Actually, I did not suggest that the texts were all written at one time
and place. ...
... I suggested that discernable lingusitic differences should exist and that
it should be possible to find evidence of that in the text. I proposed
looking at those areas where scribes misinterpreted some passage because of
linguistic change because I believe those who do not accept an early origin
for any part of the Hebrew Bible would assume that some of the differences
were deliberate imitation of earlier texts to make them look ancient. Others
appeared to suggest that the Hebrew language was homogenous. I reject that.
My speculation concerning the time and place of writing was in response to
the idea that the language was homogenous. In essence, I was saying that it
would be unnatural for Biblical Hebrew to be free of dialectal differences.
...
... I proposed some possible explanations for why Biblical Hebrew could be uniform, but I rejected them. I argued and continue to argue that we do find differences in the text due to language development and regional variations in usage.
Such differences should contribute some small amount of evidence concerning the origin of the text. If as others seemed to suggest, no differences in the language exist, then that also suggests something concerning the origin of the text. Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy
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