[b-hebrew] A different generation of biblical scholarship
K Randolph
kwrandolph at gmail.com
Mon Feb 2 19:50:58 EST 2009
Lloyd:
As is stated on the front page of this forum, and as George Athas
reiterated, this forum is concerning Biblical Hebrew language and
literature. It is based on the scholarly principles of evidence and logic.
There are those on this list who say that theory apart from evidence, is the
same as preaching a religious belief. For evidence, they will accept a
large, datable body of literature in the Biblical Hebrew language so we can
compare the stylistic development of the language and literature, and/or
manuscript evidence showing earlier versions of the texts in question.
Nothing less. Unfortunately, neither exist. Therefore any theory concerning
the history of the Tanakh prior to the DSS is merely a statement of belief.
To push any one of those beliefs is proselytism and has been deemed off
topic for this list.
Questions in Pentateuchal studies that postulate a J, E, P or any other such
source hypothesis, because they have no evidence, are pushing beliefs. Those
are the little questions that are irrelevant.
But there is still plenty to discuss: vocabulary, grammar, linguistic
conventions, euphemisms, a whole slew of questions. You are quite welcome to
join in on those discussions.
Karl W. Randolph.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 12:42 PM, LM Barre <l_barre at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I simply wished to say that my particular brand of scholarship is of 1986
> vintage, at which time I received my doctorate. We were asking the big
> questions. Pentateuchal studies was divided into studies of J, E and P. We
> were also working on the Deuteronomistic Historian and the Deuteronomic
> school. In fact, there was intense interests in all the biblical
> literature--wisdom literature, hymnic literature, post-exilic literature.
> Methodology was discussed--form criticism, tradition history, source
> criticism, rhetorical criticism and so on. In this sense, then, I am a
> traditionalist who is out of step with what largely goes on here at
> b-Hebrew. I do not understand what the task is here. Can someone speak to
> what is going on here? It eludes me.
>
>
> Lloyd Barré
> http://freewebs.com/lmbarre
>
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