Might I suggest that we separate the issues of doctoral training, time
spent studying languages and texts, and (especially) personal issues
such as laziness and arrogance (which seem to be in abundance in all
walks of life)?
It might be more useful to focus on differences between working within
the accredited academy and outside of it. One difference I find is that
within the guild of biblical studies there is a "canon" of writings and
ideas that must be reflected in one's work. For example, I was recently
doing some work on the Song of Moses (Deut 32). I personally find the
work done by form critics on this passage to be unenlightening at best
and unfortunately very misleading in its interpretation (at least as far
as the kind of interpretation I'm interested in doing). However, as one
working within the academy (though somewhat a newbie, so please be kind)
I am not permitted by the "rules" of the guild to ignore the form
critics, to attack them personally, to dismiss them out-of-hand, etc. I
must respond to them as part of the "canon" of biblical scholarship. I
have to understand what they have done and why they do it, be able to
express their work in a way they would agree with, and critique it
fairly and convincingly. If my work gets published in some respectable
academic place someday, it will be added to the "canon" and others will
need to respond to it in their work. That's part of how the whole
academic enterprise works.
Now this isn't the only way to work on Deut 32. I imagine there have
been a good number of sermons preached on this text that have completely
ignored previous scholarly work and yet have made profound
interpretations of the text, discovered novel facts about it, which may
have been the result of a lifetime of Hebrew study or may have just been
lucky or inspired. In my academic work I am under no obligation to
respond to this body of work (though it might be helpful to do so!),
because it is not part of the "canon". The sermon is a different way of
working with the biblical text and fits within a different system of
evaluation, training, funding, audience expectations, etc. Neither the
sermon nor my paper should be assumed to be better than the other
because of its nature, nor should they necessarily be judged on the same
criteria -- they're very different things! And I believe each has its
place.
I could discuss the internet mailing list as a different scholarly
environment with different rules, but I've gone on long enough and it
would be more interesting to hear some of your own ideas for how
scholarship works (or doesn't work) here, and how it is the same or
different from other venues.