Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 01.25 01/01/00 -0800, kdlitwak wrote:
>Ian Hutchesson wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, Ken, your analogy is inappropriate. Simply not analogous,
>> unless you want to discount
>
>There are statues of Darth Vader. What does that prove?   

It proves that you have little idea about physical remains and attestations
from the past regarding the existence of people. It would seem that you are
presenting a know-nothing approach about the past and you simply can't say
anything at all. You should terminate the conversation you are having,
because you have put yourself into an almost berkeyian position. Such
gymnastics will only help you avoid anything that uses evidence from the past.

>More close to the target
>time, there is a status of Diana of Ephesus (I think) with about twenty
breasts.  Does
>that prove such a being existed?  I don't think so.

Again examine the statues of Cicero before saying such stuff. You have been
giving examples that show total lack of knowledge about things you should
know of before you use them.

>> 1) the various statues of Cicero (et al.),
>> 2) Cicero's property (ie we have proof of the writer in #1 & #2),
>
>No, we may have property that may have belonged to someone named Cicero,
or "Cicero"

Marcus Tullius Cicero to be precise. How many of them can you find in
history, Ken. Please try and provide even one attestation of anyone else
with that precise name, living where he is supposed to have lived. 

>might mean something else.  

And I guess you believe in the tooth-fairy as well.

>Just as there are varying opinions about data support
>biblical traditions, there can be various s opinions regarding classical
traditions.

Ken, you are bs-ing. Try providing one epigraphic or archaeological scrap
of attestation for any of the kings of Judah before Jotham (no, please
don't rerun bytdwd, it's significance as you know is still under a cloud).
Show me just what one king looked like. How about some physical evidence
for a violent conquest of Palestine by the Hebrews? The varying opinions
are from none to none, ie you're talking rot.

>> 3) an epigraphic and archaeological basis to contextualize the literature,
>
>Maybe.  Depends, as do the opinions of biblical scholars on ancient NE data, 

We are not using opinions as our starting materials, Ken. Either events in
a text have epigraphic and/or archaeological support or they don't. When
you produce the evidence then we can formulate opinions.

>upon how
>you read the data (personally I'm not disagreeing with the notion that
Cicero existed

No, you are trying very hard to draw some unsubstantial parallel between
the evidence for the OT/HB literature (which has no supporting evidence
behind it) and and various other literatures you feel game to flaunt.

>but I also consider the argument that there is some magical relationship
between the
>date of the earliest MS of something and the date of the autograph to be
wholly
>without merit.  

You invent the notion of a magical relationship. Can you doubt the
existence of Seti I? I can show you his body. I can show you other pharaohs
of the same family and show you the family resemblance. You'll then respond
that the fellahs found in New Kingdom royal caches may not have been the
ones responsible for the construction of temples which have hteir names on
them. Can you doubt that the res gestae of Augustus are a contemporary
account found in situ in two locations? I think your extreme attempts to
hide from the physical evidence only shows the lengths that you will go to:
it in no way says anything about the actual situation of the support for
the texts.

>No one has shown why there's a real relationship.  

No-one has shown a real relationship say between Josephus's knowledge of
the siege of Masada and what really happened? No-one has shown the
destruction of Megiddo from the time that the Egyptians reported they
besieged it?

>No one has shown
>that the relationship must say much of anything about the date of the
autograph, 

I don't see the point of hanging on autographs. Although an autograph will
render any dispute pointless, have you come across any autograph of the
period other than the copper scroll?

I require what is necessary to bring a conviction in a court of law. You
are saying you require your own direct witnessing of the event before you
can be sure. This of sourse is only make believe on your part, because you
don't hold to such a position. In short you are giving us a dose of sophistry.

>and
>any decision, any decision at all, goes beyond the hard evidence,
including one that
>says the text originated close to the date of the earliest MS.).
>
>>
>> 4) independent literary support that also has #3
>
>I think you missed an earlier post from me. 

This is possible. I tried to avoid the thread. It seemed like a rerun of
something that used Alexander in its previous incarnation, but this time
Caesar and Cicero.

>If I use Jim's exact argument, that we
>should not make suppositions about the autographs, then the only sure
thing we can say
>is that based on hard evidence, the MSS alone, the weight of probability
is that
>virtually all classical literature was penned after the 7th cent. AD.  

You might check out the Oxyrhynchus materials. There is for example a good
smattering of Thucydides, which indicates that you can take him back eight
centuries.

But I don't want to argue Jim's case.

>Therefore,
>since it was probably done by a relatively small group of individuals, it
stands to
>reason they would all agree on its contents, just as it must be posited
that the
>Persian or hellenistic authors who created the entire biblical corpus ex
nihilo met
>together and the agreement between the texts on various matters represents
collusion
>to give the impression of a unified tradition across time.   

What are you talking about?

>If this were not the
>case, there is no way to explain clear changes in spelling and grammar
through texts
>across what should, according to the internal evidence be an early text,
versus a late
>text.  There can be no other possibility.  Of course, how they devised the
history of
>a language is hard to determine.  Now, if you'd prefer Philo or Josephus
or Homer,
>that is okay.  The situation is pretty much the same.  Medieval MSS are
the first
>copies extant.

There are some nice carbonised texts from the Vesuvius eruptions that just
may be autographs of a Greco-Roman philosopher. I've mentioned the
Thucydides stuff. But still I'm not arguing Jim's case, just your tilting
at all classical literature because your nose is out of joint over the lack
of historical support for the OT/HB.

>I'd posit, to move from my point about MSS, that if we apply Occam's
Razor, and
>give two choices,
>1.  Creation ex nihilo of the history and religion of Israel, along with a
language
>that shows development, yet which shows enough gaps that scholars argue
and even
>assume multiple sources

How many times was the Treaty of Versailles rewritten before all the
parties could agree on the wording? That was only a space of a few weeks,
wasn't it? 

>2.  That the texts did develop over time, and thus the development of he
language
>across the texts makes sense, 

The differences in languages have not been isolated as historical changes
necessarily. Did the DSS dialect string up overnight or was it contemporary
with other dialects? If so, what makes you think that we are not faced with
dialect differences as a major factor in the linguistic diversity in the
OT/HB? Have you read both Chaucer and Henryson? -- both writing around a
similar time but Chaucer is a tad easier to read. Why?

>that the texts are in most cases from long before the
>earliest MSS, 

A few weeks? A few months? A few years? How long, Ken?

>which explains why they are not in Aramaic and why the Targums came to
>exist at all, 

Does it?

>not to mention other early versions
>we can state pretty categorically that the hypothesis with the least
number of
>difficulties to explain is option 2, and that one, says Occam, is the one
that is most
>likely therefore correct.  

When you falsely represent both options you give then of course your
conclusions will look like whatever you want them to.

>Note that this does not require you accept the events
>recorded in total in these texts. It merely argues for the probability
that they did
>get written over a long time period and reflect the actual development of
Israel.

How long after Q did Mark write? How long after Mark did Matthew write?

>   So, let me be perfectly clear here.  I'm arguing that there is zero,
zipporio
>relationship between the date of the earliest extant MS and the autograph,
except that
>the MS provides a terminus ad quem. That is the sole, only, single thing
the MS can 
>tell us.  Nothing else.

I personally don't mind this statement as far as it goes.

>So, I go with the classicists who simply ignore the fact that
>all the known classical texts exist only in Medieval MSS or the LXX
scholars who
>simply ignore the date of Vaticanus ad assume the total contents of the
LXX existed
>before the 1st cent AD.  

But this is wilful obfuscation. Which classicists "simply ignore" the
datings of manuscripts and work with the text without reserve? If you look
at what classicists are writing these days you'll find a lot more rigour
than you seem prepared to give them. The classicist knows his full range of
epigraphy, uses numismatics where possible. When a literary work conflicts
with these, it takes second place. This is reflective of a process that has
entered most of the field of history, ie going for the physical evidence
first and foremost.

>The position of Jim West, and Ian Hutchinson leaves little
>room for this, but I think it is valid because the MS date means noting.

Let's put it this way, Ken. You might argue that classical writer X claims
to be giving an account of event Y (we usually have independent
attestations of event Y), but it would seem that the best you can do with a
biblical writer under most circumstances is to say that biblical writer X
gives an account of event Y which you claim happened. You can't even tell
from much of the literature if writer X claims that event Y happened or
not. Do the history writers actually claim that every second king did away
with the various cults or that the various cults are wrong and should be
done away with? (A bit like Cato's "Carthago delenda est" -- say it often
enough and it'll sink in.)

Establishing the relevance of literary works to the period they claim to
deal with is done through demostrating their credentials. We already know
about event Y. This information accords with the archaeological remains
from place Z or with coins K. Unlike the OT/HB texts most classical
documents don't come from an epigraphical or archaeological vacuum. If you
are attempting a historical reconstruction, you are on much safer grounds
when you have supported source documents. That two documents have the same
dating for the earliest existing manuscripts doesn't mean that they have
the same claims to historical relevance, which seems to be your subtext,
Ken. This would be like saying that two pieces of literature of the same
length had the same literary value -- without, of course, having read the
texts.


Cheers,


Ian