Words
For the past week, I have been planning my preaching for the upcoming year. One of the series I am considering doing later in the year is a study of Proverbs. Recently, Dr. Bruce Waltke published a commentary on Proverbs and it is absolutely amazing, at least the parts I understand. Waltke’s vocabulary is so incredible that I have had to read his commentary while staying logged on to www.m-w.com, just so I could look up the words. Some you can figure out from the context. Others you can figure out by breaking the word down. Still, with words like heuristic, eudaemonism, admonitory, sapient, mediatrix, and attenuate, it can be slow reading.
Here is one of my favorite sentences:
“The failure of paroimiologists to grasp both the significance of the restricted ability of epigrams to express the whole truth and the rectification of this problem by grouping them has bedeviled the discussion.”
Thanks, Dr. Waltke. I couldn’t have said it any better myself!
posted by Mark Bates | 10:48 AM
4 Comments:
Let me try...
Talking about this stuff is a pain becuase they just don't realize grouping this stuff together isn't the entire truth!
The sesquipedalian cant of paremiological, polyglot adepts such as Waltke does indeed seem to belie the compendious and compacted nature of their subject matter, prima facie. ;-)
BTW, several sermons by Waltke on Proverbs (et al.) can be found here They're a little dry, but still profitable. The one on money stuck with me.
Rob, you are close! What he is saying (I think!) is that people take a concise proverb and assume that it says all that there is to say about a subject. They treat it as law rather than wisdom. If you do that, you will end up in trouble.
Others, try to group all the proverbs together that talk about a particular topic and think they can arrive at the truth that way. Waltke says that only confuses the process.
Matthew, I have no idea what you just said! I had to look up sesquipedalian. It means" given to or characterized by the use of long words". There is some irony in the fact that only a sesquipedalian would know what a sesquipedalian is.
BTW, thanks for the tip on where to find Waltke's sermons. I have listened to Keller's. They are awesome, as usual, but he and Waltke take different views on some issues. As brilliant as Keller is, when it comes to understanding the OT, Waltke is the man. After all, he did help Joshua edit the Pentateuch.
I would paraphrase him as such: "Those who study proverbs generally haven't understood (1) that a proverb can only express part of the truth, not the whole truth, and (2) that taking several proverbs together can overcome this inadequacy and round out the picture. This two-part misunderstanding has often made the study of the Book of Proverbs misguided."
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