Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 8/5/05, Karl Randolph wrote:

> Yitzhak: the linguists' conclusions are only as good as
> their initial data. After all, GIGO still rules. You and
> I strongly disagree on the dating of Hebrew documents,
> and the linguist who takes my dates will come to different
> conclusions than one who takes yours. The exception is
> where we have reliably dated documents, and enough of
> them to see clear patterns of development, a situation
> that does not exist for Biblical Hebrew.

I would like to think that a linguist in this case doesn't make any
a priori assumptions regarding the dates of the documents but 
deduces this dates from linguistic criteria alone.  This is, in any
event, Hurvitz's claim, and while I recognize he and anyone else
may have prior preconceptions regarding the dates, he should at
least refer to linguistic evidence alone in showing how he might
derive these dates had he no prior preconceptions.

Yitzhak Sapir