Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Dear Harold,

No problem about the double mailing.

There seems to be some confusion.  The link I gave you with the footnote,
is Herbert Hoover's translation of a classic work on metallurgy (De Re
Metallica).  It is dated, and you can rest assured that Jane Waldbaum
integrates the information from Egypt into her analysis, which includes
a century more of discoveries and studies and archaeological
methodology than does Hoover's paragraph.  The article in the
Journal of Materials Processing Technology quoted Hoover's footnote,
which is the only information you brought from that journal.  Now,
I would be ready to read that article although the price as you noted
is too steep.  It is also important to realize the difference here as it
relates to peer review.  The Journal of Materials Processing Technology
would probably have the articles being reviewed by other engineers.
Waldbaum's article was published in a book on archaeometallurgy,
and probably originated in a conference on archaeometallurgy.  So her
article was reviewed by experts in both archaeology and metallurgy,
and probably also by experts in both.  I'm not saying here that the
article by Drs. Sherby and Wadsworth isn't accurate or proper, but
I am saying that Waldbaum's article passed more pertinent review,
and in any case, Herbert Hoover's quote in their article is just a
quote of Herbert Hoover and should be treated in kind.

I cannot say the same for what Keith Squires has written, and I take
nothing out of his article.  I think Waldbaum's article is balanced,
and if you read it carefully, you'll clearly see that she mentions data
along the same lines as you quote from other sources, including
Squires.  Isn't it better to take it from a long-time expert on the
archaeometallurgy of the region than from an unknown guy who uses
it to prove some esoteric new theory of Egyptian pyramid geometry?

I think your reading of Num 35 is very very forced.  If the author
went through the trouble of differentiating iron from wood or stone,
and metal weapons were generally available also in bronze, it
would have been appropriate to add a listing for bronze.  The fact
that you must take this interpretation to sustain your view really
speaks for the strength of the argument.  However, your
interpretation, even if in my opinion very very forced,  does address
the questions I brought upon the verse (and others like it).

While I realize you place Moses in the 15th century (and evidently
also view him as historical), you need to realize that you would find
support in Waldbaum's comment that I quoted in the possible
alternative interpretations of the evidence, because the nickel-rich
iron is really a way scholars use to identify meteoritic iron.

Yitzhak Sapir