Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Others have questioned your historical grounds, so I won't repeat their
arguments. But I still want to question the linguistic grounds. Vince's
datings are at best relative (not even that if the ordering of his stages
cannot be proved) unless there are firm historical anchors for it. But, if
we allow for the possibility of orthographic updating during copying, those
historical anchors become very uncertain - all the more so if we allow such
updating to continue into the DSS period. The most we can say is to date the
texts as not earlier than the events descibed in them (and even that
principle may have to be modified for prophetic passages). To put it another
way, how do we know that Vince's stages are not simply the preferences of
individual copyists in (say) the 1st century BCE?

Two shaky pieces of evidence do not make a firm proof.

Peter Kirk

-----Original Message-----
From: Giuseppe Regalzi [mailto:regalzi AT infinito.it]
Sent: 11 March 2001 11:20
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Re: deuteronomy, liz, response

<snip>

My point is the following: if Deuteronomy (or any other book) can
be consistently dated both on linguistic (if Vincent is right) and
on historical grounds (e.g. the connection with Josiah's reform),
then the burden of proof is on anyone who questions this dating by
invoking a purely conjectural linguistic update: adfirmanti
incumbit probatio, to use a nice latin formula...

Giuseppe


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Giuseppe Regalzi
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