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  • From: "Thomas L. Thompson" <tlt AT teol.ku.dk>
  • To: "'b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu'" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: SV: abraham and jacob
  • Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 15:52:36 +0200




> It is a commonplace of biblical studies that cranks crank out books
> every year. Newspapers help sell them and the gullible buy them. This
> entire industry is a plague on our field. In Denmark, we are just
> beginning to suffer the publication of a five volume work which dates
> Moses' birth to Feb 8, 1534 bce. A "great" newspaper -- Berlinske Tidende
> -- gives it a full page very positive spread and semitic philologists
> remind us of the roots of this discipline by talking about such a silly
> book as "establishing new standards" for the field and of the publication
> as a whole as "epoch making". I fear that it will take me the rest of the
> summer to try to forget this cold dose of reality.
>
> As such fanfare is an every day occurrence in our field, I have
> great sympathy for impatient colleagues who use language unbecoming an
> academic. Nevertheless, let civility prevail and let us continue to search
> for more tolerant ways of scolding effectively.
>
> By the way: Abe's 175 years is old hat and to be read within a
> chronological scheme of significance for the reception of the text. Read
> your Wellhausen (Prolegomena, p. 308). Or if some of your libraries don't
> reach back so far, see my Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives
> (1974), pp. 13-15.
>
> Thomas
>
> Thomas L. Thompson
> Professor, University of Copenhagen
>
>
> ----------
> Fra: Jim West[SMTP:jwest AT highland.net]
> Svar til: Jim West
> Sendt: 17. juni 1999 00:26
> Til: Biblical Hebrew
> Cc: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
> Emne: Re: abraham and jacob
>
> At 02:23 PM 6/16/99 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >I wouldn't be so hasty to dismiss it, though-- yes, of
> course, 175 is
> >5x35 as well as 5x5x7. It is also 25x7. That's one of the
> things
> >that makes this kind of study frustrating-- which set of
> numbers
> >should you use? Were there rules, for example, that only
> prime
> >factors should be used, as here? And are such devices
> purely
> >mnemonic, or do they fit into some larger pattern? And
> where would we
> >look for the key to those patterns? Again, are there
> rules?
>
> All of these questions are legitimate. Still, the purpose
> and goal of
> biblical studies is to answer questions raised by the text
> itself- or so at
> least that is how I practice the art/science. I also
> presuppose that a
> theory or method that raises more questions than it answers
> is not useful as
> a method. That is, in essence, the problem I have with the
> whole number
> thing as you have so eloquently described it. It solves
> nothing and raises
> issues that cannot be solved. For that reason it seems to
> me that it
> excludes itself as a viable method.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> thanks,
>
> Jim
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Jim West, ThD
> email- jwest AT highland.net
> web page- http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
>
>
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