Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jim

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 8:17 AM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>  Karl:
>
>
>
> 1.  You wrote:  “[F]or ‘pinpoint accuracy’ you need to take the story of 
> Abraham in its context, a context that indicates that Abraham lived in the 
> early bronze age, not late.”
>
>
>
> Karl, that’s where you’re wrong.  Everything about the Patriarchal 
> narratives fits the mid-14th century BCE in the Late Bronze Age perfectly.  
> To prove my point, let’s take a brief glance at the entire Middle East as 
> of Year 15 of Akhenaten’s 17-year reign in the mid-14th century BCE.  
> Caution!  Be prepared for  p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  historical accuracy in this 
> Biblical text.
>
>

I am talking linguistically, not trying to fit the square peg of Biblical
history into some round hole made by secular historians.

If you look in Genesis where the accounts are recorded, and read it
according to linguistic principles, Abraham lived centuries before the
Exodus. If you want to establish the historical veracity of the Patriarchal
narratives, you need to start by reading them according to the Hebrew
language in which they were written, following standard rules of linguistic
analysis. When we follow those rules, we get a mid 15th century BC Exodus,
preceded by a few centuries by the founding of the people by Abraham.
Therefore, according to standard linguistic principles as applied to the
narratives, Abraham lived during the early bronze age.

The reason many secular historians claim that Genesis, Exodus and other
accounts of Israel history are ahistorical legend is because the linguistics
are so clear, there is no other way to read the text without violating
linguistic principles.

Either the Bible is accurate history, and much of secular history not worth
the paper it is written on, as some of us believe, or the Bible is
ahistorical legend and secular history is accurate, as others of us believe.
This is simple logic applied to standard linguistics.

>
>
> Jim Stinehart
>
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>
This list was set up for the discussion of the language and literature of
Biblical Hebrew, so I follow that in emphasizing that this is what the
literature says.

Going off topic, I’ve made the note that the findings of archeology also
contradict the claims of secular historians. When I look at the history of
where “secular history” has its roots, I find a propaganda piece by an
Egyptian priest of questionable historicity. So much for “pinpoint
accuracy”. No wonder that the findings by secular archaeologists contradict
that “history”!

If you want to convince us of the accuracy of your theories, you need to
show us through a linguistic analysis of Genesis as well as other historical
accounts in Tanakh themselves how they can accurately be read other than as
I wrote above. References to the Amarna letters and secular history don’t
count.

Karl W. Randolph.