Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

On 8/23/07, JAMES CHRISTIAN READ <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk> wrote:
> BR: I've not sure why you would expect to see such evidence.
> Humans had been around for hundreds of thousands of years
> before they started to commit their languages to writing.
> If you look at apes, then at humans, some such evolution
> must of occurred. By the time you get to the Hebrew speakers
> they are only a heartbeat in time away from us. While some
> sort of evolution must be continuing I would not be surprized
> if its so small that it is undetectable if you are just looking
> at the period between writers of the Hebrew text and ourselves.
>
> Of course, if you're young earth creationist all bets are off ;-)
>
> JCR: The problem with what you have just said is that
> it is based on so many unverifiable assumptions. You
> assume that:
>
> i) Humans evolved from another more primative species
> ii) You assume that humans and apes have a common
> ancestor and that therefore the language of apes can
> be considered as valid evidence
>
> There is no data supporting your assumptions, just a
> scientific model which has largely gained acceptance by
> the scientific community.
>
It's not even a scientific model. It is merely a religious belief.
Except those who have faith in it don't like the word "religion" to
describe their beliefs.

It is not scientific because science, as described in science
textbooks, is based on observation, where the observation is
repeatable, upon which are based hypotheses, theories and scientific
laws. The model listed above is based on presuppositions concerning
the unobservable past, therefore logically cannot be a scientific
model. Creationism fails the same test, therefore it, too, cannot be a
scientific model.

The only scientific studies we can make on languages are: 1) modern
day surveys/studies of modern languages and 2) historical records of
languages as preserved in historical writings and newer recording
techniques that preserve historical examples of language. Anything
beyond that is speculation and, given the unpredictable nature of
language development, can be way off or correct with no way to verify
it.

The thing I have against Isaac Fried's theory is that it is based on
speculation with no, I mean absolutely none, no historical data to
back it up. Further, it is based on certain other beliefs being
accurate, beliefs that can be neither verified nor falsified using the
scientific method. Finally it contradicts the record of history that
has come down to us. The bottom line, it may be interesting, but
irrelevant to a study of Biblical Hebrew as we have it preserved in
Tanakh.

>...
>
> James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
> http://www.lamie.org/hebrew - thesis1: concept driven machine translation 
> using the Aleppo codex
> http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc - thesis2: language acquisition simulation

Karl W. Randolph.