radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
Re: A New Beginning Part 1 reply to MBS' reply
Three warnings here: in this response I as speaking as a scientist (a rational, educated human being believing in the scientific methodology--an assumption that, if one does not know what the methodology is, one will look it up) who believes that if one makes an assertion about reality (that which actually is, actual occasions) one must (1) believe them to be true (correspond in some manner to that reality), (2) have sufficient reason to believe them (elsewise it is divination), and (3) that the assertions must, in reality, be true. Second, I am focusing on the assertion implicity made in the title of the MBS thread “Little or no Evidence to Support Hebrew Bible Before Josephus”. That thesis or hypothesis is there is little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus. In turn, my thesis is two-fold: first, MBS’ thesis is demonstrably incorrect and entirely unfounded; second, that if MBS does not accept the scientific proof that his thesis is vacuous, the thesis is the product of ideology, wishful thinking, or what in German is called “Wolkenkuckucksheim”
First, the error herein. Yea, the entire Dead Sea Scrolls Corpus 230 BCE to 68 CE (you got this wrong, MBS, see #24 above. What that same post points out (and I had a fourteen year old read it over the weekend to make sure I had not just blown what I meant, his reposes to my questions means that he read it as I intended) that from the source you provided (the wiki on Dead Sea Scrolls) that 25% of the total fragments (remember there are 972) or 246 fragments are (1) from the Hebrew Bible, and (2) dated to 230-150BCE.
What that means is that from the only reference you have provided, if one is logical and assumes that radiocarbon dating is true (if not exact) there are at least 246 data points that disprove the thesis (there is little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus).
The entire Hebrew Bible is not the point—only that there are (at least) 246 fragments of that Bible that predate Josephus. Nor is it the point “rely[ing] on this dating method alone”—do not go down that path, if you reject the validity of radiocarbon dating, so be it. But with equal aplomb I am then free to point out that the Behistun Inscription could be a seventeenth century forgery (so I will assume that radiocarbon dating is scientifically valid so as not to open this infinite regression).
So one, you have the dates wrong; two, the issue is not whether the Hebrew Bible was existent even in the days of Josephus; three, science shows that there are at least 246 fragments of the Hebrew Bible which predate Josephus by 220 to 300 years; so, four, your thesis there is little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus is in error, refuted.
Unless you care to say how much “evidence” is covered by little (warning: I just did a lit search over the weekend, if you count up all the classic Greek references and inscriptions referencing Zoroaster and Ahuramazda, what I think you are thinking as your proofs, they do not total even 100). So it stands that the thesis little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus is demonstrably incorrect and entirely unfounded.
See the last paragraph as a lead-in. Your “secondary sources” (which you have never bothered to source—prove, tell us where you got that information) are pretty dated 42 secondary sources are listed in wiki (I do not agree with this since many of the Septuagint fragments are not included and the Dead Sea Scrolls are cited as one see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_archaeology). Where do you get this count of four? How old is it?
The Dead Sea Scroll and Septuagint fragments (the 246 cited above, the 9 previously referenced Rohlfs fragments and the Nash Papyrus) are primary evidence to my thesis (that you are incorrect in asserting extralinguistic or paleolinguistic methods), primary counterfactual evidence to your thesis (in that they disprove it, if one assumes 256 individual instances of evidence is not “little…evidence” and that radiocarbon dating is accurate), and secondary evidence to a third thesis, that the Hebrew Bible existed before Josephus (I am not defending that thesis herein). Let me repeat, I am arguing that “there is little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus” is demonstrably incorrect and entirely unfounded.
Aside… from what I can find in the serious academic literature extralinguistic or paleolinguistic methods have their own short-comings. Really, really good (like at Qumran) when assessing masses of material from a limited number of scribes or schools. Flat ineffective (or high questionable) when dealing (like the Nash Paprus) with one scribe unrelated to a school.
See, that just is vacuous. You have never given a source for what this extralinguistic or paleolinguistic evidence is (you merely stating there are “only four instances” is not evdidence, you showing some source—the more academic and published and less web-based the better). You are building a straw man and demolishing it. I never made an argument about the historical accuracy or dating of the Hebrew Bible. As I stated before, it is totally irrelevant to the problem at hand, that the thesis little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus is demonstrably incorrect and entirely unfounded.
Three warnings here: in this response I as speaking as a scientist (a rational, educated human being believing in the scientific methodology--an assumption that, if one does not know what the methodology is, one will look it up) who believes that if one makes an assertion about reality (that which actually is, actual occasions) one must (1) believe them to be true (correspond in some manner to that reality), (2) have sufficient reason to believe them (elsewise it is divination), and (3) that the assertions must, in reality, be true. Second, I am focusing on the assertion implicity made in the title of the MBS thread “Little or no Evidence to Support Hebrew Bible Before Josephus”. That thesis or hypothesis is there is little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus. In turn, my thesis is two-fold: first, MBS’ thesis is demonstrably incorrect and entirely unfounded; second, that if MBS does not accept the scientific proof that his thesis is vacuous, the thesis is the product of ideology, wishful thinking, or what in German is called “Wolkenkuckucksheim”
First, the error herein. Yea, the entire Dead Sea Scrolls Corpus 230 BCE to 68 CE (you got this wrong, MBS, see #24 above. What that same post points out (and I had a fourteen year old read it over the weekend to make sure I had not just blown what I meant, his reposes to my questions means that he read it as I intended) that from the source you provided (the wiki on Dead Sea Scrolls) that 25% of the total fragments (remember there are 972) or 246 fragments are (1) from the Hebrew Bible, and (2) dated to 230-150BCE.
What that means is that from the only reference you have provided, if one is logical and assumes that radiocarbon dating is true (if not exact) there are at least 246 data points that disprove the thesis (there is little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus).
The entire Hebrew Bible is not the point—only that there are (at least) 246 fragments of that Bible that predate Josephus. Nor is it the point “rely[ing] on this dating method alone”—do not go down that path, if you reject the validity of radiocarbon dating, so be it. But with equal aplomb I am then free to point out that the Behistun Inscription could be a seventeenth century forgery (so I will assume that radiocarbon dating is scientifically valid so as not to open this infinite regression).
So one, you have the dates wrong; two, the issue is not whether the Hebrew Bible was existent even in the days of Josephus; three, science shows that there are at least 246 fragments of the Hebrew Bible which predate Josephus by 220 to 300 years; so, four, your thesis there is little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus is in error, refuted.
Unless you care to say how much “evidence” is covered by little (warning: I just did a lit search over the weekend, if you count up all the classic Greek references and inscriptions referencing Zoroaster and Ahuramazda, what I think you are thinking as your proofs, they do not total even 100). So it stands that the thesis little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus is demonstrably incorrect and entirely unfounded.
See the last paragraph as a lead-in. Your “secondary sources” (which you have never bothered to source—prove, tell us where you got that information) are pretty dated 42 secondary sources are listed in wiki (I do not agree with this since many of the Septuagint fragments are not included and the Dead Sea Scrolls are cited as one see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_archaeology). Where do you get this count of four? How old is it?
The Dead Sea Scroll and Septuagint fragments (the 246 cited above, the 9 previously referenced Rohlfs fragments and the Nash Papyrus) are primary evidence to my thesis (that you are incorrect in asserting extralinguistic or paleolinguistic methods), primary counterfactual evidence to your thesis (in that they disprove it, if one assumes 256 individual instances of evidence is not “little…evidence” and that radiocarbon dating is accurate), and secondary evidence to a third thesis, that the Hebrew Bible existed before Josephus (I am not defending that thesis herein). Let me repeat, I am arguing that “there is little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus” is demonstrably incorrect and entirely unfounded.
Aside… from what I can find in the serious academic literature extralinguistic or paleolinguistic methods have their own short-comings. Really, really good (like at Qumran) when assessing masses of material from a limited number of scribes or schools. Flat ineffective (or high questionable) when dealing (like the Nash Paprus) with one scribe unrelated to a school.
See, that just is vacuous. You have never given a source for what this extralinguistic or paleolinguistic evidence is (you merely stating there are “only four instances” is not evdidence, you showing some source—the more academic and published and less web-based the better). You are building a straw man and demolishing it. I never made an argument about the historical accuracy or dating of the Hebrew Bible. As I stated before, it is totally irrelevant to the problem at hand, that the thesis little or no evidence to support Hebrew Bible before Josephus is demonstrably incorrect and entirely unfounded.
