It Only Takes One Word — The Necessity of Strict Lexicography in the Study of Biblical Literature

OCABS 2024 Paper

The Problem with Dialectical Exegesis 

This paper inaugurates an invitation to completely reshape the field of contemporary biblical studies. One of the most important books I have read in the past year is History of Biblical Interpretation: A Reader by William Yarchin. What is fascinating about this book is that it offers a holistic presentation of scriptural commentary starting with the first homiletical remarks in the Hellenistic period, to the post-modern overhaul of the present time. There is a common theme of  “reader-centric exegetical methods from antiquity to the present. The early rabbinic schools developed the concept of “oral Torah” that accompanied the written Torah. In other words, the interpretative exegesis of the rabbis was set to be just as authoritative as the written text itself. These commentaries were often particular to debates within rabbinic circles, and there was a notion that scriptural interpretation was inherently a dialogue between the rabbi and the text. Christian readings of scripture were similarly “reader-centric” but had much more to do with theological groupthink as opposed to individual rabbis. Scripture was interpreted against the heretics and to correct them. The criterion was the ecumenical council, which defined orthodoxy, and developed a doctrinal base at which the Christian commentator could reference reliably. It was the exclusive group against the outside, even if the outside were themselves Christian.

Both of these dialectical methodologies underpin nearly all traditional exegesis, whether it be Jewish, Christian, or even secular. The hallmark of dialectical exegesis is the imposition of one’s own “camp” onto the scriptural text. This leads to the phenomenon of reading scripture as a believing Christian, reading scripture as a Torah-observant Jew, or even reading it as a secular scholar. Here the ego, not the text, becomes the reference. A rabbi and a pastor can both be presented with Isaiah 53, even in the original Hebrew and interpret the text in two vastly different ways. For the rabbi, Isaiah’s suffering servant is a metaphor for the suffering people of Israel, who are put to shame in front of the nations, but will ultimately be the vehicle for the salvation of those said nations. It is not typically considered to be a “messianic” chapter, as it is in Christian theology. For the Christian pastor, however, Isaiah 53 is not a reference to the people of Israel as much as it is a prophecy anticipating Jesus Christ. In other words, it is not referencing a present reality, but a future reality of a prophesied Jewish Messiah.

There is pressure for commentators in either of these camps to hold to their own party’s orthodoxy. If a Jew were to see a future individual foretold in Isaiah 53, who suffers and bears the sins of Israel, that would threaten the doctrinal security of the Jewish faith which does not observe suffering and death as being on the itinerary of the Messiah. If a Christian were to see a group, instead of a person, in that same chapter, he would risk undermining the New Testament and thus his own Christian faith. I do acknowledge the attempts from certain scholars, like N.T. Wright, who incorporates both interpretations as a functional equivalence – that in some way, the suffering servant, and therefore Jesus, represents just as much the suffering of the people of Israel and the suffering of Christ on the cross as is laid out in Wright’s book Into the Heart of Romans. Even then though, Wright makes the presupposition that the Old Testament projects Jesus, and fails to consider the possibility that Jesus in the New Testament could be a retrojection of the Old, as has been argued by scholars such as Thomas Brodie. Why don’t Wright, and other scholars of a similar camp, consider this possibility? Because such interpretations threaten the veracity of the group. This is exactly why the aforementioned Brodie was let go from his teaching position at the Dominican Biblical Institute. He argued for reading Jesus and Paul as literary figures, rather than historical ones, and lost his career as a result.

A similar phenomenon exists within translation projects such as when a word like ‘almah in Hebrew is rendered as “young woman” in Isaiah 7:14 instead of “virgin”. Such decisions are often met with considerable backlash and controversy. In the realm of secular scholarship, William Dever was vitriolically critical of Thomas L. Thompson’s monograph Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel writing that he and the Copenhagen minimalists, of which he is a part, were dangers to western civilization. Why such a dramatic reaction? Thompson’s book, using the latest findings from Near Eastern archaeology in and around Palestine, concluded that the veracity of the biblical stories as history was so slim and contradicted the physical evidence to such a significant degree, that the best characterization for the biblical narrative is literary fiction. Even though Dever is a secular scholar, and not necessarily protective of a particular religious interpretation, he is still clutching to his Western civilization, which he perceives to be threatened by the Copenhagen scholars. This should prompt us to reflect on our study of the Bible. Are we willing to submit to whatever we find inside of the text, even if it undercuts the structures we so fervently value? To look for validation inside the Bible is itself an untenable enterprise, to say the least. We cannot ignore Psalm 78 which tells us that not only were our ancestors wicked, we are even worse than them. There is no hope in the present generation, only in those who are yet unborn. It is a projection of the self onto the text, which is problematic. Just as problematic is the reliance on translation to replace the original text. Both typically require non-scriptural terminology to ostensibly explain scripture. The biblical authors had no concept of the West; how could it have anything to do with it? The problem with interpretation is that it is necessarily molded by the reception of the text into the mind, and therefore the thought process, of the reader. The reader is thus equipped to invade the text with ideals from his or her group. To make matters worse, some modern scholars have encouraged this type of presuppositionalism to the point where they flatly concede that an objective interpretation of the text is not possible.

This view was exacerbated by the so-called dialectical school of thought, which sought to combat the dichotomy between the objectivist liberal critical scholars on the one hand and the conservative fundamentalists on the other hand. The thesis of the dialectical theologians such as Karl Barth and Rudolph Bultmann was that, instead of looking for authorial intent, interpreters should first adopt the correct presupposition going into the text. In the words of Bultmann, you had to have a vorverständnis. This amusing German word simply refers to a “pre-understanding”, or an agenda. It is up to the interpreter to develop their presupposition, and what they find in scripture will end up conforming to that understanding. In other words, two interpreters with different presuppositions will end up with two different, but equally valid, results. This is not brought up to denigrate Barth or Bultmann; the latter especially was a brilliant and influential commentator. Rather, it speaks to the fundamental issues of interpretation as posing any real solution towards hearing and teaching the text. Different presuppositions yield interesting results, like the aforementioned examples of differing Jewish and Christian readings of Isaiah 53, but ultimately fail to absorb the text as it was intended to be heard. The Bible was written by somebody, and therefore had to have been written for a purpose to teach something. Writing a corpus of that magnitude in the ancient world, when doing so would be incredibly expensive and impractical, makes it a near certainty that the texts serve an objective purpose. In order to then hear scripture objectively, we must submit to the text by cutting ourselves and our identities out of the equation. Because “interpretation” naturally complicates that process, we must forgo that discipline altogether. When we interpret, we dialogue with the text, which is unacceptable from a Biblical point of view and plainly unhelpful in the simple quest to hear what the text was meant to say. 

Hope for a Solution

The field of lexicography refers to the discipline of compiling lexicons. A lexicographer takes data, which in the case of a Semitic language like Hebrew, is the triliteral root and maps each functional value in alphabetical order. I opt for “functional value” instead of definition because this lexicon is not a traditional Western dictionary. Western dictionaries are based on the concatenative morphology of Indo-European languages in which root words are modified by adding prefixes and suffixes. For instance, the verb “to break” can be rendered to “unbreakable”. You can also have unfixable, undoable, unable, etc. In Semitic languages, instead of having root “words”, we have instead three consonants which change value depending on the vowels in between the consonants. For instance, the famous root kaf taw bet generally refers to writing. In Hebrew, you have katub which is a book or literally, a “writ”. If you wanted to say “he wrote” it would be katab. In Arabic, “book” is kitab and “he wrote” is kataba. You can also nominalize roots into place nouns by adding the mem preposition. Maktab, for example, refers to an office. These same triliterals often transpose across the Semitic language family, in a similar way to how root words find commonality among Indo-European languages. The Hittite language was deciphered just by comparing it with extant Indo-European languages. Friedrich Hrozny was the Orientalist who discovered that the hieroglyphs were Indo-European, by recognizing common root words for water and bread. From even the smallest breakthrough, he was able to piece the language together with the help of its relatives. This necessitated what the Qur’anic scholar Sam Gerrans refers to as a “pan-textual” analysis. A pan-textual analysis in this context is simply using the text itself to define the words based on context and function. In the context of Semitic languages, this pan-textual analysis begins with the available occurrences in the Hebrew Bible first, and only when that is exhausted, should Arabic, Ugaritic, and other sister languages be consulted. On Gerrans’ website, quranite.com, there is a search bar that allows someone to look up terminology in the Qur’an by triliteral root. From there, a new page pops up that presents every occurrence of that root with grammatical explanations available for the different verbal and noun forms. There is also a link to several lexicons, like the famous one compiled by Edward William Lane. Lane’s Lexicon is also ordered by triliteral root, and each root has one section dedicated to nouns and another for verbs. Another great resource is a website and mobile app called the Qur’an Study App. Similar to the others, it also allows one to study Qur’anic vocabulary by triliteral root. When it offers definitions, it does so across the gamut of the root’s full usage. For example, the root ‘ayin, ba, ra (‘abara) is presented as: to cross; interpret; state clearly; pass over; consider; ponder; take into account; get experience from; take warning; regard; warning; example; instructive warning; learn a lesson. This root corresponds to the Hebrew root ayin bet resh, and makes up the verb ‘abar (to cross or transgress), the noun ‘ibri (Hebrew), or the proper noun ‘eber (Eber, the ancestor of Abraham). Unfortunately, Hebrew lexicons tend to treat each one of these as separate vocabulary, despite all of them being consonantally identical and deriving from the same root. This causes the Hebrew student to miss out on the connection between these vocalizations of the triliteral. In contrast, let’s look at another root on the Qur’an Study App. The triliteral ha, waw, dal is laid out as the following: to be guided; return to one's duty gently; to creep; crawl; repentance; turn in repentance; a Jew (as in Yehudi); and the Prophet Hud. Here the resource at hand demonstrates a possible relationship between the Prophet Hud in the Qur’an and the Yehudi, or the Jews. Students of Hebrew would greatly benefit from this same type of resource, but as it stands now, such a program does not seem to exist. Instead, every vocabulary word is organized separately, usually following the numerical values of Strong’s Concordance. 

To better grasp the importance of lexicography, it would be helpful to quickly outline the history of this discipline. It began within the intellectual renaissance of Medieval Spain, in the Umayyad stronghold of Al-Andalus. The region of Al-Andalus was home to a major Jewish population who simply could not survive as Jews in Christian Europe. While life under Islamic rule was never "perfect," Jews generally experienced significant freedom, which contributed to their intellectual growth during what historians refer to as a "golden age" of medieval Jewry. In Spain, Jewish scholars made significant strides in fields such as science, mathematics, philosophy, theology, esoteric spirituality, and notably, lexicography. The pinnacle of Al-Andalus's intellectual achievements was its collection of Hebrew dictionaries and grammar textbooks, pioneering works that remain unmatched in many respects. Although previous groups had explored philosophy and theology, the Andalusian Jews were the first to systematically analyze the Hebrew language down to its triliteral roots. The earliest grammarian to undertake this kind of study was Judah ben David Hayyuj. As orientalist Morris Jastrow observes,

The influence exerted by Hayyuj upon his age was profound. Through his theory that all Hebrew stems consist of no less than three consonants and his recognition of the fact that the four vowel letters form ingredient parts of the stem, he cleared up the difficulties which the grammarians preceding him encountered when discussing the irregular verbs in Hebrew. Whatever may be the verdict regarding his fundamental proposition, when viewed in light of modern science, the impetus given by him to a methodical and rational study of Hebrew grammar resulted in the production during the following centuries, of an extensive grammatical literature — in Arabic and Hebrew — that is sharply marked off by a superior scientific spirit, from that produced before the days of Hayyuj. 

Hayyuj revolutionized the way Semitic languages in general are studied since they all more or less utilize the same root system. According to Jastrow, many of the grammatical terms still employed by Hebrew scholars stem back to his treatises on verbs. One of Hayyuj’s most prominent students was Abu al-Walid Marwan ibn Janah. Abu al-Walid made his contribution to triconsonantal theory with his book, Kitab al-Usul (the Book of Roots). This treatise included a list of the roughly 2,000 unique triliterals in the Hebrew language, with Arabic commentary studying the various functions the triliterals entail. The work is incredibly exhaustive and he spent much of his career defending Hayyuj’s thesis and furthering the scholarship in his own writings. As Adolf Neubauer writes of Abu al-Walid,

If Hayyuj is rightly called ‘the father of grammarians,’ Abu ’l-Walid deserves undoubtedly to be called ‘the father of the lexigraphers’. In fact his predecessors, such as Rabbi Sa‘adyah Gaon, M’nahem ben Saruq, David ben Abraham, and others, having no knowledge of the system of triliteral roots discovered by  Hayyuj gave very inexact lexicographical notions. Ibn Janah was, besides, an accomplished Arabic scholar, and hence his dictionary is of the highest value for the purpose of comparing Hebrew and Arabic roots. 

Another scholar who made much progress in this field was David ben Abraham al-Fasi who wrote the Kitab Jami al-Alfaz (The Book of Collected Meanings). This was a comparative dictionary of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic triliterals. In a similar vein, Abu Ibrahim Ishaq ibn Barun did his own lexicographical work in his “Book of Comparison between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages”. This intense scholarly work focused on hundreds of equivalent Hebrew and Arabic triliterals. The import of this work cannot be overstated, because he was a pioneer in outlining the links between the two languages, and therefore a pioneer in outlining the links between the Bible and the Qur’an. The Islamic culture of Al-Andalus provided a cultural and linguistic milieu that provided a gold mine for Jewish scholars to study their scriptures. Being bilingual in Hebrew and Arabic, and possibly trilingual in the case of Aramaic, they were equipped with a deep understanding of both scriptures. Modern scholarship has often downplayed or just outright ignored the use of Arabic in Hebrew studies. If it is addressed at all, it is only to provide additional examples but is hardly invoked to disambiguate difficult passages. Most Hebrew students don’t even learn Arabic while at school, and barely study the Hebrew language itself beyond the basics. This presents a huge problem with understanding the Hebrew text as it was written. The fact is, Hebrew is a Semitic language and all extant Semitic languages use the same system of roots. The mutual correspondence among them is also quite high. Because Hebrew is so limited (the Bible being the only real source for the language), there are so many ambiguities within the language that can only be solved with help from other similar languages. An example of this at play was the work of Mitchell Dahood in his exegesis of the Psalms. There, he incorporated his knowledge of Ugaritic, an ancient Semitic language closely related to Hebrew and Arabic, in his disambiguation of certain passages. As such, he revolutionized the use of Ugaritic in Biblical studies, and many scholars have followed suit ever since. This holistic study of Semitic languages in biblical scholarship really isn’t a new phenomenon. In the 19th century, this type of work was extremely common among German orientalists. The foremost lexicographer during this period was Wilhelm Gesenius, who produced the monumental “Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon”, which became the source of the famous Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) dictionary. Gesenius, inspired by the Spanish grammarians, employed Abu al-Walid’s comparative methodology. He was an incredibly learned Semitic philologist who employed a strictly scientific, nonreligiously compromised study of the language. In this sense, he furthered the mission of Hayyuj discussed above. His main field was the ancient Phoenician language, but on top of Hebrew, he was also highly educated in Arabic, Aramaic, and Ethiopian (Ge’ez). Very seldom does he discuss a Hebrew word without referencing a correspondence in one of these languages. On top of Gesenius’ monumental work, Franz Delitzsh of the Keil and Delitzsch Commentary Series was another powerhouse in the field of Semitic languages. The introduction to the series features an entire crash course on Semitic languages and how they work in Semitic triliterals. He also frequently invokes Arabic and other Semitic languages in his exegesis. Another important 19th-century scholar was Arabist Alfred Guillaume who also produced a book on Hebrew/Arabic lexicography, again emulating the comparative method of Ibn Janah and Ibn Barun. Today, this type of scholarship is quite rare. It has been revitalized by scholars like Paul Nadim Tarazi and his pupil, Iskandar Abou-Chaar who wrote a fantastic commentary on Isaiah 40–55, utilizing his native Arabic in his exegesis of character names and other relevant words. Abou Chaar represents the hope for closer investigation of the Hebrew language, utilizing Arabic to provide a greater depth of understanding. Lexicography is precisely what biblical scholarship needs right now, as narratives and ideologies pervade the scholarly landscape. Lexicography provides a much-needed scientific and “objective” matrix of scholarship that anyone, no matter their creedal orientation, can equally participate in. Semitic languages offer an immensely robust pool of semantic depth that could greatly elevate our understanding of the Bible, as well as the Qur’an. The two complement each other in that way. Biblical scholarship benefits from knowledge of the Qur’an and how Arabic is used therein, and Qur’anic scholarship would benefit from the Bible and how Hebrew established the terminology found in the Qur’an. In the present day when the Jewish and Islamic worlds appear to be at their most hostile, the emphasis on the immense common ground that these two traditions share could not be overstated. This group includes the vast array of Semitic Christians, from the Ethiopians and Eritreans in Africa, to the Coptic, Arab, and Syrian Christians in the Middle East. This is work that all of them can do, despite their theological traditions. This is something that the Jews, Christians, and Muslims of the Middle East intimately share. Compare this with the divisive theological debates of the Christians in the first millennia and beyond. The council of Nicea defined the doctrine of the Trinity and upheld Christ’s divinity. In order to do so, they had to use nonscriptural terminology like homoousios. That way they could effectively communicate that Jesus was of the same essence as his Father, and yet distinct in identity or hypostasis. This wasn’t the end of the controversy however, because the next question became “how divine is Jesus, and how human is he?” Can his mother be called “the Mother of God”? After that was solved, the next controversy questioned whether Christ has one will or two wills. Was it possible for Christ, as God, to suffer? And what resulted from this increasingly abstract and arbitrary exercise was an immensely divided Christian East by the seventh century, where persecutions were common against dissenters; the Massacre of the Maronites in 517 being one of the most heinous during that period. This was all due to the inclusion of just one non-scriptural word into the Creed, and devolved into chaos from there. In contrast to Theology, lexicography has the advantage of only using scriptural terminology. 

In speaking more about Abou-Chaar’s contributions, I would like to lay out in more detail how he provides a model for biblical studies moving forward. First of all, his book Rereading Isaiah 40-55 is germane due to the previous discussion of the suffering servant earlier in the paper. From my estimation, he has the most robust, lexicographically informed exegesis of not only the suffering servant, but how Isaiah’s parable undercuts the entirety of scripture. His presentation of Isaiah 40–55 is the most comprehensive treatment of Isaiah’s literary intentions in presenting the suffering servant as precisely Israel’s punishment for their iniquity. Instead of punishing them unto destruction, God punishes them unto instruction by making them a byword and a parable amongst the nations. 

You have made us a byword (Heb. משל mashal — parable, example, proverb) among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples. — Ps. 44:14

That word משל is incredibly important because it describes essentially a story told to send a message (or, in other words, a fable). The Qur’anic equivalent is the word مثل mathal from the same triliteral root. The letters ש shin and ث tha are functional equivalents despite the difference in sound. The Qur’an study app defines the root as so: to resemble; imitate; compare any one with; be or look like; bear a likeness; like; similar; resemblance; equivalent; similitude; parable; example; proverb; lesson; case; condition; argument; reason; comparison; sign; exemplary punishment; ideal; superior; images; statues;

This relentless airing of Israel’s sins to the nations is their punishment, that through their suffering of this ridicule, they might be a cautionary tale to their neighbors — the goal being that the nations learn from Israel’s failures, and seek out the one and only El ‘Olam, the everlasting God. In Isaiah’s presentation, this parable takes the form of a personified sacrificial lamb whom God leads to utter destruction as a recompense for Israel’s guilt. This sacrificial lamb does not fight against God’s will, as Israel did, even though God is leading him directly to his brutal execution. In this story, a metaphor concocted by Isaiah, the servant takes upon himself the guilt of Jacob and gets Israel “off the hook”. He is thus functionally equivalent to the scapegoat in the book of Leviticus and the ram God provides for Abraham to sacrifice, in lieu of his son Isaac. One of the more impressive insights from Abou-Chaar’s book is his exploration of the name “Abraham”. The name appears to be a combination of the word אב ab — father and the triliteral root רהם rhm. Since רהם does not have a value in the Hebrew Bible outside of Abraham’s name, many scholars have attempted to disambiguate it with the corresponding root in Arabic. Gesenius and Delitzsch, among others, likened it to the Arabic word ruhaam meaning “of a large number”, which makes textual sense given that Abraham is given his name to be the father of a multitude of nations. Lane’s Lexicon actually associates this value with the vocalization “arham”, and instead defines both rahaam and ruhaam as “a weak or emaciated lamb or goat”. Abou-Chaar follows Lane in his exegesis, to fascinating results. This also fits the context, especially concerning the suffering servant and Isaac in Genesis 22. In Isaiah, Abraham and Sarah are said to be the parents of the servant himself. 

Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him. — Isa 51:2

If Abraham is the father of the servant, then that makes the servant the “raham” and therefore, the weak lamb/goat sent to the slaughter. Isaac is set up to be this raham, but he is spared at the last minute and replaced by the ram.

He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. — Gen 22:12–13

It is interesting that Isaac’s name means “he will laugh”. The name comes from the phrase, ויצחק wayiṣḥaq — and he laughed from Genesis 17:17. The verb has a past-tense connotation because of the waw consecutive, but without it, as in the case of the name יצחק yiṣḥaq, we have the imperfect and thus “future” connotation. It is as if Isaac, emblematic of the promise, himself is a bit of a joke. The joke being that Israel is spared from destruction on the one hand, but must instead go through the unpleasant experience of being publicly shamed before their enemies. This is the “promise” that will ensure that Abraham becomes the father of a multitude of nations. 

From here, the experienced hearer will recognize how the New Testament co-opted Isaiah’s parable and applied it to Christ. Christ, like Isaiah’s suffering servant, takes the shame and the guilt of Israel and bares them in full view of the gentiles, elevated on a cross for his enemies to abuse and mock him. On the cross, he takes the sinner’s place. And while the sinner is let off the hook when it comes to destruction, he is not off the hook in sharing the shame of the cross. 

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. – Matt. 16:24-25

Consider also the verse,

and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. – Matt. 10:22

Likewise, Paul also says he has been crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20) and that he bears his marks (Gal 6:17). It is Christ crucified that Paul preached, and at the Eucharistic table of fellowship it is his death that we proclaim (1 Cor. 11:26). This type of exegesis, with lexicography at the fore, solves the issue between Jewish and Christian readings of Isaiah 40-55. The solution is simple. Isaiah allegorizes the dark sayings against Israel as a personified sacrificial lamb, and the New Testament applies that allegory to Jesus. The Jew must bear the shame of having their dirty laundry aired before their enemies and Christians must bear the shame of a defeated and crucified Messiah. In either case, the suffering servant is really the ego of Israel. In the way that Abraham had to be willing to let go of his progeny, Israel has to let go of their desire to be a mighty kingdom like Egypt or Babylon. By the first century, the Jerusalemite elite transferred this desire into a Messianic expectation that would conquer the Romans and propel the Jews into wordly prosperity. They had to have this Messianic hope dashed, by being presented with a Messiah modeled after the rahaam of Isaiah. When lexicography is the focus, both parties can do the same work without the pressure of aligning with a group’s interpretation. I must also mention that Isaiah’s suffering servant appears in the Qur’an, in the story of Abraham being commanded to sacrifice his son. As it is in the Biblical narrative, Abraham is stopped by an angel and a ram is set as a replacement. Abraham’s son is off the hook. To this day, Muslims celebrate the holiday Eid al-Adha which commemorates God’s mercy to Abraham, by sending the ram due to the Prophet’s willingness to let go of his desired progeny. It is also worth noting that during the Hajj, Muslim men will shave their heads after Eid al-Adha and women will cut their hair. We can see how truly influential Isaiah’s parable was for the entire Abrahamic world. Like the scholars of Al-Andalus, Jews, Christians, and Muslims can do this work and retain their unique identities. I am not advocating for a melting pot, which seeks to enforce conformity and assimilation, like the infamous Borg Collective from Star Trek. The Pauline school did not seek to create a melting pot, but an open table of fellowship where the uncircumcised Titus and the circumcised Timothy could both break bread and proclaim One God and One Lord. There is no room for arrogance or identity politics in Biblical studies. I would like to leave with one of my favorite quotes from Abou-Chaar’s book. 

To use terms such as “eastern tradition” and “western tradition,” and try to adjudicate between them and partition roles cannot but betray that we are still talking about private enclosures and not about an open arena; we are talking about our ego, or better, our superego, and not about the texts. When we do this, we bring to naught the convocation intended by the texts. This is particularly the case with regard to the texts of the Isa 40–55 school. They aspire to convoke a heteroclite group.

In this pursuit, we must forego the sectarianism that is basic to interpretation, and embrace lexicography as our only hope out of this impasse. When we use terminology only found in scripture, we find that it does not discriminate between our sectarian groups. It admonishes us all. From the words of the Apostle in his letter to the Galatians, πρόσωπον ὁ Θεὸς ἀνθρώπου οὐ λαμβάνει – God does not receive the face of man, i.e. he shows no partiality.