Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George:

On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 12:40 AM, George Athas 
<George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>wrote:

> I find your response rather incredible, Karl. I've pointed to documentation
> and yet you insist I haven't shown documentation and need to produce it.


You have shown documentation, but it is not the documentation needed to
answer a specific question.

Abraham lived roughly 1950–1800 BC, give or take a few decades, his
encounter with Melchizedek roughtly 1900 BC give or take a few decades. The
only documentation from Canaan for that era is Genesis.

There are good archeological and historical reasons to say that Pharaoh
Necho who killed King Josiah was a different name for Raamasis II, and since
Ugarit and the Hatti treaties are dated by cross referencing from his
dynasty, that would put those documents from roughly 800–600 BC, or over a
thousand years later. A lot could change during that thousand years.


> There's so much more I could point to, but I only picked a handful of
> examples for my previous post. There's no need for me to reproduce the texts
> of the Ancient Near East across the millennia. I'll refer you to the
> standard reference works, like Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Context of
> Scripture. This will show you the ubiquity of henotheistic thinking across
> the Ancient Near East prior to the Persian Era.


I am not looking for all the documentation, just specific documentation.

As far as henotheism, that was widely practiced in many parts of the world
practically up to the modern age, and in some places still practiced. So
that is not the question.


> Your proposal sees Salem during the lifetime of Abraham as the one
> exception.


*An* exception, with probability of others as well. But with the paucity of
surviving documentation, others could go under the radar and their memories
lost.


> This would make Melchizedek a kind of Akhenaton figure, though using a well
> established deity, El Elyon (who everywhere else was seen as president of
> the gods), and talking about him in classic henotheistic terms, rather than
> making up a new deity from scratch (which is what Akhenaton did).


Not at all. The account in Genesis connected with the documents you
reference, indicates the opposite, that later peoples took the well
established deity preached by Melchizedek among others and made him into a
president of the gods.

That’s apparently what happened in China, where the earliest records had a
single god 上帝 who was later given other 神 gods as underlings who directly
interacted with specific villages and families.

So why not the same for the ANE as well?


> I don't think I need to find specific documentation signed
>  by Melchizedek to support my view. I think, rather, that you need find
> that documentation to prove yours. Your request for documentation in this
> case is extremely minimalistic in that it resembles the same standard that
> some scholars demand to demonstrate that there actually was a David or
> Solomon. I somehow doubt that you apply the same standard to them, in which
> case you need to rethink your entire evidential methodology.
>

No, we don’t need documentation signed by Melchizedek. We have one document
that indicates by its context that the God preached by Melchizedek was the
same as YHWH, documentation that indicates that the original thereof was
written contemporaneously, actually by the son but that’s close enough, to
the events recorded. The only contrasting documentation is from other
peoples a thousand years later who would argue differently. Which is more
likely to be accurate for that time and event?

>
> The other problem I have with your comments on this is that you seem to be
> committing a reading fallacy, which conflates the world of a person
> mentioned in a text with the world of the author and assumes that the two
> are one and the same.


No, there are other clues to indicate authorship, and I have referenced them
in earlier messages.


> This has to be proved. Yes, in the context of Gen 1, I can see how one
> reads Genesis monotheistically. No argument there. But Genesis seems to come
> from a Persian milieu, or a monarchic milieu at the earliest stretch. This
> is much later than the supposed lifetime of Abraham.


This view of the authorship of Genesis dates from the early 19th century
Europe with its belief in evolution with a dash of anti-Semitism. It has no
documentation to back it up. Whether or not a person believes it is an act
of faith.

The traditional view is also an act of faith, as documents earlier than the
DSS have not been found.

That both are acts of faith, and this forum is not one to proselytize for
one or the other faiths, I will only state for the record that I accept the
latter and reject the former of the two faiths listed above and that many of
my statements have been, are and will be consistent with it. Stated to avoid
confusion.


> Even if, as I think you are, going for an early Exodus and Mosaic
> authorship, this is still much later than Abraham.


The structure of Genesis indicates that it was compiled from earlier
documents, the amount of editing thereof not presently known. History
indicates that Moses wrote it.


> So how does the Salemite understanding of El Elyon as a universal deity,
> yet who is spoken of in terms that are consistent with the classic
> henotheism of the Ancient Near East across many, many centuries, continue
> from the Abrahamic era to the era of the author of Genesis (whenever that
> is)? Or is there a cessation of this worldview after Salem, only to be
>  taken up again in the time of the author? How does this fit into the
> mindset of people and the world of ideas in the Ancient Near East? I'm not
> sure that you can actually hold these two things together. You're fighting
> an uphill battle with the evidence on this one, Karl.
>

Where is your documentation? I don’t find documents from other peoples a
thousand years later very convincing.

>
> All in all, I would say the onus is on you to show that (1) Abrahamic Salem
> was the exception to the rule of henotheism, which would also make it
> largely out of step with things even in the monarchic era of Israel and
> Judah, and (2) the worldview of the author of Genesis (esp. Gen 1) was the
> same as that of Salem in the Abrahamic era (whenever that was). These two
> points that you are going for are in contradistinction with what we know
> from the Ancient Near East, and therefore the case for it has to be made.
>
> How much do we really *know* about the Ancient Near East? How much do we
think we know that is in reality inaccurate, the result of imputing later,
documented conditions to earlier eras for which surviving documentation does
not exist? How much of what we think we know is based on deliberately
falsified histories, such as Manetho who added pharaohs and even whole
dynasties to his history to make it appear older than it really was (for
Manetho the job was easier because the monarchs went under multiple names)?
How much of what we *think* we know are really based on faith statements,
such as a faith in evolution?

We have one document that claims to be an accurate history. We have no known
accurate documents that contradict it. While it is a matter of faith whether
one accepts that document as accurate, as no copies of it survive earlier
than the DSS, it is likewise a matter of faith to reject it as accurate.

So right now I have one document that I accept as accurate, so if you want
to argue that it is not accurate, you need to show documentation from that
place and time. The onus in on you, the ball in your court, to provide that
documentation.

>
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Director of Postgraduate Studies,
> Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
> Sydney, Australia
>  <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>
>
Karl W. Randolph.