Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ken Litwak <kdlitwak AT concentric.net>]

I'm hesitant to be involved in this discussion in spite of my views
because with every post on the subject, the poster states a position but
doesn't raise his or her hand to state the boat load of assumptions and
historical reconstructions behind the post.  This is not an attack per
se on any particular view or poster.  What is meant to say is simply
this.
If one such as myself believes that just about everything we claim to
know historically comes through written sources, and NOT physical
evidence, and that no one, not the author of Genesis, not Tacitus, not
Gibbon, no one ever wrote an historical account that wasn't dictated
more by ideology than "facts", and that there never was nor never shall
be a work of history wie es eigentlich, then it is extremely important
to know the assumptions of the "historian", including ow the "historian"
does historiography.  On a practical level, I know multiple posters in
this discussion have different historical reconstructions of
Israelite/Palestinian history for whatever reasons.  So to just hear
their views of whether/when monotheism entered Israelite/Jewis thought
is not IMHO a very helpful exercise.  As an example, one person dates
monotheism by the Exile, another rejects the concept of the Exile as an
historical event and others who seem to accept the Exile as a reality
simultaneously reject as historical accounts of prior events from the
same document or group of documents with no apparent reason for doing
so.  

   Let me finally say that some posters have referred to the lack of
"archaeological evidence" regarding certain matters in the Scriptures of
Israel.  IMHO, arguments from lack of physical evidence mean little, not
when it's possible for "modern" individuals to look at the same physical
evidence generated in the modern period and have very differing ideas
about the meaning of that evidence.  It ma also be the case that here is
not a lack of evidence in some cases but an issue of how the available
data is interpreted.  There was never ever objective facts or neutral,
raw data.  All data is interpreted.  Just look at the US Senate.  One
political party looks at Bill Clinton's actions and finds them all
criminal.  The other party sees no wrongdoing at all, let alone
criminal.  How can learned modern individuals come to such wildly
differing conclusins about the same data?  It's certainly not becuase
they are being objective.  

   So when one scholar dismisses all the writen material of the
Scriptures of Israel as unhistorical and relies solely on archaeological
data, while affirming the reliability of Babylonian sources, I have to
scratch my head and wonder what this individual's ideology is that leads
to such a position.  Similarly, affirming the reality of the Exile and
simultaneously dismissing written testimony in the same collection of
texts to other, major evetns, when there is no physical proof the Exile
or the destruction of the seond temple or Hannibal crossing the Alps or
the battle of Hastings or the existence of Charlamegne or, in the view
of some with whom I strongly disagree, the Holocaust, which most of the
posters probably would affirm, leaves me puzzled.  We only know about
most historical events through written sources.  

  So I'm not saying whether this issue ought to be discussed or not.  I
am suggesting that if it is, the posters should be up front about their
assumptions because it makes a big difference.   Note:  I do hope that
no one is offended by this as though I'm making a personal attack.  I'm
not doing so. I'm only asking that on a matter with so many possible
starting points, posters lay their cards on the table, and be prepared
to defend their historiograpical assumptions.  
 

Ken Litwak