Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 13.41 21/02/00 -0500, Peter Kirk wrote:
>Excuse me, but are you suggesting that philologists and linguists 
>should leave discussion of linguistic dating to historians who are 
>merely amateurs in linguistics?

Peter, I suggest you read the first sentence of what you are commenting on
again. I don't think you have understood it:

>>This is what may happen when philologists enter a discussion about
>>language datings segments of language on the basis of language alone. 

The magic word is the last one: "alone".


Ian


>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?