Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

James,

It seems that you're not entirely clear on what I mean by evidence that 
circumvents circular reasoning. When I say that there is practically no 
evidence for Hebrew in the EBA, I'm talking about evidence outside of the 
Bible that might act as a control or point of comparison for the Hebrew 
Bible. You can't then appeal to the Bible as evidence of EBA Hebrew (or 
whatever you want to call it). That's completely circular, and what we're 
trying to avoid.

You also seem to have missed the point about the 'world of the text'. In the 
world of the text, Moses speaks Hebrew. He doesn't speak Egyptian, and he 
doesn't write in Egyptian. He speaks and writes Hebrew. That much is certain. 
Now, what a real historical Moses who lived and breathed in our world did or 
didn't do is another issue entirely. I can see why you'd want to extrapolate 
from the biblical text about a real historical Moses. However, you have to 
justify the move from the world of the biblical text to the real world and 
show how they are 1-to-1 the same, because logically speaking it's not 
immediately apparent.

If I apply the standard you're using to all literature, I'll end up 
concluding that there once was a family of bears that lived in the woods 
somewhere, and they ate porridge and spoke English. In other words, there can 
be some silly conclusions as a result of bad logic.



Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au