Now, Rolf's other book by "Awatu" aka Rolf was criticised for expounding a
Jehovah's Witness chronology in the guise of academic study. Maybe this
book is to be criticised for expounding a Jehovah's Witness verbal system
in the guise of academic study. That is, this isn't a simple revolutionary
attempt to read the verbal system of Hebrew. It is an attempt to defend a
Jehovah's Witness outlook on the verbal system. For example, perhaps
let us assume that because of some lack of expertise on the part of NWT
translators, some verbs which were intended past were translated future.
Rolf's study then comes to an aid and says that this is not a problem
because it is not that NWT translators got it wrong. It is that we don't
understand the verbal system of Hebrew.
There is nothing wrong, of course, with a fresh new study of the verbal
system of Hebrew. There is nothing wrong with a revolutionary reading
of the verbal system. What would come out of the above is that the
study may be an attempt to defend the good name of the Jehovah's
Witness organization. In order to do that, it is apparently permissible
(according to the above article) for Jehovah's Witnesses to deceive
and outright lie to those who are not entitled to know the truth. If a
Jehovah's Witness is not always entitled to know the truth, then
apparently non-Jehovah's Witnesses on the list certainly fit in the
category of "enemies."
So there may be an agenda, and a willful attempt to deceive in a study
such as Rolf, if it is, of course, an attempt to defend the good name of
the Jehovah's Witness organization. Circumstantially, it may appear that
this is the case, and also that indeed deceptions or errors are used. The
above tiny example regarding "private publishing" may be a clear case
where true deception, not an error, has been exposed. But one is left to
wonder regarding the errors Peter notes, or the flawed methodology that
I attempted to pinpoint. These may not be simple errors or oversights,
but real tools from the point of view of Rolf. Most of us do not have at
our hands the ability to check Rolf's statistics of various hebrew forms.
But in light of the above, can we trust them?
For me, in any case, the answer is a clear resounding No. I normally
accept the good will and intentions of those who put their efforts into
studying a subject, even if they are "fundamentalist-minded", as Rolf
may be described and as I originally viewed Rolf. When I originally
wrote to Rolf that his other verse example to contrast with 1 Kings 6:1
is methodologically flawed because it doesn't exist, I viewed that as
secondary. But it is now clear to me that Rolf could conceivably and
in my view, very probably has, made up and invented data for the
advancement of his position.
I welcome the study by George Athas. I am not saying a new reading
of the Hebrew verbal system is out of place. I also think most Jehovah
Witness members of this list are probably wholesome in their intentions,
although I would probably be double checking from now on. But I cannot
trust the data, conclusions, and methods as discussed by Rolf. I must
conclude that they could be heavily doctored to an agenda that
attempts to justify Jehovah's Witnesses' view and translation of
the Bible, to the point where the data would not just be deceptive, but
be even totally made up.
I suppose that from my point of view, no "yiqtol" so clearly and succinctly
displays the problems in Rolf's thesis than the one in Exodus 23:7a.
Yitzhak Sapir
The "scholars" of the New World Society of Jehovah's Witless crave academic authenticity almost as much as they claim it.
Instead, duplicity is the only road to backing up their peculiar mindset.
Peer review is entirely out of the question from the getgo, naturally; their "methodology" is illusory, ad hoc and insupportable.