Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Rolf:

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:16 AM, Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no> wrote:

> Dear Bill,
>
> I note that when you speak about "absence of evidence is not evidence
> of absence," you say that  in *many cases* this does not hold, but
> you avoid any all-proposition. You are perfectly correct. And let us
> now  state the problem in scientific terms.
>
> Hypothesis 1: A herd of elephants ran through the field irrigated by
> rain last night. Prediction: We expect to find footprints of the
> elephants in the mud.
>

This hypothesis is making assumptions that are not necessarily true.

1) that the rain softened the field before the herd of elephants ran through
the field. But if the herd went through the field when it was hard and dry,
before the rain started, then would there be footprints in the mud?

2) that we go to the right field. What if we were told they ruined the
cricket field, so we go and find nothing, because the messenger had the
information wrong, and really they had messed up the football field?

3) that the messenger is telling the truth. What if he were inebriated and
mistook a herd of horses for elephants, what sort of tracks would actually
be found?

>
> Hypothesis 2: A group of 600,000 men and their families stayed in
> Sinai some time between the 11th and 15th centuries B.C.E.
> Prediction: We expect to find ...
>
> Yes, what do we expect to find? Taking into account that this is said
> to have happened more than 3,000 years ago, and the account says that
> the group did not build houses and cities, what will we expect to
> find? Perhaps this is a situation where "absence of evidence is not
> evidence of absence"? If it is not, we should be able to point to
> definite  things that we would expect to find.
>
> A related question is this: Do we have any knowledge at all regarding
> Sinai from the time between the 11th and the 15th century? Which
> finds have been made? Have traces of other occupants been found, or
> was Sinai void of any people during these centuries?
>

Here I bring up the related question, what do we know about those centuries?
Is there any reason to doubt the dates assigned to pottery styles and other
marker technologies? In other words, the evidence is not found because we
are looking for the wrong evidence?

>
> The mentioned example is an archaeological one. Some days ago I
> focused upon the text of the Pentateuch and formed the hypothesis:
> "The Pentateuch was written in the 15th century by a man called
> Moses."  To doubt that something that is written in the Pentatauch
> really happened is a psychological matter that is based on logic, or
> faith, or philosophy etc. By forming this hypothesis I tried to put
> the matter regarding the writing of the Pentatauch into a scientific
> setting. The hypothesis predicts that we will not find anachronisms
> in the text, and i discussed some possibilities. Then I asked the
> list members to mention other predictions that could be tested. But
> no one responded. So, I try again with a question based on the
> hypothesis: Which sides/characteristics/matters in the Hebrew text of
> the Pentateuch forbid a 15th century writing?
>

Isn't even asking the question assuming data that we don't have? How would
we recognize an anachronism or a loan word? Wouldn't we need a large body of
literature, larger than the Tanakh by at least a few times, and of known
venue, in order to answer these questions? In the case of a suspected loan
word, is this a case of a word from another languages to Hebrew, or from
Hebrew to the other language, or maybe both were from a third language?
Further, aren't loan words, if they catch on, usually nativized within a
generation or two, sometimes enough that they are hard to connect to their
origins?

In short, aren't you asking unanswerable questions, given the paucity of
data we have?

>
> If we cannot point to anything, a rejection of a 15th century writing
> is only based on logic, faith, philosophy etc, and it is not based on
> scientific evidence.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo
>
> Karl W. Randolph.