Re: Phoenicians

In article <MPG.1e5ee37c650bae8d9898a2@news>, BernardZ
<bernardZ@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <yARIf.506$jo5.286@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
deowll@xxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
[comments on how helpful BAR is]
The origins of the old Hebrew people and texts is open to debate but
that the people and text so named existed is no longer worth debating.
The consensus is in that they did and do. Anyone who wishes to take
the negative stance has some major proving and redefining of evidence
to do. Getting the professionals to change their minds is going to be
a tall order. Calling names doesn't cut it. Physical evidence rules.

Seems I'll have to go look at BAR again. Sigh. Even when they're
right they're annoying, and the amount of hullabaloo they make about
stuff that later gets discredited is obnoxious.

The disconnect between this group and the scholarly world is mind-
boggling. On this group, there is a bunch of trolls who apparently
claim that Judaism was invented by a bunch of Greeks around 200 BC
with no prior material. Now, this is patently bull***. Everything
from archaeology to linguistics to history of Egypt and Mesopotamia
to *genetics*, for crying out loud, argues against it.

The *scholarly* debate, however, is considerably less one-sided.
NB:

One of the biggest critics of the existence of the Old Hebrew people was
Thomas L. Thompson (University of Copenhagen).

http://journalofbiblicalstudies.org/Issue3/Short_Study/on_reading_the_bi
ble_for_history.htm

I think you might find his statement interesting.

I certainly did, after you posted the same link in a reply to me a
month ago. Thompson's article showed me that you had trouble reading it.

The article is essentially a reply to William Dever's rant^hbook
about minimalists and other signs of the apocalypse. Thompson
organises his reply into various headings. I found particularly
noteworthy his heading of (not direct quotes) "Dever singles me out
for saying things lots of people are saying" - because one of the
items listed there is "The Bible is a Hellenistic book".

In other words, Thompson isn't *retracting* the core minimalist
argument, he's saying Dever was wrong to criticise him for it when
everyone and their uncle is saying the same thing. He's saying it's
a consensus.

Now, he's *wrong* about that. But it's hardly a retraction.

Flipside, Thompson never went remotely as far as these loons on sha.
Both he and Nils Lemche have for crying out loud written *histories*
of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Of course he doesn't deny the
*existence* of Judah and the people you're calling "Old Hebrew".
He just denies that they wrote the texts of the Bible.

Me, I think the evidence these guys cite solidly debunks tenth-
century dates but offers strong support for dates in the ninth
to sixth centuries, for the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic
History in particular. They also offer *some* support for their own
much later dates, but frankly, not as much. That said, it looks
like before I read Thompson's <Early History> I need to read
Lemche's <Early Israel>, and I was delayed getting hold of that,
so I can't say much that's final about these guys.

Except that they're not in the same category as sha kooks. Who
would, by the way, have less of a platform if you stopped arguing
with them. Do you really think random passersby are going to
find "Agamemnon" credible unless you intervene? Do you really
think you're going to convince him he's wrong about anything, ever?
I mean, if the guy misspelled your name and you corrected him, he'd
accuse you of beating your mother: he's simply incapable of
acknowledging error.

So what's the point of arguing with him?

Joe Bernstein

--
Joe Bernstein, writer joe@xxxxxxxxxxx
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/> "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."
<Glass Mountain>, Cynthia Voigt
.