History Forum / General / Archaeology / August 2008

    Believers have posted appeals to authority that there was a "hebrew"
language, for lack of a better name, that existed before the Septuagint.

    The difference between the opinion of (usually unnamed and unsourced and
unquoted) authorities and the evidence is examining the basis for the claim
there was such a hebrew language. Information is sparse and it has NOT be
augmented by any self-proclaimed experts in these newsgroups.

    Every source I have found which claims there are Hebrew inscriptions
differing from Phoenician inscriptions has said that the difference is
determined by reference to the bible. If the bible says the "hebrews" ruled
where it was found at the age of the find then it is declared to be early
Hebrew. None of the experts in these newsgroups has presented physical
evidence to the contrary.

    Those who tell us there are other reasons NEVER give examples because there
are not sufficient examples to determine a difference. This is bibleland and
all of its imaginary history fails to produce more than a handful of short
inscriptions. That alone supports the goatherds and dirt farmers observation
without even noting the absence of the ruins of this advanced civilization.

    If the ruins are not there then they are not there. Until they are found they
are only speculation. And the speculation is nearly worthless as bibleland is
percentagewise the most dug place in the world.

    Another conceit that implies great age for this language is the name itself,
Hebrew. While that is in common use the Septuagint ceases to use the name
Hebrew in favor of Israelite about half way through Exodus. That is when
Hebrews cease to exist as the name of a people.

    There are only a few biblethumpers left who hold onto the possibility of an
Egyptian captivity ending with Exodus so all educated opinion is that the use
of the term Hebrew disappears in a fanciful account of the imaginary events of
Exodus. That is not an excuse for the use of the name Hebrew.

    Even if the finds were different from Phoenician to constitute a separate
language calling it Hebrew is an academic fraud. As the Septuagint is the
guide it can only be called Judean or possibly Israelian. An honest academic
would not refer to the language of a people which only exist in fantasy. An
honest research may use a customary or traditional term only if the paper
describes the usage as such and disclaims any implication that what is
customary is other than fantasy.

    Given the common acceptance as fantasy of anything prior to the supposed rise
of Judea asserting anything is Hebrew is misleading to the point of being able
to call it deliberate.

    For the benefit of the sci.lang folks who missed most of the discussion in
soc.history.ancient and some in sci.archaeology given the facts of the
circular reasoning of bible reference to identify pre-Septuagint Hebrew   the
simplest assumption is that Hebrew was an invented liturgical language. We
know Judeans have invented languages such as Ladino and Yiddish so an earlier
one is not an extraordinary assumption.

    The sci.lang folks, particularly PTD, came in on a suggestion that 1st c. AD
"hebrew" is similar to the circular reasoning claiming to discriminate between
Phoenician and early Hebrew. At its simplest it is that because it is a Judean
document, in this case the Mishna, that it was called Hebrew when it was
really at most a local variation on Aramaic. This takes the intentional
creation of a language out of the picture.

    It was based upon the fact that all reports of the language of Judea in the
1st c. AD say that the language was Aramaic. Further there is no contemporary
observation of the extraordinary if not unique characteristic that the Judean
written language was different from its spoken language.

    However if the PTD types are correct then we are back to Hebrew being an
invented language or accepting the circular reasoning of a handful of
inscriptions totally a few dozen words were really an early form of Hebrew.
And from then to Aramaic no Hebrew to be found until the 1st c. AD.

    One could possibly give credence to such miracles IF this were a common
phenomenon in other cultures but this is unique. As with so many bible
believers they demand unique explanations in order to support their bible
beliefs whether or not it is the religion. They want a fuzzy, undefined,
ancient Judean people even without the religion. It justifies part of their
person identity, their self-worth, even it atheists.

    But nearly everything about bibleland needs be unique to support belief in
the bible. Somehow these stories need to have been created and preserved by
goatherds and dirt farmers unlike any other civilization in the world. They
have to have appeared in history in the late 2nd c. BC without prior mention
unlike any other people in history.

    There have to be intricate inventions of migration, conquest and more without
the least bit of physical evidence unlike any other people in the world.

    Most telling is all these inventions are taken seriously. Certainly there are
other people who appeared in history and claimed to have been there all along.
The Turkomen are one such group. But when someone questions the origin tales
of people like them there is rarely an adamant insistence their story is not
an invented legend.

    The principle of Occam's Razor is that the least number of complications and
special pleadings is most likely the correct answer. He stated it more
eloquently but it does not read well in today's English perhaps because it was
eloquent rather than succinct.

    In the face of total absence of physical evidence of an indigenous culture in
bibleland to have created, collected and preserved the OT we are treated with
grand and contorted arguments, special pleadings, unique cultural trends and
more to find a way to show the Judeans are an ancient people. And even in that
"ancient" means starting about 800BC at the oldest which barely puts them in
the running for ancient even if by chance these guessea are correct. Those who
create these epicycles upon epicycles do so knowing there is no physical
evidence upon which to base a claim.

    And for those of you who have studied ancient history and its literature I
point out there are many literary forms which first appear in classical Greece
starting roughly in 500 BC. Between 500 and 200 BC they created almost all the
literary forms we know today except science fiction and some debate that. The
Greeks are given the credit for the creation of these forms.

    If the dating the believers give to the OT is correct then dirt farmers and
goatherds invented all those forms we attribute to the Greeks.

    Can any of the pretend academics here imagine defending a doctoral thesis
that the Greeks copied all their innovative literary forms from the Judeans
with only the OT as evidence?

    Can anyone explain why this has not been done and why the Greeks are still
given credit for these literary inventions?

    For the PTD types, please feel free to reply to ALL of the above points with
contrary physical evidence. Argumentation is not worth the phosphors it is
written on. If you wish to pick only one and insist upon a particular phrasing
of the discussion then I can only assume you agree with all the rest.

    If you wish to be taken seriously only discuss physical evidence and do not
introduce any unique case or special pleading for bibleland.