Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

        From:   Kimmo Huovila [SMTP:kimmo.huovila AT helsinki.fi]

        Though this does not really give a complete answer to your question,
        text linguistics can give an alternative, plausible analysis in some
        cases where different sources have been proposed. The tendency in
the
        past has been to propose different sources before examining all the
        alternatives from the standpoint of text linguistics (no doubt,
partly
        due to the fact that text linguistics is a relatively recent
        discipline). However, in my opinion, the source critic should be
very
        well equipped in text linguistics to have a solid basis for his
        methodology.

        Kimmo
        

        The literray critics used a lot of linguistic argument when
proposing their theory. Of course it is from a modern view point a rather
primitive kind of linguistics but language was certainly a fixed part of the
argument for the source division. Of course most of this discussion was in
German but people in the USA who might not command the German vernacular
must realize that the discussion goes back to the beginning of the 18th
century and developed immensely during the 19th century in the
Graf-Kuenen-Wellhausen hypothesis.

        NPL