Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

 Gabe:

On 6/7/09, Gabe Eisenstein <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com> wrote:
>
> … Some of the writers seem to have been  employees of the
> king,

Other than Nehemiah and Obediah, who?

> …  And the
> narrative sections are interspersed with poetry, parables, metaphors,
> legends and myths.

Talk about à priori religious beliefs, this takes the cake.

> Thus the text bears little resemblance to modern historiography, which
> at least tries to be aware of its own biases,

Oh the writers recognized their biases, all right, and reveled in them.

> … does not mingle
> contradictory reports without noting them explicitly,

How many “contradictory reports” are like Gore’s infamous “hockey
stick”, massive massaging the data to get it to appear a certain way,
when a straight reading the text doesn’t give that appearance?

> … and assumes that
> the past more or less resembles the present.

Where do the Bible authors not make that assumption?

> … You will find very few
> accounts of sea-dragons,

How many of these reports are suppressed for ideological reasons today?

> … giants …

Plenty of histories, not just Biblical, have reports of what we today
call “giants”, so what’s new?

> … and talking animals;

Go back, and reread the account. Was that normal, or a special sign?

> … and no claims about
> predestination.
>
> (Note that I haven't spoken in terms of "beliefs", but of the manifest
> characteristics of the text itself, and thus of Biblical Hebrew.)
>
The whole record is a history of God’s action into history. And it is
completely consistent with its bias, namely the God who created the
universe in the first place, is perfectly able to do things that are
impossible with man, things like causing a donkey to speak (happened
only once), the sun’s shadow to go backwards (happened only once), as
well as other “impossible” events. That’s why these events are called
“signs”, as they are not normal in our day to day life. And that’s why
they were recorded, as they are not normal in day to day life.

How many modern histories are heavily biased, influenced by biases
that the historians don’t recognize that they have?
>
> Gabe Eisenstein

Isn’t the whole purpose of Biblical Hebrew studies to recognize the
biases of the writers, and our own biases, in order have the best
understanding of the text itself, rather than imposing our own biases
onto the text, to make it read other than what the original author
intended?

Karl W. Randolph.