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  • From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • To: <tladatsi AT charter.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Language Evolution - Out of Bounds
  • Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 13:58:46 +0100


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 kwrandolph AT email.com Thu Sep 22 11:35:04 2005
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From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 10:34:57 -0500
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Language Evolution
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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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