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  • From: belaga AT math.u-strasbg.fr
  • To: B Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Academic Debate
  • Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:52:07 +0100

Quoting Kevin Riley <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>:

I agree with starting with the text and assuming the writer's intentions to
be honest - i.e. s/he is not writing to deceive. But that does not mean
that there is no agenda, no purpose other than to record facts. I guess I
should have thought about how to express myself better before writing. What
I meant was the assumption that the text is only factual, and therefore if
it says "all" it means "all", is a presupposition. My presupposition is
that God is behind the text, and therefore it is reliable, but also that God
is behind the real world, and therefore there is no fundamental difference
between the intention of the text and the record of events in archaeology,
etc. So I guess what I meant was the general privileging of written text -
of written words - over everything else. The story doesn't demand that "all
means "everyone". If the archaeological record, or written records outside
the Scriptures, indicate that "all" doesn't mean "everyone", then I do not
assume the words in Scripture are to be believed against the evidence.
Neither do I assume they will more likely be wrong. The meaning of
Scripture - virtually every verse - can be argued, just as the conclusions
of archaeology and history can. I prefer to assume the basic honesty of all
and come to a conclusion that makes the best use of all. It becomes a
spiral where archaeology and other sources influence how we understand the
words of Scripture, and that in turn informs how we understand the
archaeological record. I try to avoid saying "the words say..." therefore
archaeology must be wrong as much as saying "archaeology proves..."
therefore the words of scripture are wrong. I am not saying anyone on the
list is saying this, but some are much closer to the ends than I am
comfortable with. I know we try to avoid bringing in issues of religious
belief, but it seems that unless we are sometimes honest enough to say where
we are coming from, we simply misunderstand each other and go around in
circles, with both sides wondering if the other is stupid or merely blind.
Sometimes we say "the evidence is not convincing" and tacitly invite the
other person to continue their attempt to convince us, when what we mean is
my religious/philosophical beliefs make it difficult/impossible to believe
the evidence" - if we said that, the other would know that the conversation
is going nowhere. Some people do that - Shoshanna is one person that does
so - and it makes it much easier to know when to not reply with further
evidence that is not going to get anywhere. I appreciate that, although I
suspect some may not. I am not offended when someone has different beliefs,
but I am annoyed when they implicitly deny those beliefs are influencing
their reading. If we stick merely to the words themselves, I think we will
often have to admit that we can't find agreement. I don't believe Karl
would argue that "all" must *always* mean "everyone", nor would anyone argue
that it never means "everyone". Without access to the author, can we ever
really settle whether it does or doesn't mean "everyone without exception"
here?

Kevin Riley

Kevin has presented a very balanced view of the problem. As a matter of fact, the Hebrew Scriptures have obviously a particular status in our civilisation and this status, of unquestionable religious origins, is still today of a very great pertinence to many people. And this brings us to the central point well formulated by Kevin: "God is behind the text, and therefore it is reliable".

In my opinion, people who believe in this, in one or another way, with all such ways usually collected under an otherwise ambiguous term "judaeo-christianity", -- and I am personally belong to this category of people, -- should also be ready and even eager to systematically reconsider and reinterpret this "reliability" in the light of the ongoing growth of our knowledge. I mean here not only, and even not so the knowledge directly related to the study of the Scriptures, archaeology, and so on, but all systematically acquired human knowledge, scientific in particular.

The absence of such an interest, or worse still, the political will to suppress the emerging "contradictions", as in the greatly over-hyped case of Galilee, as Shoshanna has put it: " Who are you, what are your credentials?" (sorry, Shoshanna, it is just a friendly pun), -- destroys the trust and discourages people to take the Torah, as the Jews call it, or Revelation, as the Christian usually refer to it, seriously.

I have had personally two opportunities to put straight a basically scientific record. The first case is the value of the number Pi (which is the ratio of the length of any circle to its diameter) in the Bible, the value implicitly present in the description of the Shlomo HaMeleh?s Beit HaMikdash. The second is various scientist interpretations of the Biblical rib taken from Adam.

Both interventions were received by the scientific community and the public with interest and (mostly, grudging) respect.

This said, I do understand that this topic is mostly outside the B-Hebrew agenda. My apologies.

Edward G. Belaga
******************************************************
Institut de Recherche en Mathématique Avancée
Universite Louis Pasteur
7, rue René Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, FRANCE
tel.: 333 90 24 02 35, FAX: 333 90 24 03 28
e-mail : edward.belaga AT math.u-strasbg.fr
******************************************************


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