Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Jack,

We should always be open for alternative interpretations, and I agree 
with Uri's cautiousness. Any attempt to date the text of the Tanakh 
is to a great extent faith-based. For example, you believe in the 
interpretations of Finkelstein/Silberman, while I am skeptical. There 
are so many uncertainties. Regarding the towns Judah, are the 
correctly identified, archaeologically speaking? Regarding the text 
of the Tanakh, has it been orthographically modified, for example 
from a system with case endings (nominative, accusative, genitive) to 
a non-case system? We do not know.

The history of  the first part of the second millennium B.C.E. is 
obscure indeed. We know that Akkadian was spoken, because cuneiform 
documents have been found. But we do not have a list of all the other 
languages that were spoken at that time. We do not have any evidence 
whatsoever, on the basis of which we can demonstrate that the account 
in Genesis 31 regarding Jacob speaking Hebrew and Laban Aramaic is 
history or fiction. So our standpoint must be based on faith.

I will refer to two examples as recent as the middle and last part of 
the first millennium B.C.E., in order to show the uncertainty of 
"established truths".  First I refer to the book "Judah and the 
Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period," eds. O, Lipschits and J. 
Blenkinsopp, 2003. The issue was whether Jerusalem and Judah were 
inhabited or not during the Babylonian Exile. The conclusions of the 
different scholars regarding the archaeological evidence often are 
diametrically opposite-faith evidently played a large role in the 
interpretations. I take another example from my own work with dated 
cuneiform business documents. It is an "established truth" that the 
chronology of Ptolemy for Babylonia and Persia, which is the basis 
for the chronology of Parker and Dubberstein, is correct.  But it is 
definitely contradicted by dated tablets! If the dates are taken at 
face value, there must be at least three extra years (perhaps as much 
as five) between Cambyses and Darius I in the Persian Empire, and 
there must be one or more extra years between Nebuchadnezzar II and 
Evil-Merodach, and between Evil-Meridach and Neriglissar in the 
Neo-Babylonian Empire. Because the chronology is tied to astronomical 
positions, just one extra year would completely destroy the whole 
chronological scheme. And here we have several extra years.

When "established truths" from a time as recent as the middle of the 
first millennium B.C.E. can be seriously questioned, how much more 
can events that are supposed to have happened 500 or 1000 years of 
more before our common era, be questioned. So, to know whether 
dialects  of Hebrew and Aramaic were spoken in the second millennium 
B.C.E. is impossible. And similarly, to know when each book of the 
Tanakh was written is impossible. Discussions of these issues can be 
interesting, but we must always keep in mind the great part pure 
faith plays in connection in the interpretation of arcchaelogical 
finds and textual history.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




> Hi Rolf:
>
> Actually, it does have foundation in the texts themselves.  Quoting 
> Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in The Bible Unearthed, 
> Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its 
> Sacred Texts. New York. The Free Press. 2001:
>
> "This basic picture of the gradual accumulation of legends and 
> stories- and their eventual incorporation into a single coherent 
> saga with a definite theological outlook- was a product of that 
> astonishingly creative period of literary production in the kingdom 
> of Judah in the 7th century BCE. Perhaps most telling of all the 
> clues that the book of Joshua was written at this time is the list 
> of towns in the territory of the tribe of Judah, given in detail, in 
> Joshua 15:21-62. The list precisely corresponds to the borders of 
> the kingdom of Judah during the reign of Josiah. Moreover, the 
> placenames mentioned in the list closely correspond to the 7th 
> century BCE settlement pattern in the same region. And some of the 
> sites were occupied ONLY IN THE FINAL DECADES OF THE 7TH CENTURY 
> BCE."
>
> Now I think we remain on topic only if we are discussing the use of 
> EBH (950-586 BCE) in MBAII (1950-1550 BCE) on the subject of 
> putative Abraham speaking pre-exilic Hebrew.  If Abraham was, as the 
> texts claim, an Aramean in MBAII he would have spoken Akkadian (Old 
> Assyrian) and would have adopted Canaanite when he migrated from 
> Haran to Canaan with his family.  I think any foreign ("Asiatic") 
> clan chieftain in Egypt at this time would have used Akkadian as a 
> language of discourse with the Egyptians.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jack
>
> Jack Kilmon
> San Antonio, TX
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 1:15 PM
> To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Aramaic to Hebrew language switch?
>
> > Dear Jack,
> >
> > We should all realize that ancient history cannot be proven!  The 
> > conclusions of the critical historian regarding ancient Israel is 
> > just as faith-based as the view of the fundamentalists. And your 
> > claim that Genesis-2Kings were composed in the late 7th 
> > century-early 6th century B.C.E. has no foundation whatsoever; it 
> > is based on axioms, which per definition cannot be proven.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Rolf Furuli
> > University of Oslo