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  • From: "Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>, <barre AT access1.com>
  • Subject: Re: The Hermeneutic Circle
  • Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 11:48:17 -0500


Dear LMB,

I'm sorry, have I missed something? Do you have any evidence at all to
link Jacob with Lab'aya? If so, please could you state it again
clearly.

This is important because "traditional" chronology places Jacob many
centuries before Lab'aya. So yes, your thesis does have competition,
if you can call competition a race between untrained amateurs like
yours and Olympic medallists. Your "It is the reigning hypothesis" is
true inside your head only, surely. Unless you can produce any
evidence, on your "probability scale of 1-10" I can only give zero to
your hypothesis! Well, if we assume for now that Jacob existed and is
not a 2nd century BCE fictional character, I suppose he lived sometime
in the 2nd millennium, which gives him a 1 in 50 chance of fitting
those 20 years, so I allow 0.2 on your scale of 1-10.

I'm sorry, but your hermeneutical circle looks very much like
Hypothesis - Hypothesis - Hypothesis, with hypotheses building on top
of one another but no evidence or data in sight.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: The Hermeneutic Circle
Author: <barre AT access1.com> at Internet
Date: 07/02/2000 22:27


<snip>

..Further, I have learned we can narrow Lab'aya dates to 1370-1350 which
would
place Jacob's fighting years in this span...

<snip>

The hypothesis, with its limited data, is nonetheless an important one for
the s
imple reason
that it has no competition. It is the reigning hypothesis, presently by
default
. It is also
interpretively useful, for it indicates that we should be looking to the
Amarna
age for
patriarchal origins--not in the many others that have been suggested on the
basi
s of parallel
customs from Nuzi or Genesis 14. Actually, I guess the thesis does have
competi
tion. So
which is more probable and why?...

<snip>

It is hard to be certain? Is is rare, yea theoretically impossible. So what?
O
n a probability
scale of 1-10, we should be constructing on those hypothesis that radiate out
fr
om 5.
Lemche is only interest in probably 8-10...

<snip>

..It is known as the "hermeneutical circle."

Data - Evidence - Hypothesis - Evidence - Data

<snip>




  • The Hermeneutic Circle, barre, 02/08/2000
    • <Possible follow-up(s)>
    • Re: The Hermeneutic Circle, Peter Kirk, 02/08/2000

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