Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Dear Peter,

Responding to my statements...

>"While allowing some leeway of inaccuracy through transmission and faulty 
>memory, errors such as those concerning the Philistines provide a 
>*sufficient condition* to refute claims of the texts having been written as 
>relatively contemporary accounts and preserved through the millennium."
>
>and later:
>
>"The Philistines does not seem to be an arguing point. It can't be 
>explained away by facile approaches such as i) it was writer's licence, ii) 
>there were Philistine precursors, iii) the archaeological evidence is 
>wrong, or iv) there was another bunch called Philistines. Ignoring the 
>Philistines is like the officer ignoring his being black."

You wrote:

>Bringing in an argument from race is irrelevant and potentially offensive. 
>Don't forget you don't know the skin colour of other b-hebrew members.

Naturally, Peter, when you take a statement *totally out of context*, you
can make what you like of it. Perhaps you should put the statement back in
its context, for the things you're saying here doesn't seem too relevant to
that statement in its original statement.

This is what you unaccountably left out from before the last section of
mine you quoted above in order to make your statement:
------------------------------------------------------
You seem to be arguing with the expectation of the American army officer
prisoner of war who, after obtaining a German SS uniform and perfectly
falsified documents, escaped from the concentration camp only to be
arrested at first contact with the Germans because he was black.
------------------------------------------------------

>You are presenting the case 
>that Genesis is late (post-exilic? post-Maccabean?). 

I think it was written over a period of hundreds of years, but in the
second temple. The Melchizedek passage being one of the, if not *the*, last
addition(s), finding its first statement in the Genesis Apocryphon.

>One of your chief 
>witnesses is this Philistine reference. The defenders of Genesis have found 
>several good reasons to doubt the reliability of this witness - you mention 
>six above (four numbered plus "inaccuracy through transmission and faulty 
>memory"), I could add the possibility of deliberate replacement by a 
>copyist of an obsolete name by a current one. 

If the generation of hypothetical reasons for something is enough, anything
can be explained away using this logic. It was a figment of the reader's
imagination. It was a mistranslation. It was really an acrostic hiding the
mystical name Hipisentil. It was a drug induced delusion. These seem as
good to me. You may have problems with my explanations just as I have with
those I listed in my previous post. I have responded to each of them earlier.

1) Writer's licence: this is no refuge from the incorrect statement,
especially when the same logic is found elsewhere, eg Ex23:31.
2) Precursors to the Philistines: the archaeological evidence precludes this.
3) The archaeological evidence is wrong: there is too much evidence to deny
the basic accuracy.
4) There was another bunch called Philistines: beside there being nothing
to indicate such a position, the name adheres Indo-European linguistic
indicators, reducing the hope of finding a non-I-E group to fit the name to
nonexistence. Another I-E group with the same name isbeyond probability.

In the end you are still faced with the fact that, despite the excuses, the
historical information gleaned from our independent sources show that the
biblical accounts taken literally do not represent the facts.

>To an unbiased jury this 
>would, I think, be enough to cast significant doubt on this witness. 

I don't think you can talk for an unbiased jury, Peter.

>So I 
>think if (as the first extract suggests) this is the only evidence you want 
>to present concerning Genesis, I think the jury would not accept that you 
>have presented your case "beyond reasonable doubt".

My original image was the one that I think portrays the situation well.

Nevertheless, I see no *reasonable* doubt at all, just obfuscation tactics.


Ian

When asked about a film version of Frankenstein, Ringo Starr, reacted
saying "I knew his sister, Phyllis."