On 8/5/05, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:
Dear Yitzhak,
Where is "and the empire that he fought?" Besides building an ivory house,HH: You seem to be requiring the Bible to give a
I don't see any thing that is so different from other kings who didn't
successfully defend against the Assyrian empire.
certain piece of information to be fair or
complete. But that is a subjective, obviously
debatable position to take.
Besides the following paragraph, I also relate to the comment of subjectivity in my reply to Brian, below.
I am not sure why it is so subjective. If the Bible doesn't provide us with a certain relatively important piece of information regarding a king, it is by
definition incomplete. It may be due to the Biblical editor's subjective
assessments. But essentially, we cannot take the Bible as historically
complete ...
...
It is in light of this extreme belief in the uselessness of
scholarship that the Battle
of Qarqar should be viewed. A battle by Ahab against the Assyrian empire is a
signficant event. ...
... But Read would have me believe that the Bible is so completeIf sweeping definitions of completeness are to be criticised, perhaps you should look more carefully at your own one.
that a "fragment" of the Assyrian king relating to the battle will
teach me nothing
about Israelite history but only about Assyrian history. For Read,
Israelite history
is represented faithfully, completely, and honestly by the Bible. And
it is in light
of this sweeping definition of completeness, that the absence of the
Battle of Qarqar
should be viewed.
... In fact, in 2 Kings 3:5 the word "kmwt" (as opposed to
")xry") is
used: "As Ahab died," which is ambiguous. It could mean after, but it
could also
mean "in Ahab's last days." It almost appears as if the author of 3:5 wants to make the point that the revolt occured after Ahab died, but can't, because he realizes it did not, so he attempts to gloss it over. And if we now
ask "why did
he feel the need to mark it after Ahab died," verses 1 Kings 21:28-29 come to mind.
So the question is not "is the prophecy of 1 Kings 21:28-29 fulfilled
even without the
mention of Mesha's revolt." The prophecy likely relates to not one
evil, but to all the
"evils" that would lead to the fall of Ahab's house, and this includes
the dissolution of
his empire, and the revolt of Mesha. ...
... Of course, claiming that the
prophecy was fulfilled
anyway is a claim without supporting evidence. The Bible says events
that fulfilled
the prophecy happened later, but we cannot confirm it, especially in
light of the
Mesha stele. ...
... It is even worse to try to make a comment based on the length of reign, accepting the length of reign given in the book of Kings as
authoritative and
hence dismissing the Mesha stele. The Mesha stele is more
authoritative for this
issue than the figure of length of reign given in the Bible, and the
reign lengths in the
Bible are problematic anyway and at times are at odds with one another.
...
On 8/5/05, Peter Kirk wrote:
How about Ramesses II's records of his "victory" at Kadesh, ...
...
And even so, that is only proving that it is not reliable. If Ramesses II
lies
about his loss at Qadesh and describes it as a victory, then the Ramesseside
inscriptions are "complete" in the sense they also tell us about the failings
of
the king. They are just not reliable, in that they don't reliably describe
the
outcome. ...
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