Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

Dave wrote

> > Look at this forum.  We have folks of every level of knowledge from the
> > newborn to the lifetime-fluent, and we all talk to each other, share ideas
> > and exchange information and topics.  It really doesn't matter that X has a
> > Ph.D. and Y doesn't, everybody has an equal voice here.  

I am always amazed at the disregard that people have for professionally 
trained biblical scholars.  They are a sort of "whipping boy" for all 
those who imagine that one person's opinion is just as valid as another. 
 You cannot name one other field of professional studies where this 
claim is made so regulary, frequently, or inaccurately.

No one would imagine going to their medical doctor and saying- "well 
doc, that's just your opinion.  I'm a self taught doctor and i think i 
should write myself a prescription for valium whether you think i should 
or not."  But in biblical studies everyone who has ever skimmed a 
grammar, read one or two books, and owns a bible, thinks that their 
voice carries equal validity as the voice of a person who has invested 
years and years in intense academic study of the field.  It is, if i may 
be blunt, retarded to make such a suggestion.

The next time someone says that "everyone's opinion is equally valid" i 
hope they go to their lawyer, their doctor, their nurse, or any other 
intensively trained professional and try the same garbage.

Its sickening to me that people who talk about loving the bible so much 
are so lazy, disinterested, or arrogant that they wont make the effort 
that others have in studying it and yet tell themselves, and others, 
that they know as much as someone else does and they are proud that they 
have no degree in it because that just proves their intelligence.

Bull *&(%

--
Jim West, ThD

Biblical Studies Resources -  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
Biblical Theology Weblog -  http://biblical-studies.blogspot.com

Non ergo fidem confirmare potest ulla creatura -- Huldrych Zwingli