To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: Miscellaneous minor points (El vs. YHWH, etc...)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 01:16:25 +0100
At 15.21 21/02/00 -0600, Henry Churchyard wrote:
>(That's why I used the term "prophets", Ian --
Yes, I realized that you were setting up an escape route. I don't think it
helps much though.
>by which I didn't
>necessarily mean very much more than "strict religious reformers of
>unspecified pre-Hellenistic date".
I don't know how you can necessarily say "pre-Hellenistic": I can't see any
evidence you can muster. But accepting your assumption for a moment, the
problem becomes how pre-Hellenistic, when you consider the same situation
of Yahweh and his consort at Elephantine, which was in contact with
Jerusalem, in the fifth century.
>When archaeologists turn up
>shrines to YHWH and his Asherah, they're actually providing clear
>support for the factual historicity of the Bible ;-) .)
You have a very wonky idea of historicity here. It seems like the sort of
thought that would find Doctorow's "Ragtime" supported for the factual
historicity of its characters such as Houdini.