Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jim:

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:24 PM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>  Karl:
>
>
>
> The Patriarchal narratives are more sophisticated than your 
> ultra-literalist approach.
>
>
LOL!

Basic linguistics means that we start out with the words that are said. They
need to be analyzed to find out their exact meanings.

The next step is to look at literary style to see if there is any reason to
understand the text as anything other than strictly literal. An example is
the Iliad and Odysseus by Homer, which was basically a rollicking tale built
on a kernel of history that was never intended to be an accurate history. In
that regard, it was historical fiction, along the same lines as the later
Ivenhoe.

>From your statement above, it is clear that you have rejected step one
above. But in analyzing step two, literary style, we find simple prose that
gives no indication whatsoever that it should be read as anything other than
as written. Therefore, from a linguistic and literary analysis, either it is
true, or it is false, and any change from its literal reading is to claim
that it is false and to deny its historicity.

Therefore you contradict yourself, the mother of all logical fallacies, when
you claim that when you deny the text’s historicity, you thereby establish
its historicity. That’s an oxymoron.

Philosophic (religious) beliefs have absolutely no role to play in the
above.

>
>
> 1.  Ages of the Patriarchs
>
>
There is no reason to take them other than literal.

>
>
> “So you contend that Abraham lived to a ripe old age of 175? And Isaak to
>
> 180? Jacob to 139 and Joseph to 110?”
>
>
>
> On the first level, Abraham is portrayed as dying after witnessing 175 New 
> Years.
>
>
Wrong, it says “years”, Genesis 25.


> … and Joseph dies at age 55 in regular years.
>
>
In Genesis 41, we have the picture that the office of grand vizier did not
exist before pharaoh installed Joseph in that office. Egyptian history says
that the person who founded the office of grand vizier was Asiatic who lived
to the ripe old age of 110 years. Joseph fits all three. So here you
contradict Egyptian history too.

>
>
> …  But your ultra-literalist interpretation is not how the sophisticated 
> Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives wanted the text to be viewed.  
> It’s “old and reliable”, but it’s not simple and self-evident.  It needs 
> interpretation.
>
>
On what basis? There is nothing that comes under linguistic studies to come
to that conclusion, nor anything found in literary style, therefore that can
come only under the rubric of wishful thinking on your part.

BTW, wishful thinking is another logical fallacy.

>
>
> 2.  Joseph in Egypt
>
>
Your account is so fanciful and contradictory to the text that one would
conclude that you missed your true calling, namely that of fiction writer in
the same school as Dan Brown.

>
>
> 3.  Exodus
>
>
>
> … My views do not in fact preclude there being an historical Exodus,
>
>
Look again at your story on Joseph. With no family moving to Egypt, there
would have been no exodus either. Your contradictions are legion.

>
>
> 4.  Dating of Abraham
>
>
>
> You wrote:  “Therefore by your own statement above, you have to admit that 
> the story of Abraham long predated the EA letters, by centuries.”
>
>
>
> No, I myself see the Patriarchal Age as being the mid-14th century BCE, 
> which is the identical time period covered by the Amarna Letters.
>
>
>From linguistic and literary analysis, either the text is accurate, which
places Abraham at about 2000 BC, or the text is a horrible mangle of
history, of fiction wrapped around a kernel at best of history dating from
the fourteenth century BC, but it cannot be both accurate and from the
fourteenth century BC—that argument is so contradictory that the argument is
stupid.

>
>
> Jim Stinehart
>
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>
BTW, what do you make of the C14 date that places King Tut as having lived
about 850 BC?

Karl W. Randolph.