Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yitzhak:

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:16 AM, Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> On a certain basis, this is the exact point.  Anyone proposing a certain
> theory must first provide some positive evidence that suggests it is true.
> The Bible cannot itself be taken as evidence.


Yes it can, though the question is, evidence of what? For those who trust
its accuracy, it is evidence of the whole story. For those who have doubts,
it can be recognized as having a large dollop of myth enveloping a kernel of
truth, i.e. a small group, maybe? Sort of like the story of Troy? Only those
whose religion totally rejects the Bible can discount it entirely.

I am not an expert on Greek history, so the following is mere hearsay, but I
was informed that the only evidence we have of the Peloponesian Wars is the
account of Thucidites: there is nothing in the archaeological record that
can be attributed to them. So the same way, other historical writings cannot
be discounted without reason.


>  Only if you a priori assume
> the Bible to be true, is it "evidence," and if you assumed it to be true,
> what's the whole issue with evidence anyway?  If you do not assume it
> to be true -- for example, if you start with the view that it may be all
> true
> word for word, but not necessarily -- then it can no longer be taken as
> evidence.  Rather, you need external evidence.  Furthermore, with no
> reasons or evidence to support your theory, your theory cannot be
> falsified, making it rather unscientific.  By delineating what you expect
> to find, you take the second step towards making a scientific theory,
> the first step being stating the hypothesis itself.  Thus, "absence of
> evidence is not evidence of absence," but in the absence of any
> expectations, we have no scientific theory, and in the absence of
> positive evidence external to the Bible, we have no proposition on the
> table.
>
> Let us then delineate something that could remain:
> A large pile of quail bones.  How many is "large"?  Well, there were
> 600,000 men.  The quail would come for 30 days (Num 11:20), but
> only for 2 days is collection actually said to have taken place (Num
> 11:32), three times of collection in all (day, night, day).  Collection
> was at 10 pieces a person (at a minimum), so taken together that
> is 600,000 * 10 * 3 = 18 million units of quail.  So how about a
> large pile of bones belonging to 18 million quail.
>

Not so quick. Wouldn't these bones survive if and only if they were all
taken out and piled into a big midden, and even then it would help if the
midden were buried shortly thereafter? But what if the bones were left
scattered about the surface of the land, at the most in little piles, easily
available to scavengers and weathering, what is the probability that those
bones (remember, they are thin avian bones) surviving even one century, let
alone three millennia? Seeing as this was a temporary encampment, would
there have been an effort to make a centralized midden?

>
> …
> Textually, we could suggest something else: If the Pentateuch was
> written after the 10th century, we would expect to find mention of
> iron tools.  Prior to this, we would expect copper tools to
> predominate.  We thus find such verses as Num 35:16, Deut 27:5,
> or Deut 28:48, which mention ONLY iron tools, to be specifically out
> of place.  The iron chariots of Jos 17:16-18 also have very little to do
> with the 15th or 14th centuries.  Of course, you can doubt it, you can
> try to falsify it, but it shows you what happens once we have a
> specific proposition on the table: it becomes scientific and open to
> discussion and alternative explanations.
>

Here we are talking about technology transfer during a transitional phase.
Do you really think it happened all at once? Or did it happen slowly, in
stages, slowed down by cultural and other factors? It is known that iron was
known in the ANE centuries before the "official" start of the "iron age".
But it was not widely used for tools or weapons because it is at the same
time both softer and more brittle than bronze. But once you tempered iron
with a certain amount of carbon in it, you got something that was both
harder and less brittle than bronze.

Let's look at it from the perspective of the Philistines: as a king, you
find out that your smiths have developed a technology that is superior to
anything that your neighboring kingdoms have. Since you have to assume that
these kingdoms all are potential enemies, do you act like Linux and open
source this new technology, or be like Microsoft, keeping it a company
secret? Do you want them to have equal technology, or keep them with
inferior technology? Why wouldn't you keep the technology secret, even
though you might allow some export of tools that are not weapons?

Now let's look at it from the perspective of those who don't have that
technology: you know that bronze is inferior, but that's all you can make.
Since bronze is common, would you even mention it when the tool you are
using is bronze? But a tempered steel tool, on the other hand, is special,
so wouldn't you boast about possession of such a special tool?

So is the mention of steel tools an anachronism, or a picture of gradual
diffusion of technology, its spread hindered by making it a state secret? Is
that not the picture given in 1 Samuel 13?

>
> In fact, if you want to examine the proposition that "The Pentateuch
> was written in the 15th century by a man called Moses," you should
> also be ready to examine the proposition that "The Pentateuch was
> not written in the 15th century or was not written by a man or the
> man was not called Moses."  Furthermore, when actually dealing with
> hypotheses, you would also be much more open to variant hypotheses,
> since you may want to modify your original hypothesis as time goes
> on.  For example, you find a piece of evidence that has negative
> implications for your original hypothesis (this is actually good, since
> it means you are really considering those pieces of evidence that
> may falsify your hypothesis), but you realize, being partial to your
> hypothesis, that a slight restatement could deal with this evidence
> and also withstand all the evidence that you have collected thus far.
> Unless you are ready to examine variant hypotheses, you are not
> taking a scientific approach.
>

Rarely can you investigate all possibilities in one experiment. Rolf
mentioned one experiment, you just mentioned others as well. The problem
with all of the possibilities mentioned by Rolf as well as you, is that
there is a lack of positive evidence for any, as well as a lack of evidence
that will disprove them.

>
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but it also means
> you have no sound proposition to begin with (by definition: sound
> means it rests on solid evidence).
>

So do you admit that there is no sound proposition to begin with, when
dealing with the Documentary Hypothesis?

>
> Yitzhak Sapir



Karl W. Randolph.