Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dirk:

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 9:23 PM, Dirk Frulla <fiveacorns AT yahoo.com> wrote:

> K Randolph,
>
> My appologies for upsetting you.
>
> Upset me? Where do you get that idea?

> If you go back to my original post, I came to this list with a question
> regarding Biblical Hebrew based off of the research I have done somewhere
> else. …
>
Well, you got your answers from Harold Holmyard and Rolf Furuli that the
Biblical authors considered Jeremiah's prophecy to refer to 70 years that
Jerusalem and the land were desolate, so why belabor the point?

> As far as the third question, it was regarding Daniel 9:2 and the specific
> word rendered "fulfill". Nobody really touched on that word, except you in
> your last email when you wrote: "Now you, a computer programmer, on the
> basis of Strong's numbers and the definitions he wrote (he did not have a
> reputation as a linguist) are lecturing us?" - OK, why didn't you say that
> it was an unreliable source in the first place? Did you realize that would
> have been an answer? Do you have another source that IS more reliable? Is
> the definition of that word incorrect for some reason? Incomplete for some
> reason?
>
> The main thing I noticed is that you emphasized that one word. That you
did so without considering the contexts, the ways the word is used
elsewhere, and repeatedly emphasized the Strong's number and definition,
mark you as one who knows no Hebrew. True, that's the reason you asked your
questions. But when you got back answers from Harold Holmyard that there is
no support from a linguistic analysis to support your speculation, shouldn't
that have been a sign that maybe, just maybe, you should go back to the
drawing board?

> The point is, nobody said anything toward the actual question I asked. So
> what is wrong with me re-stating my question with different words?
>
Because you were asking the wrong question. It was not the one word alone
that was important, rather the whole context, all the other words used with
it, and how the passage was understood not only by Daniel, but by other
Biblical authors as well.

> I agreed with Dr. Harold Holmyard and explicitly said I did not have an
> issue with *him*, and then re-stated my question and said unambigiously what
> my issue was. So I'm not sure how I could have been "lecuring" him. Dr.
> Furuli jumped into the conversation because he detected I was looking for
> agreement among different sources. Unfortunately, he quoted me 2 Chronicles
> 36:21 which uses the same word as in Daniel - so it just made my question
> stand out in my mind even further. Finally, Dr. Furuli stated that he has
> expressed his opionion about these scriptures as a linguist. Did I
> come lecture him about that?
>
> You went back to lecturing him about the one word, taken out of context.

> You wrote:
>
> "Secondly, you are insisting on a sequence of events that the prophecies
> do not."
>
> My sequence of events came from Jeremiah 25:12, and Jeremiah 29:10.
> Please, how did I misrepreset the sequence of events described there?
>
> You insisted that the return of the Jews and the rebuilding of Jerusalem
had to occur immediately after the capture of Babylon by Darius the Mede.
The prophecies in Jeremiah did not say that. All the prophecy says is that
God will look after the people and cause them to return to the land, but not
necessarily both at the same time, neither necessarily at the time that
Babylon is overthrown.

> You wrote:
>
> "Third, while you may be correct about the Babylonian records (did they
> mention the acting king Belshazzar?), how good are those concerning the
> Medo-Persian period? From what I read, very poor."
>
> I'm not sure what you mean here. You mean the adminstrative/business
> documents?
>
All documents.

> You wrote:
>
> "Finally, if there is a difference between Biblical dating, and secular
> historical consensus, I trust the Biblical dating far more than historical
> consensus, therefore question the historical consensus. That's my
> personal practice, others disagree."
>
> Fair enough. I think I understand you. I have no problems with you saying
> that you hold the Bible in higher regard than the historical consensus. From
> your Biblical perpective, then, what is your date for the fall of Jerusalem?
> Or do you think that it is an un-answerable question?
>
That is an unanswerable question.

To give another example, when did Nehemiah go to Jerusalem? The standard
consensus is 445 BC, but there is Biblical evidence that it was around 417
BC, i.e. three decades later. How long a time was this after Cyrus
authorized the building of the temple and return of Jews? The Bible is
silent. How long did Darius the Mede rule Babylon before Cyrus took over?
The Bible is silent. All we have from the Bible is that Cyrus' first year
was 70 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the total desolation of
the land. Therefore, we cannot find this answer from the Bible.

In order to get an answer, we would need to access the records from Persia
and following. How well did those records survive the ravages of time? The
information I have been given is that those records are very poor, so that
any reconstruction by necessity involves a certain amount of guesswork and
hope we got it right.

> Yours truely, with an agenda, :)
>
> Dirk Frulla
>
If your agenda is merely to learn, why do you reject the answers you are
given? If it is to prove your speculation, that's an agenda that neither I
nor others on this list are willing to argue.

Karl W. Randolph.
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