Ever wanted to write something simple in Egyptian? How about Babylonian or Sumerian? Now all you have to do is go on-line and type it in. It does not appear, however, that this can be relied on except in terms of simple words and short phrases. It may even butcher those. And it will definitely not be of any use in terms of digital translation of ancient documents… If something like Altavista’s Babelfish or the myriads of other on-line translators can’t even adequately translate a moderate German sentence into English (or vice versa), I think there is not much hope of an ancient language working any better. But it is amusing!
Go here to read all about it.
The historicity of the Tabernacle
is a question to be decided by evidence; and questions of the kind should be left to men who have practical experience in dealing with evidence―a category which does not include the Critics.
Sir Robert Anderson, in response to Orr’s Historicity of the Mosaic Tabernacle
I had to laugh when I read this… While critically examining the Documentary Hypothesis, I had suddenly stumbled onto the mirror image of a situation occurring in New Testament studies in the second Quest of the Historical Jesus. Burton Mack, for example, had presented the text of Mark as a historical fiction, which Mark based not on any actual evidence, but on an elaborate reconstruction of hypothetical traditions. And lo and behold, when the historical evidence was looked at, it became apparent that Mark and Mack were the same! Out of either sheer genius or complete blindness to his own presuppositions, Mack had gone about and created that vision of the Markan author weaving traditions without recourse to actual history by leaving historical evidence behind and weaving together elaborate reconstructions of hypothetical traditions.
In the same manner, the Higher Critics of old who fragmented the Hebrew text into several different traditions and presented us with an incoherent and a-historical picture of ancient Israel were themselves the very incoherent and a-historical authors they created. Without recourse to any actual historic evidence, they fragmented texts and explained inconsistencies in their fragmentation by appealing to a historically unknown Redactor.
So through incredible imaginary feats of intellect without basis in any real evidence, the Higher Critics crafted Pentateuchal Authors who had crafted incredible imaginary feats of intellect without basis in any real evidence.
The scientific person who does not laugh at the absurdity of it all would at least be dumbfounded at the lack of any grounding in Modern methods of rationally critical analysis by these so-called Moderns and their criticism.
Indeed, what were the Higher Critics actually criticizing if not the method of rational, scientific criticism itself? How can one defend a historical position about a text without any appeal to actual historical evidence of the text and then in many cases even in complete contradiction to the evidence which does exist? One can hardly blame the rise of fundamentalist Christianity in response. After all, what more native human reaction is there than to reproduce the error of your opponent in the opposite direction like a small child who wants his way and doesn’t care if it’s nonsense? Let us, like any good judge and jury, throw out those cases that mere imagination provides and build on the secure foundations of those things which exist in truth before us and by that token compel us in the direction implied by their evidential nature.
In case you were not aware, about 50% of the Soncino English translation of the Babylonian Talmud (hereafter referred to as the Bavli), is available freely on-line through a site called Come And Hear. You can download the website to a computer and have immediate access to the Bavli whenever you want. I have already made great use of it and enjoyed the translation so much that I started ordering several Tractates that are missing on-line. New in the mail are Tractates from the Order Kodashim. I had no idea they would be so big… For 27 bucks a pop, you get quite a Hebrew-English bang for your buck.
Free at last! My intensive German translation workshop is complete! And I suddenly have free time again! Unless the professors are disappointed with the amount of text I translated (only half a page), I should pass the proficiency exam with flying colors. How about that…I now have a European language under my scholastic belt.
Das Wesen der Kultur besteht darin, dass die in unserem Willen zum Leben nach Geltung ringende Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben sich in den einzelnen Menschen und in der Menschheit immer mehr durchsetzt.
Albert Schweitzer
The essense of culture consists in the fact that the reverance for the life which is fighting after validity in our will for life asserts itself more and more in individual people and in humanity.
There are many good reasons out there which, had I known previously, would have compelled me pretty quickly to abandon Windows for Linux. There is, for instance, no thrill as big as downloading several dozen different types of legally free software which individually do almost if not the exact same things as their non-free counterparts whose combined price tag would number in the multiple thousands. Every time I open Synaptic, I feel like I’m going on a shopping spree… What kind of really expensive software do I want for free legally today?
But the primary reason I use Linux is actually very simple. Because I’m Libertarian. I believe there is no greater good than liberty and no greater evil than the oppression, coercion, or slavery of our own natural rights and authority. I don’t accept Nissan controlling how, where, or when I drive my car and what I can or cannot do with it. Then why in God’s name would I let Microsoft control my operating system or tell me how I can and cannot use my software? Of course, there is a price involved: you have to learn a new way of doing computing. But nobody ever said liberty costs nothing. The question is what are you more willing to pay for: liberty or slavery?
Most people do not realize that when they laid down those several hundred dollars for Windows, they were not actually purchasing the operating system for their own control and ownership, but a license which allows Microsoft to maintain ownership and, therefore, to have control, authority, and right over the person using it. Using any Microsoft product is allowing yourself to be enslaved digitally for the opportunity to use that product. Some people might be fine with that slavery and chose it for themselves. If so, great! This Libertarian stands behind your decision, whatever that happens to be. And I will stand beside you against anyone who tries to deny your right to your decision. But I cannot abide selling myself into digital slavery.
Linux is everything that digital enslavement under Microsoft is not. For a long time I neither knew I was enslaved nor knew what it meant to be free of that slavery. But now that I have digital liberty, even thinking of going back to my old Microsoft shackles is repulsive. If this liberty were the only advantage to Linux, it would be enough reason for me to leave everything else for it. There just happens to be a great many other advantages as well.
Quite some time ago, I commented on Awilum that one of the things which makes historical investigation of Torah difficult is that much of the Pentateuchal history is a personal/family/private history instead of the public kind that most ancient documents are concerned with.
Therefore, we have virtually no chance of finding extra-biblical evidence of the Patriarchs or the events and circumstances that shaped their lives. One who requires this in order to believe the Pentateuchal narratives are historically accurate demands what historical investigation cannot reasonably provide.
Angela Erisman of Imaginary Grace challenged my assessment of the part Torah plays in Israelite history, saying that the narratives are primarily public/national, not private/personal. I did not at the time attempt to support or defend my position. Here, however, I hope to look at some specific linguistic evidence from the texts in question that, I believe, do considerable damage to the concept of Torah as representing national history as opposed to a personal/private family record.
In People
and Nation
of Israel by E.A. Speiser, originally published in the Journal of Biblical Literature, June 1960, the differentiated use of ’am and goy (translated people
and nation
respectively) in Hebrew literature is discussed. Several details are worth mentioning. First, YHWH is never connected linguistically to a nation (goy), but a people (’am). For instance, there is no such thing as the construction goy-YHWH (nation of YHWH), only ’am-YHWH (people of YHWH).(p.158) For this reason, Speiser says, all references to Yahweh as a ’national’ God at any given time are terminologically inaccurate
(ibid, note 5). If the head of a nation is the king and if the head of the king is a god, it stands to reason that unless the distinction is specifically made, such a god would be identified intimately in terms of the nation. But YHWH is not defined by a nation. He transcends national and political boundaries (or rules over all the kingdoms of men as is later described in Daniel), setting up and pulling down nations as he wills…including Israel. This is not only shocking generally speaking, but crippling to the idea that Israel is describing or establishing a national identity in Torah.
’Am is also often prefixed in Hebrew names. We have, for example, Amminadab and Ammiel, whereas there is no such thing as Goyminadab, Goymiel, or any other goy-prefixed name.(ibid, p.159). This serves to identity a person with a common ethnic family or lineage as opposed to a national or political body, which is not what one would expect if the characters or authors of the texts were more concerned with the later than the former. Indeed, even Israel herself is referred to in the first five books of Moses with ’am instead of goy. For instance, Exodus 1:9 calls the Israelites an ethnic family line (or ’am) that Pharaoh must let go, not a nation (or goy). In Numbers 23:9, Balaam prophetically announces the Israelites as a people (’am) that will not be reckoned among the nations (goyim). According to linguistic evidence such as this, biblical Israel is a kinship group, not a national one.
Die Bedeutung der Ordnungen für das rechte soziale Verhalten
Seit je her hat man in dem Sprüchebuch den konzenrierten Niederschlag der Sittlichkeit des alten Israel gesehen. Dagegen wäre nichts einzuwenden, solange man sich das, was Israel unter dem >>Sittlichen < < verstand, vom Alten Testament sagen läßt und nicht versucht, es von der herkömmlichen Begrifflichkeit einer philosophischen oder theologischen Ethik her (Freiheit, Gewissen, Pflicht usw.) zu erfassen. Versteht man die Sentenzen des Sprüchebuches aus ihrem Vorstellungshorizont und von ihrer eigenen Intention her, so spürt man schnell, daß sie in einer sehr spezifischen und uns keineswegs ohne weiteres vertrauten Wertwelt verankert sind. Dabei soll es noch leicht genommen werden, daß diese Belehrung wenig oder gar nicht an der Gewinnung theoretischer Erkenntnissse interessiert ist, daß sie vielmehr durchweg ein pragmatisches Wissen vermittelt.
Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel
The significance of the classifications for the correct social behavior.
Against that would be nothing to object to so long as one allows it to be said about the Old Testament what Israel understood according to the moral
and so long as one does not try to grasp it from the conventional concept of a philosophical or theological ethic (freedom, conscience, duty, etc.). If one understands the truisms of the book of Proverbs out of their horizon of imagination and of their own intention, then one quickly feels that they are anchored in a very specific world of value and in a world of value which is by no means readily familiar to us. At the same time, it should still be easily assumed that this instruction is little or not at all interested in the production of theoretical knowledge; that rather, without exception, it mediates a pragmatic knowledge.
Die Christengemeinde lebt von der Enthullung des wahren Gottes und seiner Offenbarung, von ihm als dem Licht, das in Jesus Christus dazu aufgeleuchtet ist, damit es die Werke der Finsternis zerstore.
Karl Barth
The Christian church lives in the unveiling of the true God and in its revelation by God as the light which is opened up in Jesus Christ so that it destroys the works of the darkness.
(See previous post) Having given a long, hard listen to Abbey Road, my list needs revising…
- I Saw Her Standing There – Please Please Me
- All My Loving – With The Beatles
- A Hard Day’s Night – A Hard Day’s Night
- I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party – Beatles For Sale
- Help! - Help!
- Ticket To Ride – Help!
- Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) – Rubber Soul
- Girl – Rubber Soul
- Eleanor Rigby – Revolver
- Tomorrow Never Knows – Revolver
- Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Magical Mystery Tour – Magical Mystery Tour
- All You Need Is Love – Magical Mystery Tour
- Back In The U.S.S.R. - White Album
- Here Comes The Sun - Abbey Road
- I Want You - (She’s So Heavy) - Abbey Road
- Hey Bulldog – Yellow Submarine
- Across the Universe – Let It Be
- She Loves You – Past Masters Vol 1
- She’s A Woman – Past Masters Vol 1
- Paperback Writer – Past Masters Vol 2
- Hey Jude – Past Masters Vol 2
- Free As A Bird – Free As A Bird EP
- Real Love – Real Love EP
