verbs - Religious use of "exegete"


I've noticed quite a number of religious professionals of late have used phrases such as "let's exegete this text" or "we need to exegete Paul's meaning here." Of course, an exegete is one skilled in exegesis, but I have never heard of "to exegete" being in accepted usage. Wiktionary included it as a possibility, but I would hardly consider that an authoritative source. Roger Wibberly critiqued a book titled Medieval Music as Medieval Exegesis in Music and Letters 82.2 (2001): 291-293 and argued that "the often-used verb 'to exegete' strikes a note of literary discord within a generally elegant text."


Is the verb "to exegete" becoming accepted usage? Obviously, it has been used consistently in at least one published source and is currently being widely used in religious circles.



Answer



I'm afraid it's nothing new. In 1900, a review of A Problem in New Testament Criticism by Prof. Melanchthon Williams Jacobus closes:



The author’s learning, fairness and catholic spirit commend his book to the most favorable cnsideration desite occasional excursions beyond the generally recognized English vocabulary and usage denoted by such words and expressions as “misexegeting,” “sanctificate completion,” “as though,” “to exegete” and “outrounded.”



It’s not acceptable to me, and it’s apparently not acceptable to Prof. Wibberly; but we’re old men and will just have to suck it up. After all, we (or at least I) have managed to come to terms with “as though”.


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