[July 2006 journal entry]
‘Truly’ and ‘genuinely’ seem to capture the way the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm makes its confirmation inevitable – i.e., by shifting blame to the pretenders. To be ‘truly innocent’ and ‘genuinely upright’ would be to accept and defend the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm. Peterson reinforces this point with “ever ended up on the scrapheap” (RSV’s ‘perished’) and “ever lose out in the end” (RSV’s ‘cut off’). The Hebrew word for ‘perish’ appears frequently in the story/play (3:3, 4:9, 4:11, 4:20, 6:18, 8:13, 11:20, 18:17, 20:7, 29:13, 30:2, 31:19 are all in the active voice; 12:23, intensive; 14:19, causative). The word is a general word for ‘die’. But ‘cut off’ (cf. 15:28, 22:20 in the active; 6:10, 15:18, 27:11 in the intensive; 20:12 in the causative) has more the meaning of ‘being hidden’. By using these two words together, to perish takes on the idea of vanishing (3:3, 18:7, 30:2).
‘Truly’ and ‘genuinely’ seem to capture the way the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm makes its confirmation inevitable – i.e., by shifting blame to the pretenders. To be ‘truly innocent’ and ‘genuinely upright’ would be to accept and defend the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm. Peterson reinforces this point with “ever ended up on the scrapheap” (RSV’s ‘perished’) and “ever lose out in the end” (RSV’s ‘cut off’). The Hebrew word for ‘perish’ appears frequently in the story/play (3:3, 4:9, 4:11, 4:20, 6:18, 8:13, 11:20, 18:17, 20:7, 29:13, 30:2, 31:19 are all in the active voice; 12:23, intensive; 14:19, causative). The word is a general word for ‘die’. But ‘cut off’ (cf. 15:28, 22:20 in the active; 6:10, 15:18, 27:11 in the intensive; 20:12 in the causative) has more the meaning of ‘being hidden’. By using these two words together, to perish takes on the idea of vanishing (3:3, 18:7, 30:2).
