Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On 3/26/07, Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 26/03/2007 17:15, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> > Dear All, ...
> >
> >
> It seems to me that "minimalist" and "maximalist" must refer
> respectively to people who hold a minimum or a maximum amount of the
> Bible to be historically true.

I think part of the issue with these terms is that there are two
criteria for the
terms.  The first, used primarily by those from the scholarly community, is
that these are terms that denote how useful the Bible is for reconstructing
the history of Israel.  That is, a maximalist finds the Bible
"maximally useful,"
while a minimalist, "minimally useful".  In contrast, those of more religious
background, define the terms as you define it, how much of the Bible is
historically true.  Thus, for the "religious definition", someone who accepts
a fully inerrant Bible is the only true maximalist.  But for the scholar this
can be different.  For example, the scholar might hold that the Bible provides
a lot of information to reconstruct the history, but would still reconstruct a
different history than that told by the Bible.  He is a maximalist in the
"scholarly" sense, but not in the "religious" sense.  Or he might hold that
the Bible is of little use to reconstruct the history but might still point 
and
reconstruct a very similar history to that told by the Bible (this one is much
more hypothetical).  Then he is a "scholarly" minimalist but might get close
to a "religious" maximalist.  Here is a post by Yigal that primarily uses the
"scholarly" sense:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2006-June/028805.html
So I agree with you.  There is little use in using these terms, but I think
it is more basic than simply exaggeration.  It is that people of different
backgrounds use different ways to describe the two, essentially using
the same terms, but talking apples and oranges.

Yitzhak Sapir