Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Tory:

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 4:38 AM, Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com> wrote:

> -- K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Tory:
> > This is why arguing dates is off list for this
> > group.
>
> The list seems willing to discuss a wide range of topics related to
> Biblical Hebrew. It is impossible to have a discussion about it without
> dates.
>
> I did not say, not to discuss dates, rather not to argue about them. For
example, was Daniel written by an official in the court of Nebuchadnezzar,
or was it written about 150 BC? I and some others take the former, others on
this list insist on the latter: therefore we have made a gentleman's
agreement to disagree, and not to argue about dates.


> …
>
> I don't think it matters how many secular historians do. It is how science
> works regardless of how many historians are actually good scientists.
>
> Of course historians are not good scientists. Historians study
the unobservable past by analyzing surviving records, while science is based
on observing the present.


> …
>
> > To sum up: while there is a scholarly consensus, we
> > must recognize that it
> > is based on a certain amount of guesswork, educated
> > guesses, but fuzzy
> > enough that one cannot use that scholarly consensus
> > dogmatically.
> >
> > Karl W. Randolph
>
> Yes we can. In scholarship we can continue to speak in dogmatic terms
> until the situation changes, and until the balance of probability shifts.


This attitude has brought much disrepute to scholarship. If scholars were
humble and admitted that there's a certain amount of uncertainty, then what
is dogmatically said will be more believable.


> There is evidence the earth is flat, and that is why people believed it to
> be flat
> for many years; but there is now more and better evidence to say it is
> round. Nothing wrong with being dogmatic about that.


This is a bad example. Ptolomy, if I remember correctly, about 50 BC
measured the circumference of the earth, and was not far off. Furthermore,
he stated that the earth is but a speck in reference to the vastness of
space. His works were an important part of medieval scholasticism, therefore
were widely known. There are earlier references to earth being a sphere as
well.

>
> It does not matter how many holes exist in a current consensus. What
> matters, and what makes a consensus a consensus, is that it has to have
> fewer holes than any alternatives. If you think you may have an idea with
> fewer holes, publish it, explain why it is better  than
> the existing consensus, and yours may well become the new consensus.
>
> Do I need go beyond a mention of David Rohl, Peter James and others, whose
works are being bitterly opposed by the consensus? Their data has fewer
holes than the consensus.


> Best regards,
> Tory Thorpe
> Modiin, Israel
>

Karl W. Randolph