Schnaiter on Guilt by Association

Recently, I was reading S. E. Schnaiter’s review of Riplinger’s New Age Bible Versions (don’t ask). Dr. Schnaiter perfectly captures what is so aggravating about faux histories:

Guilt by association has no place in arguing real issues. Loose charges are especially reprehensible, necessarily vague, and difficult to answer because they are frequently no more than the interpretation of the one making them. This is the nature of innuendo and slander: easily accused and often difficult to either prove or disprove, but highly suggestible, especially to average readers who have neither the ability nor the inclination to look beyond the surface of the charge. Hence once slandered, even after proven to be falsely so, one finds it extremely difficult to cast off the cloud of popular suspicion thereby brought upon him. To thus bring ruin to a man’s good name by an exaggerated estimate of one’s own importance or the importance of his or her opinions, is the epitome of selfish and tragic betrayal. How much more so when the one slandered is not even alive to answer the false charges!

His entire article is worth the read:
S. E. Schnaiter DBSJ 2 (Fall 1997) REVIEW ARTICLE: New Age Bible Versions p. 109-110