Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Jim wrote:-

>What I oppose is the tendency of modern secular scholars to view the
>Patriarchal narratives in general, and chapter 14 of Genesis in
>particular, as being somewhat akin to a ?fairy tale?, to use the exact,
>pejorative wording of famed Biblical Minimalist Niels Peter Lemche.

Some years ago Lemche was a member of this list and was an
infrequent contributor. In the few times he took part in
discussions I found his views to be quite different from what
his enemies claimed they were. Rather than thinking you know
precisely what he meant by ``fairy tale'', assuming he actually
used those words, I suggest you need to start afresh and understand
what he meant and why he used that description.

I often found it difficult to understand why he and TLT used the
words they did to describe their views as they were often using
them in very non-standard ways, ways which would be almost certainly
misunderstood by the causal reader.

>Just think if we could get one university scholar to take chapter 14 of
>Genesis seriously

There are no prizes for whining. You already know, or ought to know
because you've been told, what you have to do to get your views
taken seriously. Until you are prepared to do that you will just
sit on the sidelines whining and irrelevant.

Bill Rea, ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
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