[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

The remaining blunderama scholarship reference from Doug Kutilek is a bit of a doozy.
Let us go to his article:

http://www.kjvonly.org/doug/kutilek_why_psalm_pr.htm
Why Psalm 12:6,7 is Not A Promise of the Infallible Preservation of Scripture
- Doug Kutilek

J. M. Neale and F. R. Littledale are the most emphatic in insisting on this position: “Keep them: that is, not as the passage is generally taken, keep or guard Thy people, but thou shalt keep, or make good, Thy words: and by so doing, shalt preserve him -- him, the needy, him, the poor -- Thou shalt keep thy work” (p. 181).

Much bold assertion, but not evidence! That Neale and Littledale sunder apart the synonymously parallel clauses of verse 7a, applying the “you will keep them” to the words and “you will preserve him” to the believer, shows a lack of understanding of the basic feature of Hebrew poetry -- parallelism of thought. Hebrew poetic structure demands that both clauses “you will keep them” and “you will preserve him” be applied to the same object. Note also that they acknowledge that the usual interpretation is that the reference is to preservation of God’s people.

The first problem is very simple, as we discussed in post #138, 139, 140.

http://av1611.com/forums/showthread....5248#post15248
Psalms: From Primitive and Mediaeval Writers - Neale & Littledale

Neale and Littledale, as the title of their book shows, are simply quoting the historical commentaries ! And they are quoting Michael Ayguan -- from 450 years earlier ! A rather amazing commentary in its own right. And the reference is 100% clear in their book.

So Doug Kutilek somehow misses the most basic fact -- and then goes into a rant, totally weird and out-of-place, against Neale and Littledale ! Even if the quote had been theirs, the tirade was insipid. They were not involved in the Kutilek anti-preservation-of-words debate. And to write against them from your own misperceptions is a tawdry type of writing.

Yet this is made even far worse by not even noticing the simple and obvious aspect of the writing -- Neale and Littledale are simply referencing Michael Ayguan. Likely they even translated his Latin. Their purpose of the book is in the title of the book, in the long explanation called Dissertation II in the front of the book, and Ayguan's name is right on the page ! What more do you need ?

This was such insipid writing from Doug Kutilek that even I was amazed.

The irony is that Kutilek's Theorem about one object for Psalm 12 is actually a sensible consideration, as I discussed above. (And it actually undercuts a lot of his own position.) However not as an awkward, misplaced, stumbling rant. Surely not against Michael Ayguan. And just as bad when used to attack the wrong writers. Neale and Littledale, who wrote a fine, accomplished work many centuries later.

Many interpreters use the "split interpretation" idea, some mixing it with a "dual interpretation" -- if we want to point out a potential weakness in that position, fine. There is no reason to go haywire in rigged rant, as Doug Kutilek does above. Made even worse by his own scholarly incompetence. So incompetent that he could not even recognize that Michael Ayguan from the 1400s was the quote source. Kutilek was so quick to falsely accuse that he didn't even have the most basic facts straight.

Sound familiar ?

As for Neale and Littledale, they are not even taking a position. They quote all sorts of early church writers, the good, the bad, the excellent, and possibly some ugly. They were scholars who wrote a fine historical commentary, at a time when resources were far less easy to collate than today. They wrote an excellent book and are to be commended for giving us an excellent resource, even a century and more later. These men are not here to speak in their own behalf, yet they are owed an apology from Doug Kutilek.

Shalom,
Steven Avery