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  • From: Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] repost of full question
  • Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 04:38:09 -0700 (PDT)

-- K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Tory:
> This is why arguing dates is off list for this
> group.

The list seems willing to discuss a wide range
of topics related to Biblical Hebrew. It is impossible
to have a discussion about it without dates.

> When Rolf mentions
> that "Yet there are at least eight other solar
> eclipses that may fit the
> description." how can we dogmatically insist that
> only one particular one is accurate?

Because unlike the accepted date the "at least eight"
other possible fits are incompatible with the rest
of the interlocking evidence. I'm afraid it is not
enough
to point out how the description of the eclipse in the

Assyrian eponym chronicles B1 and B2 will fit several
eclipses within the same saros family.

> How many secular historians accept the
> consensus only with the
> proviso that it is open to amendation when better
> data is found?

I don't think it matters how many secular historians
do.
It is how science works regardless of how many
historians
are actually good scientists.

The reason we do not need a consensus about very
recent
dates in history is because the evidence is available.
For dates
in the very distant past the evidence is often patchy,
conflicting,
or non-existent. A consensus is nothing more than the
best
interpretive fit pending further evidence or pending
better
arguments of how the existing evidence should be
interpreted.

Put another way, a consensus is where the balance of
probablility lies at the time of writing. As of 21
April 2008,
the standard chronology of Neo-Babylonia is preferable
to
any radical revision.

> To sum up: while there is a scholarly consensus, we
> must recognize that it
> is based on a certain amount of guesswork, educated
> guesses, but fuzzy
> enough that one cannot use that scholarly consensus
> dogmatically.
>
> Karl W. Randolph

Yes we can. In scholarship we can continue to speak in

dogmatic terms until the situation changes, and until
the
balance of probability shifts. There is evidence the
earth is
flat, and that is why people believed it to be flat
for many
years; but there is now more and better evidence to
say it
is round. Nothing wrong with being dogmatic about
that.
It does not matter how many holes exist in a current
consensus. What matters, and what makes a consensus
a consensus, is that it has to have fewer holes than
any
alternatives. If you think you may have an idea with
fewer
holes, publish it, explain why it is better than the
existing
consensus, and yours may well become the new
consensus.

Best regards,
Tory Thorpe
Modiin, Israel




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