[b-hebrew] Hebrew as a holy language

George Athas George.Athas at moore.edu.au
Sun May 24 07:57:15 EDT 2009


James,

It seems that you're not entirely clear on what I mean by evidence that circumvents circular reasoning. When I say that there is practically no evidence for Hebrew in the EBA, I'm talking about evidence outside of the Bible that might act as a control or point of comparison for the Hebrew Bible. You can't then appeal to the Bible as evidence of EBA Hebrew (or whatever you want to call it). That's completely circular, and what we're trying to avoid.

You also seem to have missed the point about the 'world of the text'. In the world of the text, Moses speaks Hebrew. He doesn't speak Egyptian, and he doesn't write in Egyptian. He speaks and writes Hebrew. That much is certain. Now, what a real historical Moses who lived and breathed in our world did or didn't do is another issue entirely. I can see why you'd want to extrapolate from the biblical text about a real historical Moses. However, you have to justify the move from the world of the biblical text to the real world and show how they are 1-to-1 the same, because logically speaking it's not immediately apparent.

If I apply the standard you're using to all literature, I'll end up concluding that there once was a family of bears that lived in the woods somewhere, and they ate porridge and spoke English. In other words, there can be some silly conclusions as a result of bad logic.



Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au



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