Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Excuse me, but are you suggesting that philologists and linguists 
should leave discussion of linguistic dating to historians who are 
merely amateurs in linguistics?

I see the same line of argument here as in a previous thread: A 
scholar in one field may have good evidence concerning a particular 
problem e.g. dating from his own specialisation e.g. linguistics, 
Egyptology. But he may not be qualified to examine the implications of 
his argument in a different field e.g. Mesopotamian history. Should 
our scholar be able to publish his argument for wider consideration, 
and for properly scholarly comparison with the evidence from other 
fields? Or should he be written off a priori as unscholarly because he 
has not fully examined and tied up the loose ends of the implications 
of his theory in a quite different field, where he is not qualified?

So my plea is, let the linguists present their linguistic evidence 
without requiring them to first show themselves better historians than 
you are. They don't claim to be! Then, if there seems to be a 
contradiction between the linguistic and the historical evidence, both 
parties need to reexamine their evidence and work together to find a 
synthesis. Don't you agree?

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Diachronic study (was Purpose for discussion)
Author:  <npl AT teol.ku.dk> at Internet
Date:    19/02/2000 18:21

<snip>
>
     This is what may happen when philologists enter a discussion about
language datings segments of language on the basis of language alone. I see 
hardly a single, say first-level historical-critical  scholar of the last 
century dating Daniel to earlier than the 2nd century BCE, notwithstanding 
some linguistic peculiarities and mythological ideas that go much further 
back. I must also say that in spite of some 'early' elements, the language 
of Daniel is vastly different from, say the one of the Sfire-inscriptions 
(8th century Aramaic inscriptions) not to say even earlier Aramaic 
inscriptions. By the way, Garbini dates the song of Deborah rather late cf. 
his Il cantico di Debora, La Parola del Passato 33, 1978, 5-31.

     NPL
>