Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Charles David Isbell" <cisbell AT home.com>]

Shalom again, Peter:

Thanks for  your posting.   I appreciate your formulation.  To bring this to
a point  of "mostly" agreement, may I make only two short notations:
[1] I am out of my depth when the discussion turns to complicated things
(for me) like ontology and epistemology.  Your explanation sounds to an
amateur like it has much to commend it.
[2] Let me work on my question a bit.  I do not think any unique event a
"miracle."  I think it merely a unique event.  However, the ex post facto
interpretation of the event may be to view it as a miracle (as the case in
the recovery of Dave's father from a serious illness), as  the  biblical
narrators apparently did.  So far, I think we agree.  But I am asking
something quite specific.  How does the POSITING of a volcano as the true
cause behind what Exodus calls the "strong hand [of YHWH]" advance the ball
towards the goal line?

Again, I have enjoyed our exchange.  Kol Tuv Lekha, Gam le-MishpacHah.
Charles
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peter_kirk AT sil.org>
To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>; <cisbell AT home.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 8:09 PM
Subject: Re[4]: Date of the Exodus (still shorter)


> Dear Charles,
>
> Thank you for your response. I will try to answer your points below.
>
> Peter Kirk
>
>
> ______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
> Subject: Re[3]: Date of the Exodus (still shorter)
> Author:  <cisbell AT home.com> at Internet
> Date:    31/01/2000 09:27
>
>
> Dear Peter:
>
> As you have seen, I have been sidetracked in my efforts to respond
directly
> to you.  But I think you have raised some important issues.  Thank you for
> the kind words.  To you I use two well known quotations:   "Thou art not
far
> from the kingdom" (I think this is the correct form, apparently from the
NT
> and once used by a well meaning Christian student to me) and as John
Wesley
> said of his doctrine on original sin.  "I differ from Calvin not a hair's
> breadth."
>
> I agree that no one has suggested that the volcanic ash caused the death
of
> selective first borns in Egypt.  But  the point to me is that here, at the
> crux of the biblical story, we encounter an affirmation of faith that
simply
> stands outside ANY attempt at scientific or rationalistic explanation.
> Either we accept the Egyptian myth of the seamless movement from ruler to
> ruler (Horus becoming Osiris while his bekhor becomes Horus) or we choose
to
> believe that the YHWH of the exodus and He alone kills and makes alive, or
> in the words of the Yom Kippur liturgy, determines "who shall live and who
> shall die."  If we agree on this point, all others become possible.
>
> PK: I agree that there is a fundamental contradiction between
> different religious systems at the heart of the Exodus narrative, and
> indeed at the heart of many religious differences in the modern world.
> It is fashionable to say that all religions are really the same, but
> when you look carefully they are fundamentally contradictory. But I
> won't say more in that direction as it takes us well off topic.
>
> Your formulation:
> {"To start with, I would suggest that "foundation myths" (of any people)
are
> commonly not fictional accounts but accounts of real events which have
> perhaps acquired various accretions during centuries of perhaps oral
> transmission e.g. numbers exaggerated, unusual events dressed up to become
> miraculous and then explained as divine intervention etc. Compare the
Iliad,
> based on an attack on a real Troy. That makes them no less significant as
> foundation myths. So to say (as some might, I'm not saying this) that the
> Exodus story is an embellished version of the historical escape of a small
> band from Egypt is in no way to debunk the wider significance of the
event.
> It is more than "mere history", but that does not mean it has no
historical
> core which might be discoverable by historical research."}
>
> Here is the problem with such a formula, as I perceive it.  How can we
peel
> off the layers of embellishment to reach the "core?"  I think we must
avoid
> an ideologically informed pick-and-choose method.  Niels would move  the
> story out of the genre of "history," and in so doing is in many ways
acting
> faithfully to the text itself.  I am continually struck in reading the
story
> by the absence of the kind of details any of us would demand of each other
> were we to offer a history of any period.  So how do we determine what is
> "biblical history?"  As I would say, in agreement with Dave W, the reason
> Puah and Shifrah are named and rewarded with "batim" while the two
pharaohs
> are nameless functionaries has to do with the perspective of the biblical
> narrator even though this perspective does not serve our modern thirst to
> know all the details.  To her (surely chapters one and two were written by
a
> woman!), anyone who feared god was more significant than someone who
> pretended to BE god.
>
> PK: Perhaps here I am coming from a different perspective from that of
> the professional historians. But we need to distinguish ontology from
> epistemology, what really happened from how we can know whether it
> happened. Here I am referring to ontology in saying that foundation
> myths are based on real events. Now very likely it is now impossible
> for us to know, by historical research or any other means, what
> actually happened; we simply cannot peel off the embellishments to
> find anything of which we can be sure it is not an embellishment. On
> the other hand, I am not as pessimistic as some in that I think that
> we can be reasonably sure of that some parts of a story are accounts
> of actual events rather than embellishments (even in a narrative which
> is not in the genre "history", in fact perhaps particularly in one
> which is not!) Also, I do not see why the Biblical narratives should
> be judged by quite different standards from tablets dug up in
> Mesopotamia.
>
> PK: Now historians may be justified in saying of some supposed event
> "this is not historical" in the sense that "this event cannot be
> verified by historical research". The problem is that the statement
> "this is not historical" is very often understood to mean "this did
> not happen". Laymen certainly think that; and it seems to me that even
> the professional historians (including those on this list) often fall
> into the same logical trap of slipping from epistemology into
> ontology. Now I might accept a statement "the Exodus is not
> historical" if that means "the Exodus event cannot be verified", but
> not in the sense "the Exodus did not happen".
>
> Peter Kirk again:
> {"I would rather argue that they were right, that YHWH did indeed act for
> them, not by suspending natural laws but by providentially arranging for
the
> volcano to erupt (or whatever) at just the right time to arrange for the
> Israelites to escape."}
>
> Here again, I would raise a simple issue.  First of all, I recommend
> Hoffmeier's book on ISRAEL IN EGYPT about the Thera explanation and about
the
> supposed Hyksos connection.  Hoffmeier, who was a student of Redford,
comes
> close to a balanced presentation on both points.  Second, I fear that such
a
> view of the providential workings of God to explain otherwise "miraculous"
> biblical events turns things upside down.  I do not wish to make science,
or
> the modern understanding of natural laws, the final arbiter of what can
and
> cannot be considered valuable in a biblical narrative.  So I will repeat
an
> earlier question to Dave.  Where in all of history anywhere in the world
do
> we find results of a volcano hundreds of miles away which produce ten
things,
> in precise biblical sequence, such as are found in Exodus?  If there is a
> similar phenomenon, we have just destroyed what the Bible itself says
about
> YHWH's activity in Egypt being totally unique.  If there is not, the
volcano
> falls as a credible explanation of the biblical tale.  Either way, I think
it
> is more authentic to deal with volcano ashes in one forum and biblical
> power-of-YHWH stories in another.  Neither one bears on the other, it
seems
> to me, except that biblically, I am certain that "Moses" would ascribe all
> volcano activity everywhere to YHWH.
>
> PK: Your question to Dave is actually quite misleading, because you
> seem to be assuming that any unique event is miraculous. This just
> doesn't work. Take a modern eruption like the one a few years ago on a
> Caribbean island, and read the records of the phenomena as observed at
> a measuring station on another island. No doubt falls of ash, pumice
> etc, periods of darkness etc were recorded. "Where in all of history
> anywhere in the world do we find results of a volcano" which produce
> precisely the same sequence of phenomena at the measuring station?
> Nowhere, of course, for the course of this eruption was unique. But
> no-one would try to invoke any miracles or divine intervention to
> explain these observations - except perhaps someone who escaped the
> destruction of their home because (to an outside observer) they
> happened to be at the right place at the right time to avoid the
> destruction. No, uniqueness does not imply that something is
> unscientific or did not take place. It might imply that something is
> unverifiable, but that is a different issue.
>
> Third, would you say about the resurrection stories in the NT the same
thing
> that you say about the exodus?  Are they too merely a suspension of
natural
> law for a moment in a providential arrangement to allow the raising of
Jesus?
>  Or do they not stand outside the parameters of natural law and science?
> Must there be a historical kernel of veracity to the resurrection also?  I
> realize that I am out of my depth here, but is not the resurrection the
major
> foundation myth of salvation for Christianity?  How can such a story be
> related to history? I am asking because I do not know, not in a rhetorical
or
> caustic fashion.
>
> PK: This goes away from the scope of this list, so I will give a brief
> answer. I believe that the resurrection of Jesus was a unique
> miraculous event with suspension of natural law, and not just a
> providential arrangement, and that this event actually took place. The
> Exodus and other miracles may also be in this category, it is
> something we can probably never know. In the case of the resurrection
> of Jesus, although we cannot of course prove it in a way which will
> satisfy the "scholars" and historians who have decided a priori that
> it is impossible, I believe that it can be demonstrated that the
> narratives can only be explained satisfactorily by saying that a
> unique event actually took place. Also, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
> 15, it is central and essential to the Christian faith which he held
> that the resurrection was not just a story but an actual historical
> event, unique in that it had not happened before but the first of a
> series which will be continued in the future.
>
> I look forward to your responses.  Thanks to you too for the tone we have
> established in the exchange.
>
> Charles David Isbell
>