Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Dave,

Ice that flames are not cut out in advance. My anti-biblical attitude? It
sucks. You simply tell people that you is pro-Bible because you believe in
it in a literal way, are you not, and are you not saying at the same time
that all other people who do not share your ideas are anti-Bible. Good
grief, I am happy that we do not see that kind of things on Jim West's new
list.

The essence of my message is that people have been moving around with places
even since archaeology started to make the biblical history break down. It
has happened for more than a century and it continues to do. So if there is
no Tadmor, it must be in another place, if there is no Jerusalem, it must be
some other place, if there is no Bethel when Joshua came, it must be in
another place, if Joshua did not conquer Ai because the place was not
inhabited after c. 2300 BCE, it must be in another place. How many times do
you think it will wordl? How many people outside your own community do you
think that you can persuade. And now I suppose that Lewis will put an end to
this. Because you were attacking my way of understanding the Bible, i.e my
religion, while I was showing you to be using faulty methodology.

NPL



        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Dave Washburn [SMTP:dwashbur AT nyx.net]
        Sent:   Sunday, February 27, 2000 3:29 PM
        To:     Biblical Hebrew
        Subject:        RE: Tadmor


        > > But this is only possible if the two Tadmors are the same.  How
do 
        > > you account for the Assyrian annals and the Tadmor they 
        > > describe?  It seems to me that you're dodging this little
problem.  
        > > To warrant this kind of mention by the Assyrians, it seems to me

        > > that Tadmor would have had to be more than a nomadic campsite, 
        > > so I strongly suspect the site that the excavators have been 
        > > working on is not the same Tadmor mentioned by these records 
        > > (and by Chronicles).
        > > 
        > > 
        > > Dave Washburn
        > > 
        >       It is not really necessary to jumb around in this old
fashioned way.

        I have no idea what you're talking about.  Walter took a verse from 
        Chronicles mentioning Tadmor, an excavated site apparently called 
        Tadmor from the first century BCE, and assumed they must refer 
        to the same site.  Why isn't this "jumping around" as well?  There's

        a ton of assumption in operation here, a fact that seems pretty 
        evident to me.

        > If the archaeology of a place mentioned in the Bible does not fit
the
        > biblical periodizagtion, move the place to another place or ask
for more
        > places, that's the usual game and it has been tried over and over
again. And
        > again, Tadmor is mentioned already by Tiglat-Pileser I (end of
12th
        > century), so what do you demand? It is a place in Amurru, and
seems to be
        > pretty consistent. As a matter of fact, it is the only oasis of
any
        > importance if you want to cross the Syrian desert and take the
direct route
        > from Mesopotamia to, say Damascus. There is no indication that
there ever
        > was a second one, only the wish that the Bible must also here be
        > historically true, and that is even possible, simply because the
time of
        > Tiglath-Pileser I predates the traditional dating of Solomon by
about a 150
        > years.

        Niels, why do you persist in being deliberately antagonistic and 
        borderline derogatory like this?  My view of the Bible has nothing
to 
        do with it, I gave no indication that it did, and you are clearly 
        projecting your own anti-biblical bias into my post.  I don't 
        appreciate it.  I asked a simple question about the link Walter 
        proposed, and asked for more information about the Tadmor 
        mentioned by the Assyrians.  I didn't attack anybody's views about 
        historicity or anything else, I asked a methodological question.  It

        would do much for the discussion if others would confine 
        themselves to the same process instead of making this kind of slur 
        about (what is perceived as) someone else's belief system.


        Dave Washburn
        http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
        Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth;
        give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.
                                           Psalm 86:11

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