From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 15:46:07 -0500
Dear list,
Kenneth Kitchen is a foremost OT scholar, and he
both questions the documentary hypothesis and
upholds the historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Kitchen
Professor Kitchen is an Evangelical Christian with
regard to his religious beliefs. He is frequently
cited by conservative Christians in relation to
writings rejecting the Documentary Hypothesis,
which claims that the Pentateuch is a composite
work of sources labeled J, E, D, and P rather than
by Moses as author. Kenneth Kitchen has raised
various objections to the documentary hypothesis
[1][2][3][4][5]. For example, Kitchen points to
Egyptian tablets giving a biographical account in
four different writing styles, yet this text (he
claims) is widely accepted as having had one
author. Kitchen himself, however, is not strictly
traditionalist in terms of authorship of the
Pentateuch, pointing out numerous places where the
text demand post-Mosaic editing in the Pentateuch
(See K. A. Kitchen in He Swore an Oath [ed. R.
Hess, et. al.; Grand Rapids, Baker, 1994] 91). He
also takes a late date of the exodus of Israel
from Egypt during the time of Ramesses II in the
13th century BC, whereas most conservative
evangelical Bible scholars date this event to the
15th century BC.
Here is what seems a fair statement of views of
the historical reliability of the OT, one that
mentions Kitchen and is again taken from a
Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament
Current debate concerning the historicity of the
Old Testament can be divided into several camps.
One group has been labeled "biblical minimalists"
by its critics. Minimalists (e.g., Philip Davies,
Thompson, Seters) see very little reliable history
in any of the Old Testament. Conservative Old
Testament scholars, "biblical maximalists,"
generally accept the historicity of most Old
Testament narratives (save the accounts in Gen
1–11) on confessional grounds, and noted
Egyptologists (e.g., Kenneth Kitchen) argue that
such a belief is not incompatible with the
external evidence. Other scholars (e.g., William
Dever) are somewhere in between: they see clear
signs of evidence for the monarchy and much of
Israel's later history, though they doubt the
Exodus and Conquest. The vast majority of scholars
at American universities are somewhere between
biblical minimalism and maximalism; there are
still many maximalists at conservative/evangelical
seminaries, while there are very few biblical
minimalists at any American universities.
Interestingly, both Kitchen and archaeologist
Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University are not
the only scholars from the maximalist and
minimalist camps who are sufficiently trained to
address these questions with the necessary
sophistication but both are experts in their
fields—and both come to different conclusions.
Some contemporary Israeli archaeologists have now
rejected much of the Deuteronomistic history of
the Old Testament. Notably, Finkelstein and Neal
Asher Silberman have written popular books
detailing their view that many of the best-known
Biblical stories are incompatible with the
archaeology of the region. Conversely, in 2003
Kenneth A. Kitchen published the 662 page book On
the Reliability of the Old Testament, which
defended the Bible's reliability throughout.
Although some archeologists have argued that many
Biblical accounts should be rejected due to a lack
of corroborating archaeological evidence,
opponents point out that this is a return to the
19th century idea that anything not confirmed by
current archaeology should be dismissed, a
methodology which had once led some to question
the existence of major empires such as Assyria.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues
, (continued)