Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Bryon:

Thanks for helping me get on this list. Yes I do find the discussions 
interesting.

In English, we talk of a dishonest person as “having a lying tongue.” Does 
the tongue have volition of its own? Everyone recognizes that the tongue is 
merely the instrument through which that person tells his lies. Hence, the 
phrase is an idiom.

Likewise, when Jeremiah wrote of “scribes’ deceptive pen” , he was not 
ascribing volition to the pen, rather the pen in the hand of the scribes was 
an instrument of deception.

There is a popular 19th century theory that implies that ancient Jews were 
barely up from knuckle-dragging troglodites who, by some accident, acquired 
semi-literacy but incapable of irony, satire and other advanced literary 
usages (I overstate the case). I don’t buy that theory, therefore I have no 
problem reading this as idiomatic.

Further evidence that this is idiomatic is grammar. When looking for the 
object of “made” we find three words, “(et sheqer soperim”. If we read these 
three words as idiomatic, then we have a clean sentence without any dangling 
words or phrases. If “sheqer” is used adjectivally here, as I believe it is, 
the fact that it is singular indicates that it modifies “(et” and not 
“soperim” which is plural.

Finally, the phrase makes sense as an idiom.

As far as the nature of the scribes, it is my understanding that up to fairly 
recently there was a profession to write out all sorts of legal and official 
documents, not just religious texts. The professionals who did this task were 
chosen because of their fine handwriting. Thus Jeremiah, though he himself 
was literate, called on Barukh , a professional scribe, to write out his 
words. But it appears that most scribes of that time were quite willing to 
use their profession to benefit dishonest purposes.

Yours, Karl.

You wrote:

> Hi Karl,
> 
> Congratulations on successfully joining the forum.  I hope you enjoy the
> exchange here.
> 
> Do I have this right?  You think the pen was deceptive; I think *making* the
> pen was deceptive.
> 
> In your reading of Jer 8:8, to what exactly do you think the figure
> "deceptive pen" refers?  Maybe the act of altering the holy writ or
> generating new, false teachings?
> 
> I guess I am thinking of the scribe as a copyist/preserver of texts, one who
> is supposed to be devoted, with both pen and manner of life, to a corpus.
> Maybe I shouldn't be thinking of the scribe in such a narrow way, but it
> seems to make sense in the context of the analogies to the stork, dove, etc.
> in Jer 8:7.  Wise men, scribes, prophets, and so forth, by definition,
> should know torah welll enough to be reproveable.  Remarkably, these
> pen-makers do not know their text.
> 
> I think my understanding of the scribe also is consistent with the
> counter-example or foil of the faithful scribe Barukh, who is featured later
> in Jer.
> 
> As to the meaning of sheqer, I admit "lie" is a bit of a paraphrase.  I
> think the word refers specifically to a breach of faith.
> 
> Shalom, Bryan
>
-- 
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