Browsing by Author "van Wyk, Koot"
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Item 2 Samuel 24(General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2013-02-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this study was to produce a devotional commentary on 2 Samuel to be put online by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for the public.
Item 2 Samuel 7(General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2013-01-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this study was to produce a devotional commentary on 2 Samuel to be put online by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for the public.
Item A Conversational and Compositional Grid for Freshman University Students(2015-03-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this paper is to put together a tool for Freshman University Students with an ESL level, which will assist them to avoid errors in syntax precision and sentence generation. Both these aspects are problematic for students with a SOV language as mother-tongue who then have to produce with a SVO challenge. When their own language is a post-positional language as opposed to English as a prepositional language, that situation may complicate matters for these students even more. The grid is designed in such a way to allow the student to start from the left and work his way to the right selecting one item from the list constructing a meaningful communication as he/she goes along. The overall intention is towards greater precision and correctness, raising the level of accuracy in syntax and other grammatical aspects. The grammar selected for this purpose is the traditional grammar chosen for its simplicity, stability, and continuity functional in millennia of grammar didactics. The role of transformational-generative grammars are not overlooked but none of the recent grammar approaches in sentence grammar, discourse grammar, HPSG (Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar), universal grammar or syntax grammar could serve the purpose of designing this tool except sequencers or DM (discourse markers) discussed by Heine (2013). The limitation to this study is that the Conversational Grid tool has not been tested yet and that task calls for another future article describing the results of experimentation utilizing this tool.
Item A Conversational and Compositional Grid for Freshman University Students II: Application and Analysis(2015-09-01) van Wyk, Koot; Chung, Andy H. T.Previously a tool was designed for the purpose of improving the standard of the sentence production of Freshman University Students with an ESL low level, which assisted them to avoid errors in syntax precision and sentence generation. The lamenting aspect of the previous article is that the tool was not tested for effectiveness. In this article, the results are presented of applying the tool in a class situation. The focus was on problems that beginners experience in a ESL situation regarding syntax in grammar and whether this tool could help them. A project was designed for the students to watch a small video of a robot-“donkey” designed by Boston Dynamics in their online video. The actions of the robot had to be described by them following the instructions of the teacher as to how to use the grid for each sentence. For 2014 spring semester 10 products of students were selected without instructions how to use the syntax tool as compared to 10 products of students for spring semester 2015 in which the tool was mandatory. In both years the students had to know descriptively, procedurally and processionally. The characteristics of the students were listed, namely gender, major, final grade, ranking in team presentation, and listening TOEIC score. The reason the characteristics were brought to the table surrounding the specimens to be investigated is that every specimen can be “weighed” better and it would also permit more interpretation velocity. The errors were listed and the results demonstrated that there are less syntax errors in 2015 than for 2014 but both researchers felt that ”Further investigation is needed with a larger sample size”. Students were given a questionnaire to indicate their feelings and this was also analyzed. We felt, with reasonable reservation that the Grid has a significant impact on aiding students and that one should continue to improve the current Grid as well as developing Grids for pre-intermediate and advanced students.
Item A Presentation of 4QLXXNum in Comparison with the LXX and MT(2013-10-01) van Wyk, KootTexts from Qumran received attention in publications and research since their discovery. The text under investigation here is no exception. There are some serious questions to consider in relation with this text: What can this Qumran text tell us about the relationship with the consonantal text of the Masoretic Tradition? What can it tell us about its relationship with any of the Ancient Translations? What can it tell us about its relationship with the so-called LXX or Septuagint? And what can it tell us about the condition of the Septuagint in the pre-Christian era? What scholars may not have realized, is that 4QLXXNum is able to tell us something about the conditions of the Hebrew Vorlage in the pre-Christian period related to the existence or not of one canonical perceived and applied text. Textual variety over millennia is no secret nor surprise. Close correlation of texts over millennia is a noteworthy surprise. It appears that 4QLXXNum is the survival of a pre-Antiochus Epiphanes text-form of the Septuagint (pre-164 BCE) which was more literal and in line with the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition than the Greek text-form that survived in post-Epiphanes times through Christian hands. Since 4QLXXNum is aligning so well with the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition (a period of nearly 1148 years) the stability of these two texts calls for a canon form to have existed almost identical to the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition from which the literal translation was made. It implies that this form existed already at Qumran. Any deviation from this standard is later and due to degenerative scholarship. Wevers is correct, he did not reconstruct the original Septuagint of Genesis for the Göttingen edition. He reconstructed the post-Epiphanes degenerative product and what was preserved through Christian hands, and not the original, of which 4QLXXNum is an example.
Item Critical Evaluation of a Smart-phone Movie Project for University Students(2015-02-01) van Wyk, KootSmart-phone movies were utilized for examinations at Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus for the Freshman English Second Language course, and the results were analyzed. Students employed many movie genres: religious influences; sports; reality; news; factual; sitcom; police procedural; horror; traditional fantasy legends; slice of life; military; science fiction; romance; Bildungroman; gangster; instructional genre; and disaster genre.
They worked many hours outside the class producing short English movies with enjoyment. Written content and performance were important for exams. The teacher, as a DSL (Digital Second Language) generation person, was surprised by the DFL (Digital First Language) generation producers. Even though the smart-phone is an excellent motivational tool for young learners, yet looking at the necessity for them to develop a proper philosophy of life one must be aware of the danger to prioritize image above text since it has cognitive implications for the long-term memory and creative aspects of the brain.
The future successful teacher will utilize the mobile-learning utility to make them research with electrical-learning tools enabling them to self-construct through a process of deconstruction and reconstruction with cognitive sensitivity fulfilling the old traditional behavioristic objectives. A literature review notably revealed an upsurge of related studies by Korean scholars recently.
Item Daniel 1(General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2014-08-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this study was to produce a devotional commentary on the Book of Daniel to be put online by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for the public.
Item Daniel 12(General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2014-08-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this study was to produce a devotional commentary on the Book of Daniel to be put online by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for the public.
Item Date-Setting 2300 Evenings and Mornings of Daniel 8:14(2015-01-01) van Wyk, KootThe contirbution of the 65 Koot van Wyk Notes posted between January and December 2015 is related to the fields of textual analysis as opposed to textual criticism at times; devotional commentaries on the Bible; etymological investigations of rare words in the Bible; deviant trends in Adventism; philosophical investigations or positions that are contra biblical and contra Adventism; an analysis of the modern trends since post-modenism in the digi-modernistic period before 911 and thereafter; Bible sermons for laity in a bilingual non-educated context at times; serious research on topics in archaeology like the role of W. Emmerson in Australian Biblical Archaeology and much more. It was found that Emmerson actually started before the main characters of the USA with biblical archaeology but that the dating of the starting point of modern biblical archaeology was chosen to be 1937 by Lloyd WIllis in his Andrews doctorate when Emmerson preceded that date. Evolution is always viewed negative in this research since the evidence is so overwhelming. The main players like Dawkins is looked at also.
Item Evidence of Hindu Religion on the Theory of Chomsky's Transformational Grammar(2015-11-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this paper is to broaden the links to Noam Chomsky, the American linguist in order to show that he is not only a product of his own professors or immediate surroundings, nor from links he willingly made to the 17th-19th century scientists and philosophers but also further back to the Hindu mathematician linguist Panini. Individual studies were made in the past to each of these aspects separately but this paper brings concepts together to form a network of similarity of ideas that stands ultimately in contrast to another reality of understanding, that is, two sets of networks. Panini was a Hindu linguist and the Colonial upsurge in Sanskrit studies brought Westerners in contact with this grammarian. What became clear from this paper is that past history and ideas have a pop-up role to play when scientists are at loss what to do or say in their description of science. The scientist is not working purely empirical but his/her epistemology is subconsciously or unconsciously molded by “prooftext” statements of great minds in the past that aligned with the lifestyle choice of the scientist. Chomsky pulled together in his linguistic description statements from scientists that support his own idea. Understanding Hindu religion better, enabled one to see lines of correspondence with the theory and axioms of Leonard Bloomfield and further, also with that of Noam Chomsky in his design of the Transformational Grammar. Knowing more about Panini and his disciples brought one ultimately to understand the epistemology behind transformational grammars and to realize that the conflict with Traditional Grammar is more than a formal or functional one but rooted deeper in a difference of monotheisitc Judeo-Christian epistemology, on the one side, with deistic philosophies or pantheistic Hindu epistemology on the other.
Item Finding Mordechai at Persepolis(2015-01-01) van Wyk, KootThe Quest for the Historical Mordechai in the Book of Esther is relevant for this reason that Old Persian scholars already found Hammedatha of Esther 3:1 at Persepolis (see W. Hinz 1973). The purpose in this study is to see if a person Mordechai can be found in cuneiform textsconcurrent with the book of Esther. The method is to collect data for the name of Mordechai at the Nippur Texts from the times of Artaxerxes I and Darius II (see H. V. Hilprecht 1904) with the actual reading of sapir Marduka “document of Mordechai” in Aramaic script on the text (Plate 66, Text 121) and similar ones by A. T. Clay in 1912. It was demonstrated that people with the name of Mordechai existed simultaneously with the events of the Book of Esther nearBabylon in the Persian Period. Further results came from added evidence in the PersepolisTreasury Texts with Aramaic on cones published by R. A. Bowman (1970) naming a person with linguistic slips: tmrk, or mtrk or finally relevant for this paper, mrtk from the end of the reign of Xerxes. Curiously, this person disappears on the Persepolis Treasury Texts the same year the Jews left Exile back to Jerusalem under Ezra in 457 BCE. This evidence cannot go unnoticed in the light of historical studies on the Book of Esther.
Item Isaiah 12(General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2014-03-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this study was to produce a devotional commentary on the Book of Isaiah 12-32 to be put online by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for the public.
Item Isaiah 32(General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2014-03-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this study was to produce a devotional commentary on the Book of Isaiah 12-32 to be put online by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for the public.
Item Job 1(General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2013-06-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this study was to produce a devotional commentary on the Book of Job to be put online by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for the public.
Item Job 42(General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2013-08-01) van Wyk, KootThe purpose of this study was to produce a devotional commentary on the Book of Job to be put online by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for the public.
Item Pastoral Sheep or Sheepish Pastors?(2014-07-01) van Wyk, KootThe goal in each writing is to investigate the original sources as careful as possible to enhance the quality of the research. A number of articles are new discoveries or presenting surprising confirmation to old truths already known in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. One can term these articles “Affirmatory” in character since this researcher is working with a hermeneutics of affirmation and not a hermeneutics of suspicion, which is destructive and leads to nihilism. The purpose is to contribute not with less than acceptable science, but with rational empiricism selecting from the whole of science in ambiguous situations that serve the Word of God rather than those that don’t.
Item Pig Taboos in the Ancient near East(2014-11-01) van Wyk, KootThe cardinal study on the topic of pig eating in the Ancient Near East, is the work of Billie Jean Collins (2006). She focused basically on the issue as it relates to the Hittite cuneiform texts but did also probe sideways to other nations and the Bible, albeit minor comments. This study wishes to stand on the shoulders of Collins, adjusting some statements, adding other aspects from Archaeological sites and Gerhard Hasel’s explanation of Clean and Unclean in Leviticus 11. What was found in this presentation, is that chronology as backbone in the Scriptures, if taken seriously, could explain the presence or absence of pig eating practices also among the Hittites and Egyptians (the New Kingdom).
This research has investigated Collins’ contribution of Hittites and Pig Consumption, Pigs in Hittite archaeology, Pigs in Egypt, Pigs in Mesopotamia, Pigs in Zoo-archaeology at Hesban in Transjordan, Pigs at Sites in Canaan, Pigs as Offerings in Hittite Rituals, Pig Taboo Rules in the Ancient Near East, Pigs as Medical Use in Mesopotamia, Pig Taboo in the Old Testament by Ackerman (1992) and Collins (2006), Pig Taboo among Later Greeks, Pig Taboo in the Old Testament by Gerhard Hasel (1991,1994).
Whereas the other Nations around Israel display an S-curve or down-trend and up-trend in the appearance and disappearance of evidence for the taboo against pig-eating, among the Israelites it was a straight line unchanged. For that matter, the sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus from Egypt, the presence in Assyria, the presence in Babylonia or Egypt later during the exiles and Persian periods, should be taken into consideration for observations from cuneiform texts, from papyri or pyramid texts or from the travel descriptions of Herodotus. The biblical reality of Israelites living in these domains under consideration and the evidence or absence of taboos against pig-eating from the same areas and times, necessitate re-evaluations of the data.
Item Suggestions for a Successful Lifelong English Education Currently in Korea(2015-08-01) Kim, Sook-Young; van Wyk, KootLifelong English Education is the term we use for learners of any ages, usually adults, from the community, who want to improve their English skills with some personal function in mind. They can be geronti, university students, from the business sector, education, government or any other institutions of society. They come with a wide range of English proficiency levels ranging from Low Beginner to Advanced and for two to four hours per week, they spend time together learning English. The purpose of this paper is to present a recipe for a successful Lifelong English Program for any University in Korea based upon 5 year teaching experience at KNU Sangju Campus as husband and wife in a combo English-Korean class setting. From experiencing initially the serious problem of absenteeism, the content development succeeded to maintain the attendance of the students over the years and furthermore, even enlarged the classes to open up a second class per week due to the upsurge in demand from the society. The essence of the solution is in the content design which husband (Native English Speaker) and wife (Korean) made to care for widely different interests, different levels, different backgrounds, different functions in society and different goals of each student. Samples will be presented from a booklet or textbook that the two teachers developed over the years to illustrate the approach. The Future of Lifelong Education in Korea can be successful using this model as template by other teachers from other colleges or universities.
Item Textual Analysis of Duplicates of the Sources of Sennacherib’s Campaigns(2013-01-01) van Wyk, KootThe goal in each writing is to investigate the original sources as careful as possible to enhance the quality of the research. A number of articles are new discoveries or presenting surprising confirmation to old truths already known in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. One can term these articles “Affirmatory” in character since this researcher is working with a hermeneutics of affirmation and not a hermeneutics of suspicion, which is destructive and leads to nihilism. The purpose is to contribute not with less than acceptable science, but with rational empiricism selecting from the whole of science in ambiguous situations that serve the Word of God rather than those that don’t.
Item The Quo Vadis Problem and Solution in Historicism of Daniel 11(2015-09-01) Kim, Sook-Young; van Wyk, KootCurrently Historicism scholars are hesitant about the relevancy to the text of Daniel 1, specifically 11:36-45, although relevancy of the text with history in Daniel 2, 7, 8, 9 and Revelation 13 is clear and somewhat consistent.
Starting with the Victorian Age, historicists still interpreted the whole chapter as literal and Uriah Smith (1877) interpreted the last verses (vv. 36-45) in the light of Turkey’s history and the French. James White objected to his political literal application of these last verses of Daniel 11 and wanted him to consider a continuation of Rome as fourth empire to the end. White (1877) used Rome as an umbrella statement to include both Pagan Rome and the Holy Roman Empire. Shortly after 1900 some scholars objected by papers against Smith. There were those stressing the symbolical application and those stressing the literal application. Arguments for and against each other were regularly presented. The methodology of the symbolical interpreters for these last verses sometimes
followed a concordance method of interpretation and ideas or meanings were carried in from other parts of the Old Testament. Others (since the late 1980’s) used literary structure to discover chiastic structures minimally and another current scholar as maximally, to superimpose meanings on this grey area of understanding.
A number of problems were identified in this research of the symbolical interpreters, especially, that geographical terms became shelved. In the literal understanding of the text, nations like Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya are considered as they are currently, and Moab, Ammon, and Edom as Jordan. They are all allies of the USA. The other problem identified is that symbolical historicists are not consistent since they have Daniel 11:1-35 literal but switch to symbolical at verse 36 all the way to verse 45. They further caused a problem by making the papacy ‘come to its end’ in Daniel 11:45 as if that is the Second Coming of Christ, when the text of Daniel sees this end as the beginning of the Time of Trouble and during that Time, Christ will come. Resurrection is not in Daniel 11:45 but separated in time and later, as Daniel 12:2-3 indicated. This researcher entertained and suggested a literal interpretation that used the second beast of Revelation 13, commonly understood by all historicists in both the Victorian as well as currently, as the USA for Daniel 11:36-45. The other solution is to see not a bipolar setting for Daniel 11:40 but a tripartite division as: 911, the USA with many ships and Saddam Hussein as the king of the north. Independently also other historicists came near to this solution. A case is made for the role of Justinian and Theodora (538 A.D.) in Daniel 11:21-32 and Daniel 8:9-10 in the Appendices.