Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>> When you say "brought together" by  a D narrator,
>> who was that D-narrator, when did he live, how did
>> he know the story?
>> I sense the anger these questions arouse; we tend to
>> get angry when we run up against questions which
>> challenge the bedrock of our faith, of who we are as people.
>
>But Lisbeth, your questions, valid though they are, do not undermine or
>challenge whether or not the events were historical. I think everyone would
>agree that we cannot *prove* (beyond the text) that these events happened.
>In the same way none of us can *prove* (beyond the text) any theories about
>authorship and transmission with respect to, well most of the biblical
>texts. 
>
>As I said your questions are valid, but irrelevant in terms of evaluating
>historicity. 

You have no other way of evaluating historicity other than 
to deal with the epistemological problems of the sources. 
Although it is not a sufficient condition it is a necessary 
one.


Ian