Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yitzhak:
You didn’t read my message carefully, did you?

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello Karl,
>
> I would like to make some things clear.
>
> 1) I consider it more reasonable that the lecturer you heard to have
> been correct in what he said, and you to have misunderstood him
> or otherwise not correctly remembered what he said.  In the end,
> though, it doesn't really which of you got it wrong.  The facts you
> describe are simply flat out wrong.
>

You have made other sweeping statements like this which were not
supportable, so why should I accept this one?

>
> 2) It appears to me that the theory that the lecturer you heard was
> advocating is the Wiseman theory.  This theory depends on the
> use of colophons.  This theory also accepts the standard dates
> for Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim.  In this sense, the theory the
> lecturer you heard was advocating is incompatible with the theory
> on this website.  However, I consider it unlikely that the theory
> originally made any difference in date about literary conventions
> that took place before or after 1500 BCE.  It is quite clear that if
> all the Old Babylonian materials are dated after 1000 BCE, then
> we have no comparative evidence for literary conventions and
> we are left to date the verses in Genesis on the material in
> Genesis alone.  Furthermore, if all the Old Babylonian materials
> are dated after 1000 BCE, then we have plenty of evidence for
> the *LATE* use of whatever literary conventions you think were
> compatible with Genesis.
>

I do not need to repeat myself beyond saying that the theory I was taught
was similar, but distinctly different from the Wiseman colophon theory.

>
> 3) I think it is in your interest to reject unconventional theories
> and not just accept any unconventional theory that happens to
> footnote its claims.  I could give you standard text critical
> scholarship and it would have footnotes and you would reject
> it.  But you appear to accept any guy who thinks he can prove
> the Bible if only he could show that the name Ploni was the
> same person as the name Almoni.  Just because a website
> has nice footnotes does not mean it is dependable.  Even
> wikipedia has footnotes.
>

You didn’t read the footnotes, nor note the distinction I made between the
footnotes and his theories, did you?

>
> 4) Thutmosis III is not Shoshenq, no matter what Velikovsky
> thought.
>

Shisherke (Thutmosis III) ≠ Shoshenq ≠ ששק no matter what you think. The two
Egyptian names refer to two different people. Looking at the three
names, ששק is most similar to Shisherke.

>
> While I respect your interest in checking up on what your
> lecturer said, I really hope that this does not mean making
> use of this website.  The website is ridiculous.
>

What do you think equating much of his material with conspiracy theories
makes it?

Yet the original research that he references, such as archeological data and
ancient records, makes much of accepted academic history equally ridiculous.

>
> Yitzhak Sapir
>

 Karl W. Randolph.