The Likeness of a Donkey Carrying Books?

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, ...¹

While proofreading Sam Shamoun's rebuttal (*) to one of Ibn Anwar's attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity, I discovered that this Muslim ‘scholar’ had added an appendix to his article for the purpose of informing the world² about his proficiency in a multitude of languages:

Appendix

It is not ‘pluralis majestas’ as you said in your latest reply Rev. Tony Costa. The original term is pluralis maiestatis(its modern spelling is pluralis majestatis) , das majastatische wir in German and רִבּוּי הַכֹּחוֹת in Hebrew.

One can also find the concept of the majestic plural in Arabic e.g. kaifa halukum? which means how are you? with the masculine plural ending(dhammir muttasil) instead of the singular masculine ending ka used when addressing someone of status.

Although it is true that Tony Costa misspelled³ the Latin name for the "royal we" or "majestic plural" (*), Ibn Anwar's mis-correction or disimprovement⁴ contains quite a bit of involuntary irony because the Muslim author exposed not only his ignorance in regard to spelling certain words but also the fact that he has not even understood the meaning of the term pluralis maiestatis.

Being German, Ibn Anwar's error in German was the first thing to catch my attention, but after starting to scrutinize his claims in this appendix the errors started to multiply before my eyes.

The fact that Tony Costa had written ‘pluralis majestas’ instead of ‘pluralis maiestatis’ was simply a spelling mistake that was entirely inconsequential for the discussion of the issue. One could have corrected Rev. Costa, or one could simply have ignored the matter since it has no implication whatsoever for the interpretation of the Hebrew text. Ibn Anwar, however, apparently thought that this was the perfect occasion to not only correct Tony Costa but to show off his own "superior knowledge" and establish himself before his audience as somebody who knows many languages. Well, talk about shooting yourself in the foot....

Had Ibn Anwar simply corrected his debate opponent's spelling of the Latin expression and left it at that, everything would have been okay, although it would have been a most trivial appendix. For whatever reason, Ibn Anwar felt he "had to" repeat the expression also in other languages which he clearly does not understand (either). He writes:

The original term is pluralis maiestatis(its modern spelling is pluralis majestatis) , das majastatische wir in German and רִבּוּי הַכֹּחוֹת in Hebrew.

First, let's start with a couple of rather trivial observations: Apart from the sloppy formatting apparent in the italicizing of the parentheses, the rule is to put a space after a punctuation mark (e.g. a comma, period, or question mark) but certainly never before a comma. Moreover, Ibn Anwar consistently fails to put a space before an opening parenthesis in order to separate it from the word before it.

Second, the proper German spelling is "das majestätische Wir". Ibn Anwar got two letters wrong (exactly as many as Tony Costa left out in his spelling of the Latin expression). In addition, he did not put "wir" in the upper case though this is necessary in German since it is preceded by the definite article (das) which turns the pronoun into a noun.

Third, he used the wrong word in Hebrew. The word רִבּוּי means⁵ "plural of", but the word הַכֹּחוֹת means "power", not "majesty". Ribu-i hacochot doesn't mean plural of majesty but plural of power (ko’ach).

The technical term commonly used by Hebrew linguists⁶ is ריבוי מלכותי (ribu-i malchuti) which literally translated means "the plural of royalty".

Let's take a look at the second paragraph in Ibn Anwar's appendix:

After Ibn Anwar had already misspelled the German expression and applied his "copy and paste" procedure to the wrong Hebrew word,⁷ he finally revealed his ignorance about the concept of the plural of majesty in his comments on Arabic (of all languages).

Did Ibn Anwar ever read about a "royal YOU"? Can he provide a reference to a scholarly article discussing such a concept? The plural of majesty isn't called "the royal WE" (in English) or "das majestätische WIR" (in German) for nothing. It always refers to the use of the first person plural by an individual (singular) speaker. It has nothing to do with addressing other individuals in the plural.

Many languages have a plural of respect, and Ibn Anwar has given an example for this feature in Arabic. The plural of respect means that the speaker addresses a single individual in the plural in order to express his respect for this person (cf. the Wikipedia entry on T-V distinction).

However, the plural of respect is a feature of addressing some OTHER person, i.e. the plural pronoun refers to another (second) person. In contrast to that, the plural of majesty is self-referential, i.e. the speaker refers to himself in the plural, the first person plural.

Therefore, this paragraph exposes that Ibn Anwar has not even properly understood the concept or he would not have confused these two issues.

When trying to school others one should make sure that one actually knows what one is talking about, although it is certainly not the first time that arrogance and ignorance are happily married.

Excursus: And he does not even know Latin!

Although Ibn Anwar ventured to correct Costa's Latin spelling – an achievement that does not need more skill than the ability to perform a Google search or look up an entry in Wikipedia – the following two statements expose that Ibn Anwar doesn't know Latin either – not even the most elementary facts.

When the verses place such an emphasis on the Holy Spirit the other two are lowered in distinction. What this means is that the Holy Spirit is more important than both the Father and the Son so much so that if you blaspheme it you will NEVER be forgiven. The Trinity formula then should be changed to in nomine spiritus, et petris, et fili or in the name 'the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son' as opposed to the standard established formula the 'Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit' with the most important(according to the verses discussed) in the last position. It should occupy the first position! (Source; underline emphasis mine)⁸

The correct original formula is: In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

I will not debate Ibn Anwar's exceedingly silly argument for changing the sequence, but note what happened to these Latin words as a result of attempt to rearrange their order! Spiritus Sancti (of the Holy Spirit) lost the second half of the name, leaving only Spiritus (Spirit). Patris (of the Father) turned into petris (with or by rocks), and Filii was truncated to fili, losing its genitive ending. That happens when people juggle words without understanding.⁹

Moreover, in another article Ibn Anwar writes:

They're talking about what is called tacit(silent) approval or qui tacit consentit in Latin.¹⁰

Admittedly, this particular Latin phrase is misspelled thousandfold on the web.¹¹ The correct spelling is: Qui tacet consentit. It means: Who remains silent consents.

There are different conjugations in Latin and these two verbs, tacere and consentire, belong to different conjugations. The third person singular forms in the present tense of these verbs are tacet and consentit. The English word "tacit" is derived from the Latin verb, but it is not spelled identically to this particular verb form. [End of the excursus.]

Ibn Anwar loves to drop foreign language phrases, perhaps hoping that this might make him appear educated, but more often than not he uses them incorrectly or spells them wrongly, exposing his foundational ignorance about these languages.

In fact, if Ibn Anwar has not even properly understood the simple concept of pluralis maiestatis, how can we believe he actually studied with comprehension the scholarly books that he lists as references at the bottom of his article (*)?

Jochen Katz

P.S.: I expect that Ibn Anwar will quickly correct those highly embarrassing errors but the above presented quotations from his articles are accurate as of 17 October 2009. Even if Ibn Anwar corrects these blunders, this article will remain online as a public reminder to be more careful in the future. Applying "copy and paste" or juggling some words in a foreign language is not the same as a good education nor is it a substitute for the hard work that is needed to achieve genuine scholarship.

Appendix: Identifying the source of Ibn Anwar's Hebrew expression

After I had already finished the above article, I found the source of Ibn Anwar's alleged Hebrew expression for "plural of majesty". A Google search on 14 October 2009 for the exact phrase "רִבּוּי הַכֹּחוֹת" resulted in two distinct texts in which this expression is found online: Ibn Anwar's article and a footnote in the 1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, p. 398. Although Google is not omniscient, that is a pretty good indication of how obscure this expression truly is. Here is the text of this footnote:

² The Jewish grammarians call such plurals רִבּוּי הַכֹּחוֹת‎ plur. virium or virtutum; later grammarians call them plur. excellentiae, magnitudinis, or plur. maiestaticus. This last name may have been suggested by the we used by kings when speaking of themselves (cf. already 1 Macc. 10:19, 11:31); and the plural used by God in Gn 1:26, 11:7, Is 6:8 has been incorrectly explained in this way. It is, however, either communicative (including the attendant angels; so at all events in Is 6:8, cf. also Gn 3:22), or according to others, an indication of the fullness of power and might implied in אֱלֹהִים‎ (see Dillmann on Gn 1:26); but it is best explained as a plural of self-deliberation. The use of the plural as a form of respectful address is quite foreign to Hebrew. (Source; footnote 2 at the very bottom of the page)

In fact, a comparison of different editions of this grammar book reveals that the reference to the Jewish grammarians and the specific expression "רִבּוּי הַכֹּחוֹת" originates with Emil Rödiger who took over as the editor of the original German version of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar after the death of the author. This particular remark did not yet exist in the last edition that was prepared by Gesenius himself, see footnote ***) at the bottom of page 192 of the 13th edition that was published in 1842. Gesenius died on 23 October 1842. However, it appears in the footnote at the bottom of page 225 of the 17th edition prepared by E. Rödiger (published in 1854),¹² and this footnote clearly is an expansion of Gesenius' original footnote.

This means that this Hebrew expression was inserted into Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar somewhere between 1843 and 1854 by Emil Rödiger but it was apparently not relevant enough to be mentioned anywhere else since then, which amounts to a whopping 150 years already.

Interestingly, this specific footnote is quoted online on many pages discussing the Trinity, and it is quoted by both proponents and opponents of this doctrine. On 14 October 2009, Google claims to know of some 12,500 pages containing a quotation of this particular footnote,¹³ but those quotations are always leaving out the Hebrew term, replacing it by three dots.

Nobody seems to have had any use for this alleged Hebrew expression ... until Ibn Anwar thought it would be awesome to copy it into his article to show off.¹⁴

Ibn Anwar apparently copied this Hebrew phrase without much understanding of its meaning, or the meaning of the footnote in which it was embedded. In particular, he did not realize that this expression is not one in current use. When Rödiger writes:

Then the term "later grammarians" already refers to the past. Moreover, Rödiger wrote this statement more than 150 years ago. This implies that "Jewish grammarians" belongs to a time dating even before the "later grammarians". Are we looking at a statement about ancient or classical or medieval Jewish grammarians? Does it refer to a time frame before Christ, or to the time of the codification of the Talmud (ca. 500 AD), or to the Middle Ages (900-1400 AD)? Certainly it is not about contemporary Jewish grammarians. This should have been a hint to Ibn Anwar that this is not current terminology used for referring to the plural of majesty in Hebrew as he apparently understood it.¹⁵

Moreover, this whole section in Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar from which this footnote is taken is a discussion of the plural of nouns¹⁶ while the pluralis maiestatis refers to pronouns (cf. the definitions given here: 1, 2). In a nutshell: The plural of majesty means speaking in the first person plural form instead of the first person singular, but nouns don't have a "first person", only verbs and pronouns do. That is probably the reason why the footnote hints at the fact that this is an unfortunate formulation, confusing proper terminology:

The Jewish grammarians call such plurals רִבּוּי הַכֹּחוֹת‎ plur. virium or virtutum; later grammarians call them plur. excellentiae, magnitudinis, or plur. maiestaticus. This last name may have been suggested by the we used by kings when speaking of themselves (cf. already 1 Macc. 10:19, 11:31); and the plural used by God in Gn 1:26, 11:7, Is 6:8 has been incorrectly explained in this way. ... The use of the plural as a form of respectful address is quite foreign to Hebrew.

Context is important. What does "such plurals" and "call them" refer to? The text of §124 discusses how to understand plural forms of various nouns. Apparently some people transferred the name pluralis maiestatis or maiestaticus, which properly refers to pronouns (we), to nouns. We can find that terminology used even in the main text of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, but it is not precise language.

Interestingly, the very next sentence in the footnote states:

... and the plural used by God in Gn 1:26, 11:7, Is 6:8 has been incorrectly explained in this way.

And those passages are important in the discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity (cf. The Plural of Majesty). It is not the word Elohim from which the Trinity is derived; the more important aspect is the use of plural pronouns.

Highly ironic is the connection of the last sentence of the footnote with the second paragraph of Ibn Anwar's appendix. The footnote explicitly states:

... later grammarians call them plur. excellentiae, magnitudinis, or plur. maiestaticus. This last name may have been suggested by the we used by kings when speaking of themselves ... The use of the plural as a form of respectful address is quite foreign to Hebrew.

What does that mean? Even though the term plur. maiestaticus is used for certain features of the Hebrew language, it obviously does not refer to the "use of the plural as a form of respectful address" because that is not a feature of Biblical Hebrew. This footnote makes it quite clear that these two are two different concepts. Nevertheless, Ibn Anwar exposes his ignorance on the matter by using an example of the "plural of respect" in Arabic to illustrate the concept of the plural of majesty:

And he does so despite the fact that he utilized this footnote twice in his article! He not only quote-mined the footnote for the alleged Hebrew expression for "plural of majesty", but he also referred to it in these words:

... It is noteworthy that Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar disagrees with the second option and opts for the first which is described in the book as ”plural of self-deliberation” . [3]

[3] E. Kautzch, A.E. Crowley.¹⁷ Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, 2nd English Ed. (1910 & 1976). London, England: Oxford University Press. p. 398

This expression is found in the footnote directly before the statement on the non-existence of the plural of respect in Hebrew:

... the plural used by God in Gn 1:26, 11:7, Is 6:8 has been incorrectly explained in this way. It is, however, either communicative (including the attendant angels; so at all events in Is 6:8, cf. also Gn 3:22), or according to others, an indication of the fullness of power and might implied in אֱלֹהִים‎ (see Dillmann on Gn 1:26); but it is best explained as a plural of self-deliberation. The use of the plural as a form of respectful address is quite foreign to Hebrew.

Clearly, Ibn Anwar is not using his sources with much understanding. He is "carrying" weighty books, but he does not comprehend them or follow their instructions, justifying the use of the quranic phrase as title of this article.