Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yitzhak:

On 7/15/06, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Karl Randolph wrote:
>
> > > I am not dealing here with the issue of borrowing from
> > > Enuma Elish, since this is not the position I hold or have
> > > suggested on list.  However, the second sentence presents
> > > a logical fallacy.  If we have two documents, and we can
> > > definitely date one a thousand years earlier than the second,
> > > this provides evidence that the first one is the older account
> > > or document.
> >
> > This works only if we have the originals of the documents.
> >
> > But when one deals with copies, that all goes out the window.
>
> No it does not.  The physical dating is evidence.

OK, does that mean that my copy of Tanakh, because its format is bytes
on a hard disk, (another copy as bytes in involatile RAM on my PDA)
that that argues that the original of Tanakh does not predate the
invention of the hard disk? Can't you see how when dealing with copies
that it has no relevance as to the date of the original composition?

> ...You may suggest
> an otherwise unsupported assumption that the two are copies of
> documents whose dating is different from those of the copies.  But
> unless you find evidence to support that assumption, it remains
> an assumption without any evidence to support it.  The physical
> dating remains real tangible evidence.
>
> We actually have earlier fragments of parts of the New Testament and
> earlier fragments of the Odyssey:
> http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/manuscripts.html
> http://www.chs.harvard.edu/publications.sec/homer_and_the_papyri.ssp/introduction.pg
You are really good at finding information on the web, better than I.
But you have yet to reference linguistic evidence tying Ugarit to
Biblical Hebrew.

> ...  Without the
> physical evidence mentioned above for the Odyssey and the New
> Testament, a similar argument could probably be proposed based on
> linguistics of Greek.
We have documents dating from eighth century BC and earlier to the
present, from which we can follow the linguistic development of Greek
language. From that we can roughly date a Greek document of unknown
date based on linguistics.

You have yet to show a similar paper trail for Hebrew.

> Physical dating provides evidence.  Linguistics provides evidence.
> But you need to have some evidence!  The above suggestion is that
> an argument based on an assumption with no evidence to support it
> is better than one that has evidence to support it.  This is simply
> wrong.
Isaiah gives the names of kings who reigned during his lifetime, the
same with Jeremiah, and many of the other authors. That is evidence.
Just because you don't trust that evidence does not make it not
evidence.

I mentioned that, according to historians that I have heard, there is
an ancient literary style that went out of use around mid second
millennium BC, found also in Genesis. That too is evidence. Evidence
that Genesis incorporates documents much older than Moses.

> > > ....  We may argue that the two are copies
> > > themselves of older documents and it is possible that the
> > > second one is older than the first.  However, that argument
> > > would be made on pure speculative grounds.
> >
> > Not necessarily. It is speculation to say that the copies of Tanakh
> > that we have from Qumran are not copies, in that the documents
> > themselves claim to earlier authorship and tradition claims that no
> > book of Tanakh was authored later than the time of Ezra.
>
> Which tradition?

Talmud good enough for you?

> ...   the question
> is, just how ancient is the original, and how close are they to the
> original.  It is pure unsupported speculation to claim that they date
> from a thousand years earlier.

We have the claims in Tanakh as to approximate dates of composition,
which is evidence. What is your evidence that they weren't?

> ...  But the point was not to argue the
> Mosaic or second millenium authorship of parts of the Bible.  It was
> to point out the problems with your logical argument: An argument
> from evidence, be it physical or linguistic or other, is always better
> than an argument absent any evidence.
I agree, only you have yet to show any evidence. Or more accurately,
you have yet to show evidence that is not ideological to the point
that those who do not share that ideology reject your "evidence".

> > We don't know if the copy of Enuma Elish found in Babylon is a copy or
> > original. If original, it is definitely a later document than Genesis
> > 1.
>
> Do you have evidence for this?  Were did you get this "definitely"?
>
> From the evidence, that Genesis incorporates older documents, dating
millennia before Moses.

> > > While the above is technically correct, because we have
> > > relatively few religious literary texts from Canaan and
> > > Phoenician sources themselves, we do have sources from
> > > Ugarit which is relatively similar.  But even without such
> > > evidence, we would simply not know whether or not there
> > > was a Canaanite god or goddess Tehom.
> >
> > So you admit that the existence of such a goddess is pure
> > speculation.
>
> No, it is an educated guess.  Most scholars don't even differentiate
> between Ugaritic myth and Canaanite.  Recent scholars may
> have been more accurate and precise on this point.  But even if
> Ugaritic myth cannot be considered "Canaanite" proper, it is
> definitely very similar, and allows a more accurate picture of
> the ancient Canaanite beliefs than the Bible might suggest.

The purpose of the Bible is not to describe Canaanite beliefs, hence
what we can find is sketchy at best, and then as an opponent to
Canaanite beliefs.

Just because Ugarit had those beliefs, does not mean that Canaan
shared them in every detail. To insist that they did, or did not, is
speculation.

> What I wrote above is that without such sources, the existence
> *AND* non-existence of such a goddess would be speculation.
> However, on the basis of Akkadian Tiamat compared with
> Biblical Tehom, we could propose this also for Canaanite.  It
> would be an educated guess: speculation, but not pure
> speculation.  Keep in mind, though, we do have those sources!
>
> > > > > Gen 49:25 The parallelism $mym/thwm immediately
> > > > > follows )l )byk/$dy, which is clearly a divine
> [...]
> >
> > Go back and read the text, in Hebrew. While the text is poetic in
> > format, $MYM and THWM are not in parallel with $DY and )L, rather the
> > sentence structure puts them in the object phrases of the verb, while
> > $DY and )L are the subject. Not parallel at all. If you want to
> > divinize heavens and depths, then to be consistent you need to
> > divinize breasts and womb, in the same verse.
>
> And if you go back and read the verse you'll see that Tehom receives
> a verb "rbct" which suggests a creature rather than an abstract or
> immobile natural element.

RBCT is an adjectival usage from the same root as the verb RBC. It
confers no concept of volition to the depths. No more than the English
"dirt lying under your feet". Furthermore, it is still in an object
phrase to the verb, not subject which it would need to be in order to
be parallel to God.

> ...
> Yitzhak Sapir
> http://toldot.blogspot.com

Karl W. Randolph.