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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues
  • Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 15:46:07 -0500

Dear list,

Kenneth Kitchen is a foremost OT scholar, and he both questions the documentary hypothesis and upholds the historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Kitchen

Professor Kitchen is an Evangelical Christian with regard to his religious beliefs. He is frequently cited by conservative Christians in relation to writings rejecting the Documentary Hypothesis, which claims that the Pentateuch is a composite work of sources labeled J, E, D, and P rather than by Moses as author. Kenneth Kitchen has raised various objections to the documentary hypothesis [1][2][3][4][5]. For example, Kitchen points to Egyptian tablets giving a biographical account in four different writing styles, yet this text (he claims) is widely accepted as having had one author. Kitchen himself, however, is not strictly traditionalist in terms of authorship of the Pentateuch, pointing out numerous places where the text demand post-Mosaic editing in the Pentateuch (See K. A. Kitchen in He Swore an Oath [ed. R. Hess, et. al.; Grand Rapids, Baker, 1994] 91). He also takes a late date of the exodus of Israel from Egypt during the time of Ramesses II in the 13th century BC, whereas most conservative evangelical Bible scholars date this event to the 15th century BC.


Here is what seems a fair statement of views of the historical reliability of the OT, one that mentions Kitchen and is again taken from a Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament

Current debate concerning the historicity of the Old Testament can be divided into several camps. One group has been labeled "biblical minimalists" by its critics. Minimalists (e.g., Philip Davies, Thompson, Seters) see very little reliable history in any of the Old Testament. Conservative Old Testament scholars, "biblical maximalists," generally accept the historicity of most Old Testament narratives (save the accounts in Gen 1–11) on confessional grounds, and noted Egyptologists (e.g., Kenneth Kitchen) argue that such a belief is not incompatible with the external evidence. Other scholars (e.g., William Dever) are somewhere in between: they see clear signs of evidence for the monarchy and much of Israel's later history, though they doubt the Exodus and Conquest. The vast majority of scholars at American universities are somewhere between biblical minimalism and maximalism; there are still many maximalists at conservative/evangelical seminaries, while there are very few biblical minimalists at any American universities. Interestingly, both Kitchen and archaeologist Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University are not the only scholars from the maximalist and minimalist camps who are sufficiently trained to address these questions with the necessary sophistication but both are experts in their fields—and both come to different conclusions.

Some contemporary Israeli archaeologists have now rejected much of the Deuteronomistic history of the Old Testament. Notably, Finkelstein and Neal Asher Silberman have written popular books detailing their view that many of the best-known Biblical stories are incompatible with the archaeology of the region. Conversely, in 2003 Kenneth A. Kitchen published the 662 page book On the Reliability of the Old Testament, which defended the Bible's reliability throughout. Although some archeologists have argued that many Biblical accounts should be rejected due to a lack of corroborating archaeological evidence, opponents point out that this is a return to the 19th century idea that anything not confirmed by current archaeology should be dismissed, a methodology which had once led some to question the existence of major empires such as Assyria.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard








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