From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Subject: Re: Genesis (was Deja vu all over again)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 00:50:08 GMT
Summary: good methodology, poor data

In article <29SEP199216223349@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu>, lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:

> Well, none, but we can determine what the originals must have looked like
> by comparing different extant manuscripts (for which we can determine
> approximate dates by such techniques as radiocarbon dating, for the Dead
> Sea Scrolls, or by style of characters and type of materials used), thus
> constructing a family tree.  Of course, when evolutionists do the same thing
> with fossil morphology, genetic data, and radiometric dating, it doesn't work.

Setting aside that last barb for a moment, you give a fair enough
statement of critical method (omitting that the external evidence you
cite is not the only, and often not the major, evidence -- internal
evidence of style and language is generally more crucial, with the
most important data being the witness of divergent text traditions.)
Unfortunately for the OT books, and for the Torah in particular there
ARE no early manuscripts (Qumram is quite late in the history of Judah)
and the vast majority of what does exist represents a single line of
development of the text.  The principal alternate to the common
Masoretic text is the Samaritan one, and the most prevalent opinion
I have seen is that (despite their claims to be the surviving remnant
of Israel) this as a religious group with its own text split off from
2nd Temple Judaism at about the time of the Maccabees (very roughly;
and that doesn't really address whether there might not have been a
real social continuity picked up on by that split -- I'm only looking
at the text question.)  It is simply unknown how much earlier the Torah
existed than that, and what earlier forms (or their sources) looked
like.  Qumram is valuable, as is the witness of Greek translations --
but there just isn't the DATA to make anything like a stemma in the
classical philological tradition, so all comments about the earlier
state of the texts depend on speculative reconstruction (from various
perspectives) of exiguous data.

Archaeological data show evidence of YHWH worship (primarily in the
onomasticon; names on seals for example are often theophoric in -iah)
but practically NO real information on religion, and no trace of the
texts until excruciatingly late in the history of the region.  The
association of the full OT tradition with the Temple in Jerusalem is
quite certain, and attested by the time of its destruction.  One is
reduced to inferences from these texts, as we have them.  That is why
I made such a big deal about knowing what we are about, when we lay
our interpretations (as we must, to read them at all) over the texts.

As in Einsteinian physics, there simply IS no "preferred" frame of
reference, or at least not one that can be agreed on by all "obser-
vers" [i.e. readers.]  And matters are worse than in relativistic
OR Newtownian physics, in that there is no simple transformation of
one frame into another.  An archaeologist's or historian's framework
collapses when "transformed" into the orthodox frame, and vice versa.

The best one may hope for is people able to adopt MULTIPLE frameworks
without getting all worked up about some ONE of them being "right"
and everything else being idiotic.  Any of us will tend to have one
view, or a collection of views, that we tend to use most and to rely
on for our ultimate reality testing -- and conversely we will find
some other views so absurd as to be unable to take them seriously.

I have a preference, even in my religious life, for a historian's
rather astringent view of the data.  But there are times, most often
in liturgy (which combines ritual and myth in a manner that really
does PRESENT to me who I am as a member of a believing community and
in relation to God) when it is simply *irrelevant* that I would judge
the "historical sequence" in either Genesis 1 or 2 (explicit or by
more or less coherent inference) as "contradicting" the actual course
of events.  I seriously doubt that the "original texts" if we could
reconstruct them showed any more consistence on this than our present
ones do, and I equally doubt whether the redactor who gave us our
combined stories *cared* very much.  I know that Christian tradition
has NEVER considered it a big issue; the earliest extensive exegesis
of Genesis in Christianity ALREADY pointed out that it is literal
nonsense.  And except for purblind sectarians verging on heresy,
rejection of historical or geological or paleontological evidence
in order to cling to a wooden "literalism" as the "one true reading"
simply is not an issue in Christian thought.  (Yes, America has an
unfortunately large number of purblind sectarians, and a tendency
to export this nonsense elsewhere; but it is NOT a major thread in
Christianity.)
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@usl.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer			With your crooked heart."