Biblical Hebrew Forum

[a.c.smith AT juno.com (Andrew C Smith)]

Ken's post (below) raised some similar questions for me.

I would reverse Ken's question: he asked "why do people study the
Tanakh?" and I ask "why is the Tanakh the object of so much study?"

Here's what I mean: there are many ancient texts, as old as the Tanakh,
and a few even a bit older, and with as much linguistic and historical
interest as the Tanakh, and some even with a bit more interest in the
narrow senses of "linguistics" and history. Yet the huge volume of work
on the Tanakh does not abate even a little bit, and it is difficult to
get scholars interested in the other texts.

For example: the discovery of a large library of Hittite texts in this
century is a mega-event in philology, a very important discovery. Yet how
many journals, conferences, graduate programs, endowed professorial
chairs, and e-mail lists are devoted to Hittite? very few.

Consider the study of the Tanakh (and the New Testament): every year, new
publications appear: text-critical, source-critical, historical-critical,
grammatical, historical-grammatical, etc., endlessly. I met a fellow who
wanted to do textual studies on Homer; he had a difficult time finding
anyone to work with him, or anyone to publish it.

The assymetry of the distribution of scholarship must tell us something
... I'm not sure exactly what.

>Which leads me a little farther a filed (and I'll probably get in
>trouble) but I don't quite understand why these individuals are 
>biblical scholars.  I for one, given that I do not consider the Hindu
>"Scriptures" as containing "truth" in any sense that was of 
>consequence, would not spend my life studying them and I don't think
anyone who 
>read my work on them would find it useful because I would be going into
the
>enterprise knowing that whatever these texts say, I don't agree with 
>and therefore may not actually be able to get a sympathetic grasp of. 
Not
>speaking for others, but I personally could not get over my outside
>judgment of the Hindu "Scriptures" enough to be able to read them from
>their own perspective.  So I think it would be inappropriate for me to
>be a Hindu scripture scholar.  I can't understand why someone  who
>rejects the essential world view of the biblical texts would bother
>studying them when there are seemingly so many other ways to 
>contribute to society.

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