Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Yitzhak:

I take the position that unless there is evidence to the contrary, that one 
should take an author at his word. In juristic terms, innocent unless proven 
guilty.

For example, did Xenephon take part as a mercenary of a failed coup attempt, 
later to act as one of the leaders bringing the 10,000 back to Greek 
territory? He wrote his book “Anabasis” making just such claims. What 
evidence is there to doubt such claims?

On the other hand, Homer made no such claim for his presentations, rather he 
was an entertainer with a rolicking good tale, with which he took liberties 
to “improve” the story line.

Now look at Tanakh: even in those writings where the author(s) neither 
observed nor participated (e.g. Kings, Chronicles), the author(s) claimed 
historical accuracy because of the sources referenced. If one thought the 
book inaccurate, go check the referenced volumes (which, sadly, no longer 
exist). Other authors, particularly the prophets, claimed to have 
participated in or observed the events they recounted.

The only reason that I know of to doubt Tanakh’s authors, is philosophical, 
not historical nor linguistic. Around 1800 if not before, philosophers made 
the a priori decision that, for example, prophetic utterances were recorded 
after the events “prophesied”, that without any evidence pro or con, ancient 
Jews were mostly illiterate, and many other similar claims. Early 
speculations were at least honest that they based their whole house of cards 
on beliefs, in particular evolution. (Here I refer to citations in the PhD 
dissertation by Dr. Samuel R. Külling, published under the title “Zur 
Datierung der Genesis “P” Stücke”.)

Your response to Peter Kirk is just speculation upon speculation. To 
paraphrase, that there is writing indicates royal authority and approval, 
that scribes were connected with royalty, that mention of Yahwey having a 
consort Asherah therefore reflects an earlier stage of the cult later 
codified as Tanakh, and so on and so forth. The whole is speculation upon 
speculation. If any one of those assertions is wrong, the whole house of 
cards comes crashing down. And on top of it all, when reading the references 
that Peter Kirk provided, there is apparently less surviving writing at 
Kuntillet Ajrud than on the Gezar calendar. Such scant evidence proves 
nothing.

If, OTOH, we take the authors at their word the same way we take Xenophon, 
with the main discrepencies the result of copyist errors over the centuries, 
we can then derive a workable hypothesis for the history of the of the Hebrew 
language, as I illustrated in my last missive.

In closing, the JEPD theory, its antecedants and later development, is not 
only unnecissary for the study of Biblical Hebrew language, it can actually 
be wrong.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
> 
>
> Karl,
>
> While the acceptance of the specific sources
> JEPD is doubted, that does not mean you can
> replace them with an uncritical assessment of
> the Biblical sources.  Thus, simply because a
> book claims to be from the time of Moses,
> David, or Nebuchadrezzar does not mean you
> can uncritically accept that claim.  In the case
> of Moses, one may suggest that it is unclear
> when he lived and that dating his life depends
> on the use of other unrelated sources (the
> books of Kings and Joshua).
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
-- 
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