Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

   Some would argue that before judging, even conditionaly,
  conclusions of a specific paper, it is better to read it.

   As for your general point, how about using the terms
 'earlier' and 'later' instead of 'dating'?

  Incidentally, among Richard Hess' many important works
 are those dealing with various historical aspects of certain
 PNs and toponyms in early Israel biblical texts.

 
   Uri Hurwitz                                  Great Neck, NY


  

   


I must admit that I have not read Andersen & Hess, but the conclusion strikes 
me as open to the charge of circular reasoning. On what do they base their 
dating of the texts? I think for their conclusion to stand, they would need 
to establish the date of the texts by non-linguistic means. Otherwise, they 
are using linguistic means to date a text, and then using that date of the 
text to confirm the linguistics. If this is what Andersen & Hess in fact 
argue, then they are open to the very charge that Young, Rezetko, and 
Ehrensvärd make of much scholarship, namely that dating texts on the basis of 
linguistics and then using the linguistics to date texts is completely 
circular. Ergo, we need to find non-linguistic means of dating biblical texts.


GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au