Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz>]

James wrote:

> Of course, our discussions tend to go further than that because we
> want to get to the very bottom of things and so when we consider the
> meaning of a word we look at all avenues of evidence and,
> unfortunately, dating of texts is an issue that seems to come up time
> and again because of its relevance to many discussions.

I think you are missing the point here. What seems unable to happen is for
discussion using accepted scholarly methodology to take place. There are
those who clearly reject the methods of present day scholarship and science
and further believe they have a religious duty to attack those who do. This
makes useful conversation difficult and sometimes outright unpleasant.
Although the issue of dating the text is very clearly in scope, some list
members consistently try to shutdown any discussion which goes into that
area. I would certainly not hesitate to leave this list if there was
something better elsewhere.


Bill Rea Ph.D., ICT Services, University of Canterbury   \_
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