Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

    David, If you had understood my intent below , you would not 
have attacked my sentence, linguistically or otherwise.
 
    However, my concern for poor Piel's welfare is increasing...
 
    Cheers,
 
    Uri Hurwitz                                              Great Neck, NY
 
     
 
    
 
 
 "  Hi Uri,

Linguistically-speaking, your claim here is simply false and there is no 
evidence to substantiate your position....
 
 
 
   Regards,
David Kummerow. "
 
  >      "  David,
> 
     .....     " the poor Piel serves no function at all..."
> 
> 
>        Uri Hurwitz                                           Great Neck, NY
> 
>




>From yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 13:45:47 2009
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Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 18:45:45 +0000
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From: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Iron and Curses in Deuteronomy 28
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The thread on evidence has run out, and I'm dealing here only with the
comments on
iron, which in any case do not relate primarily to the thread but were
an example used
within my discussion.

Karl has a habit of quoting sources without telling us who they are.
He quotes historians
who say that Ugaritic was as late as 600 BCE, but we don't know which
historians he
refers to.  In the context of the evidence thread, he quoted evidence
he regarded as
hearsay that there is no evidence for the Peloponnesian war other than
Thucydides.
In a later post, the "hearsay" reservation drops in his argument.  He
does it again in the
issue of iron, where he claims he looked up "online sources," and
finds reason to doubt
me.  We don't know what those sources are, but when I tell him that a
website can't
make up evidence that doesn't exist, he says, "Your statement shows
abject ignorance."
(This is apparently related to the use of the word "smelt."  A better
word in my posts
would have been "steeled.")

My source in this case happens to be James Muhly's article on Iron
Technology in BAR
1982 and which I had before me already from the first posts on the subject:
http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=8&Issue=6&ArticleID=5

According to Muhly, ancient technology could not completely bring iron
to its melting point
(1530 C) the same way it could bring copper to its melting point (1200
C).  This meant that
iron could not be molded easily, and in order to extract purer iron a
prolonged process of
forging had to be undertaken.  But this did not make iron a harder or
more dependable
metal than bronze -- an even more involved process of subjecting the
iron repeatedly
to the carbonized charcoal to create carburized iron -- steel -- had
to be taken.  This
meant much more work for a single weapon, and until it was mastered to
create dependably
stronger weapons, copper still had an advantage.  Muhly brings in his
study examples of
various iron artifacts from Israel and Cyprus during the Iron Age I,
and his results show that
not all iron implements were consistently carburized.  He explains
that it must have taken
centuries to master the technology.  When it was mastered, iron would
be used for those
tools that had to be hard, sharp, and relatively simple, such as
swords or spears, while
copper would be used for those that required much more elaborate and
careful molding.

Some iron weapons were used by the Hittites already at the battle of
Kadesh (13th cent):
http://books.google.com/books?id=y1ngxn_xTOIC&pg=PA75
They did not however reflect a technological superiority to the Bronze
of the Egyptians:
http://www.stanford.edu/~aykutkoc/papers/Kadesh.pdf
Rather, the first time iron was chosen as a technological superior
alternative was
by the Assyrians, under Sargon:
http://books.google.com/books?id=y1ngxn_xTOIC&pg=PA130
This is the late 8th century, a long time since the rather rare and
mostly luxury and
ceremonial iron weapons of the 14th century.  Bronze remained the
primary metal for
weapons until and throughout the 11th century:
http://books.google.com/books?id=AjUy9SA3vqcC&pg=PA38
See also: http://books.google.com/books?id=AjUy9SA3vqcC&pg=PA28

When Deuteronomy 27:5 forbids the use of iron on the altar of rock, it recalls
Ex 20:22-23, which forbids the use of swords to cut the rock.  Swords,
symbolizing
war, should not be mixed with the holy.  (Behind this is probably a
general belief in
not mixing symbols of life and death, here death symbolized by war and
life by the
holy altar).  While for Ex 20:22 the significance is swords, for
Deuteronomy, iron
has become a second name for swords, since the exclusive metal of swords was
iron.  The cultural background assumed by Deut 27:5 is that of the 8th
or even 7th
century BCE, not beforehand.  The traditional Jewish interpretation
about David's
inability to build a temple for God (2 Sam 7 and 1 Kings 5:16-19) also
goes along
these same lines that the war could not be mixed with the holy.

The same is presupposed by Num 35:16-18, where iron is the exclusive metal of
weapons and bronze is not mentioned at all.

A similar direction is posed by Deut 28:48 or Deut 4:20.  These are still out 
of
place completely in the 15th century, but from the 12th through 10th century,
it is slightly more understandable.

Perhaps before Karl accuses me of further "abject ignorance," he could reveal
what his "online sources" are and which historians hold that Ugaritic was as
late as 600 BCE.  I also think in general he should tone down his rhetoric and
statements, so, for example, he should not accuse a listmember of "misreading
the text" when their only fault is not employing Karl's personal
non-conventional
reading style of the Bible of which all the rest of us are rather tolerant.

Yitzhak Sapir