Davar Akher

In addition to having possibly rankled a few people (to whom I apologise, if my remarks were misconstrued), a recent post demonstrated what some mistakenly thought was an atheist perspective. I have since removed the post – not because I am retracting my sentiments, but because I do not feel that they were adequately conveyed by my choice of words. As justifying myself in the comments thread was growing wearisome, I have decided instead to present my opinions on atheism in a separate post. While I do not believe in God, and am happy to publicise the fact, my being in agreement with some of the conclusions of this group does not make me a member. As my attitudes towards the biblical literature and my attitudes towards disbelief are so intimately connected, I would like to make a comment as regards my feelings for the former.

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My new post at Galus Australis deals with the difference between exegesis and eisegesis, with the example of a reappropriated Biblical quote. There are innumerable quotes that I might have chosen, but I picked this one for its non-tendentious nature. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Update: It has come out, in the last few comments, that I have been using the word “eisegesis” incorrectly. I was mistakenly under the impression that the word denoted the leading into a text, which is done by somebody who imports ideas derived elsewhere. It would seem, however, that the word has a narrower definition than that, that it specifically denotes importing ideas of one’s own construction, and that it has a mildly pejorative nuance.

If anybody is familiar with this word having been reappropriated in recent years with a more relativistic nuance (ie: that ideas might have been read into texts, but that they were derived from older oral traditions and were therefore equally valid), please do speak up – either here or on Galus Australis. It is entirely possible that I have been using the word incorrectly for years (I’ve done that often enough with others), but it would be lamentable if the only word I know to describe rabbinic hermeneutics was disparaging.

In relation to those Biblical scholars who seem to have an allergy to the “M-word” (at least, whenever they are describing the literature that they profess to analyse), Alan Lenzi has a word or two to say by way of a comment. It’s short and sweet, but you might as well see it at his blog, rather than mine. Hear hear!

Having recently acquired a facsimile edition of the Aleppo Codex, I decided to do a little research on its origins and development. The first place that I chose to look was The Aleppo Codex: a website developed by the Ben-Zvi Institute of Jerusalem. The site is old news now, but certainly worth checking out if you haven’t seen it already.

I mention this because, while the English of the site is less than perfect, one particular passage is most illuminating. It is strangely fitting that it should occur in a section that describes the precise copying of the Masoretic Text, and the nature of the errors that crept in. Interested parties may access the page in question here, and scroll down to section §1.10: