Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Ian, I've moved beyond Kuntillat Ajrud to another line of argument. If you
have problems with my probability argument, think of it this way. If I
predict to you all of the winners at the races tomorrow, I think you will
agree that either I was very lucky or I had inside information. Indeed you
might decide to try to profit from on my tips for the day after, if you were
the betting type. But if I named for you the winners of yesterday's races,
you wouldn't be very impressed. Gore Vidal has named yesterday's winners.
The Book of Kings names, if not the future winners, at least winners which
according to you the author had no information about. But doesn't that
suggest that the author did in fact know the real winners?

The argument is independent of whether I know the author or his work. It
applies to any modern work which is based on good (or bad!) research into
what is known today of this period.

By the way, I am also aware of the book of Judith as well, and have it on my
computer. Here is the first verse (sorry it's not in proper Greek letters):
žtouv dwdek€tou tÒv basile°av Naboucodonosor ëv bas°leusen HAssur°wn n
Nineuj tÞ pçlei tÞ meg€lÛ n ta²v Óm™raiv Arfaxad ëv bas°leusen MÐdwn n
HEkbat€noiv. Well, weren't Assyria and Nineveh part of Nebuchadnezzar's
empire? I thought he conquered them. Wouldn't he have taken the title king
of Assyria? And might he not have been known by this title in neighbouring
Media? I would not jump to conclusions too quickly based on a single
apparent error. But OK, this may be a historical novelette, so I'm not going
to waste any more bytes trying to argue this one.

Peter Kirk

-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Hutchesson [mailto:mc2499 AT mclink.it]
Sent: 10 December 2000 04:35
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Re: Question Concerning Inspiration (was Joe)

<snip>

Whether you know the author or not in this particular case is ultimately
irrelevant. The situation is what should make the problem clear to you. I
can of course find some piece of literature whose background you are not
aware of and your attempts at applying probability would fail. Surely that's
obvious.

>Did this genre exist in antiquity?

What's the book of Judith? (Just so you know the genre, the writer talks
about Nebuchadnezzar of Assyria!)

<snip>