I can't stand reading anymore of this "science is just another
ideology/faith" stuff. Not only does Karl not understand the basic
nature of science (for example, his picture of competing "ideologies"
cannot explain why the whole vast edifice of modern biology works as it
does -- why one "ideology" has created modern technological civilization
while the other simply pours out verbiage), this notion of ideologies
logically reduces to complete relativism, where everyone is free to
choose his own premises.
Instead of talking about faith and ideology, a philosopher would say
that there are different language-games involved here, with different
paradigms of inference. The real mistake is to think that scholars
(mainstream university scholars) and fundamentalists share some common
notions of truth and evidence. They do not, and it is the misfortune of
this list to be a forum for such utter miscommunication.
In the case of Deuteronomy, there is much more to the theory of its
7th-century origin than just the note about its being "found" in the
Temple. There is the body of laws that contradict the early laws of
Exodus, and do so in exactly the ways that would be needed if local
shrines had been allowed before but were now being banned, in line with
a new centralized system. And of course there are the great stylistic
differences, as well as a different theological mindset. (See Moshe
Weinberg's great book on this.) All of these things must remain hidden
from fundamentalists, in the same way that the contents of biology are
hidden from them.
Getting back to the subject of Hebrew... I recall that in answering a
question of mine about the third-person ending NW (with "nun
energicum"), Yitzhak Sapir gave an explanation that involved "The
original reconstruction of the verb way back when before Hebrew", and
presupposed a linguistic evolution. I also note that, in addition to the
work of Hurvitz on stages in the development of Hebrew mentioned here
previously, there are books along the same lines by Robert Polzin, Gary
Rendsburg and Ziony Zevit. This is the kind of thing I would love to see
examined by the Hebrew scholars here, but it is anathema to the
fundamentalists.
So I would like to see the fundamentalists get their own list or website
(just as Karl often harangues poor Jim to do), and leave this list to
scholars.
Gabe Eisenstein
Re: [b-hebrew] Documentary Hypothesis,
Gabe Eisenstein, 01/28/2009