To: "'Jonathan D. Safren'" <yonsaf AT beitberl.ac.il>
Cc: "'b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu'" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: SV: Scholarship was Re: SV: Hebrew language, antiquity of ? [Cut]
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 12:13:19 +0200
> Dave Washburn wrote:
>
> NPL wrote:
>
> Scholarship
> > is really about tearing down accepted mainstream ideas, and most
> advanced
> > theories become maintream some day or the other.
>
> According to whom? This does not exactly seem like a
> mainstream definition of scholarship to me.
>
>
> Actually, what Nils Peter gave is a definition of deconstructionism, or
> postmodernism.
> In Israel, we also call it "slaughtering sacred cows", and those who apply
> these methods to the history of Zionism are called "New Historians" in the
> current Israeli parlance.
>
>
> --
> Jonathan D. Safren
> Dept. of Biblical Studies
> Beit Berl College
> Beit Berl Post Office 44905
> Israel
>
No, I am not very happy with this definition. Scholarship is about creating
knowledge. This a continuous process of try and error. Everything must be
doubted in order to improve and obtain more knowledge. Just to repeat what
we already know and have accepted is a waste of time.This is not
post-modern, this is in essence modern.