[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

orion-list RE: Orion-List 63 BCE & all that

Mr. Doudna,

Whenever someone points out methodological problems with your position,
you resort to rhetoric - with a definite preference for the strawman
argument. One can make anything into a 'non sequitor' - if one judiciously
'prunes' what is stated. The second sentence is part and parcel of the
entire paragraph... which leads to the basic fallacies of the single
deposit stance. There are a number of unstated assumptions hiding beneath
this position. The most blatant are:

1) The assumption that the materials found at the caves are a coherent
   and cohesive whole. This is a fallacious assumption and has no
   foundation in the factual evidence. First it ignores all the evidence
   that materials were put in, *taken out*, some put back and others
   removed at various times down the ages. (You really should read Origen
   and Jerome.) Second, it completely ignores the distances between caves
   as well as the terrain. This fallacious 'cohesion' assumption could only
   be made by someone who has never tried to imitate a mountain goat while
   clambering about the Judean Hills. The deposits at Cave 1, a natural cave
   four kilometers away - over very difficult terrain - from the building
   site are extremely unlikely to have had anything to do with documents at,
   say, Cave 4, a man-made cave... or Cave 11 almost 13 kilometers away.

2) The assumption that the Square Aramaic script familes we see in the
   documents originate only from Jerusalem. This is quite fallacious and
   unsupportable and was discussed in some detail in the sentences that
   you, er, pruned from my posting. In fact, it could not be clearer that
   the script family was in widespread use throughout the entire area: from
   Alexandria to Palmyra, from Antioch to Spain... and was _ALSO_ used in
   Judea. These simple facts go a long way to explain the sheer number of
   scribal hands and necessary number of scriptoria - and are strong
   evidence against a single deposit for the whole shebang theory.

As a point of order: there are numerous ways to address the problem of an
erroneous popular paradigm. One approach is the frontal attack - the method
you chose. As YOU chose this method, I responded to YOUR article, even
though I DO NOT advocate the frontal attack approach and would never have
attacked the Cross archaeological paradigm myself; it's a foolish waste of
time and effort to do so. In spite of the fact that you clearly know neither
scripts nor have done the basic research necessary for a sustained frontal
attack - you did not even know the name of the paradigm you are attacking -
I gave you help, which you ignored... indeed, apparently did not even bother
to read. Airy, tossed off, unsupported, statements that are a mere unacknow-
ledged repetition of 19th and 20th century predecessors - which you would
have known if you had done the necessary research - are neither amusing
nor do they go very far to support the frontal attack approach - and are
methodologically unsound as well.

I have wasted enough time already on someone who simply will not read...
and whom there is no point in trying to help. I would caution you, though,
don't ever again try using logically fallacious rhetorical arguments and
pruned quotes on someone who has taught both research methods and formal
logic... it can be quite hazardous.

--
Dr. Rochelle I. Altman, co-coordinator IOUDAIOS-L  risa@hol.gr

For private reply, e-mail to "Rochelle I. Altman" <risa@mail.hol.gr>
----------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to majordomo@panda.mscc.huji.ac.il with
the message: "unsubscribe Orion." For more information on the Orion Center
or for Orion archives, visit our web site http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il.