Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 11/01/2007 00:10, Kevin Riley wrote:
>  
> Karl seems to want this discussion confined to pre-Exilic evidence.  The
> Amarna letters are the only evidence I know of - and Ugaritic if the longer
> alphabet includes shin and sin, as I believe it does.  As Karl excludes both
> because they are *not Hebrew*, we are left with no acceptable evidence. 
> Without some discovery of a manuscript/inscription that is pre-Exilic and
> includes a distinction of sin and shin, or a translation of names into a
> language that clearly differentiates /s/ and /S/, it is unlikely there will
> be evidence.  Otherwise it remains a matter of one person asserting that
> there was no distinction and another asserting there was.  That seems like a
> waste of time, IMO.
>  
>   
Indeed. This is typical of Karl's method. Whenever anyone comes up with 
any evidence against his position, he finds some excuse to declare it 
inadmissible. He thereby restricts his observations to a period for 
which he knows there is no evidence against his position - but equally 
none to support it. If he looked at the wider evidence, he might find 
evidence for as well as against his position - after all, Garbini and 
Diem seem to have found some, so there is a case to answer. But by 
ruling out all the evidence in any direction he ensures that what he 
says can never be more than baseless speculation.

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