
>Lee R. Martin
>
>peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG wrote:
>
>> This prompts a controversial suggestion which I would like to float,
>> not as my fixed opinion but as an idea I am toying with: The works 
>in
>> the Hebrew Bible can be considered as having arrived at a stable and
>> generally accepted canonical form only with the formation of the
>> proto-Masoretic text type (as already witnessed at Qumran, e.g. in 
>the
>> Isaiah scroll). Therefore the text form which should be considered
>> "inspired" (in whatever sense anyone might want to take that) is 
>this
>> proto-Masoretic text, and the textual basis for Christian (and
>> presumably Jewish, though I cannot speak for that) teaching and for
>> general purpose Bible translations should be the proto-Masoretic 
>text.
>> Therefore (except of course for scholarly research) LXX, Samaritan
>> Pentateuch and other early variant texts and versions derived from
>> them should be used only for clarification of MT and not to correct
>> the text, except where there is good reason to believe that the MT
>> does not reflect the proto-MT. I would include the Masoretic
>> vocalisation in this to the extent that it can be considered an
>> accurate reflection of the vocalisation understood by those who
>> stabilised the proto-MT.
>>
>> Comments?
>>
>> Peter Kirk
>>
>> ______________________________ Reply Separator 
>_________________________________
>> Subject: Re: Hebrew vowel pointings in the MT
>> Author:  atombomb AT sirius.com at internet
>> Date:    07/04/1999 13:03
>>
>> Andrew Kulikovsky wrote:
>>
>> > Only the autographs are inspired.
>>
>> Andrew:  Your other question (not quoted here) about the origin of 
>the
>> vowel pointings is a good one, but I would quibble with the 
>aforegoing
>> statement.  Only the autographs are inspired, unless the text 
>belonged
>> to, and in some sense was written by, a community which closed its 
>canon
>> (and I mean the canon of any single work) at a later stage in the 
>process.
>>
>> Regards to all.
>>
>> John Burnett
>>
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>--
>
>Lee R. Martin
>Pastor, Prospect Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee
>Instructor in Hebrew and Old Testament
>Church of God Theological Seminary
>http://earth.vol.com/~lmartin/
>
>
>
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