Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

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