Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 5:04 PM, kenneth greifer wrote:

> How do you know if a person is a troll, a crank, or an iconoclast?

> Wikipedia has a good article about cranks.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person)

> I think Jim is definitely not a troll. He is a person with new ideas, but 
> he does not
> have the education to use linguistics and ancient languages to prove his 
> ideas. He
> is good at citing scholars for most of what he says, so at least some of 
> what he
> says might be based on some scholarly research. I think his ideas are 
> interesting
> because scholars disagree, but can't stop answering him anyway. I wish I 
> knew his
> secret to getting scholars to listen to his ideas.

I don't think Jim cites scholars for most of what he says.  He cites
some scholarship,
but only for some of the points and in a sporadic manner.  Because the
citations are
worked out in length, it seems as if he cites scholarship for the
large part of his
argument, but this is not the case.  Also, usually, he misrepresents that
scholarship.  I can't speak for scholars, but that's how he gets me to
listen to what
he says.  He misrepresents what I say and I have to go and correct
him, because I
don't want to be misconstrued.  I read and listen to everything you
write, but I read
only a small percent of what Jim writes, and then, it's because I see my name
getting mentioned.

Yitzhak Sapir