The Library

9:10 AM

@Caleb If you have a moment to check the commit message on this edit and the appropriateness of the edit, I'd be grateful. I have left a comment as well.

Caleb

@Davïd Looks fine to me. SE really doesn't want to host pirated or plagiarized material. Linked material isn't quite as clear cut (i.e. linking to dubious material isn't be grounds for mod deletion of an answer) but particularly as a community driven edit there is no reason not to fix that kind of thing and keep everything on the up and up.

Davïd

9:50 AM

@Caleb Thanks - helpful commentary, as ever.

Susan

10:10 AM

@Davïd Could you comment on this revision? I’m not sure anyone is arguing that they are distinct roots, but it may be true that the word word is not optimal...

Davïd

11:36 AM

@Susan Naw, that's wrong. "Lexeme" is the technical term. But that's a bit opaque to most readers, I'm guessing. Could do it as: "Two words ["lexemes"] for ‘fish’ in Jonah 2?" But not "roots". No.

Susan

@Davïd The other change included in that revision is the acknowledgement that there might not be two of them, whatever they are. Given the existing answers, that part was probably warranted.

Lyle's Mug

1:19 PM

Good Morning Everyone!

Susan

2:34 PM

@Sue Sorry for the delay. I'm not sure how much we can help with the specifics of this. It sounds like the church you're describing apparently has leadership problems, but if it's not even your church it doesn't seem your responsibility (or within your capability) to fix that part.

But to the more general question of whether worship leaders are....leaders....I don't have much to add beyond the logical conclusions you've already come to (which seem pretty sound). Maybe someone else can say something more helpful.

You may be able to manage a question on Christianity.SE about how churches of whatever type you're interested in view that role within the leadership structure of the church, which presumably includes their biblical basis for doing so. @Caleb may be able to comment on whether a question like that seems feasible.

@Lyle'sMug Good morning.

@anyone Any English speakers out there want to comment on the term “much cattle”?

ScottS

@Davïd @Susan Agree with Davïd. Or "lemma" (since both have lexical entries).

Susan

@ScottS Thanks. I think I’m just going to roll it back. People know what “words” are even if it’s technically nonspecific, and since I started assuming that they’re different (as per the lexicons) and that’s how the question is phrased, the original seems fine to me.

Lyle's Mug

@Susan just means there are a lot of cattle, like they didn't count it but there is plenty

Susan

@Lyle'sMug I know what was intended. It’s just that in my vernacular, “cattle” is (plural and) countable.

ScottS

@Sue Position of leadership or not, such open sin should be dealt with by the church for any member (1 Cor 5), which in this case should at least include removing them from being in any way a "face" of the church (as a worship team person would be). A loving approach to change, but excommunication if no repentance.

Lyle's Mug

2:45 PM

@Susan cattle is plural, as in there is more than one, ex: "there are 5 cattle inside the fence. " Or "there are a lot of cattle inside the fence"

the phrase "much cattle" is older English.

Susan

@Lyle'sMug That’s my impression as well, which is why I brought it up. “Much” is not an appropriate modifier in that scenario, I don’t think.

@Lyle'sMug Yeah, it was a leftover from the KJV. I guess I just don’t see why it was left if it’s not consistent with modern usage.

Lyle's Mug

@Susan you are right, it is not considered "good English" anymore, it should be "Many" I think....

probably one based on poetry or rhythmic rhyming, but I don't remember Jonah being written in poetic rhyme..... I am by no means an expert. please get a second opinion.... lol

Susan

@Lyle'sMug The noun is a collective singular in Hebrew (so the adjective is singular), and it may be related to that, but that sort of thing is not normally considered good translation practice from what I know. The ESV translators know a lot more than me, though, which is why I’m confused by it.

Lyle's Mug

I usually just tried to get the most out of the passage, I never used to think to much about the wording when I was younger...lol but I agree with you it does seem odd.

Susan

@Lyle'sMug Hang out on this site for a while, and the contagion of pedantic nitpicking will overtake you as well.... ;-)

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Lyle's Mug

2:58 PM

lol

Caleb

3:32 PM

@Tau If you don't want help or aren't open to correction please just tell me and I'll bug off. Really I will. I'm not trying to be a pain here, but I was hoping you'd be willing to consider the possibility that you've got some things cross-wired and that a little light on the problem would give you a chance to improve. For context, here are copies of the relevant comments:

I'm not sure if your question is asking where or not the "opening of the tombs" is a 'type' of the Resurrection of the Just(it is), or whether the authorial intent was to write in "apocalyptic symbolism"(it wasn't-if you take the view he was recording the event). Of course, Modern Textual Criticism will say it is, and without an unbiased historical record of the same event, you are back where you started-authorial intent. The context is not symbolic, and Matthew is recording an event in Real Time, vs a "prophetic message" of a future date. — Tau Jun 1 at 3:52

I replied to your comment because it was a more cut and dry example of a sometimes subtle recurring problem that I think seriously limits the usefulness of your contributions on BH. It's not that your ideas or knowledge are out of place, but the way you use technical terminology is often off just enough that it brings confusion rather than clarity to the issues at hand.

@Tau It is really distracting (and not useful to others) when you use technical terms with broadly agreed upon meanings to mean something different than everybody else does by them. As this is not the first instance of this error, please note the normative use of the term Textual Criticism refers to a specific aspect of hermeneutics that deals with discrepancies between different source manuscripts of the same document. As far as I can make out your comment is not actually a reference to the issue of textual criticism, modern or otherwise. — Caleb ♦ 4 hours ago

Unfortunately I have to say that your reply to my comments is even more off (at least deeper in the same ditch) than the original. Furthermore the Wikipedia article I linked, rather than confirming your point as you claim, blatantly contradicts it. To all appearances you are co-opting a term to mean something it doesn't.

@Caleb You will note that I used "Modern Textual Criticism". which includes "Higher Criticism"(as your link pointed out). I certainly recognize that copyists have made errors, and attempts to 'reconstruct' authorial intent are as old as the Scriptures themselves. However, the newfound "understanding" that in light of modern archeology and scientific discovery, the texts must be 're-understood', is not merely recognizing 'copyist errors', but the introduction of 'Modern' social and societal views and imposing them on the texts. . — Tau 1 hour ago

@Caleb To correctly identify(and answer) the OP's concern, one must be aware that 'traditional' understanding is merely a point to be argued against by Higher(ie:Modern) Criticism and it is to that end the comment is made. In this instance, the Nicea and Constantinople Creed is being 'tossed' in favor of "apocalyptic symbolism", which in itself is valid but not at the expense of traditional understanding. The "modern textual critic" knows no limitations and will continue to 're-interpret' the text based on their 'superimposed' scientific evaluation. — Tau 35 mins ago

Nowhere in the content of the article is "Modern Textual Criticism" even a thing. The only place the words appear together is in a footnote as part of a sentence that is the byline of a book (that is translated from German and not capitalized in the print edition).

Beyond the issue with using a term that isn't even common parlance, the meaning you ascribe to it simply wouldn't make sense even if it was a common term. Far from "includ[ing] Higher Criticism" as you claim, the modern usage of the term Textual Criticism is specifically contrasted from Higher Criticism (in fact it's synonymous with Lower Criticism).

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And according to the Wikipedia narrative the degree of contrast between the fields has gone up rather than down in modern times and along with that contrast has come the use of the terms Textual Criticism (superseding Lower Criticism) and Historical Criticism (superseding Higher Criticism).

Even if all that wasn't the case, the field of Higher Criticism is not as you describe it. None of the factors you bring up properly fall under that moniker's umbrella. I think perhaps the handle you want is Biblical Criticism or one of the other more specific methods that fall in that larger grouping.

In summary the shifts in world view and theology you have in mind are not properly part of the term "Textual Criticism" and, especially in the context of a site for experts in the field of Hermeneutics, using the wrong terms for things just confuses your readers. That's the larger point I was hoping to tip you off to: you should keep your ears open for how other people are using words and adjust your diction so that you contribute clarity instead of introducing dissonance to the discussion.

Tau

5:19 PM

"The worst aspects of postmodern textual criticism thus are that it is
anchorless, detached from history; it is isolationist, because it divorces itself
from the concerns of the community of Christians—a community that has
been around for two millennia; and it is self-defeating because it has to presuppose
an original text in order to blur the distinctions between it and any
secondary text. In short, the quest for the wording of the autographa is still
worth fighting for." Daniel B. Wallace

Caleb

5:30 PM

@Tau Okay. Do you see my point though? Even in that quote Daniel Wallace is using "textual criticism" as a study that relates to "the quest for the wording of the autograha" — not for the quest for meaning and interpretation in light of historical and cultural context issues that you are talking about. And he's not capitalizing the combined term as if it referred to something different than the base terms, he's just using an adjective to bracket the time frame in which he's talking about.

Tau

@Caleb The previous quote is taken from here I emphasize "Modern" because this is what Wallace and other textual scholars identify as the problem of 're-interpreting texts in light of current understandings', which doesn't 'flow' very easily and could also be misconstrued. "Textual Criticism" in itself is a useful tool, and has been with us for millennia.

@Caleb (cont.) The Problem is the mere usage of the term 'Textual Criticism' doesn't take into account what Ehrman and others have progressed into, which is 're-evaluating' and satisfying the meanings of the text based on 'modern interpretive understandings' which have disconnected themselves from traditional understandings.

Tau

5:49 PM

@Caleb (1 more and I'll shut up) One of the most commonly used examples is ,"Was it the Red Sea or the 'reed Sea'. The former assumes a supernatural miracle by which an entire people crossed a deep, unnavigateable stretch of water on a strip of land which the Lord created. The other conjectures a shallow marsh by which one with difficulty could cross. Of course, the fact that Pharaoh's entire army was drowned in 2 feet of water creates a greater interpretive challenge...

Susan

7:52 PM

Random English question for the day (actually this may be #2...sorry): Can anybody either explain or think of a cognate pair analogous to prophecy/prophesy vis-a-vis the morphology? I assume (?) it’s a vowel change /i/ to /ai/ (or vice versa?) and the spelling is secondary. But it doesn’t seem to me like a ‘normal’ way to go from noun to verb in English.

Caleb

@Susan Slightly different, but quantity / quantify comes to mind; also code / codify (might be tech jargon).

Susan

@Caleb Oh yeah, that first one does do the same vowel shift. But -ify is a normal way to go from noun to verb in English. I’m guessing there it just elided a syllable, i.e. quantity » *quantitify » quantify.

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