...
Peter,
I fail to see the relevance of such arguments as the KKK metaphor. ... do you intend to suggest the probability of an opposing scenario has the same probability as all of American society disappearing and only Ku Klux Klan material surviving? That probability is equivalent to zero. ...
... In that case, yes, we may suggest that Kuntillet Ajrud was a pilgrim site for non-Israelites. ...
... It may even be the most likely scenario, given your goals. ...
Peter Kirk wrote:
Not necessarily, only that very little written material has survived.
For what it's worth, that is what I meant by "writing at all is very rare." Nevertheless, do you have some way to explain why very little survived prior to this period and quite a lot (relatively) survives afterwards? ...
OK, I understand that you don't need other documents for the limited aim of comparing Kuntillet Ajrud with J, although you do for determining whether this is typical. But this comparison does require that J is a meaningful document. At least, if J is in fact a random selection from the Torah, a comparison with Kuntillet Ajrud (itself a random survivor from Israelite religion of the period) is meaningless. And if, as I in fact hold, J is a selection from the Torah which is not random but selected for its religious outlook, then any parallel with Kuntillet Ajrud tells us more about Wellhausen and co's presuppositions than about ancient religion.
I fear you are not following me. The goal is to argue for consistency between J and Kuntillet Ajrud, religiously and politically. For that, I don't need any later sources, nor do I need to concern myself with the possibility that the contemporary inscriptions and J are all injected with
some value system. That is the whole point. To show
that the value system of J is consistent with the value system of Kuntillet Ajrud. For that matter, J could easily be a made up document picked at random from the
Torah. That doesn't mean it won't have statements that would translate to a value system, and that this value system can't be compared to Kuntillet Ajrud.
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