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Withholding as the Fact Recorded

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Withholding as the Fact Recorded

It would be possible to fill this space with the scholarly reconstruction and to note that it is disputed. That is not the position taken, and the reasoning is worth setting out because it applies to the other closed entries in this collection.

The reconstructions are published. They are in reference works, in academic Hebrew grammars, and in a great many popular books. Nothing here is secret in the sense of being unavailable. The question is not whether a reader could find a proposed vocalisation but whether this collection should be the thing that hands it to them, and the answer taken is that the tradition's refusal is the substantive fact about the subject, and reproducing what the refusal exists to prevent would replace that fact with a footnote to it.

The same reasoning governs the other restricted entries here. Where a lineage transmits a formula personally at initiation and instructs that it not be disclosed, this collection records that the practice exists, records the reasons the tradition gives, and supplies nothing. Where a formula is public in the tradition, and most are, including the great majority of what is collected here, it is given in full.

The distinction being drawn is not between important and unimportant material, and it is not a judgement about whether the restrictions are justified. It is a distinction between describing a practice and performing it.

A reader who wants the reconstruction will have no difficulty finding it, and will find it presented with the philological caveats it needs, which is the right place for it.

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