10-29-2014, 04:43 AM
Steve,
You are creating an "either/or" interpretation of what I said, and not realizing it is a "both/and" paradigm.
You seem to be jumping to conclusions about his work, because it doesn't fit in to your a priori definitions. It is not your place to judge unfinished work simply because it exists outside of your own categories. Many commentators like the Sfas Emes and others have no problems looking at the text the way that he is. The reason that he isn't translating according to "Linquistics." is because Linguistics is a discipline of study within academia, not a jewish study hermeneutic. He is following the ladder, the former has mores and aspects of study that are determined within that field. Noam Chomsky doesn't have any Sod based Torah commentaries, to my knowledge. <!-- s
--><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/wink1.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s -->
That being said, I have studied the Ta'amei HaMikra and know that the Masorites followed very strict linguistic rules, but the way those are subdivided by them and the approach that modern academia takes are quite different approaches. They are systems of study that have different seed beds.
"Mysticism, by its very definition, is unscientific. It's not falsifiable. It's not predicative. That's not its purpose.
Who claims otherwise?"
Actually much of the Kabbalistic tradition sees strong connection points between science and Kabbalah. Jewish mysticism isn't trying to just be otherworldly, but actually bring heaven down to earth and understand that this process happens at increasingly hightend levels that are inclusive with human knowledge and the truth of existence. The mystery part happens when we approach the infinite levels of who G-d is, then our knowledge weather mystical or empirical diminishingly becomes musings of a human mind and soul which isn't at a level yet that can comprehend. Rav Kook actually saw it this way. There is an entire book on it, written about his philosophy, called "Between Rationalism and Mysticism."
"For railing against the "western academic scholarly paradigm" you don't seem to get it. For one, academia is interested in all layers of pardes, but within the deeper levels more interested in their practice as a phenomenon as their premise is experiential."
You also seem to confuse my contrasting western academic study with Jewish thought to mean that I am anti academic. I am not, in fact I hold an undergraduate degree in Spanish and have taken linguistics classes myself, I see a ton of value in academic and higher critical studies, but also see huge mental gaps in the fields and with the scholars. I think that higher critical studies takes a different approach at times and isn't as inclusive as you suggest. Academics for the most part don't really study PARDES unless they are Jewish academics. I know several academics who think the Talmud is a redacted document and don't consider it an academic source. Due to the Documentary Hypothesis, most in higher critical studies don't even see the Torah as having been written by Moshe and therefore studying other layers of the text according to rabbinic hermeneutics don't really apply. How many scholars do you know who use the Middot of Hillel who aren't jewish?...very few. One could even look at the Anti-semitism within the Jesus Seminar. Another good example might be that several academics believe the Synagogue system developed post 70 C.E. I even heard the head of Jewish studies at KU suggest this theory, and he actually excavates synagogues in Israel! Not only does this theory fly in the face of the book of Ezra, Nehemia and the New Testament, but also Jewish tradition. Also many of the other discoveries being made at Migdal prove this theory to actually be pretty flawed. There is a tendency in much of higher critical studies to not even study in house sources on subjects as reliable history. What we are talking about it not a mutually inclusive view of the Academy and Textual / Religion, but a mutually exclusive one mostly created by many within academia. Again I am not against being academic but it looks different in a Jewish setting than a non Jewish one.
So let me be clear, I think because of the higher critical studies of 19th Century created a thought process that was "empirical" in some cases it created Anti-semitic ways of approaching academia. Most notably the Tubingen school exhibited much of this thought during this time period and leading into WWII. This evolved into people seeing Jesus and his followers as a bunch of illiterate Jews who didn't speak Hebrew or Aramaic, but really were somehow a grassroots backwater religious system. We know this isn't the case, but much of these thoughts are still taught within academia today and even seminaries! I think having academic acumen is great, but to be honest I trust Jewish academia on these subjects more because there is a lot more open-ness to actually include the tradition, because we understand that Language is an oral tradition. therefore we know tradition isn't just to be disregarded as un-imperical.
"Academics aside, an hermeneutic that does nothing useful, other than connect random dots with translucent lines to make a big scribble in the middle is without merit or worth. A useful hermeneutic can make relevant sense of a picture that is otherwise obscured, connecting the dots into a bigger image. But enough about theology."
Steve, who are you as a linguist, not a Rabbi, Pastor, theology professor, or anybody who spiritually leads people, who teaches as a biblical scholar, qualified to decide what is useful? You study the construct of language not the human soul. You may be a fantastic linguist, but you are not the judge of what is useful or could impact somebody's life especially when it is based on a valid method of exegesis within Jewish tradition. It is ok to maybe question gregoroyfi's findings and tweak his work, which would be like iron sharpening iron. I don't think it is ok to totally disqualify the large amounts of time and work he has put in especially when his basis has merit. Even if he were wrong on a few points you could lovingly point it out to him, not tell him what he is doing it worthless. It seems unfair to do so.
You are creating an "either/or" interpretation of what I said, and not realizing it is a "both/and" paradigm.
You seem to be jumping to conclusions about his work, because it doesn't fit in to your a priori definitions. It is not your place to judge unfinished work simply because it exists outside of your own categories. Many commentators like the Sfas Emes and others have no problems looking at the text the way that he is. The reason that he isn't translating according to "Linquistics." is because Linguistics is a discipline of study within academia, not a jewish study hermeneutic. He is following the ladder, the former has mores and aspects of study that are determined within that field. Noam Chomsky doesn't have any Sod based Torah commentaries, to my knowledge. <!-- s
--><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/wink1.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s -->That being said, I have studied the Ta'amei HaMikra and know that the Masorites followed very strict linguistic rules, but the way those are subdivided by them and the approach that modern academia takes are quite different approaches. They are systems of study that have different seed beds.
"Mysticism, by its very definition, is unscientific. It's not falsifiable. It's not predicative. That's not its purpose.
Who claims otherwise?"
Actually much of the Kabbalistic tradition sees strong connection points between science and Kabbalah. Jewish mysticism isn't trying to just be otherworldly, but actually bring heaven down to earth and understand that this process happens at increasingly hightend levels that are inclusive with human knowledge and the truth of existence. The mystery part happens when we approach the infinite levels of who G-d is, then our knowledge weather mystical or empirical diminishingly becomes musings of a human mind and soul which isn't at a level yet that can comprehend. Rav Kook actually saw it this way. There is an entire book on it, written about his philosophy, called "Between Rationalism and Mysticism."
"For railing against the "western academic scholarly paradigm" you don't seem to get it. For one, academia is interested in all layers of pardes, but within the deeper levels more interested in their practice as a phenomenon as their premise is experiential."
You also seem to confuse my contrasting western academic study with Jewish thought to mean that I am anti academic. I am not, in fact I hold an undergraduate degree in Spanish and have taken linguistics classes myself, I see a ton of value in academic and higher critical studies, but also see huge mental gaps in the fields and with the scholars. I think that higher critical studies takes a different approach at times and isn't as inclusive as you suggest. Academics for the most part don't really study PARDES unless they are Jewish academics. I know several academics who think the Talmud is a redacted document and don't consider it an academic source. Due to the Documentary Hypothesis, most in higher critical studies don't even see the Torah as having been written by Moshe and therefore studying other layers of the text according to rabbinic hermeneutics don't really apply. How many scholars do you know who use the Middot of Hillel who aren't jewish?...very few. One could even look at the Anti-semitism within the Jesus Seminar. Another good example might be that several academics believe the Synagogue system developed post 70 C.E. I even heard the head of Jewish studies at KU suggest this theory, and he actually excavates synagogues in Israel! Not only does this theory fly in the face of the book of Ezra, Nehemia and the New Testament, but also Jewish tradition. Also many of the other discoveries being made at Migdal prove this theory to actually be pretty flawed. There is a tendency in much of higher critical studies to not even study in house sources on subjects as reliable history. What we are talking about it not a mutually inclusive view of the Academy and Textual / Religion, but a mutually exclusive one mostly created by many within academia. Again I am not against being academic but it looks different in a Jewish setting than a non Jewish one.
So let me be clear, I think because of the higher critical studies of 19th Century created a thought process that was "empirical" in some cases it created Anti-semitic ways of approaching academia. Most notably the Tubingen school exhibited much of this thought during this time period and leading into WWII. This evolved into people seeing Jesus and his followers as a bunch of illiterate Jews who didn't speak Hebrew or Aramaic, but really were somehow a grassroots backwater religious system. We know this isn't the case, but much of these thoughts are still taught within academia today and even seminaries! I think having academic acumen is great, but to be honest I trust Jewish academia on these subjects more because there is a lot more open-ness to actually include the tradition, because we understand that Language is an oral tradition. therefore we know tradition isn't just to be disregarded as un-imperical.
"Academics aside, an hermeneutic that does nothing useful, other than connect random dots with translucent lines to make a big scribble in the middle is without merit or worth. A useful hermeneutic can make relevant sense of a picture that is otherwise obscured, connecting the dots into a bigger image. But enough about theology."
Steve, who are you as a linguist, not a Rabbi, Pastor, theology professor, or anybody who spiritually leads people, who teaches as a biblical scholar, qualified to decide what is useful? You study the construct of language not the human soul. You may be a fantastic linguist, but you are not the judge of what is useful or could impact somebody's life especially when it is based on a valid method of exegesis within Jewish tradition. It is ok to maybe question gregoroyfi's findings and tweak his work, which would be like iron sharpening iron. I don't think it is ok to totally disqualify the large amounts of time and work he has put in especially when his basis has merit. Even if he were wrong on a few points you could lovingly point it out to him, not tell him what he is doing it worthless. It seems unfair to do so.