Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Ted Hoffman · 09-24-2004, 02:29 AM

Raskin's sloppy terminology, glaring ignorance, or any other negative attribute you can come up with does not, in any way, make Rick's assertion any more of a "general rule" than Raskins.

That is all.

spin · 09-24-2004, 03:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Can I just ask here: What the fuck? Liverani is a minimalist...

Can I just ask here: What the fuck are you talking about? Liverani is a highly reputed Assyriologist (and Ugaritologist), for whom the term "minimalist" is seriously inappropriate. His dealings with Judah & Israel are merely in the context of a perspective of the ancient near east. Minimalists might like what the guy says, but that doesn't make him a minimalist. He applies the same standards across the board. If you read the chapters on Israel in his university text on the ANE, I doubt if you could call them minimalist, even taking them out of context.

spin

Celsus · 09-24-2004, 05:05 AM

Sorry spin, I was categorising to make it easier for me to explain. Raskin dropped his name because of one bit about "true history", and I was looking for a concise way to debunk it. Of course terms like "minimalist" and "maximalist" are limited when it comes down to it. And Jacob, where does Rick call it a "general rule"?

Joel

Ted Hoffman · 09-24-2004, 05:26 AM

From your own citation of Rick:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick
...This latter approach is far more a "general rule" than...

Thank you spin. Celsus is one good archaeologist but he does get carried away sometimes.

Celsus · 09-24-2004, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

From your own citation of Rick:

Surely you see a difference between a comparative statement and an actual claim?

Quote:

Thank you spin. Celsus is one good archaeologist but he does get carried away sometimes.

I am not an archaeologist. Spin seems to think I use the term "minimalist" in an insulting fashion, but I do not.

Joel

Ted Hoffman · 09-24-2004, 05:49 AM

Quote:

Surely you see a difference between a comparative statement and an actual claim?

The comparison was meant to elevate one position over the other and validate it as able to qualify as a "general rule" more than the other subaltern position.
I said they both don't qualify. That is all.

Well, I didn't mean archaeologist in a professional sense. Why else would you be here instead of writing papers for scholarly archaeological journals?
I have been reading your Archaeology series and they are very edifying and well written. When am done, I will give my comments.

In the internet, when an archaeological question comes, I consider you as authoritative enough. I am sorry if my treatment of you as an archaeologist is not rigorous and exacting enough. It works for me :devil3:.

PhilosopherJay · 09-24-2004, 07:34 AM

Hi Joel,

I only had time for a quick cursory look into the matter, but my answer is yes.

from http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A1113436

Quote:

Discovered by an Arab farmer in 1928, the Ugaritic texts - religious and devotional tablets pertaining to the pre-Jewish religion in Canaan - have shed invaluable light on the history and development of monotheistic Judaism. The Ugaritic texts are so named because they were discovered in the ancient city of Ugarit. They are written in Ugaritic, which is a Semitic language related to Hebrew which uses a cuneiform alphabet1. There is a huge corpus of writings, recorded on clay tablets. The tablets were varied and included not only literary and religious texts, but also lexical and other scholastic texts, lists of countries and towns, corporations and persons, offerings and dedications, commercial and administrative documents and letters, and they were written in the Accadian, Hurrian and Sumerian languages, as well as in Ugaritic...

The etymology of the name El is an interesting one. El is common to all the Semitic languages except Ethiopic as the general appellative meaning 'god' in the broadest sense. It is also the most frequent element of theophorous proper names5 all over the ancient Semitic world. The word el in fact appears very often in ancient texts, and does regularly simply mean god, even in the Old Testament, where it is sometimes employed to refer to the god of the Hebrews. However, from reading the Ugaritic tablets, scholars have been left in no doubt that the word was also a proper name, referring to one single, personal god, with a distinct character and his own attendant myths. How this incongruity came about is a mystery. It seems likely that el was originally an appellative, common to all gods, and that it came to represent one god over the course of time. It could be that the name could have come to be used by a tribe to describe only their own god, until such time as his original name fell into oblivion...

He is clearly designated as the patriarch of the pantheon of which he is head. Another series of epithets describe El as 'the ancient one' or 'eternal one'. In one text, for instance, it says 'indeed our creator is eternal/indeed ageless; he who formed us'. He is depicted with a grey beard and vast reserves of wisdom according to Athirat,

'Thou art great O El, verily thou art wise. Thy hoary beard indeed instructs thee'

El is often seen holding court, surrounded by lesser gods and goddesses, who play the roles of courtiers. He sits on a throne, sometimes in the role of a judge, benign in character, adjudicating fairly, and with grace. The court is described in pleasant terms; the lyre is played, and the environs are not hostile. El is evidently a good and revered god. Other aspects of El include a powerful hunter and a vigorous and prodigiously lusty old man. This second category fits in with the idea of El as patriarch: a divine progenitor in ancient religions would surely be a promiscuous one. The passages in which this comes across are certainly vivid: one excerpt sees him conceive two sons at the same time by different concubines and fairly graphic language is used. Although Athirat is his favoured consort, she is by no means the only one.

Thank you for asking.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Jacob, Jacob...

That's exactly what Rick said, and it's not a "blanket generalization":

Are you forgetting that Rick was explaining what it means to be a general rule already, and not actually calling it a general rule? One can argue that this "general rule" applies to ruined cities visible to the ancients (i.e., the 5 cities of the plain, Arad, Ai, Yarmuth), but we're trying to be precise here. Don't forget Raskin's "general rule":

...which is a strange unsupported assertion with sloppy terminology, and showing glaring ignorance of 2nd to 1st millenium BCE mythology (one could perhaps ask Raskin to look at the 14th century BCE Ugaritic texts to see whether his "general rule" applies in any way).

Joel

PhilosopherJay · 09-24-2004, 07:47 AM

Hi Toto,

Yes, good stuff. It is a pity it is no longer online. Welborn's article about Paul being a Fool for Christ in the mime sense is also extraordinary.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I look forward to reading about this. One of my favorite references is The Runaway Paul (alas, the link to findarticles no longer works.

)

Lawrence L. Welborn, "The Runaway Paul", Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999), pp. 115-163

Celsus · 09-24-2004, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

I only had time for a quick cursory look into the matter, but my answer is yes.

But you earlier said that stories of gods were "based on stories about kings" in quite a different sense ("natural bodily appearances")--particularly, "One can assume that when a God makes an appearance in a story, it comes from an older tale in which a king makes an appearance." To then argue that it is now a typological metaphor is quite a shift of the goalposts (though if that is your point, it makes no sense of your earlier posts, especially your example of the cities of the plain). The anthropomorphic characteristics of gods are well-known, but that was not what you earlier suggested. Note also that a less studied pattern in the Ugaritic pantheon is that of the family and familial language (as opposed to the divine court), which Mark Smith has done considerable elaborations on. Perhaps you're going to study the Ugaritic texts and tell us what historical basis these stories had?

Joel

spin · 09-24-2004, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Spin seems to think I use the term "minimalist" in an insulting fashion, but I do not.

No, not insultingly, but inappropriately. The artificial dichotomy maximal/minimal is one which developed within the confines of the biblical context for the historical information the bible is able to supply.

Liverani is one of the few great historians/historiographers of this era who has backed up his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Ancient Near East with important close analyses of texts from Ugarit, Mesopotamia and recently provided a new translation of the Amarna letters. His perspective is beyond the mini(maxi)-squabbling of the biblical world. I don't know of anyone else who comes [more prepared] to the analysis of ancient near east literature than Liverani, so to label him minimal is a straightjacket -- like calling Vonnegut a science fiction writer or Swift a fantasy writer.

spin

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

09-24-2004, 02:29 AM	#31
Ted Hoffman Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: "" Posts: 3,863	Raskin's sloppy terminology, glaring ignorance, or any other negative attribute you can come up with does not, in any way, make Rick's assertion any more of a "general rule" than Raskins. That is all.

09-24-2004, 05:05 AM	#33
Celsus Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Singapore Posts: 2,875	Sorry spin, I was categorising to make it easier for me to explain. Raskin dropped his name because of one bit about "true history", and I was looking for a concise way to debunk it. Of course terms like "minimalist" and "maximalist" are limited when it comes down to it. And Jacob, where does Rick call it a "general rule"? Joel

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.