Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 01/07/2006 04:09, Joel Stucki wrote:
> ...
> Yitzhak gave a very good post on minimalist vs maximalist that
> summarizes the situation very precisely. I encourage you to read that
> post. Basically anything earlier than the Davidic Monarchy is
> hopelessly lost to time and lack of records. While there is nothing
> that would make the biblical story impossible (although there are a
> few rough spots), there is also nothing to support it. A good question
> would be: what do we know about the progression of Hebrew from David's
> time to the second temple period? To reconstruct earlier than this
> (and you will find no shortage of theories tracing Hebrew back to
> Adam) is a matter of speculation or faith.
> Where Yitzhak and I differ is that he has defended the position that
> scholarly methods and archaeological/linguistic data are the only
> method available to know the "true" history. While I have great
> respect for that position I would have to say that inspiration is also
> a source for knowing the "true" history but discussion of such is way
> beyond the scope of this list. However, if you are looking to know
> much about such details of Abraham I am afraid that is the only place
> you can turn. Best of luck to you.
>
>   
Joel, while I agree with you in looking to inspiration, I disagree with 
you that it is only on this basis that we can know any details about 
Abraham. Even if we leave inspiration, faith etc out of the equation, in 
Genesis (let's limit this discussion to chapter 12 and following) we 
still have a document which purports to be the ancient history of the 
people of Israel, from Abraham onwards. I agree that (apart from faith) 
we cannot know for certain how well this document corresponds to the 
actual facts about the past. But nothing significant in it has been 
shown to be wrong e.g. by archaeology, and indeed the general picture of 
life in Canaan and Egypt has been confirmed. The normal scholarly 
approach to ancient documents of this type, where the stories are not 
full of supernatural elements, is to accept them as probably based 
heavily on truth although also embellished. For example, in the 19th 
century it was fashionable to reject the Iliad as myth, but then 
Schliemann found Troy, and archaeology has confirmed that the general 
picture of the Aegean at that time; so now the Iliad is understood as 
generally historical, although embellished in its details. (With the 
Acts of the Apostles there has been a similar story.) If Genesis were 
considered on the same basis as other such documents, chapters 1-11 
would be understood as legends with little basis in truth, but chapters 
12-50 would be accepted as generally true, although no doubt such 
matters as Abraham's and Sarah's age when Isaac was born would be 
rejected as exaggeration. This is not speculation but sound historical 
method, in a context where are unconfirmed historical records. It seems 
to me that scholars only reject Genesis as totally unhistorical because 
they are overreacting to fundamentalist claims that every last word in 
it is infallibly true. But there really should be a middle way in which 
Genesis is treated like any other ancient document.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/