Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Dear Peter,

>Ian: <snip> However, you seem to be working under the impression of very 
>early dates for the Christian literature: for most cases an early date is 
>unsustainable. <snip>
>
>Peter: This is not the forum for me to disagree with you on NT dating. 
>My point referred only to Hebrews, not the gospels, and dated it after 
>the early 1st century. By your own argument Hebrews is relatively 
>early, and I think it would make little sense if written after AD 70. 
>What reputable modern scholars date it after the 1st century?

You should be able to see that there is no ***evidence*** of any early
starting date. People live on wishful thinking for all these documents.
They stop doing history. (Hebrews was apparently written before the gospels.)

>Ian: We have a historically verifable situation with the Hasmoneans: their 
>coins indicate the dual role. As to David, all you can do is guess. This is 
>of course one of the problems you have trying to make sense out of documents 
>whose connection with the events they relate is unknown.
>
>Peter: No, I am not guessing! 

All that seems to be available is material that would not be acceptable in
a court of law. The police often receive confessions to crimes, both real
and imaginary. Before such confessions can have any value the police have
to corroborate them. Add to this the possibility that the crime was
committed a long time ago: you wouldn't be surprised if the police were
skeptical. Perhaps, you may accept "disguised guessing", for guessing you
are. You are not doing history and neither is anyone advocating a "critical
method" based solely on testimony that can only be dated 800 years after
the so far unsubstantiated events.

>I am following a sound critical method 
>of interpretation of ancient documents which has been followed by many 
>reputable scholars. You may disagree with this approach but you have 
>no right to mock it.

I am not mocking it. I am merely saying that it is methodologically without
foundation.

>Ian: This seems to mean to me that you would like there to have been a 
>religious system for the Hebrews in the fourteenth century BCE that doesn't 
>even seem reflected in the eighth or fifth centuries.
>
>Peter: The ancestors of the Hebrews must have had some religious 
>system in the 14th century, 

Was there a single group known as, or at least embodied the ancestry of,
the Hebrews at that time? Your assumptions start early.

If the bani-yamini of Mari were in fact the Benjaminites and the Asherites
were already in Israel at the time of the arrival of the Philistines, then
we have evidence of not one single body from which the Hebrews grew but an
indicator of a number of diverse, probably unrelated, groups.

>and there is good reason to think that 
>they had contact with henotheism in Egypt (if there is any truth at 
>all in the exodus traditions). We have very little information about 
>their religion until the 5th century, just one 8th century shrine 
>which may have been quite untypical. Then we seem to have henotheism 
>as well as polytheism in the 6th-5th century, and probably earlier, 
>depending I admit on dating of documents. We certainly have monotheism 
>in the 2nd century. We have documents, admittedly from one party and 
>possibly later (but surely the history was not completely forged), 

(Why do people ALWAYS eventually come out with some notion like "forged"
when dealing with the possibly late origins of our documents???)

>indicating a struggle between henotheism and polytheism before the 
>exile. I think that builds up to a reasonable case (though not proven 
>on your view of the documents) for a continuing tradition of 
>henotheism, at least among a minority, from early times until the 
>exodus.

Although you might be right, I don't think you have demonstrated a case --
merely a possible trajectory.

>Ian: <snip> Akhenaten had no interest in the people and after imposing Aten 
>on the country he withdrew to Akhetaten to maintain his purity. There is 
>little hope in this situation that his brand of henotheism rubbed off on 
>anyone.
>
>Peter: He must have been a very ineffective despot if what he imposed 
>on his country had no effect on anyone.

From most indications, yes.

><long snip>
>
>Ian: ...The OT/HB cannot be dated before the second century -- I keep 
>returning to this point: you seem to want to grant the material special 
>status as though it is a bona fide reflection of the 15th century BCE when 
>you haven't presented the credentials of your witness. Will you ever?
>
>Peter: I have presented all the credentials I intend to. Please listen 
>to what they say and then evaluate them.

Peter, you have presented *no credentials* at all for those documents being
trustworthy for the 15th century BCE.

>Ian: When you argue from texts whose date can only be substatiated to the 
>second century BCE there is a silence of thirteen centuries that you are 
>arguing for. This is not history. This is not historical process. This is 
>special pleading and as a corollary it is a rejection of witnesses with 
>better credentials. History, it would seem, becomes a victim here.
>
>Peter: What better witnesses? I don't think I have rejected any 
>positive evidence (though I may have reinterpreted some). 

To take something out of the realm of plain hypothesis you need a method to
do so. If there are no better witnesses than those datable to the second
century BCE, then you have no hope: you remain stuck in the second century.

>I have only 
>rejected your method of arguing from silence in favour of a method 
>(not my own, that of very many scholars!)

You may have rejected my method, but you need something better than
nothing, though you provide just that. (Recourse to authority is no help.
History is not democratic either.)

>of provisionally trusting 
>the records we do have in so far as they have not been proved wrong.

These have not been established as records. They are of the same historical
status as numerous documents which you would never trust.


Ian