Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George:

On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 8:12 AM, George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au> wrote:

No Karl, Jerry is not a 'perfect medievalist'. The 'ad fontes' ('to the sources') motto of the Reformers did not mean to pass over or ignore all commentators, or to consult them second. On the contrary, if you read the work of the Reformers you will see just how indebted they were to previous commentators, especially the Church Fathers. They studied the sources in conversation with the contributions of others. Jerry is doing exactly what the Reformers were doing. He is engaging in a conversation over the meaning of the sources, acknowledging previous contributions with appropriate credit and critiquing them where he deems it fitting. He refuses to do his scholarship in bleak isolation with the sources only, as though he needs to 'invent the wheel' on his own and then maybe see what other 'wheels' people came up with. He is, rather, doing the wise thing of listening to others before he speaks—a wholly appropriate way of dealing with the sources. It's called scholarship.

I don’t know about the other Reformers, but I’m Lutheran background, and Luther very definitely quoted the comments of earlier theologians only secondarily—approvingly only in so far as they agreed with Scripture first, disapprovingly where they disagreed with Scripture. Trained as a Roman Catholic theologian in the medieval tradition, he was required to study previous commentaries, and he later complained about the amount of time he wasted on studying things connected with Roman Catholic theology that contradicted Scripture.

As I wrote to Jerry, on my part I’m not a professional theologian with scads of time on my hands, therefore prioritize my time, Bible first, and if I have time (which almost never happens) other writings. I have other writings available that I haven’t had time to get to.

I can't see where Jerry has committed a logical fallacy

Formal training in logic was required for the program I studied. I’ve kept it up because logical fallacies are so common.

 

, but I can see where you wilfully choose to sideline the contributions of others in order to trump up your own opinion formed largely in isolation. Rather than misperceive Jerry's approach and clang publicly over it, I suggest your limited time would be better spent going to the commentators in order to glean some of the wisdom that might be on offer.

Not if it cuts into Bible time.

 

This does not mean surrendering your faculties to them. It just means joining the scholarly conversation. If that's not something you see as valuable, then I question your need to be on this forum, where we are interested in constructive conversation with valued contributions.

Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of being feisty, willing to take up a fight when offered when it would be wiser at times simply to walk away from the tight instead. In the past, there have been people on this list who seemed to be more interested in attacking people with whom they disagreed, than in involving themselves with constructive conversations, and when they offered a fight I too willingly joined them—thankfully two of them are no longer active on this list.

One way to control that bad habit is to make a “do not answer” list of people I won’t answer no matter what they say, in which case I usually don’t read what they have to say so I won’t be tempted to answer—it looks like I should add Jerry Shepherd to that list to join two other people on this forum who are already on that list. And the first step now that he’s on that list, I won’t read the three messages he wrote after you wrote this message.

 

Perhaps you should do as I have suggested many times to Jim Stinehart, namely move your views to a blog where you can simply air them without having to engage in real conversation.

Most people on this list, even where we disagree, have been gentlemen and I have learned from them. I have to thank Ruth for clarifying certain aspects of linguistics, but others have contributed as well.

GEORGE ATHAS

Dean of Research,

Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)

Sydney, Australia

Karl W. Randolph.