Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

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.

This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email
Security System.