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  • From: Yigal Levin <Yigal-Levin AT utc.edu>
  • To: Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>, Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Iron and Bronze.
  • Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 09:17:03 -0400


>>===== Original Message From Ian Goldsmith <iangoldsmith1969 AT yahoo.co.uk>
>=====
>>Now if the writer/s were familiar with the new
>>innovation of iron against the older bronze, why
>>mention iron in antiquity before bronze? If this text
>>is indeed written later than Kings etc (not that I
>>hold this view personally), why mention iron at all?
>>
>>If I were to write a story about my ancestors I
>>wouldn't put in their hands items that didn't exist in
>>their day, it'd be pointless. So why is Tubal-cain
>>mentioned as the first iron worker?

At 09:01 AM 8/30/2002 -0400, Trevor Peterson wrote:
>
>Do you suppose that they knew their ancestors didn't use iron? I think
>probably most of us have a reasonable idea of when would be inappropriate to
>portray people as not using computers, because it's only been a generation
or
>two since computers came into use. But aside from specialists, how many
people
>would know how far back you'd have to go to find people who didn't know what
>paper was? Who knows when the first pencil was used? Sure, we know when
people
>started using iron, but before archaeology really got going, was it widely
>known? Is there any intrinsic reason to think that the use of metals should
>have progressed over time? I think this is the general idea--that they were
>assuming what would be only natural to assume at a point distant from the
>events.
>

Bisides which, why do you assume that the author(s) of this part of Genesis
were even trying to portray what we would call "history". Do you think that
even if they had been aware that Iron was a relatively late development, it
would have mattered to them?

Another thought: while I don't doubt that "barzel" means "iron", could it
be used in this passage as a geneic name for all metalworking? Which would
solve your question.

Yigal




Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.




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