Jul 09 2007
Etymological fallacy spotted in the wild
I greatly enjoy and admire Claude Mariottini’s blog. So I’m deeply disappointed to find him raising my ire with an egregious example of the etymological fallacy.
There are two words used in the Bible to describe a prophet. The first word is found in the Old Testament. It is the Hebrew word nabi. The word nabi is translated “prophet” in English, but in Hebrew the word means “one who is called.”
The second word is found in the New Testament. It is the word prophetes, which in English is translated as “prophet.” The word prophetes is composed of two Greek words: pro and phetes. In English, the word prophetes means “to speak on behalf of” someone.
I wouldn’t normally take on an OT scholar about the meaning of Hebrew words, but exactly how does this etymological derivation of nabi make sense even of something comparatively early in the prophetic canon?
Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Amos 7:14-15 NRSV
Already it’s an occupation. And a long LXX tradition means it’s acquired a significant semantic field of its own by the time it’s used in the NT. Words mean what they mean in their context and in their time. Diachronic usage cannot overrule synchronic usage. Etymology has a very lowly and ephemeral place indeed in semantics. I’ve blogged on this before, but I feel the need to repeat myself.
This is not to disagree with the substance of the post, though while I find it personally challenging and a good devotional thought, I don’t think I’d want to say either quite the same thing or in quite the same way. Equally I think he could have made all these points without the device of such linguistically dubious exegesis.
What, in my view, the church needs from its scholars like Dr Mariottini, is not just his deeply studied understanding of Scripture’s meaning, but a sense of how to read it carefully and appropriately. Encouraging this dodgy use of etymology is likely to lead those with a lesser grasp of Scripture into some quite appalling mistakes.