Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yitzhak:

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>wrote:

> 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.
>

Used also within Gabe's comments.

>
> 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.


I gave the URLs more than once. Further, I stated that I consider those
sites only as possibles, not as the last words on the subject. Don't you
remember?


>  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.")
>

Correction noted. You said "smelt" and I reacted to that.

As for documenting the discovery of the art of the steeling, the ancients
did not make a linguistic marker that we can use, so that leaves us
guessing. It could have been as early as about 1500, we just don't know. But
at the same time, you cannot make the blanket statement that it was not
known before 1200 BC. All you can say is that is the earliest that modern
historians know of it.

>
> 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
>
> …
>
> 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.


??? you mean verses 24–25. While the overwhelming use of XRB refers to
swords in contexts connected with warfare, a few times in other contexts it
is used for other cutting tools, like a knife or chisel. This verse does not
specify the metal of the cutting tool, just that the altar should not be
made of dressed stones.


>  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).


How can this be, as an altar is connected with the death of the sacrifice?


>  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.


Where is that mentioned in the Pentateuch? Are you not making an assumption
in the absence of evidence?


>  The cultural background assumed by Deut 27:5 is that of the 8th
> or even 7th
> century BCE, not beforehand.


Where is your evidence for this?


>  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.
>

Where is "weapon" even mentioned in these verses?

>
> A similar direction is posed by Deut 28:48


Already discussed.


> or Deut 4:20.


You yourself referred to the fact that the smelting of iron required higher
temperatures than copper to make bronze. Since iron smelting was known, why
not use it as a picture for how terrible was the Egyptian slavery?


>  These are still out of
> place completely in the 15th century, but from the 12th through 10th
> century,
> it is slightly more understandable.
>

"…out of place completely"? Where is your evidence for that?

>
> Perhaps before Karl accuses me of further "abject ignorance,"


See above. You made a mistake and the correction noted.


> 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
>

Uh, Yitzhak, before answering this, I checked every verse that you
mentioned, found that you gave the wrong numbers for a couple, and read
meanings into the text that the text cannot support when reading carefully.
As for the URLs, I already gave them, why should I repeat myself? The same
with some of the other arguments you repeated?

Karl W. Randolph.