Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 3/24/07, Harold Holmyard wrote:
> Dear Bryan,
>
> I gather from Yitzhak that you wrote the following.
> >
> > (3) Issues of Biblical history.  Anyone who brings up a claim that

I wrote the above.  The only parts I did not write are three lines of
a direct quote from Bryan's at the beginning, and additional quotes
from posts by Bryan, Kirk, and list charters which were placed in
quotation marks.  Why did you think Bryan wrote it?

Harold, regarding what you wrote to Bryan but evidently meant to me,
I think you are misrepresenting the positions of most scholars.  Nor is
this the issue.  The issue is that if a scholar came on the list and
suggested some literary source criticism analysis, he would have to
respond and defend source criticism of the Pentateuch (or perhaps
other Biblical books) itself rather than getting constructive criticism
about his suggestion.  You or wikipedia may attempt to suggest that
a huge body of scholarship accepts a conservative view of the
Pentateuch.  This is not accurate, however.  What you or wikipedia
cannot change, however, is that most scholars, who in fact do not
accept a conservative view of the Pentateuch, would not find the
list hospitable for discussions of literary analysis.  As a result, you
would probably not hear their voices on this list.  Perhaps that is ok
with you, but for me it is unfortunate.

The same can be said for your comments regarding the Patriarchal
Narratives.  Since I mentioned Miqra, here is how the moderator
of Miqra prefaced a thread on a very similar issue:
http://216.12.134.77/forums/post/48.aspx

Best,
Yitzhak Sapir