Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
The kind of word analysis that insists upon the juxtaposition of two words meaning the literal thing — especially decades later — is really stupid. The word means what it means in the era in which it is written not when it is created.
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I'm assuming you mean "coined." And yes words change meanings even within a hundred years. For example, if you want to know what words meant in the 19th century you need to get a 19th c. dictionary.
Witness Lee always had to sell that he had the divine lowdown on scripture. So of course to prove it he went hog wild on the etymology of Bible words, to forward that appearance.
So it is good that Nigel exposes Lee's etymological lunacy. Nigel also exposes that Lee didn't have a divine origin for his etymology. That he came by it thru human references.
But in the process Nigel removes certitude from the scripture. Now I'm dependent upon scholars to tell me what it means. And the right scholars. Not outdated ones. And I can't be certain about the scholars either.
Then inerrancy is not the question, or errancy the problem. Nigel doesn't even mention the manuscripts (none agree), or the autographs (that we don't have). He just points out that scholars disagree as to what Gods' words mean.
This leaves a lay person like myself lost.
Now I lost Lee, and that's a good thing.
But is losing my certitude about Gods' words a good thing? Doesn't it in the end mean that the Bible is a human book, that requires looking into the human meaning of the words, back when it was written, to understand it?
So Lee loses his divine origins, and so does the Bible. Lee is stripped of divinity, and so is the Bible.
Did Nigel intend to do that?