Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

NPL wrote:
> 
> > Dave Washburn wrote: 
> > 
> >     NPL wrote: 
> > 
> >     Scholarship 
> >     > is really about tearing down accepted mainstream ideas, and most
> > advanced 
> >     > theories become maintream some day or the other. 
> > 
> >     According to whom?  This does not exactly seem like a 
> >     mainstream definition of scholarship to me. 
> >      
> > 
> > Actually, what Nils Peter gave is a definition of deconstructionism, or
> > postmodernism. 
> > In Israel, we also call it "slaughtering sacred cows", and those who apply
> > these methods to the history of Zionism are called "New Historians" in the
> > current Israeli parlance. 
> > -- 
> > Jonathan D. Safren 

> No, I am not very happy with this definition. Scholarship is about creating
> knowledge. This a continuous process of try and error. Everything must be
> doubted in order to improve and obtain more knowledge. Just to repeat what
> we already know and have accepted is a waste of time.This is not
> post-modern, this is in essence modern.

In the main I can sort of agree with this, but I would suggest 
changing a couple of words.  For "creating knowledge" I would 
substitute "discovering knowledge" or perhaps (at least for my own 
usage) "discovering truth."  I don't think that "everything must be 
doubted;" for example, we know what the earth looks like, we know 
what the constellations look like, how far away the planets are, we 
know a certain amount of history, certain "laws" of physics, that 
sort of thing.  I do agree, though, that certain presuppositions need 
to be called into question in order to advance out knowledge of the 
history of the ANE and, by extension, the history and development 
of the Hebrew language.  Within this category of things that need 
to be called into question I would place the current primacy of 
archaeology.  Peter Kirk has already pointed out that some 
archaeological findings are at odds with contemporary records from 
a known Pharaoh, and other examples could be multiplied.  Using 
Jonathan's Israeli metaphor, I would suggest that the supposedly 
assured results of archaeology need to be called into question, or 
"doubted" if you prefer.  

Thank you for taking the time to make your view clearer.  I suspect 
we're closer to the same page on this than I originally thought.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to
overcome, stubborness is stupid."  Simone de Beauvoir