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  • From: "Rolf" <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect
  • Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 15:26:26 +0200

Dear Ken,


I look forward to your posts and to a cordial discussion of the Hebrew verbal
system and Semitic linguistics. I would like to read your dissertation. How
can I get it?

A few years ago, a Norwegian professor made a study of which projects were
accepted for doctoral studies at the University of Oslo. He discovered the
with very few exceptions only projects whose working hypotheses were in
accord with the view of the professors were accepted. Those that presented
novel ideas were rejected.

I for one find it profitable, and scientifically necessary, to challenge the
traditional viewpoints of our time. I see the same problems in different
disciplines as I have seen in Hebrew: counterexamples to the traditional
views are explained away ad hoc or ignored, and no one has tried to collect
all the counterexamples and study them in their own right.

For many years I have studied the chronological data in the Tanakh. One
problem is that the Neo-Babylonian and the Neo-Assyrian chronologies do not
accord with the chronology presented in the Tanakh, and the Neo-Babylonian
and Neo-Assyrian chronologies are believed to be watertight. I wanted to
challenge and test this, and I collated important astronomical cuneiform
tablets at the Vorderasiatische Museum in Berlin and at British Museum in
London and looked at the dates of more than 30.000 cuneiform business
documents— as expected, I found that the map did not fit the terrain.

As for the Neo-Assyrian chronology, no astronomical tablets can be used for
dating, and there are more than 40 eponyms too many to fit the traditional
chronology. I found that this chronology hinges on one single datum, namely
that the solar eclipse that is said to have happened in the eponymate of Bur
Sagale is the eclipse of 15 June 763 BCE. However, this is gusswork, because
there are at least eight other solar eclipses that can fit the mentioned
eponymate. Regarding the Neo-Babylonian chronology, I found that the lunar
positions of the astronomical diary VAT 4956, the backbone of the chronology,
fit better the year 588/87 than the year 568/67 (the year fitting the
traditional chronology). Moreover, I found about 90 business tablets that
contradict the traditional Neo-Babylonian chronology. My conclusion is that
the evidence suggest that the traditional chronology is wrong and that both
the Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian reigns of kings must be expanded by
twenty years. I have also found that many adjustments are necessary for the
Persian (Achamenid) chronology. The data have been published in two books of
between 400 and 500 pages each. The reason why I have reached these novel
chronological viewpoints, is that I have collected and studied contradictory
data that no other scholar has collected and studied. Also, that I have
carefully studied each cuneiform sign on the most important astronomical
tablets, and I have found some errors in the published readings and a lot of
c conjectures that the readers are not aware of. Thus, a great part of the
astronomical evidence can be questioned.

I mention this, because I see the unhealthy situation at many universities,
where progress sometimes, or rather often, is curtailed, because of the
traditional thinking and because of the excersize of authority, or as the
Germans call it Systemzwang. My message is that there is so much traditional
viewpoints out there that do not stand a close scrutiny. Therefore, we should
not be afraid of new ideas, even if they are far away from the traditional
ones. But we should carefully study these new ideas in order to see if they
stand a close scrutiny.



Best regards


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway




Torsdag 30. Mai 2013 11:43 CEST skrev Ken Penner <kpenner AT stfx.ca>:

> Rolf, you were kind enough to send me a copy of your dissertation in 2005,
> and I read over several times in 2005-2006. Thank you. Have you read mine?
> I recognize that my previous post was not constructive; I mainly pointed
> out problems without suggesting possible resolutions. I hope to remedy that
> by a series of posts as I have time over the next month.
>
> Cheers,
> Ken
>
> Ken M. Penner, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor, Religious Studies
> 2329 Notre Dame Avenue, 409 Nicholson Tower
> St. Francis Xavier University
> Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5
> Canada
> (902)867-2265
> kpenner AT stfx.ca
>






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