Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Bill:
You mentioned cladistic analysis, but you mentioned neither for nor against
if it could be used for DH. As you mentioned, the wikipedia article didn't
answer the question, so  I looked for other articles that maybe could give
an answer to the question. I found a site that detailed a study that you
mentioned in your message, and merely reported on what the study found. I
did not intend to imply that you thought that cladistic analysis could be
applied to the question, all I wanted to show that apparently it can't.

On Jan 3, 2008 7:01 PM, Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>
>
> I thought it was clear from my post that I was not proposing that
> cladistic analysis could be used to test the documentary hypothesis.  But
> I guess not. So to clarify, I was pointing out that it all probability new
>
> software would have to be developed. Given the payoff is so small (i.e.
> those who doubt the DH do so for reasons other than its parsimony and
> would reject any conclusions supporting the DH anyway) I doubt anyone
> would devote the time required to develop such a tool. To do the type of
> test Moshe was asking for would require that the software already exist.
> Which means it would already have another function -- in the same way the
> cladistic analysis software already existed and could be applied without
> further adaption to the problem of reconstruction text family trees.


DH's parsimony? I thought the opposition was for the opposite reason.

One of the main reasons I heard over the years for opposing the methodology
of DH is that it can be applied to only one document, that it cannot
accurately describe any other document. If it cannot be applied to any other
document, why should we trust it when applied to Bible? It doesn't matter if
the method has been computerized, if it can't accurately describe other
documents where the authorship is known, then it is useless in supporting DH
as well.

>
> Bill Rea, ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
> E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz                </   New
> Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332        /)  Zealand
> Unix Systems Administrator                    (/'
>

Karl W. Randolph.