Karl seems to want this discussion confined to pre-Exilic evidence. TheIndeed. This is typical of Karl's method. Whenever anyone comes up with any evidence against his position, he finds some excuse to declare it inadmissible. He thereby restricts his observations to a period for which he knows there is no evidence against his position - but equally none to support it. If he looked at the wider evidence, he might find evidence for as well as against his position - after all, Garbini and Diem seem to have found some, so there is a case to answer. But by ruling out all the evidence in any direction he ensures that what he says can never be more than baseless speculation.
Amarna letters are the only evidence I know of - and Ugaritic if the longer
alphabet includes shin and sin, as I believe it does. As Karl excludes both
because they are *not Hebrew*, we are left with no acceptable evidence. Without some discovery of a manuscript/inscription that is pre-Exilic and
includes a distinction of sin and shin, or a translation of names into a
language that clearly differentiates /s/ and /S/, it is unlikely there will
be evidence. Otherwise it remains a matter of one person asserting that
there was no distinction and another asserting there was. That seems like a
waste of time, IMO.
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.