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From: Ed Feuer
Date: 10/7/02
Time: 1:32:04 AM
Remote Name: 142.161.128.92
I don't know about a biblical approach to treating stuttering, but I have been interested in views about Moses. I have read biblical scholars who say Moses couldn't possibly have stuttered: "The stuttering was added later to portray Moses as flawed because they didn't want people to go overboard in venerating him. And anyway, it's obvious he didn't stutter because he spoke to the multitudes." Of course, those scholars don't know much about stuttering. If they did, they'd know of its intermittence and idiosyncrasy. Some people who stutter are better at talking to groups than to individuals. Maybe Moses was one of those. Viewing Moses as a person who stuttered might even offer some new perspective on various events in his story. Maybe his stuttering had something to do with all that backsliding among his people. Maybe it gave him a credibility gap: The thinking may been something like this: "If that guy really is God's man, why does he stutter?" And for all of us there is that abiding mystery of the first encounter. Moses protests to God that his stuttering makes him unsuitable for the mission. It was the age of miracles, but God does not say: "OK . . . zap, you're fluent." Why? That's the question about which we who stutter and others can only speculate.