Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Thomas L. Thompson" <tlt AT teol.ku.dk>]

Dear List.
This continues my previous post.
p. 450 TLT 1: Kitchen does not understand the statement. I am objecting to 
the characterization of these stories as retrojections.
451-2 TLT-2: He also misunderstands my position on Merneptah (Her one must 
read my article with Hjelm in JSOT 2003. Moreover the shifting signification 
of names refers to a limited group of names that have taken on mythic 
overtones in the Bible; namely Israel, Canaanites, Amorites and Philistines, 
not place names. Certainly anyone who has read my chapter on the Execration 
texts in my 1974 would not have confused this issue of genre.
452-3 TLT 3: I am glad that Kitchen agrees the name David is unusual. It is 
also Semitic. In this discussion, I argued that "House of X" does not 
necessarily bear dynastic significance in the Bible: See House of Johnathan, 
etc. I never have made a charge of forgery regarding this inscription. 
Rather, I have argued that there were two inscriptions, which George Athas 
has improved on by shifting the fragments from their first published 
positions. Finally, I have never written anything on an inscription from Tell 
Miqne.
453-4 TLT 4: If Kitchen means that Jerusalem's kings were paupers compared to 
Assyria's, Egypt's or Rome's, we are not far apart. I still maintain that 
Kitchen has never plastered a wall.
454f- TLT 5 On Jerusalem and Judea in the 10th century, Kitchen should read 
the whole discussion, esp my Early History, p. 288-293. I fear some clumsy 
paraphrasing of mine has misled him along with Dever.
455-458 TLT 6 On the Mesha story, I certainly am mistaken on the quality of 
1st person motifs. I have expanded and corrected this preliminary paper in a 
study which will appear in a forthcoming number of the European Seminar in 
Historical Methodology,ed. by Grabbe. A biblically oriented synopsis of this 
larger paper can be found in my The Messiah Myth, p139-170, which comes out 
next month. The issue is not one of "literary flourishes" but of composition 
through stereotypical thematic elements, which dominate both content and 
function of such texts.
 
There is biblical wholeness in 6 curses, so I will close here.
 
Thomas
 
Thomas L: Thompson
Professor, University of Copenhagen