Biblical Hebrew Forum

[rochelle altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>]

Look, JCR,

If you want to be taken seriously, please do not put words in my mouth and 
then use *your* words to insult me. To quote your own post: "was there 
actually a thought process that went into" your "statement"? Your reasoning 
is fallacious and ungrounded in anything I have written. Show me where I 
have ever stated that in b'midbar they had walls to put them on. In fact, I 
have stated rather clearly that THE TABLETS HAD TO FIT INTO THE ARK.
.
Dang, I have to keep reminding myself that you have to spell it out like a 
step by step instruction manual for some people at the risk of offending 
the intelligence of others. So for the others, please excuse me.

For JCR only, it seems:Here goes:

The points which you clearly have failed to understand are these:

1) These were "city" mice forced to wander in a waste.

2) "City" mice are accustomed to customs.

3) Custom hardens into rules very fast..

4) The customs in the ANE required certain dimensions and formats for 
presenting legal documents as coming from an authority.

5) The tablets would have had to meet these expected customary forms to be 
accepted as authoritative... whether or not there was a wall to display 
them on. In this case, they were placed in a carry-case called an ark

6) Moshe is described as following custom when he presents the tablets to 
the people.

7) From the evidence of the PaleoLev scroll, once there were walls to put 
them on, they followed custom and displayed the Torah on the wall. (They 
also returned to "city" mousery as soon as they could... something that 
tends to be ignored.)

8) The customs of the ANE in presenting authoritative documents continued 
in use essentially unchanged through the entire Greco-Roman, Medieval, and 
early Renaissance periods

9) Remnants of these ancient customs survive to this day.(e.g. legal size 
paper; black equals law; stripes equal rank).

10) If you wish to maintain otherwise, you must provide the contradictory 
evidence.

Now, do you get it?

And whatever you do when you have finally completed your degree, do not put 
words from a fertile imagination into other people's mouths and then use 
your own imagined reasoning to insult them. As rough as the 19th-century 
scholars were, they did not stoop to such tactics. It's a very bad habit 
and one to be avoided..

risa

Dr. Rochelle I. S. Altman
:
> Rochelle wrote;
>
> Point is: law codes, proclamations, and such like -- all issued under a god
> --  were displayed either on large stelae or on large tablets arranged as
> wall displays. The Egyptians did it, too.
>
> JCR:
>
> I'm sorry. But this has to be the most ridiculous piece of reasoning I 
> have ever heard. How exactly does one draw a parallel between a well 
> established city and a bunch of fugitives on the run in the desert who 
> sleep in tents and hope that their god will provide them with water for 
> the next day???
>
> Was there actually a thought process that went into the above statement? I 
> am particularly interested to hear more about these 'wall displays'. Do 
> you imagine they made their tents out of portable stone walls and hung up 
> their stone tablets upon them each time they pitched a portable castle in 
> the desert?