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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Michael Banyai <Banyai AT t-online.de>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The Golden Calf & the Hathor Cult of Sinai ?
  • Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 21:41:20 +0100

On 19/09/2004 20:08, Michael Banyai wrote:

Dear Peter,

it has little sense what you are doing. You are creating a religious rule out
of something what is clearly a problematic exception, namely the interdiction
at the Sinai.


Well, which interdiction do you mean? Wearing jewellery? Worshipping golden calves? The former is indeed an exception. The latter may be a religious rule, though I didn't say so, just that there is no evidence that calf worship happened between this incident and the time of Jeroboam.

This interdiction was apparently so widely unknown, that the highpriest at
the idolatric temple of Dan was according to the book of Judges a descendent
of Moses. I suppose that the Sinai story was so little known even within the
family of Moses, that it remained secret till well after the time of Solomon
as it resurfaced.


This reminds me of the argument that a report of a murder implies that there is no law against murder. That is as fallacious as the argument that a law against murder implies that murders do not take place.

Now to your objection, it would be no need to the Sinai story to contain
historical even if in deformated form. I must contradict you since the Bible
in its Judahite version was not created in the desert but indeed in
contradiction to the traditions of the northern kingdom. So should a judahite
redactor have intended to push his theological view through, than it had to
use the same rough material and pre-emptively accuse the Israelites of
manipulating facts and divine oracles, like the one quoted at Sinai.


You continue to make assertions without proper evidence. And in any case none of this contradicts what the position I have put forward, that the Exodus account is coherent but possibly fictional. Maybe it was written by a Judahite author pushing a theological view. That isn't my preferred position, but I deliberately left this issue open. But if it was, we can expect that author to have written a text which makes sense. While it is possible that he or she copied passages from very different stories, the chance of being able to reconstruct those stories reliably is minimal - unless basically they were the same story in a different form.

This would have been the usual quid pro quod: an invention out of nihil would
have only discredited the judahite version. The best manipulations are those
which use at large pieces of truth.


Indeed. So you agree that there are large pieces of truth in the Exodus story of the golden calf?

But probably your reluctance to follow is rather your personal disinterest in history. Should one wish to extract history out of the biblical material, one would have to make a decision, what the material he is working with is or has to say.

I have made a decision that the Exodus story is coherent narrative, and that there is no good evidence not to accept it as a generally historical narrative in the same way as most other ancient documents which purport to narrate events are understood as generally historical. But I accept some later redaction.

You are not taking any decision but this is your own particular choice since the material available is plenty enough to support a hypothesis in my direction. My hypothesis makes the happening at Sinai not to be a premonition by 500 years of things which have to realy happen only that much later.
And this makes sense so.


Well, you have made a different decision. But I don't think you have good evidence to support that decision.


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






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