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  • From: Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Wellhausen
  • Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 19:17:38 -0500

At 06:45 PM 12/24/2007, you wrote:
On Dec 24, 2007 8:26 PM, Moshe Shulman wrote:
> Yigal until it is reproducible it is just a fantasy and not even a
> scientific theory. Anyone coming from a Scientific/Mathematical
> background as I do, will tell you that. To be reproducible the same
> theory needs to be applied to other works of literature where we KNOW
> that there are multiple authors and single authors with multiple
> styles and work. It does not. (Try doing it with Tolkein and you see
> the failure of it. LOTR is by a single author and Silmirilian was
> edited and has additions from his son. It cannot be done.) While DH
> does give some interesting insights into the text, if it were true
> that it is a revised, combined text, there is no way of knowing how
> many hands were involved in it.
I come from a scientific/mathematical background. Let me begin by
pointing out that Yigal Levin, an archaeologist, is also from a
"scientific" background. Science is not just the hard sciences.

Agreed

Reproducibility is not a main trait of a scientific theory. This is

Really? IF you propose a theory and cannot test it, then that is a very weak theory. In fact Popper would say that any theory that is not provable/disprovable is not a scientific theory at all.

especially the case in historical reconstructions. We cannot

This is irrelevant to a discussion on multiple authorship of a text. That is not a question of history. One can discuss when a text might have been written, but that is a iffeent issue and not one dealt with in the DH.

reproduce the beginning of the universe, but that doesn't mean
that the Big Bang is not a theory. It is a theory, and it makes
predictions, and those predictions can be tested, and we can

Actually this is a good because it is what should be the case here. While we cannot prove it, what we do (and it is common in Mathematics) is ASSUME it true and make a test that could disprove it (or add evidence to it's truth.)


attempt to falsify them. Picking a modern text and trying to
analyze it -- then concluding that we cannot determine editing
work is poor methodology. Just because one type of editing

Only if the methodology used to decide if a text has multiple authors it invalid. What makes an ancient text of multiple authorship inherently different from a modern text of multiple authorship? If one has a method to dissect one, then it should work for the other. IF NOT, then one needs to examine the methodology being used to divide a text by authors. Every work I have read on the subject is circular in reasoning and non-reproducible.

does not allow us to reconstruct two editors, does not mean
that it is the only type of editing processes that could have
been taken. In fact, Van Seters apparently claimed at a

The only type of editing that would allow for the DH is if there were multiple sources and the editor did a cut and paste job. I don't think any serious person would contend that this was the way people edited at any time in the past. Let me give a counter theory which indicates your problem. Let's say a Mr X at some time (choose whoever you want and when) takes some stories he heard orally, and some written texts he has seen, and with his own additions moulds them into one book. Unless you had a copy of the originals which he used, you could never know what came from where, and what was original to Mr X. But this is what DH proposes. BTW The Silmarillian was in fact made this way by Tolkein's son and without outside material you will never know who wrote what. The problem I have is that DH has an invalid assumption to it's methodology. It assumes the text it divisible, without providing a non-circular method of getting to that point.


Incidentally, I have a study (in preparation, currently on hold)
of a Biblical book where I show that a group of verses of the
book was most likely conflated from several sources, each
representing the same original section. Besides some very
convincing insights that this provides into some oddities in
those verses, the theory is also supported by the fact that
one of the translations of the book contains only three of
the five sources. The ending of the first source was previously
conjectured to be the original ending of the entire book on
different grounds (it is where the plot seems to end). I have
not read Van Seters books, but it seems to me (based on what
I understand so far) that this study would provide strong
evidence against his theory.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moshe Shulman outreach AT judaismsanswer.com 718-436-7705
Judaism's Answer: http://www.judaismsanswer.com/





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