Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul Zellmer" <zellmer AT digitelone.com>]

Jonathan Bailey wrote:

I came
on here to read about the research of others who were further along than
I, yet it
seems that I am one of the primary contributors to the list, and have to
say that I am
devoting more time to my daily e-mails than I had originally expected.
It does seem to
me, though, that the question of Mosaic authorship is one that has been
argued to
death for centuries at this point, and it doesn't seem like the question
is likely to be
solved any time soon. Or conversely, the question has already been
solved in the
minds of the proponents of the opposed views for quite some time.
Furthermore, it
seems to me that before my entry onto the list, those that believed in
Mosaic or early
authorship of the Torah took pains not to mention that fact in order to
avoid ridicule
and insults at the hands of those who don't, a phenomenon with which I
am becoming
aquainted thanks to the kind words of Dr. Lemche. Perhaps further
discussion of the
matter should be avoided on these grounds.



Jonathan,

You get what you ask for.  If you would take some time to look at the
archives, you will find that many of these issues are being ignored by
the majority of the list because they have already been discussed ad
nauseum.  You can either go back about six months, when Ian came on
list, or you can go back to the pre-UNC days and see the discussions
under the old Virginia list.  A look at these should bring you to a
conclusion that the list is, in fact, not a good forum to try to
convince people to change their minds.  So many of us let the few rant
and rave, with occasional comments about the waste of bandwidth on the
marginally appropriate topics for this list.

You have become one of the major contributors because you have not
learned to let a challenge go by without response.  If you find yourself
too busy, then try not responding.  In the long run, these philosophical
threads never really make anyone change their opinions, nor do they
really ever add new information to the discussion at large.

I address this to you, because you made the comment.  However, I sent it
to the list, because many of us still have to learn this lesson.

HTH,

Paul