Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

Foreword: Interpret capitals as emphasis not as impolite shouting. The  
problem with email is its a difficult medium to show emphasis with.

Hi,

Quoting Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>:

> On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 10:53 PM, James Read wrote:
>
> > > Even if you don't think yourself to have a position, you do seem to have
> > > one.
> > > For example, you began the discussion by suggesting we postulate all kinds
> > > of things.
> >
> > Yeah. If we don't sandbox the discussion then it is becomes impossible to
> > analyse the meaning of the text as the author intended it to be understood.
> > There are obviously contextual factors that the author took it for granted
> > that we would simply know like what language was spoken by which people in
> > which country. While it was probably a fair assumption with his direct
> > audience the sands of time have made those assumptions less valid.
> > Sandboxing the discussion allows us to analyse these assumptions.
>
> No, James.  "Sandboxing the discussion" as you call it reads and probably is
> an attempt to force upon the list readership a discussion that   
> conforms to your
> personal sets of beliefs.

That's your interpretation and it is your right to have it no matter  
how wrong it is. Just as it is my right to interpret replies that give  
me a list of literature, ask me if I can even read Hebrew and ask me  
if I've read the 'classics' as a condescending gesture which  
communicates to me that the person:

a) has already prejudged that I hold an opinion I have not made explicit
b) has a contrary opinion which they believe to be superior
c) didn't understand the arguments well enough to be able to defend  
them in public (or even present them for that matter)

Now, while I'm sure you have your reasons for your conclusions I'm  
afraid I'm going to have to break your illusions and insist that they  
are inaccurate. You see, all I did was bring to the fore a quote from  
a source which makes assertions regarding the holiness of the Hebrew  
language. I felt this was relevant to points you had made about early  
Rabbinic comments of the subject and it would help us see that this  
tradition was a little older (at the very least).

As misleading as the title is I was interested to explore what  
language the author/s of the Torah believed that the actors in Genesis  
spoke/understood. Now the problem is this. If you don't sandbox such a  
discussion it quickly devolves into the usual scenario which just  
about every other discussion on this list turns into:

a) camp A believes the Torah is reliable and works on this assumption
b) camp B believes the Torah is not reliable and works on this assumption

As a result of this the two camps cannot reach any kind of consensus  
or participate in any kind of productive debate on the proposed topic  
because they are both working with conflicting assumptions and are  
therefore incapable of understanding or accepting the reasoning of the  
other camp.

In short, we might as well take the subject line out of every single  
thread on this forum and put in its place what the thread should  
really be called and what every single unsandboxed discussion turns  
into:

IS THE TORAH/TANAKH RELIABLE?

Now, if you don't want to sandbox the discussion and get into a debate  
about how reliable the Torah is then that's fine. I can debate that  
with you as much as you like. But if we are going to do that don't you  
think we should have the decency of moving the discussion to an  
appropriately named thread so that people who search the archives  
don't keep finding the exact same discussion in every single thread?

You know. Maybe just maybe a person searching the archives for 'Hebrew  
as a holy language' in interested in finding out what the sources  
actually say about this subject and is uninterested in reading yet  
another debate that should be entitled:

IS THE TORAH/TANAKH RELIABLE?

Maybe we should just rename the mailing list to is-the-torah-reliable  
rather than b-hebrew.


> In order to avoid the appearance of such,  you present
> these as "postulates."

Wrong. Just a few posts ago you said it wasn't your place to dictate  
my position to me. Now, you've just made yourself look a tincy wincy  
bit hypocritical. I suggest you retract one of these two incompatible  
statements. I'm hoping its going to be the latter.


> But even though the author may have believed that
> Abraham came from Ur, it is not granted that he believed that he came from
> Babylonian Ur.  Reasonably, the author of the text as we have it places
> Abraham at Babylonian Ur, but his source tradition/text may have not been
> explicit about which Ur, and the author of the source tradition/text may have
> seen Abraham as coming from a different Ur.

You haven't been reading the origin of Abram thread have you? Might  
wanna take a look at it and get involved. I'm not going to repeat  
everything in this thread.

> Furthermore, it is likely that
> none of these authors was interested or concerned about questions of
> linguistic development.  So really, in placing your postulates on a   
> discussion
> of linguistic development and classification you are asking not what the
> ancient author believed but what would a modern person who holds these
> postulates as true believes.

No. Couldn't be more wrong. I have severe doubts that the author of  
Genesis had on his mind what 21st century Westerners would think on  
reading his text. I suspect he was more interested in his  
contemporaries views.


> Just a bit ago you wrote:
> > > > What sort of question is this? The text of Tanakh is evidence. [...]
> to which Petr responded:
> > > No! It's definitely not an "evidence". The Hebrew Bible is ideologicaly
> > > biased text and not a historical record.
> and you replied:
> > By the definition you've just given there is no such thing as a
> > historical record. Everything that has ever been written has a bias of
> > some form.
>
> and also:
> > We do have some documents making a claim that the English invaders
> > were of Germanic descent but I am not willing to consider the historicity
> > of these claims because the document is of religious origin and, therefore,
> > suspicious
>
> So why are you not willing to consider the historicity of claims in some
> purported documents of "religious origin" but are willing to consider the
> Biblical claims as evidence?

There you go again. Dictating my position. Did I ever make that  
statement? Don't think so! In fact, it sounds pretty much the exact  
opposite of what I would consider my position.

Very rarely do people lie for the sake of it. They either have a  
motive for purposefully making false statements or they report  
incorrect information as fact because that is what they believed to be  
true.

My general approach to ancient texts is that, mostly, the author  
believed what he was writing to be true. This may be because:

a) he was passed that information down by tradition
b) he is reporting events he knows of from his local viewpoint

The job of the historian is to attempt to reconcile conflicting  
accounts. This is not an exact science, unfortunately. This is why I  
prefer to discuss the primary sources directly. Anyone can say, go and  
read this book of received wisdom. It takes thought, care and passion  
to present your views based on familiarity with the primary sources.


> (I am not debating here the historicity of the Bible, but your attempt at
> presenting yourself as objective and absent any personal indication of
> your position in the debate, whereas in reality you are taking a very
> partial stance to the Bible).

Neither am I. I do not consider the bible to be one book. Each and  
every statement of each and every section of each and every book must  
be analyses on its own merit. Every letter is a potential  
interpolation. Every gap is potential indicator that some over pious  
priest took something out that he considered to be inappropriate.

> I conclude on the basis of what you wrote that your partial stance towards
> the Bible stems from your own personal beliefs, and that the "postulates"
> in fact closely match your own beliefs.  You would therefore, in discussing
> the linguistic development of Hebrew, want to "sandbox the discussion"
> to conform to your own beliefs -- to force your beliefs on other list
> participants in the discussion.  But then you also want to present yourself
> as objective and absent any personal position.  It is no surprise that some
> list members simply refused to play along and consider your postulates.
> I think it would also be appropriate for you to be honest and forthcoming as
> to what your position is in the debate.  You're really not fooling   
> anyone here.

Here we go again. You couldn't be more wrong. The only person who's  
doing any fooling is you and the only person you have managed to fool  
is yourself (and anybody else who was already working with similar  
prejudices). My honest intention was to discuss the likely language of  
the ancients ***AS THE AUTHOR OF GENESIS UNDERSTOOD IT***. Nothing  
more and nothing less.

The sooner you accept this the sooner we can get on to having some  
form of a meaningful and productive conversation. I believe I do not  
need to remind you that the name of the mailing list is b-hebrew which  
suggests that its purpose my have something to do with being a place  
where you can discuss the meaning of texts written in b-hebrew  
(obviously the moderators will know better).

But what it absolutely doesn't suggest to me is that b-hebrew is a  
forum where you shouldn't bother trying to stimulate an interesting  
discussion about the meaning of a text because ABSOLUTELY EVER  
DISCUSSION is predestined to become the usual only debate that is ever  
really held here IS THE TORAH/TANAKH RELIABLE?

James Christian



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