Re: words, words, words

No no no, Scottie, that's not me -- I don't equate size of vocabulary
with erudition. I'm primarily describing the opinions of other
scholars, among whom it was, for a long time, the opinion that the
author of John wasn't that terribly literate. To be honest, Robbie's
the first one I've read to give high praise to John -- but I'm sure he's
not the only one out there to do so, and as I said I'm close to ten
years out of the loop on Biblical scholarship. If I sound like I'm
getting a bit close to this position myself, it's probably because I'm
overstating my point with Robbie a bit.

I would say the most great literary geniuses have at least an average to
above average vocabulary list (think about the phrase, "unlock your word
hoard" in Beowulf), but the most important thing to me is, of course,
what they do with the language they have. And even if, in most cases,
literary genius is associated with large vocabulary, this doesn't mean
the author of the Gospel of John couldn't be an exception.

Jim

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> Here I come again in Robbie's wake, swinging my bell
> & my censer - or whatever it is that acolytes swing.
>
> I won't presume to intrude in the dialogue between
> himself & Jim - which leaves me, in its biblical erudition,
> far behind. (While continuing to command my limping,
> short of breath, attention.)
>
> Except.
>
> To express my drop-jawed astonishment that Fr Rovira
> sees a rich vocabulary as one of the indicators of literary
> mastery. I should have thought it was just as often the mark
> of the essentially ungifted hoping to compensate his inadequacy
> through long night hours tucked up with Increase-Your-Word-Power.
>
> I realise minimalism is no longer flavour of the year but I still
> feel the commanding writer achieves his condensed power through
> self-imposed restraints - be these the observance of strict
> poetic forms, or the deliberate limitation of his vocabulary to
> the 'plain' words ... or whatever.
> (One of my several complaints about Salinger is his scatter-gun
> use of picturesque, but not precisely apposite, words.)
>
> 'Simple' words have wide - & so, one might think, inexact -
> connotations. We geniuses, though, know how to structure
> the context of their use in such a way as to lend them
> the uniqueness & power denied the ten dollar items.
>
> Scottie B.
>
>
>

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Received on Tue Aug 5 09:43:27 2003