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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: "Samuel Payne" <sam AT sampayne.worldonline.co.uk>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Cc: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Out of Egypt
  • Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 16:11:09 +0100

We know a good deal more now about who (for example) King Arthur was and was not than people who lived in the Middle Ages did. Why should it be different with the Bible? Historical research has come a long way - but it has to be applied without preconceived dogmas, like any other scientific exercise. After all, the Exodus account was itself written several hundred years after the date at which the events are recounted as taking place. The political and national motives for embellishment are self-evident. Historians now are a priori more likely than people writing under the monarchy or in Babylonian exile to be able to look at the evidence dispassionately. But when we desperately WANT the "evidence" to corroborate something close to our hearts, we cloud our scientific objectivity. This is a critical, scientific List.
 
Samuel Payne
 
The fundamental problem I have with things like this is: If we are to reduce the Biblical accounts to speculation and embellishment, how is it that our similar speculation and refurbishment 3000 years after the facts (whatever they were) is more worthy of consideration?

Solomon Landers

Polycarp66 AT aol.com wrote:

Some among us hold to a very literal understanding of the BH (and the NT)
while others, including myself, do not.  I do not write this to attack the
views of those who hold the historicity of these accounts as fundamental to
their faith.  I am simply pointing out for the sake of understanding what I
am proposing that I do not agree with their position. 
 



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