Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>]

On Tuesday, June 15, 2004, at 01:52  PM, Dave Washburn wrote:

> Perhaps what we need in such cases is a better definition of "science."


"Amen", brother, if I may be allowed the misapplication of 
affirmation. :)

It would seem that the definition of science has become a debate for 
rhetoricians.

Brian Roberts


> On Tuesday 15 June 2004 03:47, Peter Kirk wrote:
> > 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.
>
> --
> Dave Washburn
> http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
> Learning about Christianity from a non-Christian
> is like getting a kiss over the telephone.
>
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