Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Gabe:

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:43 AM, Gabe Eisenstein <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com>wrote:

> Karl knows a lot more Hebrew than I do, but I know a lot more about
> evidence, logic and interpretation. Karl supports his idiosyncratic
> views of the latter by links to kooky Christian websites.


Don't you just love the high scholarly standards this letter is starting out
with? "Kooky"…? Is this name calling appropriate? C'mon …


> I suggest that
> a clearer view of the role of interpretation in science can be found by
> studying books like the following:
>
> Truth and Method -- Hans-Georg Gadamer
> Fact, Fiction and Forecast -- Nelson Goodman
> The Structure of Scientific Revolutions  -- Thomas Kuhn
> Conjectures and Refutations -- Karl Popper
> The Structure of Scientific Inference  -- Mary Hesse
>

How about science textbooks, where the rubber meets the road, so to speak?
Well, I suppose Gabe will consider people like George Gaylord Simpson and
William S. Beck, late professors at Harvard (look up their reputations
wherever you want), "kooky Christians" because I learned the definition of
science that I use from them. At the time I learned it, I found no science
textbook (I checked several) that gave a definition for science that gave a
contrary definition.

>
> Karl will say that authors like these represent some kind of "bandwagon"
> -- which is the whole mainstream and university world of science.


Just proved you wrong, didn't I?


> It is
> a matter of pride for him that only religious fundamentalists share his
> views.


I didn't know you are a mind reader too, What else am I thinking?


> And yet his whole rhetorical style is based on constantly using
> the words "evidence", "logic", etc. in order to falsely suggest that he
> has something in common with real scientists and philosophers of science.
>

Well, do you?

I'll have to admit that the only philosophy class that I dropped, and that
after only one lecture, was the philosophy of science class. During the
lecture, the professor made a few statements that seemed off the wall. After
class, I cornered the professor, and one of the questions I asked concerned
the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: His answer bore no resemblance to what
I had learned from physics. At that point I realized that he didn't know
what he was talking about. Does that resemble you?

>
> The question about the dating of the Pentateuch is not simply a matter
> of "interpretations built on pre-chosen ideologies/religious beliefs".
> Remember that Karl also thinks that theories about the formation of
> galaxies, stars and planets, or the different structures of rocks and
> minerals (let alone the development of current life forms on earth), are
> also a matter of religious belief. Because the events they refer to
> HAPPENED IN THE PAST! But just like theories in astronomy and geology,
> theories about the Pentateuch are possible because different accounts of
> the past have different consequences for the present (e.g. what we find
> in existing documents). Some are plausible, some are possible and some
> are impossible. Some fit nicely with other plausible theories, while
> others do not.
>

Define plausible, possible and impossible, and why?

How much do you want to bet that your definitions are based on a certain
philosophical / religious point of view that not everyone accepts?

>
> …
>
> I would also like to challenge Karl's assertion that the text of the
> Pentateuch itself claims to have been written by Moses.


There are numerous references to Moses' writing in a book, by context, the
books now known as the Torah, e.g. Exodus 17:14, 24:4, 12, and so forth.
After Moses' death, the phrase TWRT M$H is used to refer to what Moses
wrote.


> I don't know if
> this has been discussed on the list before, but the evidence of verses
> referring to "this book" or "this teaching" (torah) are extremely
> ambiguous. They could refer to various subtexts like Deuteronomy or the
> Holiness Code, or they could refer to the entire Bible (the book you are
> holding in your hands which talks of "this book"). What, you don't think
> that Moses' death counts against the latter hypothesis, do you?


What? Isn't this a good example of a straw man argument?


> After
> all, Talmudists believed that everything in the "oral Torah" was already
> stated on Mt. Sinai (including the words of rabbis from the first
> century and later).


Don't most people discount that claim, and for good reason?


> As for me, I don't accept supernatural accounts
> (including statements showing knowledge of the future) in the absence of
> very compelling evidence.


What would you consider "very compelling evidence"?


> On the other hand, I do accept as evidence
> against Mosaic authorship even details such as the claim that Moses was
> the most humble man (a claim that the most humble man could not make
> about himself).


Isn't this an example of the difference between your modern expectations,
vs. ancient expectations?


> This is indeed a matter of interpretation, but also of
> plausibility.
>
>
> Gabe Eisenstein
>

Karl W. Randolph.