Re: New line of thinking about the OT!

On 16 Juni, 08:57, Matt Giwer <jul...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
mof wrote:
        Semiticisms is a very silly argument. Whomever would take it seriously much
less recite it has never heard people translating their own language into
another language they only moderately understand. As the Judeans speak Aramaic
when they appear in history they are the needed semitic speakers. As there is
no evidence the Judeans or anyone else ever spoke this "hebrew" there is no
evidenciary foundation to credit them with creating something older than the
Septuagint.

:-)

The evidence is there in form of the Semiticisms in the Septuagint.

        So it was written in Greek by a Phoenicians who spoke a semitic language. Why
are you so wedded to what you were told in Sunday School?      

That evidence is not removed just because someone believes noone spoke
Hebrew. You hold that view, yet, the text is the same ;)

        I do not hold that view. I am going to type very slowly so you can follow it.
There is no evidence Hebrew was ever a spoken language. When the Judeans first
appear in history they are speaking Aramaic. Aramaic is a semitic language. If
you have any evidence to the contrary you are free to present it.

To be more serious. We do not have to speculate about how Hebrew was
used and what kind of status it had, and such speculations are not
worth much, because in the end - given the paucity of evidence - the
only result we can reach is an article of faith. That which you hold.

        You misrepresented what I said. And then you accuse me of believing your lie.
That is not the basis for a rational discussion.

Let me rephrase it so that it is clear to everyone what you have done.
"I believe the status of the Hebrew language was such that the OT
could not originally have been written in it." In other words, based
on no evidence what so ever, you just decide that the situation was
such that you want it. That is prescientific belief, perhaps based in
religious or political fanaticism.

        Again you lie. Is lying the best you can do?

We can work the other way around however. And one conclusion that can
be drawn from the Septuagint and the Semiticisms is that users of
Hebrew could create such a book.

        We have no knowledge of the Judeans speaking Hebrew. We only have knowledge
of them speaking Aramaic. Why do you think Hebrew is the only semitic language?

For your argument to have any weight, we must have lots of evidence.

        Sorry. I observed only that your assumption is without evidence. It is
nothing more than a religious tradition that was started by some unknown
persons at an unknown time in the past for unknown reasons. Observing you
believers have no evidence does not require any evidence at all. If you do
have evidence you can present it at any time.

Because it goes against that which is plain to see for all that have
studied the subject. This means that you have to find a situation
where we know Hebrew could not have been the original language. You
have to prove it.

        Your belief that there was once a Hebrew version older is simply a Sunday
school tradition. You are free to present all the evidence you have that there
was an older version.

I can help you a bit. Tell us when the OT was written, and prove that
at that time, the status of Hebrew was such that the OT could not have
been written in Hebrew.

        All I know from the available evidence is that the OT first appears in
history in the late 2nd c. BC at the earliest. There is no evidence of it
existing before that. The first version is in Greek.

        If you have other evidence please present it. Evidence not argumentation.

Something further to note. Your approach to evidence is different
according to what theory you are discussing. When it comes to the
existence of Jews,

        The Judeans first appear in history when Pompey arrives in the region. There
is no evidence of any prior existence.

a lot of evidence is not enough,

        You bible thumpers have yet to present anything at all supporting your bible
claims beyond vaguely similar names found hundreds of miles away from
bibleland. You haven't produced a single bit of evidence of the biblical
kingdoms from within bibleland.

as we can see from
what you think about all the evidence that Dragonblaze is kind enough
to provide us with. But when it comes to the impossibility of Hebrew
being the original language of the OT, no evidence is good enough.
Using such methods, one can never say anything that has any value.

        When you present evidence Hebrew was a spoken language I will give it all the
attention it merits. Please present the evidence.

--
There is no archaeological evidence of biblical Israel to
be found any place in Israel. Maybe they are looking in
the wrong place.
        -- The Iron Webmaster, 4157
 http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/holo-survivors.phtmla3
Tue Jun 16 02:42:07 EDT 2009

So you cannot defend your theory, and are reduced to calling me a
liar. It must hurt to be so exposed. The only thing that was lacking
was some hissing from your part :-D

This is how it works: let me write it again.

It is up to you to provide us with a date for the writing of the
Septuagint.

You will then have to prove that Hebrew was not a spoken language at
the time, and that its status as a language was such that it could not
be the original language.

The reason for that is the mentioned Semiticisms.

So far, you have based your assumption on nothing but belief. This
means that, like Innabon, you are a believer and a bible thumper,
trying to press your belief upon us. But it will not work.

What you must understand is that your theory is not proven right, just
because we do not know whether Hebrew was a spoken language at date X.
Let us look at it logically, and it should be plain to see for all.

1, We do not know whether people spoke Hebrew at time X.
2. It therefore follows that no one spoke it.
3. And that the Septuagint could not have been written in Hebrew.

That is what you are saying: some scholarship.

Since you can not prove your theory, we are reduced to heuristics. The
first answer and the simplest answer is likely to be the right one,
namely that the Septuagint is what tradition says it is.

Here is some more for you to hiss on.

1. We have seen that the OT contains some true statements.
2. We know they are true, because we have other evidence that supports
them.
3. But the writers of the OT did not know that we would find this
other evidence.
4. The group of true statements is therefore independent from the
group of statements that we can find other evidence for.
5. We have to conclude that the OT contains some true statements that
we have no other evidence for.

If that logic is confusing, then it helps to write down some
statements on a paper and draw rings around the different groups. It
is then easy to see that detected true statements is not the same
group as all true statements in the book. Another way to put it is to
understand that the other evidence is merely a tool for us to be able
to detect true statements. At present we are naturally unable to
detect all of them.

This has some implications. One is that with time we will be able to
detect more, and indeed that is what happens. An easy prediction is
that with time we will find more tablets and other texts that will
confirm a name here, a place there, and an event or two.

The conclusion is that the OT is an extremely important source for us,
not that it is very good, but for many problems it is practically the
only one we have. With time we will see more and more interesting
studies about what the OT can tell us about the societies that created
the texts. They will be about social history and different struggles.
All in all, it is a gold mine.

But for you, the only thing that exists is old testamental belief, and
the words no, no, NO.
.

Relevant Pages

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