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  • From: Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>
  • To: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Eden
  • Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 16:07:19 -0400


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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