Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH or SBH - Standard) & Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH)
Date: Mon, 16 May 2011 02:33:55 +0000
I must admit that I have not read Andersen & Hess, but the conclusion strikes
me as open to the charge of circular reasoning. On what do they base their
dating of the texts? I think for their conclusion to stand, they would need
to establish the date of the texts by non-linguistic means. Otherwise, they
are using linguistic means to date a text, and then using that date of the
text to confirm the linguistics. If this is what Andersen & Hess in fact
argue, then they are open to the very charge that Young, Rezetko, and
Ehrensvärd make of much scholarship, namely that dating texts on the basis of
linguistics and then using the linguistics to date texts is completely
circular. Ergo, we need to find non-linguistic means of dating biblical texts.
GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au