Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Hutchesson [mailto:mc2499 AT mclink.it]
Sent: 14 December 2000 10:17
To: Peter Kirk; Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Re: Question Concerning Inspiration (was Joe)


<snip>

>I don't "know" when Daniel was or was not written.

I don't think the reason for this unknowingness is scientific.

>I would not stake my life on the 6th century
>BCE, but I do not accept this as proven false.

This is inerrantist fudging.

You would rather give ear to attempts to make Belshazzar, the son of
Nabonidas...

Why don't you break down and check out the information to be found in the
more extensive modern scholarly commentaries on Daniel?

PK: <yawn> Don't you think I've heard all of this before?

<snip>
>
>PK: Let me expand my shorthand. Scholars have over the years reconstructed
a
>historical context for the land of Israel in the 10th-7th centuries BCE
from
>the evidence in the books of Kings etc and the small amount of external
>evidence.

"Historical context" seems to me to be misused in the above sentence.
Scholars have constructed a *literary world* for the land of Israel in the
10th-7th centuries BCE from the stories in the books of Kings etc...

PK: No! Look at for example Bright's "History of Israel". Are you really
arguing that Bright was trying to write not history but literary criticism?
Of course not! He was trying to write history! You can argue that it was bad
history if you like, but surely you don't claim he was insincere? So the
"historical context" may be inaccurate, but that doesn't make it a "literary
world".

... It is
something that springs from the Hebrew religious literature, not something
which comes from outside in order to contextualise the literature. So, what
was "reconstructed" cannot in any real sense contextualise anything.

The "small amount of external evidence" suggests the contrary of what your
scholars have "reconstructed."

PK: On the contrary! What about the names of 10 kings or however many it
was, plus much else in inscriptions like that Moab one, the Babylonian
Chronicle etc etc, and the invasion of Sheshonq/Shishak (unless you follow
David Rohl in rejecting this correlation). Against this only silence plus a
measly piece of speculation about the role of Kuntillat Ajrud.

>In the absence of anything better, I translate in harmony with
>this reconstructed context. The process may be considered somewhat
circular,
>but what better can I do?

("Somewhat"!?) You are still pushing a literalist understanding of the text.
You have finished with Kuntillat Ajrud because it specifically indicates
things that you don't want to know about...

PK: <yawn> No, I have finished with this because you have said it all before
and now you are just repeating yourself.

... Where was
Judah when Sheshonq I invaded Palestine and dealt with Arad of the house of
Yeroham? (Jerusalem doesn't warrant a mention in the Egyptian description of
this invasion -- at a time when Jerusalem seems to have been a village.)...

PK: I recognise this argument from David Rohl. Are you now accepting his
data, therefore demonstrating that you are a Velikovskian ;-)? But Rohl's
version of this Egyptian inscription makes no mention of Arad, where did
this name come from? How do you know that Jerusalem was not one of the names
on the large parts of the Egyptian inscription which are now unreadable?
What is your evidence that Jerusalem was a village at this time - do you
have evidence that it existed at all?

Ian

Peter Kirk