Fifth, from an ignorance of Hebrew poetry.
Fifth, from an ignorance of Hebrew poetry.
§ 349. (V) From an ignorance of Hebrew poetry. “The nature of poetry—in which Psalms, Lamentations, and Job were written—lay in the number, quantity, and quality of vowels.” Josephus, Antiquit., bk. 7, c. 10: “If pointed Bibles would use the same vowels as David and the rest of the psalm writers used, how would it have been able to happen that the nature of poetry is not known to us?” We respond. (1) If poetry once was judged on the basis of their vowels, then those vowels did appear in the biblical books, at least in some of them. (2) From this argument, one could infer that our Bible has vowel points completely different from those with which the books of the psalmwriters once were read and that therefore, because the genuine ones were removed, we would have alien vowel points in the poetic books. (3) Vowels have a twofold purpose: first, to aid reading and give it life, so to speak; second, to show the nature of poetry. Therefore, though with respect to the latter function the use of vowels is not known precisely to us today, yet one cannot conclude from this that with respect to the former function the vowels do not have the same function as they once had. (4) From this very thing let them recognize the faithless guardianship of tradition through which the actual use of vowels in explaining the nature of poetry ought to have been taught to us. But if, then, the preservation of the vowel points is reputed to have been accepted solely by tradition, anyone understands easily how it is said to have been accepted by a faithless guardian and how slippery a foundation is established for our religion. (5) With the Hebrews, the nature of poetry consists not solely of vowels and their quantity but also on the accents and inflection of words through the consonants.