On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 10:53 PM, James Read wrote:
Even if you don't think yourself to have a position, you do seem to have
one.
For example, you began the discussion by suggesting we postulate all kinds
of things.
Yeah. If we don't sandbox the discussion then it is becomes impossible to
analyse the meaning of the text as the author intended it to be understood.
There are obviously contextual factors that the author took it for granted
that we would simply know like what language was spoken by which people in
which country. While it was probably a fair assumption with his direct
audience the sands of time have made those assumptions less valid.
Sandboxing the discussion allows us to analyse these assumptions.
No, James. "Sandboxing the discussion" as you call it reads and probably is
an attempt to force upon the list readership a discussion that conforms to your
personal sets of beliefs.
In order to avoid the appearance of such, you present
these as "postulates."
But even though the author may have believed that
Abraham came from Ur, it is not granted that he believed that he came from
Babylonian Ur. Reasonably, the author of the text as we have it places
Abraham at Babylonian Ur, but his source tradition/text may have not been
explicit about which Ur, and the author of the source tradition/text may have
seen Abraham as coming from a different Ur.
Furthermore, it is likely that
none of these authors was interested or concerned about questions of
linguistic development. So really, in placing your postulates on a discussion
of linguistic development and classification you are asking not what the
ancient author believed but what would a modern person who holds these
postulates as true believes.
Just a bit ago you wrote:
> > What sort of question is this? The text of Tanakh is evidence. [...]to which Petr responded:
> No! It's definitely not an "evidence". The Hebrew Bible is ideologicalyand you replied:
> biased text and not a historical record.
By the definition you've just given there is no such thing as a
historical record. Everything that has ever been written has a bias of
some form.
and also:
We do have some documents making a claim that the English invaders
were of Germanic descent but I am not willing to consider the historicity
of these claims because the document is of religious origin and, therefore,
suspicious
So why are you not willing to consider the historicity of claims in some
purported documents of "religious origin" but are willing to consider the
Biblical claims as evidence?
(I am not debating here the historicity of the Bible, but your attempt at
presenting yourself as objective and absent any personal indication of
your position in the debate, whereas in reality you are taking a very
partial stance to the Bible).
I conclude on the basis of what you wrote that your partial stance towards
the Bible stems from your own personal beliefs, and that the "postulates"
in fact closely match your own beliefs. You would therefore, in discussing
the linguistic development of Hebrew, want to "sandbox the discussion"
to conform to your own beliefs -- to force your beliefs on other list
participants in the discussion. But then you also want to present yourself
as objective and absent any personal position. It is no surprise that some
list members simply refused to play along and consider your postulates.
I think it would also be appropriate for you to be honest and forthcoming as
to what your position is in the debate. You're really not fooling anyone here.
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