Dehistoricized speakers

Saussure says that speakers know almost nothing about the history of the words they speak, and this means that “the linguist who wishes to understand a state must discard all knowledge of everything that produced it and ignore diachrony. He can enter the mind of speakers only by completely suppressing the past. The intervention of history can only falsify his judgment.”

Moises Silva goes on to apply Saussure to biblical studies by saying that “speakers of a language simply know next to nothing about its development; and this certainly was the case with the writers and immediate readers of Scripture two millennia ago.” Even scholars who know the history of a language don’t have that history in mind when they speak in normal conversation. Thus, “our real interest is the significance of Greek or Hebrew in the consciousness of the biblical writers,” and this means that “historical considerations are irrelevant.”

Let’s concede that Saussure is right about most speakers in most languages. But is that a fair comparison to what the biblical writers are doing? Ancient writers show a playful interest in etymologies, from Socrates in the Cratylus to Pindar’s Odes to this from Plutarch: “the priests, called Pontifices . . . . have the name of Pontifices from potens , powerful, because they attend the service of the gods, who have power and command over all. Others make the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all the duties possible to them; if any thing lay beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled at. The most common opinion is the most absurd, which derives this word from pons, and assigns the priests the title of bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached, like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood.”

Now, the question is, Are the Biblical writers more like everyday speakers or more like the literate writers of Greece and Rome? Are they engaged in an exercise in everyday speech? One might make such a case for NT epistles (though one needs to make the case), but the authors of the OT show interest in word histories (“what is now called prophet was then called seer”) and punning etymologies (e.g., the names of the 12 sons of Jacob). These examples are hardly decisive, but they raise a question mark over Silva’s direct application of Saussure to biblical studies.