Biblical Hebrew Forum

[kdlitwak <kdlitwak AT concentric.net>]

  There is no reason for me to respond to this unscholarly ad hominem attack.
Niels Lemche is clearly not trained in historiography and his position 
requires
that arguments he uses not be applied to anything else.  I, on the other hand,
have not resorted to this offensive kind of attacks nor would I ever propose 
an
argument that would not be valid in all cases.  That is what makes a theory
valid.  You can test it and apply it everywhere.  So I am done with dealing 
with
uninformed, idiosyncratic flames.  Niels, don't bother responding.  I'm
convinced you know nothing about how real historiography is done, and another
post won't convince me.  When you have read the experts in that 
specialization,
I'd be willing to talk.

Ken Litwak

Niels Peter Lemche wrote:

> I see no reason to repeat my argument. Ken you are simply wrong and speaking
> nonsense. Go to Rome and see for yourself, or go to Athens and see for
> yourself, and go to Jerusalem and see what you can find from the 10th
> century, and don't bring forward the old crap that it is under the temple
> mount. What we don't have, we cannot use. I prefer as I said hard evidence:
> If I found a genuine inscription from the 13th century where was written:
> 'I, Joshua, sin of Nun, rests here. I conquered Canaan', I would have to
> change some of my ideas. Find it, and make your day.
>
> NPL
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: kdlitwak [SMTP:kdlitwak AT concentric.net]
> > Sent: Sunday, 02 January, 2000 07:12
> > To:   Biblical Hebrew
> > Cc:   Biblical Hebrew
> > Subject:      Re: historiography (Ken, again)
> >
> >
> >
> > Niels Peter Lemche wrote:
> >
> > >         [Niels Peter Lemche]  Again the web created by several classical
> > > authors makes it possible to date persons like Thucydides or Herodotus
> > to a
> > > specific time. The alternative would be to say that this web has been
> > > constructed by a circle (quite an extensive one) of authors from a much
> > > later period. That would exclude Western Europe because of lack of
> > knowledge
> > > of Greek in that part of the world. As to Byzans, they would know Greek
> > in
> > > its late Byzantine form, but should in order to create this web be able
> > to
> > > write in Ionian Greek (Gerodotus), clear Attic Greek (several otgher
> > > authors), place Pindar in the right place and do his dialect as well.
> > The
> > > literary data from classical sourcs do fit together and seem also to go
> > well
> > > with external evidence as well. It is probably time for Ken Litwak to
> > stop
> > > this ridiculous discussion about classical analogies.
> >
> > It would seem to me this is precisely the argument being made by Jim West,
> > Ian, you,
> > Thomas Thompson, etc.  All the relationships among the biblical books were
> > invented by
> > a circle of authors who created the web of relationships themselves.  I'm
> > afraid that
> > I don't consider a "web of relationships" evidence of anything.  You kept
> > talking
> > about hard evidence.  To me that means that I can go to the battle field
> > where the
> > battle of Waterloo or QarQar or the Pelopenesian War and find bodies
> > dressed in
> > appropriate clothes, weapons, supplies, etc, which can be dated fairly
> > precisely to
> > the correct date for the battle.  If literary testimony from the Bible is
> > irrelevant,
> > than it is inconsistent to treat data from other literary sources, simply
> > because they
> > exhibit a web of relationships which could have been created in a number
> > of ways, as
> > important.  You're privileging one set of texts and dismissing another
> > without
> > warrant.
> >
> > Ken Litwak
> >
> >
> > ---
> > You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: npl AT teol.ku.dk
> > To unsubscribe, forward this message to
> > $subst('Email.Unsub')
> > To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.