Even this claim is not novel. I read in http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Protestanti ... on+science that the early scientists in the 16th and 17th centuries openly cited the Reformation, in particular Luther, as the inspiration of their scientific work, even to the development of the scientific method. They also contrasted the scientific thinking to medieval thought.Jemoh66 wrote:I have said it before, your approach has a contribution to make, and I am always willing to glean from your hypotheses. My point here is that you charged Chris with medieval thinking, in contrast to your "son-of-the-reformation scientific" approach. I am only challenging THIS claim.
“Peer reviewed” as a requirement has come in only in the last few decades, and then as an ideological filter to defend a religious belief against scientific inquiry. It has been used as a religious weapon to defend religious dogma against scientific research, most notably research indicating Intelligent Design, also research questioning AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming), by denying those researchers the chance of getting published in science journals. As such, this is post-modern science, not modern science.Jemoh66 wrote: Your method is a method, and that is fine, but if you are going to claim it is scientific, while not carrying out classic scientific interchange with other scholars, then I think you are being inconsistent. One of the hallmarks of scientific enquiry is that it's authority comes from being "peer reviewed."
Not me, personally, rather method.Jemoh66 wrote: But you have set yourself up above other scholarly work.
I don’t recall the paper to which you allude. I at first thought you meant a paper that Chris had linked to, but now I’m not sure. I don’t recall my reasons that I didn’t read the whole paper.Jemoh66 wrote: And when presented with proper scientific research on the MT for example, your classic reply is that you didn't bother to read it past the first few paragraphs. As to the article I posted, it deals strictly with data. There is no axe to grind. He finds in the data evidence of preservation and corruption in BOTH the consonantal text and the pronunciation as expressed by the pointing. So there is evidence at the consonantal level that they preserved much of the original consonantal text, but there is also data showing that even in the consonantal text, the Masoretes were influenced by their dialect of Hebrew. Then as to the pronunciation, the author presents evidence that suggests they had preserved a great deal of the ancient pronunciation, but again even here, the evidence showed they were influenced by their dialect and by Aramaic as well. So it is much more nuanced, and thus more difficult, because we have to decide when we are faced with medieval pronunciation, and when we are dealing with ancient pronunciation preserved through liturgy. This cannot be done without leveraging a significant amount of linguistic science.
Karl W. Randolph.
