Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Bill:
I mentioned before the history of the Documentary Hypothesis: in that
history, it was fully formed, even to the basic outline of the sources,
before a single archaeological survey was made of the Sinai. Its founders
openly admitted that their guiding principles were philosophical / religious
in nature.

As for its continuance, those founding principles are still operative. Now
archaeological data have been added. But are they accurate? Some field
archaeologists seem to disagree.

For example, you mention, "…such large number of people occupying the Sinai
region at that time." What time do you mean? I read from a field
archaeologist that he considers from the evidence in Egypt that the Exodus
occurred at the end of the 13th dynasty. Did you mean that surveys indicate
that no such large group of people from that time period wandered in the
wilderness? Or wasn't that time period checked? If not, why not?

I have nothing against outside evidence. But an honest evaluation will have
to admit that in many cases that outside evidence is not trustworthy. E.g.
Dame Kenyon asserted that there was no large city at Jericho when Joshua
brought down the walls. She based her claim on a dating scheme that over a
half century ago people were pointing out as seriously flawed. But the
academic mainstream circled the wagons and is still defending the
indefensible to this day. If we allow that Joshua destroyed a large city at
Jericho, then the data fits also that only two other cities in Canaan were
burned at that time, and those cities are the same as those listed in
Joshua.

In this case, the absence of evidence, may be evidence that something is
screwed up.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Bill Rea <bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:

> Karl wrote:
>
> >I think Moses wrote Exodus about 1440 BC telling the true story of the
> >exodus. This is what is indicated when cross referencing other
> >verses in the Bible. But a Naturalist will come along and say that it
> is
> >impossible for the story to be true, because of all the claims of the
> >supernatural acting into history.
>
> I expect you know better but this isn't why people think the account is
> not historically accurate. A principle often quoted on this list is
> ``absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'', but the reality is,
> in many cases, exactly that. I give you an example. Not far from where I
> work is a large playing field, the ground is always soft there. Either
> it rains or it is irrigated. Suppose someone says that a herd of
> elephants ran through the fields last night. Laying to one side whether
> this is reasonable thing to claim, if I go to the playing fields and
> there are no elephant footprints then this is evidence of absence, i.e.
> that no elephants ran through there last night. It is this problem which
> plagues the Exodus account and has prompted a few discussions of the
> meaning of eleph, usually translated thousand, in these accounts.
> According to the accounts there were 600,000+ men not counting women or
> children who lived for 40 years in the Sinai region. Even if we grant
> supernatural feeding and so on so that there is no question about what
> did they eat or drink, there is still no evidence of such large number
> of people occupying the Sinai region at that time. So even allowing
> supernatural intervention does not solve the problem. Its not a case of
> supernaturalist against naturalists, it's a case of whether you allow
> outside evidence to inform your understanding of the texts. I see
> nothing in either the Christian or Jewish religious traditions which
> bars adherents from examining the evidence and allowing that evidence to
> influence their understanding of the texts.
>
>
> Bill Rea, Ph.D. ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
> E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz                       </   New
> Phone +64-3-364-2331, Fax  +64-3-364-2332             /)  Zealand
> Unix Systems Administrator                           (/'
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>