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  • From: peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[2]: Text and inspiration
  • Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 00:16:12 -0400


Dear Lee,

You seem to know more about my view of inspiration than I do! Or
perhaps you are just assuming that my view is "in line with American
evangelicalism". Well, I am not an American evangelical; I would call
myself an evangelical, though I am not sure that all American
evangelicals would consider me one! I am very aware of the
shortcomings which you have noted in the American evangelical view.

On the other hand, I do believe that the Bible is a source of
authoritative divine teaching. In studying and applying that teaching,
I need to be able to distinguish between true divine teaching and
human teaching. That was a major concern of Paul in the New Testament,
but that is outside the Hebrew Bible and perhaps you would consider
him western. But a similar concern for defining the limits of divine
teaching is evidenced in Deuteronomy 18:20-22 and in the controversies
between the true and false prophets. Jewish leaders may not have
defined a canon before the council of Jamnia/Yavneh, but at that time
they did do so, and the detailed attention given to preserving the
text at least from that time onward testifies to a concern for
canonical authority at the verbal level. So you can hardly reject that
type of concern as something purely western.

Moreover, as a Bible translator I have to work with churches which
hold to various views of inspiration including the American
evangelical one. And I have to decide which text to translate.
Sometimes I could fudge the issue with a compromise between MT, LXX
etc., but in many cases I am forced to make a "mechanical, artificial,
rationalistic" choice between different, sometimes contradictory
renderings. What would be the non-western, biblical way of doing this,
I wonder?

Peter Kirk

______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Text and inspiration
Author: lmartin AT vol.com at internet
Date: 08/04/1999 09:09


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:
<snip>





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