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  • From: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Documentary Hypothesis
  • Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:49:31 -0500

Wow. Let's talk about personal attacks and labeling, shall we?

On 28 Jan 2009 at 10:47, Gabe Eisenstein wrote:

> I can't stand reading anymore of this "science is just another
> ideology/faith" stuff. Not only does Karl not understand the basic
> nature of science (for example, his picture of competing "ideologies"
> cannot explain why the whole vast edifice of modern biology works as it
> does -- why one "ideology" has created modern technological civilization
> while the other simply pours out verbiage), this notion of ideologies
> logically reduces to complete relativism, where everyone is free to
> choose his own premises.
>
> Instead of talking about faith and ideology, a philosopher would say
> that there are different language-games involved here, with different
> paradigms of inference. The real mistake is to think that scholars
> (mainstream university scholars) and fundamentalists share some common
> notions of truth and evidence. They do not, and it is the misfortune of
> this list to be a forum for such utter miscommunication.
>
> In the case of Deuteronomy, there is much more to the theory of its
> 7th-century origin than just the note about its being "found" in the
> Temple. There is the body of laws that contradict the early laws of
> Exodus, and do so in exactly the ways that would be needed if local
> shrines had been allowed before but were now being banned, in line with
> a new centralized system. And of course there are the great stylistic
> differences, as well as a different theological mindset. (See Moshe
> Weinberg's great book on this.) All of these things must remain hidden
> from fundamentalists, in the same way that the contents of biology are
> hidden from them.
>
> Getting back to the subject of Hebrew... I recall that in answering a
> question of mine about the third-person ending NW (with "nun
> energicum"), Yitzhak Sapir gave an explanation that involved "The
> original reconstruction of the verb way back when before Hebrew", and
> presupposed a linguistic evolution. I also note that, in addition to the
> work of Hurvitz on stages in the development of Hebrew mentioned here
> previously, there are books along the same lines by Robert Polzin, Gary
> Rendsburg and Ziony Zevit. This is the kind of thing I would love to see
> examined by the Hebrew scholars here, but it is anathema to the
> fundamentalists.
>
> So I would like to see the fundamentalists get their own list or website
> (just as Karl often harangues poor Jim to do), and leave this list to
> scholars.
>
>
> Gabe Eisenstein
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>

Dave Washburn




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