Re: [asa] Empiricism, Faith and Science

 Gordon said,
I assume from what you say that the object marker is a late development in
the Hebrew language, or is there some other evidence that it was originally
missing from Genesis 1:1?>>

Your assumption is correct.

<<You seem to raise the question of what is considered to be the inspired
text, i.e. was the editing inspired? For example, someone collected the
psalms at a later date and gave titles to many of them and inserted a
comment in Psalm 72:20. I think the consensus among evangelical scholars is
that the titles are inspired.>>

The question of whether later additions are inspired is an interesting one.
There was an article in J of the Evang Theol Society a few years ago that
argued the later additions were inspired. I think it was motivated in part
by the differences between the LXX and the MT. The LXX text of Jeremiah is
c. 1/8 shorter than the MT. The shorter text is usually considered the
original, and I think OT textual critics think the rest of Jeremiah in MT
was added later, but the MT is usually considered the inspired text. If so,
the additions must be inspired. But this causes a tension with the old
statement that it is only the originals that are inspired.

I do not know what the consensus is about the Psalm titles, but I don't
think the author of the above mentioned article was thinking about them. One
thing is sure, practically no one thinks the Massoretic pointing is
inspired, and it seems to me the aleph tau in Gen 1:1 is in principle more
similar to the pointing than to the additional text of either Jeremiah or
the Psalm titles.

Paul

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Received on Wed Sep 20 23:46:46 2006