Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Dear David,

Terms such as "skeptics" or "critics" or "naysayers" don't do much to
advance the discussion.  "Deconstructionists" is worse, since
deconstructionism is a form of literary analysis, but you are using it as
a blanket label for all scholars who do not hold to Biblical inerrancy much
like the earlier discussed labels of "maximalists" and "minimalists."

I did not describe "skeptics" or "critics".  I described scholars.  You write 
of
"those who accept (not blindly by any means) the inerrancy of the TN'K
as originally scripted."  If a scholar questions something in the Bible, only
to find it matches archaeological or other criteria, is he an "adherent to
the inerrancy of the TN'K" (though one that does not accept the inerrancy
blindly) or is he a "skeptic"?  You see, scholars can come from all kinds of
backgrounds and not all of them find fault in the historicity of events of
the Bible.  Some accept the historicity of some events and don't accept
others.  And even if you accept the historicity of some event that
someone else does not, or do not accept the historicity of some event
that someone else does, that does not mean that the other person has
interpretations of "no comparable value" to those who accept the
same positions as yours.

Thus, the sentence, "There is much to be learned amongst the choir members
but the naysayers offer no comparable value" shows much of what I have been
saying.  The "choir" was used originally as a negative label for all those who
say hold a similar position unanimously and are not ready to listen to other
opinions.  But you took it in a positive sense, identifying yourself
with this "choir."
The choir analogy was probably related to my claims on "issues of fact."  
Well,
can you imagine, though, an astronomy forum where various participants keep
bringing up ideas such as that the earth is flat, and this becomes a
topic of discussion because all opinions are equal.  While some
hobbyist astronomers
and even serious scholars might find value in such a forum, there is
no question
that the level of discussions and the amount that the hobbyists can learn from
the scholars will be severely limited.  Here too, perhaps you may
think that the scholars offer "little comparable value" but in reality
you are probably missing
a whole lot by not hearing their silenced voices.

Yitzhak Sapir