Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

While I agree with you that this topic has the potential to go 
out of bounds (especially when we have to explian to you the 
limitations of dating techniques) I disagree that the discussion 
is completely out of bounds.

The amount of time that Arabic, Hebrew, Ugaritic, Aramaic etc. had 
to divrsify from their common ancestor has a direct relevance on the 
linguistic discussion. 
Historic tesimonies of the origin of the Arabic language are scarce 
but Genesis tells us that Ishmael came from Abraham's loins and it 
is reasonable to assume that they spoke the same language. As Arabic 
tradition does not contradict the long held tradition that Ishmael 
became the father of the Arabian nation it is not impossible that 
the Arabic language and the Hebrew of the bible came from the 
language that Abraham spoke. Now, Abraham is described as a hebrew. 
Exactly what that term means we do not know. If the language he spoke 
was exactly the same as the hebrew we see in the bible, we do not know 
either. Archaic forms such as YHWH seem to suggest that the language 
had adapted slightly by the days of Moshe and this is not unreasonable 
as the language would undoubtedly have been affected by a few hundred 
years of Egyptian slavery.

However, your sweeping claims that all who doubt the authenticity of 
dating methods are motivated by blind faith was a little unwarranted.
I am not some religious maniac born into a Christian family who has 
brainwashed into rejecting everything that slightly contradicts the bible.
I come from a very strong scientific background and am more qualified to 
speak science than linguistics, especially chemistry (more especially 
thermodynamics and reaction feasibility). I only became interested in 
linguistics after being converted by strong scientific proofs of Yah's 
existence and I can assure you that I was well aware of the limitations 
of dating well before this time. Your summarial position on dating betrays 
a surface knowledge of scientific dating methods and it is you who are 
not acquainted with the facts and are reacting out of a 'faith position'.

Without going into the technicalities (and risking going out of bounds) 
it is only common sense that when you see that various scientific dating 
methods vary in different orders of magnitude for the same object that 
each method is based on different variables and presents different 
limitations. Your idea that people on this list have expressed a flat 
refusal to consider scientific dating evidence is more than a little 
extreme and all who have expressed their limitations have adequately shown 
that they are more acquainted with the facts than yourself. No-one here is 
dissing the methods as completely useless and your idea that that is the case 
is completely unfounded. In many cases the dating methods can give us a 
relative model and can tell us without a shadow of a doubt what happened 
before what, although in certain circumstances even here caution must be 
exercised. In conclusion, dating methods are useful for constructing a 
relative model but cannot and should not be used as absolute indications 
of dates.

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From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
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Peter:

It is a common belief that all knowledge has to be 
scientific knowledge. However, the definition of science 
given by famous scientists like Dr. G.G. Simpson and 
others restricts science to only a small portion of total 
knowledge, so restricted that it does not even include 
mathematics (though math is indispensable to study 
science).

History is not science. It uses different methodologies to 
study events that are no longer observable. The tools of 
science can often study artifacts from the past to give us 
insights to past events that were not mentioned by old 
records, archeology being a prime example of such 
studies, but that does not make history science. 
Though history is not science, it is no less valid 
knowledge than science.

On this forum we are archeologists, studying a dead 
language using the tools of linguistics analyzing the 
artifacts (written records) from the past. Often we are 
stymied by the lack of information that would easily be 
cleared up in modern studies by questioning native 
speakers, and often we disagree on procedures, how 
properly to study the writings, but the central fact remains 
that we are trying to understand something that is no 
longer observable (for the most part, as a group, I think 
we're doing a good job).

The people I pity are those who insist that all knowledge 
must be scientific knowledge, and any study that is not 
scientific is nonsense. They must either give up logic or 
live in such ahistorical solipsism that even a seven 
second memory is long term.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
> 
> On 21/09/2005 21:52, Karl Randolph wrote:
> 
> > Peter:
> >
> > Your whole scenario is a modern fable. It is not scientific as it 
> > is not based on observable phenomena, as James Read says. All 
> > radiometric dating methods are suspect, and for the same reasons, 
> > not just C14. Whether the fable is accurate or not is outside the 
> > realm of this forum.
> >
> > Karl W. Randolph.
> >
> >
> >
> Karl, I pity you because you can know nothing about the past. Not 
> even what happened yesterday, even if you saw it with your own 
> eyes, because it is not repeatable. There was a show on TV here 
> about a man with a seven second memory. I didn't watch it, but I 
> can imagine what it must be like. But you are worse off because you 
> can't trust your memories for even seven seconds, because what you 
> saw then is not repeatable.
> 
> -- Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/


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