Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George F. Somsel" <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 19:33:52 -0500 "Harold R. Holmyard III"
<hholmyard AT ont.com> writes:
> Dear George,
> 
> >Personally, I think it has nothing to do with any putative Moses 
> who was
> >supposed to have led an exodus from Egypt (evidence does not 
> suggest the
> >historicity of such an event).  It was a program piece which was 
> written
> >to account for certain historical relationships and theological
> >positions.  If it were merely an historical account, I would 
> question its
> >value for anything more than antiquarian reasons.  It would not 
> have
> >appeared until after the monarchy was instituted.
> 
> 
> HH: You should read Kenneth Kitchen's _On the Reliability of the Old 
> 
> Testament_. He gives a lot of evidence supporting the historicity of 
> 
> the Exodus events.
> 
>                                 Yours,
>                                 Harold Holmyard
> _______________________________________________

Personally, it makes no difference to me whether the report is
historically accurate or not.  I think there is too little to support a
claim that it was, but that is beside the point.  So long as one is
solely interested in attempting to explain why they consider it to be
historical or whether the words are accurately reported, one is not
concentrating on the purpose for which it was written.  Why are these
stories written as they are?  Was there some importance to the story of
Judah and Tamar?  If so, what?  These are what should be sought. 
Otherwise we are majoring in minors.

george
gfsomsel