Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Kenneth asked:-

>I am not a scholar, and I have not understood anything in the argument
>about Rolf's dissertation or whatever the discussion has been about. I am
>just curious about how scholars debate normally. Is the debate that
>you've been doing on B-Hebrew the normal way that scholars discuss
>controversial subjects or is this somehow different? Also, when someone
>has a controversial opinion like Rolf, don't scholars analyze the ideas
>right away because it sounds like his ideas have been around for a while
>and no one has analyzed them. Maybe I did not understand the discussion,
>but it sounds like this to me.

Although Rolf has worked on his ideas for ten years or so and has
posted on this list a number of times, he has only completed his
Ph.D. quite recently and so the full work has only just become
available. It was not until the full dissertation became available
that anyone could look at it in detail. Paradigm shifts occur
rapidly. When a new idea comes along which is better than the
previous one (e.g. Quantum mechanics, evolution) it only takes
a matter of a few years to revolutionise the field. Unfortunately,
most original research ends up going down a dead end and produces
nothing useful. That's a general observation, not a specific one
on the subject of Rolf's work.

The world of theses is moving into the electronic age. Here, all
Master's and Ph.D. theses are required to be submitted in
electronic form in addition to the traditional hard-bound
volumes. They are being made available on the web for download
by anyone interested. We are no leader in this, but it appears
Rolf's thesis isn't available in electronic form so perhaps the
policy at Oslo is different.


Bill Rea, ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz                </   New
Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332        /)  Zealand
Unix Systems Administrator                    (/'