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8:19 AM

Just my 2¢: occasionally questions that are "unanswerable" in terms of their topic matter are actually answerable in the SE format. In the case of a well scoped questions asking about the answer to some riddle, a valid answer that only an expert may be able to give could say "we don't have enough information to know". That in itself might be the definitive expert answer that is needed and closing such questions doesn't serve any purpose over answering. Of course [the more common] questions that insist on attempts to speculate in spite of that awareness can be closed forthwith as opinion based. — Caleb ♦ 7 mins ago

5 hours later…

ScottS

1:01 PM

@Susan Yes, I did create the tag. I can affirm that generally "extra-biblical historical usage" was what I meant. Obviously the Bible can generally be expected to use terms in their normal manner (but also has some "coined" terms within it). So my point here was to tag regarding testimony of extra-biblical uses not likely influenced by the Bible itself. Historical/cultural usage.

@Caleb I agree that some questions are unanswerable because of lack of info. Generally, any speculative questions about "what might have been said" do not have enough info to warrant being a question, as it will be purely guesswork/opinion. But Davïd's answer showed that for this particular clause, there actually was enough other evidence to make a good case for what might have been spoken. I would still tend to close vote questions speculating on such things over keeping them open.

Caleb

@ScottS Ya I think the more common case is the questions aren't worth bothering with, but when it takes an expert to be able to make that judgment call then I think it's a possible candidate for answering.

Susan

2:08 PM

@Caleb I think we're back to the known unknowns vs unknown unknowns dilemma...

ScottS

2:22 PM

@Susan I actually just deleted the tag reference in mine, and instead tagged it under "idiom" as that is really what I am trying to determine, if there was an idiomatic use of the phrase. I've edited the idiom info with a longer description.

Caleb

@Susan I haven't had enough of either coffee, chocolate, or sleep to reason out the difference today ;-)

3 hours later…

ScottS

5:00 PM

If anyone finds this offensive (I know people can be highly sensitive these days), then please flag it for deletion. However, I did want to share (what I found to be) an amusing saying from a teacher of mine. "A sermon should be like a dress, long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep it interesting."

2 hours later…