Grade level of 35.1 on the ol’ Flesch-Kincaid readability scale.

Whenever you get to the 35th grade, then, you should be able to handle this baby.

Nice excuse to allow for poor communication: it’s just so learned!

This kind of drivel masquerades as scholarship all too often. Science journals would have zero tolerance for this kind of writing, and I have often wondered why certain biblical studies journals seem to love it.

I won’t argue with you there, Richard! I was just speaking with one of my professors yesterday about how a particular landmark essay written in the 70′s–which helped transform subsequent study of apocalyptic literature–would not have received an A under his grading rubric.

Do I smell a translation from German?

I didn’t get thrown off until the end when the anachronism of a “reporter” preserving “records” was tossed into the ancient world. Somehow I doubt reporters were part of their “social patterns” or our idea of a recording was part of “the thinking of the ancient speakers or writers.” But hey, that’s just me.

Speaking of verbose obfuscation, I’m about to order a copy of Cross’ Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic – I hear it’s a doozy.

Nope, originally written in English!

But the problem isn’t with the length of the sentence. Rewrite it without the prepositions and you’ll be amazed how much clearer it becomes.

True, Andrew, the length is not an inherent evil, but it does make the reader work harder unnecessarily.

(1) Let us prayerfully hope that PGM gets his doctorate before he reaches grade 35! Can I hear an AMEN.
(2) That long sentence would be much easier to comprehend if there were parenthesized numbers internally and perhaps the whole last phrase also parenthesized. This is from a former computer programmer who is not afraid of parentheses in writing. Speaking is a little harder.
(3) There are some really long sentences in parts of the New Testament, e.g. the start of Ephesians. Of course, Koine Greek has different ways than English of showing relationships, but nonetheless …

Thank you, Edward. Amen indeed. Although, I will probably reach about grade 24 (12 years of education past high school).

Nice usage of parenthetical numbers to make your point.

I don’t think the NT should be our standard for scholarly writing!

I find it really frustrating when people seem to believe that long sentences and technical terms are a mark of good scholarship. I think that a good scholar is someone who can communicate his/her work so that you don’t have to read every sentence through three times in order to understand what the author is trying to convey. Of course, the convention that you have to write everything in the passive in order to avoid admitting that you have done or thought something doesn’t help.