Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Niels Peter Lemche <npl AT teol.ku.dk>]

I still think that you do not know what you are talking about. I did never
express anything along this line except what is based on the kinds of
investigations you continuously ask for. Good grief, I have been in this
business for more than 30 years and have hundreds of publications to look
for. Go and read for yourself, or wait for Tom Thompson's and mine Changing
Perspectives (our Opera minora) that should begin to appear from 2000.

NPL


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Moshe Shulman [SMTP:mshulman AT ix.netcom.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, 29 December, 1999 17:02
> To:   Biblical Hebrew
> Subject:      Re: historiography
> 
> At 04:20 AM 12/29/1999 -0800, you wrote:
> >Niels wrote, "...the argument there is that we have to
> >present a decent argument if we want to antedate the content of a
> manuscript
> >to the period that precedes the oldest copy of the text. The burden of
> proof
> >rests on the people who think so, that the text is older than the oldest
> >extant manuscript...."
> >I don't understand how you can assign a burden of proof here for one
> >position over another.  It seems to me that if a manuscript purports to
> be
> >from a certain time period, the burden of proof must lie in disproving
> that
> >statement, or at least equal weight must be given to the actual words of
> the
> >text as is given to the date of extant manuscripts.  Historically,
> documents
> >we now label pseudepigraphic only became that way because the manuscripts
> >were proven to be not what they claimed to be.  In other words the burden
> of
> >proof lay in disproving the claims of the text.  This approach to me
> seems
> >to have just as much merit as your approach.
> 
> David, the problem is that, as Ken pointed out, Niels is 100% wrong here.
> Nobody in the area of ancient liturature accepts the methodology of not
> predating a document before the earliest example. You could imagine what
> would be the dating of Homer, Josephus and many others. It is just frankly
> wrong. One of the basis for plausibility of an argument is based on
> analogy. Our approach to the Biblical text should be no different then our
> approach to any other ancient text. Those who are not using the same
> appraoch, as Niels is, have the burden of proof as to their methodology,
> and why an exception needs to be made for the Biblical text. If there is
> one, I have never seen it.
> 
> moshe shulman mshulman AT NOSPAMix.netcom.com    718-436-7705
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