Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

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From: "Uri Hurwitz" <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 8:32 PM
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [b-hebrew] Aramaic to Hebrew language switch?

>   Hi Jack,
>
>   It is logical to apply to modern scholarly work
> the same critical approach that one applies to ancient
> texts such as Joshua or other HB books.
>
>    Therefore it may be worthwhile to check other modern
> scholarly opinions about the complex issue of dating
> the composition of biblicsl books. These are
> controversial subjects.
>
>     Even the dating of archaeological strata is
> disputed, as we know. For instance, the 10th - 9th
> centrury controversy is well known. Cf. the Finkelstein
> - Mazar charming dialogue in book form on the matter.

Absolutely, Uri.  I have, of course, read the majority of respected scholars 
(and some unrespected ones) on the issue of dating the composition of the 
books of the Tanakh.  This is not a scientific area and relies almost solely 
on the objectivity of the scholar who may have his/her own agenda and/or 
biases easily couched in scholarly jargon.  Even I have my tendency to lean 
in the Albrightian direction, since he taught me, and I have to force myself 
to set aside the great respect I had for him to consider more "modern" 
approaches.  So the first thing in considering scholarly opinions, outside 
the evidence, is the standard "consider the source."  I know that a 
"minimalist" is almost always going to have a skeptical view of a new found 
artifact that might be 1st temple period.  If a find is a piece of 
epigraphy, the flood gates really open wide.  Since inscriptions are my 
thing and I am also a scientist, my views on the ivory pomegranate as well 
as the "James ossuary" were both the same since they both came to light.  If 
the patina is genuine and can be found within the incised inscription, it is 
genuine. Period.  I sat back and watched the cacaphony from scholars who 
shouted, "hoax! Fake! Forgery!" when most had never examined the artifacts 
themselves.  Erroneous viewpoint on orthography and grammar were easy to 
dismiss.  My view remains the same. They are genuine and there are numerous 
"modern scholarly opinions" with which I disagree.  Of course, things have 
come a long way in the last 50 years, since your 1964 paper,  in the 
development of of scientific and technical manpower and capabilities in 
Israel along with breakthrough methodologies in radiometry and analysis. 
The Biblical texts, however, do not have patinas or any physical 
characteristics (apart from the DSS) to examine.



>     Of course not everything had been  excavated yet.
> Even in Jerusalem suprising findings keep occurring.
> I'll only mention one here: the Reich-Shukron discovery
> of a bullae hoard which preceded Hezekiah's date by over
> a century, and points to wider literacy at a considerably
> earlier stage than had  been assumed till then.

Yet I have read opinions by some scholars that the provenanced bullae with 
names from the City of David dig were forgeries and "salted" into the dig. 
Reich and Shukron's discovery was fascinating since they appear to be 
"blanks" prepared in advance in an administrative building not unlike blank 
business cards found in the human resources department of Halliburton for 
new employees.  As I recall, the dating of them was subject to lively 
disagreement.  Later, the Rafayahu Shalem bulla was found dated to the 8th 
century BCE.  I am constantly on the edge of my seat waiting for the latest 
from Professor Mazar.

>    Which leads me to my final point: the literary form
> dated by some to the sixth century is polished in
> comparison, say, to Mesha. Such literary polish cannot
> spring up over night. The presumption that it required
> generations to develop can not be far fetched. Thus
> valid earlier material may well have been preserved
> in these texts, whenever they attained  their final form.

One of my points over the years is that often modern literate scholars, born 
and raised in a literate culture, do not relate to an ancient ORAL culture 
and its means of information transmission.  The extremely small percentage 
of the population that was literate were setting down oral poems and songs, 
centuries old, to writing.  How literate was the guy that incised the Mesha 
stela?  Was he just well crafted on the script and followed a scribe's 
written template?  Does epigraphy give us a sufficient sampler to determine 
the development of "polish" over time?

>    I suggest, as I said, that other authorities be consulted
> on the geography of the Place Names in  Joshua.
> Incidentally a moderator of this list
> published serious work on  biblical toponyms.


I have read some of the more serious arguments to Finkelstein and Silberman 
on the Joshua sites (I avoid apologist arguments) but in the end I still see 
a system of 48 towns that did not exist as occupied sites in the late Bronze 
Age. Some, like Mephaath were not settled until Iron II at the end of the 
7th century BCE (taking the position that Umm-er-Rasas is the site of 
Mephaath but the same date of occupation would hold for Tel-Jawa.  Arad, to 
me, is more concise.  The Canaanite city, supposedly the one mentioned in 
Joshua 12:14, was abandoned in the EBA (2650 BCE) and resettled in Iron II 
by the Israelites.  Considering the 7/6th Century BCE flags and allowing the 
time for collective national memory to forget when these towns were built or 
resettled, I cannot see these texts having been written later than the 
latter half of the 6th century.  Always open to have my paradigms 
refashioned (after all, being shown to be mistaken is also progress), I 
would be very interested in any work on these toponyms but the archeological 
data is daunting.

Regards,

Jack

Jack Kilmon
San Antonio, TX


>    Best,
>
>    Uri Hurwitz                               Wilmington. VT
>
>
>
>
>
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