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  • From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • To: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] OT- perspective (was Josiah's book of the Law)
  • Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2005 16:25:06 +0100


Hi Titzhak,

Allow me to rephrase my thoughts and therefore make them more understandable.
When I say 'complete' I mean it in two senses.

1) Gen - Kings presents us with a chronological order of significant events
which allow us to build a timeline of the nations history.

2) The failings of prominent charachters (both repentant and proud) are
mercilessly
recorded in order for newer generations to be able to benefit from the
accounts.

I DO NOT MEAN

1) It tells us the colour of Samuel's hair.
2) It tells us the size of David's waist.

Such accounts were faithfully copied by scribes who dared not embellish the
accounts
and were it not for them we would know very little about Isreal's history.
The fact
that such accounts originate with Yah and that his servants who carefully
recorded
them dared not lie gives more than adequate reason to view them as the most
reliable
historic sources.

The mesha stele did not survive because faithful men of old believed that it
would
bring us spiritual benefits but because it was written on stone. This does
not make
it superior historical source. I do know, nor am I in a position to know the
true
motivations of the author(s) of the words on it but of one thing I am sure:

If there is a contradiction between its account and the account of faithful
prophets,
*I* know who I'm putting *my* money on.

Study us very commendable but sometimes has the side-effect of allowing
ourselves to
fall into the trap of thinking we know better than the ancient prophets.
Studying archeological evidence can bring many rewards as it can enhance out
knowledge
of how people lived and help us to better put the valuable stories of the
prophets into
a more easily understandable context.
It can also help us to make theoretical models for the 'missing bits', which
the ancient
prophets did not feel to be of great enough significance to bring us any
spiritual
benefits. But what we must always remember is that such will only ever be
'theoretical
models' and will never be a matchable replacement for the faithful words
recorded for
our benefit in scripture.
While, we know well the motivations of the author of scripture we can never
be absolutely
sure of the motivations of the authors of stele and they are therefore, by
default, second
rate sources which can only be given authenticity when backed up by the bible
(NOT THE OTHER
WAY ROUND). It is doubtless that the stele present accounts the way the
authors want them
to be heard and you only need go into a pub one evening to hear all kinds of
exaggerated
accounts with all kinds of embarrasing omissions.
What is so faith-instilling of the scriptual accounts is that the pattern we
see is the exact
opposite of this pattern of human imperfection.

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