Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Christian M. M. Brady" <cbrady AT tulane.edu>]

On 6/4/02 6:37 AM, "Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it> wrote:

>>> These are things that can't currently be known, to my
>>> knowledge, with any certainty.
> 
> He does not at all argue for the historicity of the
> material.
> 
> I don't see that Liz's criterion is an assumption at all.
> It is a necessity for any historical argument: one needs
> to know how the information comes to us for it to have
> historical validity. A story detached from any historical
> context is, as is, unhistorical. Though this is the case
> for the vast majority of the biblical narrations, it is
> only a historical reflection and does not in itself say
> whether the events happened or not, but that they cannot
> be used for historical purposes (as claims that they
> actually happened indicate).

This is the key, I think, to your argument Ian. You are not in fact talking
about the historicity of the events described in Judges, but rather the
historicity of the artifact, the text of Judges. The story may still be
"historical" (i.e., that it records events that really occurred) even though
it is, as you describe, "detached from any historical context." That doesn't
make it unhistorical, it just makes it less useful for research.
 
Cb
cbrady @ tulane.edu
-- 
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is
quite unbearable. There is something unfair
about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
                                                        Oscar Wilde