I am not trying to spring a "gotcha" with this statement. I am just at the point of marveling over it myself, not polemicizing it.
It is a "gotcha" statement if the premise that of one believes that the Masoretic vowels are not trustworthy, then they impugn the Masoretic Text (MT) and thus the integrity of Scripture, while if they believe that the Masoretic vowels are wholly correct, then they must uphold that the Jews successfully preserved the vowels of Scripture for thousands of years, through oral tradition alone, and which thus sanctions Roman claims for her oral tradition.
However, both are false dilemmas, as it is not necessary that the vowel points (VP) be perfectly correct under one view of Divine inspiration (DI), nor does the integrity of the VPs in the MT less sanction all else that falls under oral tradition (OT), including quite obviously that of Catholicism.
The second false dilemma is shown as being so by the fact that, rather than the TORAH not containing a single readable word without DI OT, even without vowels many English sentences are comprehensible, for the place of vowels (A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y) usually is determined by knowing language, including grammatical structure and or context. For example, "TH PRSN THT CNNT RD THS SNTNC KNWS LTTL GRMMR." Sometimes it is harder to make out what a poster (like me) is saying on FR!
Code crackers can even break down encrypted messages in a foreign language given enough time and resources. But it is true that without vowel points much Hebrew would be unintelligible now.
And tradition, as meaning inherited knowledge, how a term, words or teaching was understood by the natives certainly is overall needful for correct understanding of communication of any length and depth. And in this case re VPs, understanding how the words of a song are sung enables the notes.
However, a brain, the ability to reason and write, etc., are also all necessary, but that does not mean that everything else was that came via this means was/is DI, nor does OT supplying VP sanction OT as being DI in all else.
But are the VP Divinely inspired? This is a point of contention within evangelicalism itself, some of whom hold that "both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds provide evidence for the existence of both the Hebrew vowels and accent mar ks at the time of their composition." And further that "Even theological modernists such as "Hupfeld and Riehm . . . advance [the view that] the Old Testament books were divided into verses even before the time [on the TMT theory] of the Masoretes . . . the verse bounded by 'soph pasuk,' the placing of which harmonizes with the accentuation .. . [is mentioned] in the post - Talmudic tractate Sofrim..." - http://faithsaves.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Evidences4TheInspirationOfTheHebrewVowels.pdf
I would say that if the 10 Commandments which God wrote with His own "finger," (the Holy Spirit) did not contain them then they are not DI, and there are those who hold that there are errors in the MT, (as well as then non-uniform LXX mss).
Yet apparently even the dead sea scrolls have no VPs, and rather then VPs being DI, i lean toward seeing these as being akin to copying and translating and even preaching of Scripture, and in which, the human instrument of conveyance works to provide the sense as he understands it.
So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. (Nehemiah 8:8)
But it is the word as originally written (or at least copied mss of it) that is wholly inspired and the supreme standard by which translation and preaching is examined by.
As with the transmission of God's word, I see man as being a steward of the manifold grace of God," (1Pt. 4:10) and so that while God gave a perfect word, man is responsible and accountable to both discern, believe and preserve it, all by God's grace and under His Divine superintendence.
And that it has been well preserved, as well as exposing errors. Including the DI NT writers eclectically using correct texts from both the LXX and the MT, and in which the Holy Spirit sometimes recasts His own words (as in rendering Is. 6:9,10 in Jn. 12:40).
And thus rather than OT being the standard as being DI, instead it is examined in the light of what is wholly inspired, that being the word of God as closest we can see to what was originally written, and how it was.
See here on alleged errors of the VP in the MT and a learned debate btwn both sides.
Finally, the unique depth and scope of human language is one of the things that sets man apart from animals, who often excel in smell, but do not write poetry and or us similes, metaphors, anthropomorphic terms, engage in tact and abstract concepts, etc., But perhaps context or bodily position or or grammatical structure can determine a meaning, and like us, the very tone or perhaps volume of a sound. In everyday communication we take all such for granted.
Likewise a translator working to provide Scripture in the native tongue or a foreign people must understand their culture and traditions to correctly do so. One translator, struggling to find a word for "faith" which did not exist in the native's tongue, found his answer when a native rushed into his hut and plopped down in a chair, and said, "how good it is to rest in this chair." But another found a native trying to eat the pages of his translation because he read the word of God had to be in him!
Thus the need for teachers, yet despite great authority being given to such, (Dt. 17:8-13) God nowhere provided or needed a perpetual infallible magisterial office, outside Himself, but instead sometimes raised up men from without it in order to reprove it and preserved faith, and sometimes to provide more Truth.
And thus the the church actually began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel, who were the historical instruments and stewards of Scripture, and inheritors of promises of Divine guidance, presence and perpetuation. (Lv. 10:11; Dt. 4:31; 17:8-13; Is. 41:10, Ps. 89:33,34)
And instead souls followed an itinerant Preacher whom the magisterium rejected, and whom the Messiah reproved them Scripture as being supreme, (Mk. 7:2-16) and established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis. (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.)
For the fact is that it is abundantly evidenced that as written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.
Thanks be to God.
It is a "gotcha" statement if the premise that of one believes that the Masoretic vowels are not trustworthy, then they impugn the Masoretic Text (MT) and thus the integrity of Scripture, while if they believe that the Masoretic vowels are wholly correct, then they must uphold that the Jews successfully preserved the vowels of Scripture for thousands of years, through oral tradition alone, and which thus sanctions Roman claims for her oral tradition.However, both are false dilemmas,...
(OK, fair enough, but I don't take either of those positions.)
Your point about grammar determining much of meaning even without vowels is on target, but it loses much of its force when you consider that Biblical Hebrew didn't have spaces between words, either. You an see that reading your sample sentence without spaces OR vowels would be quite a puzzler:
As you say, "without vowel points much Hebrew would be unintelligible now."
The info from the various Talmud sources is interesting,and something I will have to look into a great deal more, since I am very ignorant of Talmud.
The purpoe of my remarks was NOT that the MT is shot through with errors. Far from it. I am not of the Bart Ehrman skeptical or modernist school at all. "As with the transmission of God's word, I see man as being a steward of the manifold grace of God," (1 Pt. 4:10) and so that while God gave a perfect word, man is responsible and accountable to both discern, believe and preserve it, all by God's grace and under His Divine superintendence."" Yet apparently even the dead sea scrolls have no VPs, and rather then VPs being DI, i lean toward seeing these as being akin to copying and translating and even preaching of Scripture, and in which, the human instrument of conveyance works to provide the sense as he understands it."...
Yes, indeed. But rather than just saying "man," (as if it might be any random man, or each man, or the whole race of man) you might be more exact and say "the Church':
| 1 Corinthians 12:28-30 And God has appointed these in the Church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? |
I like the learned discussion you linked to.
If the Messiah established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation, He established them upon a written tradition which derived from oral tradition, AND an oral tradition which derived from written tradition. Yes, that's a vice-versa and a do-si-do.
They were continually in interplay, since everything (with the possible exception of the Ten Commandments) was spoken before it was written; AND after it was written, it had to be re-spoken according to the norms of that previous oral tradition. This is true especially with respect the Hebrew system of writing, which was largely a mnemonic device, since the reader had to actually know what it said before he could read it accurately!
All these are big pluses for me. I think it shows the genius of the way God conveys His Word. For the Bible doesn't say "For God so loved the world that He sent a Book." It says "For God so loved the world, that He sent His only-begotten Son." And the Son is the Word.
That's why the Muslims are wrong when they say we are "People of the Book". Not exactly. We are People of the Word.