Doug Weller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Of course it's not a crime, it shouldn't be a
> crime just to be wrong! :-)

Which reminds me of something I've been partial to quoting once or twice in the past ...

From Edwin Yamauchi's 1994 article, ""The Current State of Old Testament Historiography":

"[With the rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures] we are left to the hypotheses of scholars who are quite assured that they know when and why scriptural texts were written and what is the best 'scientific' explanation of the archaeological data. Such explanations still require faith, not in the Bible, but faith in the insight of a given scholar's reconstruction [...]" (pp. 30).

"Though scholars are united in their lack of confidence in scripture and supremely confident in their own theories, they are highly critical of each other's views" (pp. 31).

> I'm not sure what your point is any more.

Personally, I thought the point I was making was fairly straightforward.

1) Hermione cited an article from 1981 by Kenneth Kitchen ("Non-Egyptians recorded on Middle-Kingdom stelae in Rio de Janeiro"), which she indicated she had been informed might be useful in addressing the query that started the thread. From Hermione's post, I'm assuming she hasn't read the article herself.

2) Your response was that Kitchen "believes in the Exodus", so it wasn't worth taking "Kitchen's paper at all seriously".

3) I asked: why not.

4) You replied: because of his interpretation of the evidence.

5) When I asked what his evidence was, and what was particularly problematic about his interpretation, you replied that you hadn't actually read the article in question.

Kitchen has written a significant number of academic papers and books over a significant number of years. Do we dismiss everything he writes as a load of nonsense because he "believes in the Exodus"?

Do we know if his article, "Non-Egyptians recorded on Middle-Kingdom stelae in Rio de Janeiro", makes even the slightest mention of the Exodus?

What 'non-Egyptians' are recorded on these particular stelae?

I'd prefer to find out, rather than just making assumptions about the (obvious?) 'dodginess' of his "interpretation of the evidence".

> Are you arguing he is correct, and if
> so why?

More to the point, are you arguing he's incorrect, even though you haven't read the material in question?

> And I haven't read that article. I admit I am
> relying on others, eg
>
> and this review:
>
> are a sample of the sort of thing I've read, some
> in books, some on the web.

A Wikipedia entry (which provides some links to positive reviews of Kitchen's recent work) and a 'review' which, while raising concerns about aspects of Kitchen's 2003 book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, goes on to assert that "the case made by Kitchen is strong" and that the value of his work "is his dogged insistence upon a reading of relevant texts and an assessment of relevant archaeological recoveries as the appropriate context in which to read OT narratives".

I guess it must be the Wikipedia mention of Prof Kitchen being "an Evangelical Christian with regard to his religious beliefs" that makes him particularly suspect. If only everything was as simple as that! If only everyone was as unbiased in their interpretations of the evidence as the Israel Finkelsteins of the world of biblical/Near Eastern archaeology!

> I don't think it is necessary to read that
> specific article to have a very good idea of the
> position he takes. That article is about names
> and as I said he uses the names to back up his
> view of the Bible.

Seeing as none of us have read the article in question, and seeing as the article's specifically about non-Egyptians recorded on Middle Kingdom stelae, here's a little snippet from his 2003 work that might help to provide a little more context:

"[...] In the Old Kingdom ('Pyramid Age') in the third millennium there is as yet no trace of foreign labor being used for building projects. At times of the annual Nile flood, agricultural workers could be impressed to help shift building stones from quarries to the sites by rollers on the ground (as later) and mainly by water; brick accounts are known. In the Middle Kingdom (early second millennium), especially in the later Twelfth and into the Thirteenth Dynasties, an increasing number of Semites came into Egypt from Canaan, as slave tribute from local rulers, by purchase through merchants, by capture as prisoners of war, or by immigration. But their roles in Egypt were mainly domestic in large households or cultic in the employ of a temple. The varied and detailed brick accounts then yield no hint of foreigners being so employed.

"In the New Kingdom things changed [1]. For over 350 years (ca. 1540-1170), from their conquest and repeated campaigns in Canaan and Syria, Egypt's kings brought back batches of prisoners regularly, sometimes in considerable numbers. Besides domestic, cultic, and artisanal duties as before, the new accessions of manpower were employed to cultivate land, and could be used in building projects [...]" (p. 247).


[1] For a survey and running documentation for most Egyptian brick-making accounts in the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, see Kitchen, Tyndale Bulletin 27 (1976): 137-147.

Contentious stuff indeed!!

Damian


_______________

My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all.

- Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

________

'I am beginning to believe that nothing is quite so uncertain as facts.

- Edward S. Curtis

________

'We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork', said Dr Mortimer.
'Say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation', [replied Holmes].

- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

________

'It never does to be too sure, you know, in these matters. Coincidence killed the professor.'

- "Novel of the Black Seal" by Arthur Machen