Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 14/06/2004 22:19, Karl Randolph wrote:

> Dear Peter:
>
> Now that you bring in science……
>
> ...
>
> This is not a claim that ”creation science“ is science. It is not science for 
> the same reasons evolution is not science.
>  

I agree with you, more or less. Certainly evolution in terms of 
mechanisms is no more scientific than creationism because both are based 
on unfalsifiable speculation.

> The reason I objected to ”proto-Semitic“ language, especially as a yardstick 
> to evaluate Biblical Hebrew, is because it, like evolution, is based on 
> inobservable presuppositions that may or may not be true. I would prefer to 
> stay with that which can be observed, in this case, the Biblical Hebrew 
> language recorded in Tanakh and what few other writings in Biblical Hebrew 
> that we have found.
>
>  
I hadn't mentioned proto-Semitic for some time, but you have anticipated 
my mention of it just posted. Well, there are a large number of words 
and grammatical structures which are more or less common between many 
modern and recorded ancient Semitic languages. These are similar to the 
large number of words and structures in common between e.g. Romance 
languages which can be traced back to a known ancestor, Latin. It is a 
reasonable speculation, although formally unprovable I agree, that the 
common Semitic vocabulary and grammar derive from an original common 
Semitic language, which is probably lost (although I suppose one could 
try to argue that proto-Semitic is Akkadian, the oldest recorded Semitic 
language). To go further into determining the exact shape of that 
proto-language may be speculative, but that is not actually my point.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/