Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Sometimes somebody should try to get a sound sleep before he or she answers.
This was sent to the ANE list. But it is of course an answer to my mail from
today on this list. 

I said that I had no intention of discussing historicity without its
linguistic component. I think that the chair(s) of this list agree with my
decision. 

Furthermore, I do not think that Mr. Banyai got the essence of my mail. 

NPL

PS. I have sent/am going to send a few notes to Mr. Banyai in private, in
order not to pester the life of the list.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Banyai AT t-online.de [SMTP:Banyai AT t-online.de]
> Sent: Sunday, 20 February, 2000 11:57
> To:   ane AT oi.uchicago.edu
> Subject:      ane Reply to NPL
> 
> Dear Prof. Lemche,
> 
> I can not see were your problems are with the testimony of a polytheist
> society 
> during the IA. 
> I see no contradiction since I can not see any trace of monotheism in the
> Sinai 
> law. Monotheism emerged slowly, during the early IX-th century as I can
> read in 
> the HB.
> Or do we have different HBs?
> 
> 
> If we read about the destruction of the golden calf at the Sinai by Moses,
> this 
> doesn´t overlay the earlier text in a manner one couldn´t see through.
> 
> We have following sentence of Jahweh preserved from the original text in
> Exodus 
> 33,5: "Now lay down your jewels".
> 
> A similar command appears but in Judges 8,24, but in connection with
> making a 
> golden calf (ephod?), not as a collective punishment for its creation.
> 
> Exodus is thus an impudent late monotheist reinterpretation of the
> original 
> purpose of the godly verdict. What is still more interesting is the
> preservation 
> of parts of the original text. 
> Do you wish this sentence in the post exile period? Feel free to do this
> and 
> than deal with the consequences...
> 
> I wished you wouldn´t label any more ideas as conservative or progressive.
> 
> This doesn´t make sense. We use ideas just like Troyan horses to enter the
> 
> truth/reality. The use one makes of the ideas makes one to a conservative
> or a 
> progressive. Maybe is just for the posterity to decide upon last. You
> can´t 
> decide were you will arrive while going.
> 
> This is, I think, like a thinking bann for those less courageous minds. 
> Conservative is a state of mind presupposing a similar ban on free
> thinking. Are 
> you a liberal conservative?
> I try to be a true liberal.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> in true respect: we need our opponents to have a dialogue. Without
> opposition 
> there exists but a fruitless monologue.
> 
> Banyai Michael