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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Where Is En-Mishpat?
  • Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 18:08:47 +0100

Hi,

Quoting K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>:

Jim:

You wrote:

“It was Ezra, under horrendous circumstances, who initiated a
radical, ultra-southerly reinterpretation of the geography of the
Patriarchal narratives after the Exile.”
Where is your evidence for this? What historical sources reference this
claim? Or is this just fiction made up to fit your religious beliefs?


I have to agree Jim. This claim you have made several times without providing your reasons for such an assertion.

As for Egyptian history, most of it is based on the interpretation of a
second century BC priest

Hi Karl. Really? I didn't know that. That is interesting to know. Do you have the name of the priest and/or of his 'historical' works? I'd like to find out more about this guy.

(so much for “secular”), how accurate was he? Or
was his record ‘enhanced’ by listing some kings more than once, taking
advantage of the ancient Egyptian practice that kings were often called by
multiple names, to emphasize that Egyptian history was older than Greek, to
show the primacy of Egyptian culture over Greek? In short, was he
propagandizing instead of giving an accurate history, a common practice in
those times?

These seem to be two of your main pillars, both of which have to go your way
in order for your theories to be correct. Assuming a random distribution,
that gives a 25% chance of being correct, just from these two. To add
another ‘if’, you assume that (MLQ is Hebrew, or a Hebrew influenced Aramaic
name, again an assumption with no historical evidence to back it up.

Evidences pointing against your thesis include the fact that Thutmosis III
had another name, Sisherke, almost a dead ringer for $$Q, possibly
pronounced “Shishakke”, who lived after Solomon.

Are you implying that the aforementioned Egyptian priest made up a King?

Another is that Genesis
preserves parts of an ancient literary style that went out of use during the
early to mid bronze age:

Do you have any evidence for this? As far as I am aware we don't have any Hebrew manuscripts dated to that age (wish we did) and this line of 'evidence' merely furnishes new issues for debate.

it is very unlikely that a later writer would have
emulated that style; for example it was not copied in Kings and Chronicles,
both written after the Exile.

Again, while you may have a point with Chronicles you are furnishing further questions for debate rather than providing 'evidence' that everybody accepts. There are many that have their reasons to assert that most of Kings was written before the exile. But in any case, I've lost your flow of logic here. What wasn't copied into Kings? A patriarchal narrative? Or just the place name? You've lost me.

A third evidence is the archeological record
from the mid to late bronze ages, which closely parallel the record given in
Exodus, Joshua and Judges, indicating an Exodus during the 13th dynasty
centuries after Abraham.

Agreed, but not sure what bearing this has on Jim's theory. Could you be a bit more explicit?

All of these and more indicating a non-random
pattern saying that your theories are wrong, that Abraham lived about a
millennium before Thutmosis III and a lot can happen in a millennium, even
to place names.


Ok. I think I've got you now. You're saying that the evidence from the TIII list is inadmissable in court because he lived so much longer after Abraham's time. But I don't think Jim was implying that TIII was one of Abraham's contemporaries was he? He was just proposing lines of evidence for a place name.

Seeing as your theories are such a long shot and contradict other evidence,
why should we accept them?

Karl W. Randolph.
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