Kuzari Proof Discussion
Martin Winer
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=98052
Ken Bloom
> Some articles on the Kuzari Proof
> http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
Dreck. All of it.
> The ancient Israelites sojourned at Kadesh-Barnea for approximately
> 38 years. 3 million would have left some manner of record there.
> However, "Not even a shard from the Bronze Age has been found
> (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63), despite thorough excavation
> of the site and surveys of the surrounding area." [13] Some have
> argued that it wasn't the business of the ancient Israelites to leave
> relics for archaeologists to discover. Archaeolgists retort that
> modern archaeology is "quite capable of tracing even the very meager
> remains of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world"
> (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63). [14]
Finkelstein is in the biblical minimalist camp of archaeologists, who
attempt to use archaeological evidence to show that biblical Israel was
a backwater. As more work is being done, it is increasingly refuting
Finkelstein's conclusions. (Although I'm not familiar enough with the
subject matter to give any specifics)
> Further, there is a possible confusion between the word 'alluph'
> (chief) and 'eleph' which look identical in Hebrew without vowels.
But we have a tradition (recorded as far back as the Talmud) of reading
this as a number
Now supposing I take him at his word on this: Then the counts in the the
tribes given in parshat bamidbar would be as follows:
Aluf Other
46 500 Reuven
59 300 Shimon
45 650 Gad
74 600 Yehudah
54 400 Yissachar
57 400 Zevulun
40 500 Efraim
32 200 Menashe
35 400 Benyamin
62 700 Dan
41 500 Asher
53 400 Naftali
598 5550 Total by adding
603 550 Total given by the torah
As you can see, there is carrying between the "Aluf" (cheifs) that the
author supposes and the non-cheifs. Hence, this is evidence to show that
the Torah really does mean to count this as a single number.
He proceeds to discredit this by inventing an explanation to suit his needs:
> "Simeon: 57 armed men [chiefs, eleph] 23 'hundreds' (military units).
> This came to be written: 57 'lp 2'lp 3 'hundreds'.
Where does he invent this wording from?
> Not realising that 'lp in one case meant 'armed man' and in the other
> 'thousand', this was tidied up to read 59,300. When these figures
> are carefully decoded, a remarkably clear picture of the whole
> military organization emerges. The total fighting force [of the
> Exodus Israelites] is some 18,000 which would probably mean a figure
> of about 72,000 for the whole migration". [26]
So if he's going to deny that the Torah was correctly transmitted, then
nobody can prove what he says either and he's just making stuff up.
More on the transmission of the torah text:
http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/en_pamphlet9.html
> An academic caveat, we must beware of denying biblical numbers
> outright.
So they'll deny whatever *they* feel is convenient to deny.
> http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=98052
More dreck.
--
I usually have a GPG digital signature included as an attachment.
See http://www.gnupg.org/ for info about these digital signatures.
Rafael
news:dq8enj$t2j$1...@falcon.steinthal.us...
> Martin Winer wrote:
> > Some articles on the Kuzari Proof
> > http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
>
> Dreck. All of it.
>
> > The ancient Israelites sojourned at Kadesh-Barnea for approximately
> > 38 years. 3 million would have left some manner of record there.
> > However, "Not even a shard from the Bronze Age has been found
> > (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63), despite thorough excavation
> > of the site and surveys of the surrounding area." [13] Some have
> > argued that it wasn't the business of the ancient Israelites to leave
> > relics for archaeologists to discover. Archaeolgists retort that
> > modern archaeology is "quite capable of tracing even the very meager
> > remains of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world"
> > (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63). [14]
>
> Finkelstein is in the biblical minimalist camp of archaeologists, who
> attempt to use archaeological evidence to show that biblical Israel was
> a backwater. As more work is being done, it is increasingly refuting
> Finkelstein's conclusions. (Although I'm not familiar enough with the
> subject matter to give any specifics)
And yet you're so quick to claim refutation of their work. (They're correct,
btw. Archaeologists have detected the meager remains of small bands and
nomadic tribes whose impacts on the earth should have been much harder to
find than that of a developed settlement, not to mention a full-blown
empire. And "backwater" is a value-laden term which you, not they, have
projected on to the early Israelite settlements.)
As for your defense of the Kuzari fallacy, been there, done that, no thanks.
Rafael
Martin Winer
do you mean my works, or your response? :) silly comments deserve
silly responses
>Finkelstein is in the biblical minimalist camp of archaeologists
Agreed, I'm of the William Dever school who is as much against
minimalism as he is against literalism. He however, agrees with
Finklestein in this regard (that there is no evidence of 3 million at
Kadesh Barnea).
>But we have a tradition (recorded as far back as the Talmud) of reading
>this as a number
When was the talmud canonized, when was the Torah canonized? The
answer isn't 10th century BC.
What language was in existence from 10th century BC to around the 6th
or so?... the answer ISN"T the hebrew the Torah is currently written in
http://hebrewresources.com/ancient-Hebrew-2.html
>http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/en_pamphlet9.html
same comment as immediately above... the problem is the time of
canonization
Martin Winer
If you mean to say that my article
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=98052
is a defense of the Kuzari argument... it's not, it's an attack.
yaco...@aol.com
Martin Winer wrote:
> What language was in existence from 10th century BC to around the 6th
> or so?... the answer ISN"T the hebrew the Torah is currently written in
> http://hebrewresources.com/ancient-Hebrew-2.html
Language or ****script***? Are you sayign because the script was
different it wasn't Hebrew?
Where O where do these silly ideas come from?
Jacko
Rafael
news:1137176017....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >As for your defense of the Kuzari fallacy, been there, done that, no
thanks.
> Are you speaking to me or to Ken?
Ken.
Rafael
Martin Winer
>different it wasn't Hebrew?
proto-hebrew
>Where O where do these silly ideas come from?
This is where:
"The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use
consonants to imply vowels even in the places where more modern
spelling requires it (see below)." (Gezer Calendar, 10th century BC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language#Early_history
yaco...@aol.com
And that has nothing to do with what language is involved. It has --
again -- only to do with the ***script.**** A different script does
not "proto Hebrew" make.
Do you even know Hebrew?
Jacko
Micha Berger
: And yet you're so quick to claim refutation of their work. (They're correct,
: btw. Archaeologists have detected the meager remains of small bands and
: nomadic tribes whose impacts on the earth should have been much harder to
: find than that of a developed settlement, not to mention a full-blown
: empire. And "backwater" is a value-laden term which you, not they, have
: projected on to the early Israelite settlements.)
One could similarly argue that this proves the medrashic claims about the
exodus -- that manna is "totally consumed" (ie people living on manna
wouldn't defecate), their clothing wouldn't wear out, etc... It would
disprove a natural trek through the desert, but that's not the claim.
Or, that we have very little idea where in the Sinai the route was.
Or someone could point out to the number of times population estimates
have already been proven wrong: the entire existence of Elam, the new
indication that J-m was capital of a sizable kingdom J-m in 1k BCE, etc...
Biblical archeology isn't one of life's more solid sciences.
: As for your defense of the Kuzari fallacy, been there, done that, no thanks.
Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one of
the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
This was one of my favorite themes on my blog:
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-i.shtml
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-ii.shtml
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/02/kuzari-proof-part-iii.shtml
To show by example:
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/argument-by-design-ver-40.shtml
On the roles of faith and thought:
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/11/emunah-peshutah-vs-machashavah.shtml
Gut Voch!
-mi
--
Micha Berger The waste of time is the most extravagant
mi...@aishdas.org of all expense.
http://www.aishdas.org -Theophrastus
Fax: (270) 514-1507
Micha Berger
: When was the talmud canonized, when was the Torah canonized? The
: answer isn't 10th century BC.
In parashas Pinechas, the hundreds carry into the elefs. Kind of means
it means "thousands". You must have seen me write this in reply to
Herman by now. We go through it every 3 or 4 months or so.
: What language was in existence from 10th century BC to around the 6th
: or so?... the answer ISN"T the hebrew the Torah is currently written in
...
: http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/en_pamphlet9.html
: same comment as immediately above... the problem is the time of
: canonization
Ah, but isn't it weird to post an answer to your question as proof
that your question is real? (Torat Emet, hosted by AishDas.org, defends
classical Judaism's positions on this kind of question.)
Gut Voch!
-mi
--
Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
mi...@aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik.
http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
>>Dreck. All of it.
> do you mean my works, or your response? :) silly comments deserve
> silly responses
>
>>Finkelstein is in the biblical minimalist camp of archaeologists
> Agreed, I'm of the William Dever school who is as much against
> minimalism as he is against literalism. He however, agrees with
> Finklestein in this regard (that there is no evidence of 3 million at
> Kadesh Barnea).
>
There is an Italian archaelogist who states that the biblical
Kadesh Barnea is NOT the site which has been excavated. In other
words, Finkelstein has no claim.
>>But we have a tradition (recorded as far back as the Talmud) of reading
>>this as a number
> When was the talmud canonized, when was the Torah canonized? The
> answer isn't 10th century BC.
>
> What language was in existence from 10th century BC to around the 6th
> or so?... the answer ISN"T the hebrew the Torah is currently written in
> http://hebrewresources.com/ancient-Hebrew-2.html
>
>>http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/en_pamphlet9.html
> same comment as immediately above... the problem is the time of
> canonization
>
Josh
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
For a recent college graduate in computer science like you without
any background in Judaic studies, that's quite a statement.
Josh
>
Ken Bloom
Could someone quote the Kuzari's proof in as close to a literal
translation as poosible, and cite a location for it?
All I can find is as follows, but that doesn't seem to amount to the
much heralded proof. (And lots of googling only finds people outlining
it or assuming the reader is already familiar with what it says).
The source for what I find is Kuzari 1:83-85, which in R. Yechezkel
Sarne's rearranged edition[1] can be found midway through the "the first
gate - faith" under the heading מופת יציאת מצרים.
To summarize (because this is about 3 pages long), the Kuzari begins by
saying:
> Six hundred thousand male Jews between the ages of 20 and 60 lived as
> slaves in Egypt.
He continues, by describing the miracles involved in the 10 plagues and
the crossing of the Sea of Reeds.
He states:
> It is a well-known episode. This is certainly a revelation of Divine
> Power, and the commandments associated with it must therefore be
> accepted. There can be no doubt about these events, nor can it be
> suspected that they were the results of witchcraft, trickery, or
> fantasy. ... Only the stubborn obstinacy of heresy could cause one to
> deny the historicity of these events.
>
> Afterwards, when they came to the desert, a place in which nothing
> grew, G-d provided them daily with food (manna, heavenly bread)
> except on the Sabbath.
Chronologically, all of the events the Kuzari describes here take place
before the revelation at Mount Sinai.
And none of this amounts to the much heralded proof. The revalation at
Har Sinai is not mentioned, and neither is the chain of transmission
from the 600,000 witnesses to us, both essential elements in the proof.
This passage that I have quoted here appears more to be an example of
how when we left Egypt, we experienced the miracles, and believed in God
and in the Torah that he gave on the basis faith built up by our own
experiences.
On the other hand, if the famous proof is elsewhere in Kuzari, then
please, please, please do not accuse me of bad debate form, simply point
me to the correct cite (if you can tell me where it is in R. Sarne's
rearrangement, that would be nice, considering that's the version I own.)
--Ken
[1] This is the version I have, published by Metsudah. Don't buy it. The
original dialog-format Kuzari is much easier to understand because it
doesn't omit the questions. Aaronson publishes a translation of the
original.
q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk
If so
It's a calendar . Given this, it's likely that words may well be spelt
in short form.
e.g. Jan, Feb Like calendars today, so that people can refer to them
quickly and there's Limited space on a small lump of rock[1] .
However, in Hebrew, we are not limited to shortening only the Months.
Other words too, as Is done in BIBLICAL hebrew.
It's still the same language. And spelling words in short form is
common in biblical hebrew anyway. Many places in the Torah, words are
spelt in short form. vowels omitted. In the Torah, the purpose is to
hint at something.
Besides. Spelling variation doesn't change the language. I think maybe
jew hating archaeologists labelled Hebrew the Proto-Semtic language
because if they label it Hebrew it makes Judaism, Jewish history and
Hebrew look Ancient. This conflicts with their real interest. they
have no love of Judaism, they want to cause peopel to disbelieve the
bible, and try to show the Judaism developed later. These are wicked
people that we should....and....then....until....so that...and then
DROP them from a helicoptor, onto saudi arabian soil...and then... hmm
[1]
(otherwise the rock would be too heavy, plus, they probably cut the
rock beforehand).
'James Hanley'
mos...@mm.huji.ac.il
> Martin Winer wrote:
>> Some articles on the Kuzari Proof
>> http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
>
> Dreck. All of it.
>
>> The ancient Israelites sojourned at Kadesh-Barnea for approximately
>> 38 years. 3 million would have left some manner of record there.
>> However, "Not even a shard from the Bronze Age has been found
>> (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63), despite thorough excavation
>> of the site and surveys of the surrounding area."
It's worse than that! After centiuries of searching, archeologists
have not turned up even _one_ bone, not of the fat cows and
not of the lean ones. QED.
Moshe Schorr
It is a tremendous Mitzvah to always be happy! - Reb Nachman of Breslov
The home and family are the center of Judaism, *not* the synagogue.
Disclaimer: Nothing here necessarily reflects the opinion of Hebrew University
Martin Winer
>again -- only to do with the ***script.**** A different script does
>not "proto Hebrew" make.
language it reflected experienced no change? How then do you explain
that the Gezer calendar violates the rules of Torah hebrew by omitting
vowels and consonants that imply vowels?
>Do you even know Hebrew?
Betach, aval ze lo chashoov.
Martin Winer
the
:exodus -- that manna is "totally consumed" (ie people living on manna
:wouldn't defecate), their clothing wouldn't wear out, etc... It would
:disprove a natural trek through the desert, but that's not the claim.
Which came first the explanation or the challenge? I strongly suspect
that the entire talmud is a theological cleanup operation. If this
explanation had been written into the Torah, I'd be far more likely to
believe your statements to be an explanation rather than an a
posteriori modification.
:Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one
of
:the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
It would seem the limitation lies with the (Kuzari) author, not with
philosophy.
Martin Winer
:it means "thousands". You must have seen me write this in reply to
:Herman by now. We go through it every 3 or 4 months or so.
>From my article:
"Simeon: 57 armed men [chiefs, eleph] 23 'hundreds' (military units).
This came to be written: 57 'lp 2'lp 3 'hundreds'.
Martin Winer
:Kadesh Barnea is NOT the site which has been excavated. In other
You sidestep the point that there is no proof of 3 million people
wandering around in the desert. Some one else in this forum has
invoked disappearing feces... what is your escape? There is no
archaeological evidence of a sudden influx of 3 million people.
Instead we see a steadily increasing population. Were there also
disappearing people?
Martin Winer
:please, please, please do not accuse me of bad debate form, simply
point
:me to the correct cite (if you can tell me where it is in R. Sarne's
:rearrangement, that would be nice, considering that's the version I
own.)
perhaps this will be of help:
http://ohr.edu/yhiy/article.php/2054
Shlomo Argamon
Martin Winer wrote:
> :One could similarly argue that this proves the medrashic claims about
> the
> :exodus -- that manna is "totally consumed" (ie people living on manna
> :wouldn't defecate), their clothing wouldn't wear out, etc... It would
> :disprove a natural trek through the desert, but that's not the claim.
>
> Which came first the explanation or the challenge? I strongly suspect
> that the entire talmud is a theological cleanup operation. If this
> explanation had been written into the Torah, I'd be far more likely to
> believe your statements to be an explanation rather than an a
> posteriori modification.
Oh get real! First, the comments about clothes not decaying and so
forth are in the Torah's text explicitly, and the notion that the manna
created no excrement is a direct inference from the term "lehhem
haqeloqel". Furthermore, Finkelstein and his school LONG post-date the
Talmud, so it is rank anachronism to say that the Talmud is engaging in
apologetics for archeological "evidence" that would not arise for
hundreds of years!
> :Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one
> of
> :the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
>
> It would seem the limitation lies with the (Kuzari) author, not with
> philosophy.
OK - please cite chapter and verse in the Kuzari for the supposed proof
you are supposedly debunking. Thanks.
-Shlomo-
Shlomo Argamon
To paraphrase: "In order to save my theory, I will posit an
intermediate, unattested textual form, as well as a redactive
tidying-up for which there is no evidence." Can you say "epicycles"?
I knew you could!
-Shlomo-
Rafael
> On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 14:59:48 +0000 (UTC), Rafael <jmal...@cheerful.com> wrote:
> : And yet you're so quick to claim refutation of their work. (They're correct,
> : btw. Archaeologists have detected the meager remains of small bands and
> : nomadic tribes whose impacts on the earth should have been much harder to
> : find than that of a developed settlement, not to mention a full-blown
> : empire. And "backwater" is a value-laden term which you, not they, have
> : projected on to the early Israelite settlements.)
>
> One could similarly argue that this proves the medrashic claims about the
> exodus -- that manna is "totally consumed" (ie people living on manna
> wouldn't defecate), their clothing wouldn't wear out, etc... It would
> disprove a natural trek through the desert, but that's not the claim.
They don't call the sciences "methodological naturalism" for nothing
(and with good reason).
> Or, that we have very little idea where in the Sinai the route was.
>
> Or someone could point out to the number of times population estimates
> have already been proven wrong: the entire existence of Elam, the new
> indication that J-m was capital of a sizable kingdom J-m in 1k BCE, etc...
>
> Biblical archeology isn't one of life's more solid sciences.
It's alot more scientific (or evidence-based) than an uncritical
acceptance of traditional myth and legend (i.e. no matter how
far-fetched or otherworldly its claims).
> : As for your defense of the Kuzari fallacy, been there, done that, no thanks.
>
> Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one of
> the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
What "proof"? That the entire nation of Israel experienced prophecy in
the Sinai wilderness, and that its collective nature somehow validates
the claim? I seem to recall its origin in the Kuzari, but regardless of
who originated it, it's an argument that I've encountered often in O
circles (and, apparently, I'm not alone in that).
Rafael
Martin Winer
:any background in Judaic studies, that's quite a statement.
Computer Science taught me two relevant things to this task.
1) Logic
2) Ability to analyze and decifer (sometimes cryptic) data.
Sounds like you might benefit from such a course of study.
Ken Bloom
Nope, I found this last night when googling and it isn't what I was
looking for.
You mean you went to refute the Kuzari without reading his own words?
--Ken
Ken Bloom
>>Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one of
>>the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
Rafael wrote:
> What "proof"? That the entire nation of Israel experienced prophecy in
> the Sinai wilderness, and that its collective nature somehow validates
> the claim? I seem to recall its origin in the Kuzari, but regardless of
> who originated it, it's an argument that I've encountered often in O
> circles (and, apparently, I'm not alone in that).
I don't dispute the existance of the proof. I've read it myself. It's
explained in full detail in "Permission to Receive" by Lawrence Kelemen
(http://tinyurl.com/7zr5q).
We're simiply discussing that it doesn't seem to come from the Kuzari,
and in fact the Kuzari is making the opposite point that any proof would
make.
--Ken
Abe Kohen
> :For a recent college graduate in computer science like you without
> :any background in Judaic studies, that's quite a statement.
> not recent, was Orthodox.
>
> Computer Science taught me two relevant things to this task.
> 1) Logic
> 2) Ability to analyze and decifer (sometimes cryptic) data.
I don't know whether it was English or computer science which taught me to
decipher "decifer," but I do recall that NLP was not an easy task.
Best,
Abe
1-15-06
Herman Rubin
>In article <1137173693.6...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, "Martin Winer" <martin...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>Dreck. All of it.
>> do you mean my works, or your response? :) silly comments deserve
>> silly responses
>>>Finkelstein is in the biblical minimalist camp of archaeologists
>> Agreed, I'm of the William Dever school who is as much against
>> minimalism as he is against literalism. He however, agrees with
>> Finklestein in this regard (that there is no evidence of 3 million at
>> Kadesh Barnea).
>There is an Italian archaelogist who states that the biblical
>Kadesh Barnea is NOT the site which has been excavated. In other
>words, Finkelstein has no claim.
>>>But we have a tradition (recorded as far back as the Talmud) of reading
>>>this as a number
>> When was the talmud canonized, when was the Torah canonized? The
>> answer isn't 10th century BC.
>> What language was in existence from 10th century BC to around the 6th
>> or so?... the answer ISN"T the hebrew the Torah is currently written in
>> http://hebrewresources.com/ancient-Hebrew-2.html
The Hebrew the Torah is currently written in is
sufficiently similar to the Ugaritic of the period
immediately before the 10th century BCE that it
would be difficult not to say that the languages
were dialects of each other. Of course there is
linguistic evolution, but it would not be a surprise
if Solomon and Herod could talk to each other.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
> :For a recent college graduate in computer science like you without
> :any background in Judaic studies, that's quite a statement.
> not recent, was Orthodox.
Yoreh Yoreh smicha ? Yadin Yadin smicha at a kollel hora'ah ?
Or did you simply belong to an O congregation going to an afternoon
Hebrew school and thus have a highly mediocre Jewish education ?
> Computer Science taught me two relevant things to this task.
> 1) Logic
> 2) Ability to analyze and decifer (sometimes cryptic) data.
>
I only TAUGHT this kind of info at the highest level (including
traffic analysis [and no, I'm not referring to driving :-)]
and deciphering codes, but who's counting ? :-) [It was in 1980
when I was transferred from the Air Force Training Dept. to what's
ephemistically called here in Israel the 'Prime Minister's
Bureau'. Playing Irving Bond for one year was fun. Going back to
medicine was quite a let down]
> Sounds like you might benefit from such a course of study.
>
Giggle, grin. When you get smicha, get involved in academic
Jewish studies (I'm on the editorial board of H-JUDAIC), and teach
medical students ("Evidence-based medicine") and supervise PhD
students, you'll let me know.
We'll have an educated discussion.
Josh
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
>>And that has nothing to do with what language is involved. It has --
>>again -- only to do with the ***script.**** A different script does
>>not "proto Hebrew" make.
> Do you expect me to believe that the entire alphabet changed but the
> language it reflected experienced no change? How then do you explain
> that the Gezer calendar violates the rules of Torah hebrew by omitting
> vowels and consonants that imply vowels?
Look at the English language in the year 1000 and English in the year
1200. You couldn't even read (let alone) understand a single word
in the English of 1000. the entire English language (grammar, syntax,
pronunciation) changed dramatically in less than 150 years.
Josh
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
> :There is an Italian archaelogist who states that the biblical
> :Kadesh Barnea is NOT the site which has been excavated. In other
> :Words, Finkelstein has no claim.
> You sidestep the point that there is no proof of 3 million people
You miss the point. The archaeologists are excavating in the
WRONG site.
> wandering around in the desert. Some one else in this forum has
> invoked disappearing feces... what is your escape? There is no
> archaeological evidence of a sudden influx of 3 million people.
> Instead we see a steadily increasing population. Were there also
> disappearing people?
>
You again miss the point. The Italian archaeologist HAS found
extensive evidence for a large mass of people travelling in the
Negev desert.
Josh
q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk
You are not familiar with the kuzari, neither are you familiar with
philosophy. You are familiar with some formal logic or natural
deduction, "when A happens, B happens. I believe A, so I conclude B".
Great fun, using letters and symbols to give basic arguments. May be
helpful WAY into the future of computer science if these techniques are
ever used to prove the correctness of algorithms. Or perhaps they teach
it to make computer science appear a little more mathematical or
scientific. But that 1 little module in formal logic (the best bit of
the degree?) won't help you here!!
You seem to have misunderstood the real meaning of 'the limitations of
philosophical proof '
You think you're sitting in your house? Prove it. You bring forth
your evidence.
And a response to counter it all may be. NO YOU'RE NOT!!! You're
actually asleep in a train station, you're dreaming. This reveals the
'limits' of the philosophical proof you provided. I write 'limits' in
quotes to stress that I doubt you would consider it much of a
limitation practically speaking.
You think those are your shoes? They're not!!
You think that's a table over there? It's not! You're delusional.
Those are the limitations of philosophical proof. Not exactly what you
thought they were
If you are silly enough to say that the problem lies with Kuzari's
author, without EVER quoting the kuzari. Then, I think the logical
thing to do would be to recognise your own limitations in this area and
do something that you're knowledgeable and good at. That would be
better than doing this pseudo-intellectual stuff that you are doing.
By the way, remember that Knuth is a 'god' in computer science, yet he
has also tried a book on christianity, which hasn't been so well read.
--
q_q_
Ken Bloom
> Martin Winer wrote:
>
>>:One could similarly argue that this proves the medrashic claims about
>>the
>>:exodus -- that manna is "totally consumed" (ie people living on manna
>>:wouldn't defecate), their clothing wouldn't wear out, etc... It would
>>:disprove a natural trek through the desert, but that's not the claim.
>>
>>Which came first the explanation or the challenge? I strongly suspect
>>that the entire talmud is a theological cleanup operation. If this
>>explanation had been written into the Torah, I'd be far more likely to
>>believe your statements to be an explanation rather than an a
>>posteriori modification.
>>
>>:Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one
>>of
>>:the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
>>
>>It would seem the limitation lies with the (Kuzari) author, not with
>>philosophy.
>
>
> You are not familiar with the kuzari, neither are you familiar with
> philosophy. You are familiar with some formal logic or natural
> deduction, "when A happens, B happens. I believe A, so I conclude B".
> Great fun, using letters and symbols to give basic arguments. May be
> helpful WAY into the future of computer science if these techniques are
> ever used to prove the correctness of algorithms.
There are techniques for doing this now, but they're either in the
research stage or they're so cumbersome that they're only used for high
assurance systems like NASA's software, or the microcode inside
microprocessors. (We would hope they would do this for voting machines,
but I don't think they do).
Or perhaps they teach
> it to make computer science appear a little more mathematical or
> scientific. But that 1 little module in formal logic (the best bit of
> the degree?) won't help you here!!
We couldn't program if we couldn't do complicated mathematical
reasoning. Maybe it's true that we don't have very many classes
specifically in it, but that's because it's more of a skill involving
practice.
Don't knock CS.
--Ken
> If you are silly enough to say that the problem lies with Kuzari's
> author, without EVER quoting the kuzari. Then, I think the logical
> thing to do would be to recognise your own limitations in this area and
> do something that you're knowledgeable and good at. That would be
> better than doing this pseudo-intellectual stuff that you are doing.
yaco...@aol.com
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il wrote:
> > wandering around in the desert. Some one else in this forum has
> > invoked disappearing feces... what is your escape? There is no
> > archaeological evidence of a sudden influx of 3 million people.
> > Instead we see a steadily increasing population. Were there also
> > disappearing people?
> >
>
> You again miss the point. The Italian archaeologist HAS found
> extensive evidence for a large mass of people travelling in the
> Negev desert.
Can you provide his name and some of his books?
Jacko
kepip...@hotmail.com
>
> It's worse than that! After centiuries of searching, archeologists
> have not turned up even _one_ bone, not of the fat cows and
> not of the lean ones. QED.
I am puzzled here, Moshes. Why would archaeologists search for fossil
remains of animals that never existed save in a dream?
Gershon Eliyahu, who is about to recite the hamapil prayer and wishes
to dream of fat cows.
Rafael
Ken Bloom wrote:
> Micha Berger wrote:
> >>Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one of
> >>the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
>
> Rafael wrote:
> > What "proof"? That the entire nation of Israel experienced prophecy in
> > the Sinai wilderness, and that its collective nature somehow validates
> > the claim? I seem to recall its origin in the Kuzari, but regardless of
> > who originated it, it's an argument that I've encountered often in O
> > circles (and, apparently, I'm not alone in that).
>
> I don't dispute the existance of the proof. I've read it myself. It's
> explained in full detail in "Permission to Receive" by Lawrence Kelemen
> (http://tinyurl.com/7zr5q).
And?
> We're simiply discussing that it doesn't seem to come from the Kuzari,
> and in fact the Kuzari is making the opposite point that any proof would
> make.
I'm afraid you lost me there.
Rafael
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
Micha Berger
: Which came first the explanation or the challenge? I strongly suspect
: that the entire talmud is a theological cleanup operation...
I strongly suspect you have never studied Talmud. It's almost entirely
a collection of legal debates.
: :Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one of
: :the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
: It would seem the limitation lies with the (Kuzari) author, not with
: philosophy.
I also strongly suspect you didn't chase the links I posted.
His position on philosophy, which in his day meant Scholasticism, is
similar to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and his resolution smacks
of reliablism. Rav Yehudah haLevi's position is actually quite "modern".
-mi
--
Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
mi...@aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507
Herman Rubin
>In article <1137310308.5...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, "Martin Winer" <martin...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>And that has nothing to do with what language is involved. It has --
>>>again -- only to do with the ***script.**** A different script does
>>>not "proto Hebrew" make.
>> Do you expect me to believe that the entire alphabet changed but the
>> language it reflected experienced no change?
I would not say NO change, but very little change. The Qumran
texts are in both "Paleo-Hebrew" and the modern script we use;
the letters are shaped differently, but do not have different
sounds or meanings.
We have a modern instance of this. Ataturk changed Turkish
writing from using the Arabic alphabet to using a Roman
alphabet with additions in the 1920s. Also, Yiddish is mainly
a dialect of German written in the Hebrew alphabet.
How then do you explain
>> that the Gezer calendar violates the rules of Torah hebrew by omitting
>> vowels and consonants that imply vowels?
>Look at the English language in the year 1000 and English in the year
>1200. You couldn't even read (let alone) understand a single word
>in the English of 1000. the entire English language (grammar, syntax,
>pronunciation) changed dramatically in less than 150 years.
>Josh
This is not a fair comparison. English in 1000 was a purely
Germanic language. In 1200, it had a fair admixture of
Norman French, and everything was evolving. By Shakespeare's
time, it has almost settled down.
On the other hand, Hebrew, after the 6th century BCE, was
primarily a sacred language, not the vernacular, until
modern times. This greatly reduces the tendency to change.
>>>Do you even know Hebrew?
>> Betach, aval ze lo chashoov.
--
Martin Winer
>traffic analysis [and no, I'm not referring to driving :-)]
>and deciphering codes, but who's counting ? :-) [It was in 1980
>when I was transferred from the Air Force Training Dept. to what's
>ephemistically called here in Israel the 'Prime Minister's
>Bureau'. Playing Irving Bond for one year was fun. Going back to
>> Sounds like you might benefit from such a course of study.
>Giggle, grin. When you get smicha, get involved in academic
>Jewish studies (I'm on the editorial board of H-JUDAIC), and teach
>medical students ("Evidence-based medicine") and supervise PhD
>students, you'll let me know.
>We'll have an educated discussion.
I presume that for each credential you use to claim intellectual
superiority over me, you'll supply 3 million witnesses. That would
appear to be where you set the bar for proof.
Martin Winer
>> and in fact the Kuzari is making the opposite point that any proof would
>> make.
>I'm afraid you lost me there.
Rafael, they've lost me too. Now they're trying to say there is no
such thing as the Kuzari argument, or that the Kuzari didn't write it?
If Halevi didn't write the Kuzari, then why aren't all these jokers
writing in to Gottlieb to correct him? The only arguments against
Gottlieb are the ones made by people against the Kuzari Argument?
Herman Rubin
q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk <q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>Martin Winer wrote:
..................
>You are not familiar with the kuzari, neither are you familiar with
>philosophy. You are familiar with some formal logic or natural
>deduction, "when A happens, B happens. I believe A, so I conclude B".
> Great fun, using letters and symbols to give basic arguments. May be
>helpful WAY into the future of computer science if these techniques are
>ever used to prove the correctness of algorithms. Or perhaps they teach
>it to make computer science appear a little more mathematical or
>scientific. But that 1 little module in formal logic (the best bit of
>the degree?) won't help you here!!
We also use inductive logic, which is more than formal
logic. However, formal logic is the best understood,
and it is applicable to "philosophical proof" as well.
>You seem to have misunderstood the real meaning of 'the limitations of
>philosophical proof '
The "definition" of a philosopher as someone who is
looking for a black cat, in a totally dark room, which
isn't there, and FINDS IT, is quite relevant here.
>You think you're sitting in your house? Prove it. You bring forth
>your evidence.
>And a response to counter it all may be. NO YOU'RE NOT!!! You're
>actually asleep in a train station, you're dreaming. This reveals the
>'limits' of the philosophical proof you provided. I write 'limits' in
>quotes to stress that I doubt you would consider it much of a
>limitation practically speaking.
>You think those are your shoes? They're not!!
>You think that's a table over there? It's not! You're delusional.
>Those are the limitations of philosophical proof. Not exactly what you
>thought they were
Except for pure logic and mathematics, one starts with
observations. These observations are then fit into
speculations about the state of the universe.
>If you are silly enough to say that the problem lies with Kuzari's
>author, without EVER quoting the kuzari. Then, I think the logical
>thing to do would be to recognise your own limitations in this area and
>do something that you're knowledgeable and good at. That would be
>better than doing this pseudo-intellectual stuff that you are doing.
The Kuzari argument attempts to find outlandish explanations
of a prior position. It does fit into inductive logic, because
if one assumes something a priori, unless one gets a direct
contradiction, it remains forever.
>By the way, remember that Knuth is a 'god' in computer science, yet he
>has also tried a book on christianity, which hasn't been so well read.
Knuth is not a "god", but at most a prophet, who has not
always been "right". I have no difficulty in understanding
his works in mathematics and computer science.
Micha Berger
: Do you expect me to believe that the entire alphabet changed but the
: language it reflected experienced no change?..
The alphabet stayed the same, 22 letters of the same values in the same
order. The script changed. English has two frequently used scripts, Hebrew
has three (square, cursive, and Rashi), and yet no one assumes they are
: that the Gezer calendar violates the rules of Torah hebrew by omitting
: vowels and consonants that imply vowels?
Omitting vowels? Vowels didn't exist until after the Roman conquest. You
really do not know of what you speak.
-mi
--
Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ
mi...@aishdas.org for justifying decisions
http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached.
Fax: (270) 514-1507
Herman Rubin
I only see that Kuzari CLAIMED 3 million witnesses,
and we have an accurate report of what they saw and heard.
In fact, this is the whole point of the discussion.
There are those who claim 3 million people saw the
described events, and there are those who deny that
those 3 million people existed, or that the observed
events happened.
Abe Kohen
>
>>By the way, remember that Knuth is a 'god' in computer science, yet he
>>has also tried a book on christianity, which hasn't been so well read.
>
> Knuth is not a "god", but at most a prophet, who has not
> always been "right". I have no difficulty in understanding
> his works in mathematics and computer science.
Leaving asides questions of diety, with respect to computer science and not
Xianity, where has Donald Knuth not been "right."
Best,
Abe
1-16-06
q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk
I don't mean to knock CS as being rubbish. On the contrary. Writing
algorithms and programming are too difficult for most people(just like
accountancy is prob too difficult for most people), CS requires a mind
capable of basic logic and it requires an attention to detail. But, CS
isn't going to help him here. He seems to think that CS has prepared
him well for his current endeavour. Evidently it hasn't.
That is not a limitation of CS. The only thing i'll say about CS
that might but shouldn't be considered a knock, but i'm sure many would
agree with me. It's not a Science at all , and it's not very
mathematical. Not knocking it for that. Many very good clever
mathematicians can't do it at all.
I don't think programming requires complicated mathematical reasoning
at all. It's just naturally breaking problems down and doesn't require
any prerequisite maths knowledge. Some ppl can do it, some can't. I
don't think the coding of the program is so hard 'cos people use a
debugger. But, many - smart or dumb - people can't program at all, and
it does require basic logic and attention to detail, so I don't intend
to knock it. Just to say that it won't help him here. The logic LEARNT
in CS - formal logic - (at least in an UG course) has been known to
mortal man and some of it even known to animals for years - just not
written in symbols.
The difficulty and skill learnt, is writing it in symbols. But that
skill isn't relevant here!
q_q_
Martin Winer
:texts are in both "Paleo-Hebrew" and the modern script we use;
:the letters are shaped differently, but do not have different
:sounds or meanings.
Gezer Calendar 10th century BC
Exodus etc... before 10th century BC. Lot's of time for changes in
language.
Martin Winer
You
:really do not know of what you speak.
You just made my point for me. Then aleph lamed (vav omitted, consonant
implying a vowel) fe
could be
eleph(thousand, family, clan, armed man) or alluph(chief)
which are spelled
alef lamed fe, alef lamed vav fe respectively in modern hebrew.
(vav is a vowel placeholder consonant)
The lack of vowels introduces ambiguity.
I wnt sx pls. Did I just say I would like six of something or did I
just proposition you? Please prefer the former interpretation. ;)
Martin Winer
:extensive evidence for a large mass of people travelling in the
:Negev desert.
He is one out of a million archaeologists. Let's play Abraham and
Sodom here... find me 10 (published) archaeologists of any repute who
espouse this belief.
Herman Rubin
Languages changed slowly, unless there was mixing with
other languages. Ugaritic goes back to the 15th century
BCE, and fortunately is cuneiform on clay tablets; the
Semitic alphabet was converted to cuneiform. Transliterated
into Hebrew letters, I can do a fair job of reading it,
and my Hebrew is not great. It is essentially the Hebrew
of that time, but it is not that different from Biblical
Hebrew of any period.
The changing of the forms of letters of the alphabet are,
from a linguistic standpoint, almost completely
irrelevant. It was not difficult to read the Behistun
Rock, in Persian in an unknown alphabet, as soon as enough
letters could be deciphered to read it, knowing Persian in
the Aramaic alphabet. Ventris even managed to decode the
Greek syllabary in Cretan Linear B, and before he did this,
it was not even known to be Greek. It was written centuries
before any alphabetic Greek was written, and there were no
inscriptions using both.
Herman Rubin
The ambiguity in lack of vowels is much greater in
Indo-European languages than in Semitic languages,
as the vowels are not part of the root. I have
much better success in looking up words in Hebrew
dictionaries from the consonants than I do given
the pronunciation.
Consider pat, pet, pit, pot, and put. Possibly
the first two might have a common origin, but
not the rest. This is rare in Semitic languages.
Steve Goldfarb
>Consider pat, pet, pit, pot, and put. Possibly
>the first two might have a common origin, but
>not the rest. This is rare in Semitic languages.
Remember to pat the pet's pate before you put it in the pot, then putt
the pot into the pit, Pete.
--s
--
yaco...@aol.com
Let's not and let's play Moses Maimonides instead.
An idea is not made more correct due to the numbers of people who
subscribe to it, nor is it made less correct by the lack of numbers of
people who subscribe to it.
You are arguing by authoritas, which in the modern world of
Wissenschaft des Judentums is called "generally accepted."
Jakco
Martin Winer
limitations in this area and
:do something that you're knowledgeable and good at. That would be
:better than doing this pseudo-intellectual stuff that you are doing.
Spinoza, arguably the greatest thinker of our time, was a lenscrafter.
While I don't claim to be Spinoza, I trust my point is made... If
theologians are going to ask me to believe them, then I'm qualified to
argue with them.
yaco...@aol.com
Martin Winer wrote:
> :Omitting vowels? Vowels didn't exist until after the Roman conquest.
> You
> :really do not know of what you speak.
>
> You just made my point for me. Then aleph lamed (vav omitted, consonant
> implying a vowel) fe
> could be
> eleph(thousand, family, clan, armed man) or alluph(chief)
> which are spelled
> alef lamed fe, alef lamed vav fe respectively in modern hebrew.
>
> (vav is a vowel placeholder consonant)
>
> The lack of vowels introduces ambiguity.
But your point was the lack of vowels "breaks the rules of Tora Hebrew"
and you backprojected the vowels into "Tora Hebrew" of the 1200s BCE.
It was hardly ambiguous to the Israelites, any more than ASAP is to us.
Please provide your proposed pasuq in Hebrw using "alluf" as opposed to
"elef".
I doubt it will make sense.
Jakco
Martin Winer
:the first two might have a common origin, but
:not the rest. This is rare in Semitic languages.
Great, alluph and eleph, the 'big guy' and the 'big number' are likely
to have the same root. Their identical spelling (without vowels) is the
greater issue here. The ambiguity is to the scribe who copied out the
texts.
:Languages changed slowly, unless there was mixing with
:other languages.
The 'unless' clause above applies, Dever
(http://fp.arizona.edu/judaic/faculty/dever.htm
) seems to think hebrew was originally a dialect of Canannite
hybridized with a few others.
Martin Winer
of
: :the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
I took the time to read up a bit about you:
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-i.shtml
Your work I presume?
If it is, then we agree that the Kuzari proof, as presented by
Gottlieb, is invalid. So why all the argument? Why didn't you just
say so?!
If you had bothered to read my article, you'd discover that I'm arguing
against Gottlieb's (and a few others) presentation of what they call
the Kuzari Argument.
The VERY FIRST LINE says:
"The Kuzari Proof is a famous proof of the validity of Judaism and is
commonly used in outreach programs to convince estranged Jews to return
to the fold of observance. (1)"
The footnote points to Gottlieb's site?!
What part of that did you miss?!
See: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=98052 if you don't
believe me.
Micha Berger
: :Omitting vowels? Vowels didn't exist until after the Roman conquest. You
: :really do not know of what you speak.
: You just made my point for me...
Had you not explicitly mentioned matris lexionus (semivowels used
to denote vowels) separately, perhaps. As it is, it came across as
demonstrating real lack of knowledge of the topic at hand.
The Torah uses them in some cases, and not others. For example, the
tablets are called "luchos". The long /oo/ after the lamed is denoted
with a vav ("w"), but the long /O/ of "-os" is atypically not. And
we don't even know how well we transmitted which vowels are denoted,
and which not. As Rav Meir wrote nearly 2 millenia ago, "We are not
experts in full and deficient spelling."
...
: The lack of vowels introduces ambiguity.
: I wnt sx pls. Did I just say I would like six of something or did I
: just proposition you? Please prefer the former interpretation. ;)
In English, vowels can be part of the root of the word. In Hebrew,
they're more grammatical. Therefore, while there is some ambiguity when
they're missing, it's not nearly as great as implied by your example.
-mi
--
Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness,
mi...@aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l
Ken Bloom
> : :Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one
> of
> : :the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
>
> I took the time to read up a bit about you:
> http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-i.shtml
>
> Your work I presume?
>
> If it is, then we agree that the Kuzari proof, as presented by
> Gottlieb, is invalid. So why all the argument? Why didn't you just
> say so?!
(a) Just because the Kuzari doesn't say it doesn't mean it's invalid.
What the Kuzari says doesn't amount to a proof, but others say it in a
way where it amounts to a proof. I will use "Kuzari's proof" in quotes
because the Kuzari doesn't use it as a proof.
(b) The "Kuzari's proof" can be disproven quite easily without resorting
to any of the tricks you're trying to resort to. Micha has presented one
possible way at the link cited above, and he discusses that there are
certainly perspectives on faith on God other than having that faith
based on philosophical proof.
(c) If you want to disprove the "Kuzari's proof," be my guest (as per
(b)). But your real motivation when you present your hypothesis about a
redactive cleanup of the Torah is to undermine the authenticity of the
Torah. THAT is what we find unacceptable.
--Ken
--
I usually have a GPG digital signature included as an attachment.
See http://www.gnupg.org/ for info about these digital signatures.
Ken Bloom
> Martin Winer wrote:
>
>>: :Except that the Kuzari didn't actually give this proof. In that, one
>>of
>>: :the points of the book is the limitations of philsophical proofs!
>>
>>I took the time to read up a bit about you:
>>http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-i.shtml
>>
>>Your work I presume?
>>
>>If it is, then we agree that the Kuzari proof, as presented by
>>Gottlieb, is invalid. So why all the argument? Why didn't you just
>>say so?!
>
>
> (a) Just because the Kuzari doesn't say it doesn't mean it's invalid.
> What the Kuzari says doesn't amount to a proof, but others say it in a
> way where it amounts to a proof. I will use "Kuzari's proof" in quotes
> because the Kuzari doesn't use it as a proof.
>
> (b) The "Kuzari's proof" can be disproven quite easily without resorting
> to any of the tricks you're trying to resort to. Micha has presented one
> possible way at the link cited above, and he discusses that there are
> certainly perspectives on faith on God other than having that faith
> based on philosophical proof.
>
> (c) If you want to disprove the "Kuzari's proof," be my guest (as per
> (b)). But your real motivation when you present your hypothesis about a
> redactive cleanup of the Torah is to undermine the authenticity of the
> Torah. THAT is what we find unacceptable.
(d) The methods that you're resorting to (specifically, asserting that
there's a previous version of the text of the Torah that isn't found in
any known written text of the Torah) are extremely questionable.
yaco...@aol.com
Martin Winer wrote:
> :Consider pat, pet, pit, pot, and put. Possibly
> :the first two might have a common origin, but
> :not the rest. This is rare in Semitic languages.
>
> Great, alluph and eleph, the 'big guy' and the 'big number' are likely
> to have the same root. Their identical spelling (without vowels) is the
> greater issue here. The ambiguity is to the scribe who copied out the
> texts.
What freaking ambiguity? That was how they wrote -- without vowels.
Everyone knew the vowels. It is a function of the ketab and mikhtab
systems.
> :Languages changed slowly, unless there was mixing with
> :other languages.
>
> The 'unless' clause above applies, Dever
> (http://fp.arizona.edu/judaic/faculty/dever.htm
> ) seems to think hebrew was originally a dialect of Canannite
> hybridized with a few others.
So does the Bible. So? That has NOTHING to do with its orthography
amongst the Hebrews.
Jacko
Herman Rubin
<yaco...@aol.com> wrote:
>Martin Winer wrote:
>> :Omitting vowels? Vowels didn't exist until after the Roman conquest.
>> You
>> :really do not know of what you speak.
>> You just made my point for me. Then aleph lamed (vav omitted, consonant
>> implying a vowel) fe
>> could be
>> eleph(thousand, family, clan, armed man) or alluph(chief)
>> which are spelled
>> alef lamed fe, alef lamed vav fe respectively in modern hebrew.
>> (vav is a vowel placeholder consonant)
>> The lack of vowels introduces ambiguity.
>But your point was the lack of vowels "breaks the rules of Tora Hebrew"
>and you backprojected the vowels into "Tora Hebrew" of the 1200s BCE.
>It was hardly ambiguous to the Israelites, any more than ASAP is to us.
It certainly was ambiguous, at least as written. It still
often is. In fact, it can even be ambiguous with the vowels;
look at the choices for "eleph" above. This might or might
not make a difference. The censuses are much different,
depending on the reading. The Moabite Stone has been read;
Moabite and Hebrew were very similar.
It is quite possible that they used some indication of which
of the alternatives was correct when they considered the
written word to be of sufficient importance. There is
considerable evidence that they followed their recollection
or the oral tradition back then, and even until late Temple
times. There is evidence of this in the Qumran copy rooms,
where the clear text was often changed to what the scribe
remembered as correct.
>Please provide your proposed pasuq in Hebrw using "alluf" as opposed to
>"elef".
>I doubt it will make sense.
>Jakco
--
Herman Rubin
Considering the great similarity of Hebrew with Ugaritic
and Moabite, for both of which we have ancient writings,
around 15th to 10th century BCE for large quantities of
Ugaritic, and 10th century for the Moabite Stone, this
is unlikely.
BTW, the ":" quotes above are form my posting.
Martin Winer
:similar to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and his resolution smacks
:of reliablism. Rav Yehudah haLevi's position is actually quite
"modern".
I guess the question here is do you agree with the Kuzari Principle as
described by Rabbi Gottlieb?
Joel Shurkin
On 1/16/06 4:31 PM, in article dqh3c2$b9p$1...@falcon.steinthal.us, "Abe Kohen"
<abek...@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm with Abe ( I was Knuth's p.r. man for a few years.)
J
>
> Best,
>
> Abe
>
> 1-16-06
>
q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk
but sometimes it's better to study more first rather than dive right in
(perhaps trying to make a name for yourself?), when you're so
unfamiliar with the material.
Martin Winer
>there's a previous version of the text of the Torah that isn't found in
>any known written text of the Torah) are extremely questionable.
The exodus took place before the 10th century bc. The earliest
discovered torah is from the 2nd century bc. Are you going to claim
that there was no torah between 10th century bc and the 2nd simply
because we haven't found one yet? Be careful, you'll play into the
hands of minimalists like Finklestein who use just that fact to justify
their revisionist agendas.
Martin Winer
>"elef".
examples are located here:
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
Specifically, I'd like your input on this section:
"Simeon: 57 armed men [chiefs, eleph] 23 'hundreds' (military units).
This came to be written: 57 'lp 2'lp 3 'hundreds'.
Not realising that 'lp in one case meant 'armed man' and in the other
'thousand', this was tidied up to read 59,300. "
check the footnote for more info if you'd like
Martin Winer
>Everyone knew the vowels. It is a function of the ketab and mikhtab
>systems.
That "SFR" is great!
Did I just say that 'book' is great or that 'author' is great? Don't
invoke modern hebrew spellings.
Herman Rubin
q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk <q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
I have yet to see any theologian's evidence, other than
claims of things which happened in the past, and which
were rarely even written down by those who supposedly
witnessed them. Many of them even involve the total
suspension of natural laws.
On the basis of your last paragraph, I should agree with
the forecasts of astrologers; I am unfamiliar with the
material on how they make those forecasts.
Steve Goldfarb
FWIW, and I don't know if this is relevant or not, but it's not unusual
for a military unit to take a numeric name, e.g., "century" meaning 100,
but then in practice not actually have that number of soldiers. So if you
have 10 Centurions each leading a Century, you can't conclude that there
are 1,000 soldiers. (or 1,010 I suppose). According to Wikipedia, in the
case of a Century at some point the unit typically only had about 60
soldiers, but they didn't rename it.
Don't know if "eleph" works the same way, but it might.
--s
--
yaco...@aol.com
Martin Winer wrote:
> >What freaking ambiguity? That was how they wrote -- without vowels.
> >Everyone knew the vowels. It is a function of the ketab and mikhtab
> >systems.
>
> That "SFR" is great!
> Did I just say that 'book' is great or that 'author' is great?
Depends on the sentence. The recited Book **preceded** the written in
anyone's mind. Everyone knew how to recite, from 5 years lold. Just
like in the Masonic ritual. The "words" written in the book have no
vowels either, yet nobody alleges any ambiguity.
You are arguing only form the written text, which ignores the mikhtab.
If you are unaware of mikhtab you really have no business talking about
this.
> Don't
> invoke modern hebrew spellings.
See, even your assumptions are krum.
Jacko
Martin Winer
>for a military unit to take a numeric name, e.g., "century" meaning 100,
>but then in practice not actually have that number of soldiers. So if you
>have 10 Centurions each leading a Century, you can't conclude that there
>are 1,000 soldiers. (or 1,010 I suppose). According to Wikipedia, in the
>case of a Century at some point the unit typically only had about 60
>soldiers, but they didn't rename it.
There is a gentlemen on this forum, Herman Rubin who appears to know
quite a bit about early languages. I wonder if he'd concur that there
is a high degree of cross-pollination in early languages, indeed in all
languages. It's for certain that the early Israelites were
influenced by the Babylonians during their exile there. It's also for
certain that the Babylonians and Greeks have similarities and it's then
for certain that the Romans have similarities with the Greeks.
There are certain obvious similarities between the languages in
question such as "A", alpha, aleph. I wonder what Herman Rubin has to
say about your point?
Martin Winer
not meant as an insult. However, you continually put out theological
obstacles hoping I'll trip over them and go away. The latest is I
should know all about michtav. Regrettably I do, but that's not the
point. I could equally demand that you have a complete and thorough
background in archaeology which I doubt you do.
Both are irrelevant... it comes down to this... Do you believe that
there could have been 3 million Israelites wandering around the desert?
Examine my starred points as to why I don't think there possibly could
have been 3 million Israelites.
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
Try to dismantle them. If you can't, then why are you so opposed to
having 10's of thousands of Israelites involved in the Exodus instead
of millions? What's the difference? Yes, I'm serious, what's the
difference to you... what belief or value system collapses?
Maimonides himself argued that if science proved a point, then the
finding should be accepted and inform the interpretation of scripture.
q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk
Herman Rubin wrote:
> In article <1137465835.4...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk <q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Martin Winer wrote:
> >> :Then, I think the logical thing to do would be to recognise your own
> >> limitations in this area and
> >> :do something that you're knowledgeable and good at. That would be
> >> :better than doing this pseudo-intellectual stuff that you are doing.
>
> >> Spinoza, arguably the greatest thinker of our time, was a lenscrafter.
>
> >> While I don't claim to be Spinoza, I trust my point is made... If
> >> theologians are going to ask me to believe them, then I'm qualified to
> >> argue with them.
>
> >but sometimes it's better to study more first rather than dive right in
> > (perhaps trying to make a name for yourself?), when you're so
> >unfamiliar with the material.
>
> I have yet to see any theologian's evidence, other than
> claims of things which happened in the past, and which
> were rarely even written down by those who supposedly
> witnessed them. Many of them even involve the total
> suspension of natural laws.
>
> On the basis of your last paragraph, I should agree with
> the forecasts of astrologers; I am unfamiliar with the
> material on how they make those forecasts.
>
>
> --
I never said that because he isn't familiar with the material written
by theologians, he should agree with them. So there's no analogy there
with you agreeing with an astrologer.
He should at least be familiar with the material in the arguments he
presents
I guess I use a different proof. rather than work forwards and say "how
is it possible? and then state the most likely explanation. I work
backwards.
Regarding what evidence is prseented by the 'kuzari argument'. Well,
the way I see it, we have evidence for the origins of Torah. The
evidence is the Oral Torah, the Written Torah. We have the claims made
by each as to their origins, and we have speculation.
The written Torah claims to be fully written by moshe, and accepted by
all the people in moshe's time, and it documents the miracles that
occurred. It is clear that the claim from the Written Torah, is that
the people that first accepted the Torah are the ones in Moshe's time.
and the miracles described there are miracles they would have witnesed.
And we know that the people then took the written torah as accurate,
they took it seriously. This is important, because it's not that those
that received it read about themselves and took it as a story, and over
the years it became taken more seriously.
The Oral Torah claims of course, divine origin, and shows us how
strongly the jews believed it even back then. They accepted the
obligations , and the written, as not a legend or story, right from the
word 'go'. You also have the chain of transmission, Hillel and Shammai
one of the famous 'pairs of rabbis' the chain of transmission as
G-d->moshe->elders->prophets->men of the great assembly-->the 5 pairs,
ending with hillel and shammai. And that's just down the generations,
it was of course taught to masses of people. Were Hillel and Shammai
lying? or who lied to them? the men of the great assembly? But they
were so many.
G-d speaking to the people and choosing Moshe would give him the
benefit of the doubt. Did Joshua lie? But Moshe also taught Aharon and
his brothers. And all the people were taught, in Moshe's time. It's
really hard to allege a conspiracy here.
Since the oral tradition was recorded 2k years ago fairly on in the
transmission, so you can se clearly how it goes back to Moshe and to
HaShem.
So te written torah is a bit like a signed testimony, signed by the
jewish nation that received it. The Talmud - though it wasn't written
at Moshe's time, contains within it a complete record of the oral
tradition as it had been received till that time, which was still a
time when the chain of transmission was well recorded. And early
enough for there to be no doubt that generations ago they kept it
seriously. Some generations back and you have the event itself.
I know, my reasoning for Judaism's truth is a bit different to Rabbi
Prof Dr Gottlieb. And Rabbi Prof Dr Gottlieb's reasoning is a bit diff
to that of the Kuzari . The author of any kuzari argument is the
author of the Kuzari.
Interestingly, Rabbaynu Yehuda HaLevi also mentioned the length of the
jewish molad lunar month in his argument - a topic that has been
discussed in previous threads!
I haven't emailed the moderators for auto- yet so my posts may appear
a bit slow
-
q_q_
.
Martin Winer
suspect
:: that the entire talmud is a theological cleanup operation...
:I strongly suspect you have never studied Talmud. It's almost entirely
:a collection of legal debates.
You've just reastated my point... the Talmud is a collection of legal
debates about the 'apparent inconsistencies' in the Torah. It's
conclusions, when offered are intended to resolve those problems.
Ken Bloom
I can tell you haven't looked at the Talmud ever. Although there is
some discussion of apparent "inconsistencies" in the Torah, there is
*very very little* discussion of such, and most is discussion about
halacha (what we're required to do by Jewish law), and very little of
what's not about halacha is about the written Torah without any
mention of apparent inconsistencies.
Read something before you denigrate it.
yaco...@aol.com
Martin Winer wrote:
> Jacko, you're the most interesting character on this forum, and that's
> not meant as an insult. However, you continually put out theological
> obstacles hoping I'll trip over them and go away.
It is not theology. I am Maimonidean. We disdain theology.
It is basic Rabbinic Theory.
> The latest is I
> should know all about michtav. Regrettably I do, but that's not the
> point. I could equally demand that you have a complete and thorough
> background in archaeology which I doubt you do.
We are discussing Jewish texts. You need to know the prerequisites.
When we discuss archeology, you can recommend I bring to bear the
prerequisites.
> Both are irrelevant... it comes down to this... Do you believe that
> there could have been 3 million Israelites wandering around the desert?
We are discussing what the text says. You are trying to change the
meaning of the text based on "ambiguities" which are simply not there.
> Examine my starred points as to why I don't think there possibly could
> have been 3 million Israelites.
> http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
>
> Try to dismantle them. If you can't, then why are you so opposed to
> having 10's of thousands of Israelites involved in the Exodus instead
> of millions? What's the difference? Yes, I'm serious, what's the
> difference to you... what belief or value system collapses?
We are discussing a TEXT. Just as any other "theology" does not change
the redaction of a text, yours does not either.
> Maimonides himself argued that if science proved a point, then the
> finding should be accepted and inform the interpretation of scripture.
Rank bullshit.
The reference is to Guide II, 8.
The word "proved" does not appear. The word "burhan" does (actually
"burhana"). Show me a burhan. Do you know what a burhan is even?
Jacko
yaco...@aol.com
Martin Winer wrote:
> >Please provide your proposed pasuq in Hebrw using "alluf" as opposed to
> >"elef".
>
> examples are located here:
> http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
No pasuq stated.
> Specifically, I'd like your input on this section:
> "Simeon: 57 armed men [chiefs, eleph] 23 'hundreds' (military units).
> This came to be written: 57 'lp 2'lp 3 'hundreds'.
> Not realising that 'lp in one case meant 'armed man' and in the other
> 'thousand', this was tidied up to read 59,300. "
You do not say what pasuq you refer to. Moreover you simply copied
form Wenham, who also does not state the pasuq. There ***is no****
such pasuq, viz Wenham:
Suffice it to say that there is good reason to believe that the
original censuses in
Numbers 1 and 26 set out the numbers of each tribe, somewhat in
this form:
Simeon: 57 armed men; 23 'hundreds' (military units).
This came to be written: 57 'lp; 2'lp 3 'hundreds'.
What DOES ACTUALLY APPEAR in Nu 1:23 is
"their numbers, for the tribe of Shim'on, nine and fifty thousand, and
three hundreds." Explicitly counting "every skull" of the male
Israelites ***by name*** of the defined age range.
What your (or actually, his) "analysis" forgets - in true analphabetic
fashion -- is that the term "alluf" when plural, is pluralized. There
can be no "nine and fifty "alluf"."
The number "elef" need not be pluralized int his type of construction.
You provide no reason why "eleph" has anything to do with "armed men."
If it means "captain of a thousand" as in "sare 'alaphim," then for
each
such captain there are a thousand men, which is identical, as far as
the numbers go, to the traditonal reading. Your numbers are off for
the first census and ridiculously off for the second.
Jacko
Martin Winer
It's become obvious to me that you're going to come up with another
interpretation for every single point I make. Since we're comparing
databases, have you heard of a concept called cognitive dissonance?
You accused me of not knowing what a vowel was, I showed you I did know
what a vowel was. Now you're busily accusing me of not knowing 100
other words, themes, ideas etc. Are you using your knowledge as a
sword or a shield?
Let me be quite specific:
Please examine my starred points as to why I think there can't be 3
million walking around in the desert. If you can't dismantle my
arguments against 3 million, then your interpretations of the Torah,
despite the big words and concepts you used to construct them, MUST BE
WRONG.
Martin Winer
If you have read the Talmud and haven't noticed that it's chalk full of
discussions as to how to interpret things, then please reread the
Talmud, this time with your eyes open.
Martin Winer
I have a post to Jacko that I'm waiting to be approved that deals with
this. In the meantime, since you're unlikely to take my word for
anything, how about an Orthodox Rabbi:
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-i.shtml
Rabbi Berger himself states that this line of reasoning doesn't amount
to a proof of anything. Here we agree.
Rabbi Berger and I are however at odds over my interpretations of the
Torah which have 10's of thousands involved in the Exodus, whereas the
generally accepted interpretation has millions.
Micha Berger
: FWIW, and I don't know if this is relevant or not, but it's not unusual
: Don't know if "eleph" works the same way, but it might.
Still, if one adds the populations of the tribes to get the total
population number, one notes the Torah carries from the mei'ah (hundreds)
column to the elephs (thousands).
-mi
Micha Berger
: I took the time to read up a bit about you:
: http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-i.shtml
: Your work I presume?
Yes.
: If it is, then we agree that the Kuzari proof, as presented by
: Gottlieb, is invalid. So why all the argument? Why didn't you just
: say so?!
We agree that the proof is both flawed and actually the whole concept
of proof is the opposite of the point the Kuzari. However, we disagree
on the truth of the point it attempts to prove. My emunah (trust in
the facts) comes from living by the Torah -- both written and oral --
and learning to trust it as a source. Reliabilism, not scholasticism.
-mi
--
Micha Berger Feeling grateful to or appreciative of someone
mi...@aishdas.org or something in your life actually attracts more
http://www.aishdas.org of the things that you appreciate and value into
Fax: (270) 514-1507 your life. - Christiane Northrup, M.D.
Ken Bloom
We find that when we start with 70 men (who we assume are married) as
the Torah says at the end of sefer bereshit, and we assume that each
couple had on average 3 male children and 3 female children, as the
Torah says at the beginning of sefer shemot, and that a generation lasts
25 years, then at the end of 210 years in Egypt, the population has
grown to 1.3 million men (or 3 million people total). Since it's most
likely that generations were shorter (15-20 years), you can see that the
problem is keeping the population *down*, not getting it as large as 3
million.
Martin Winer
>form Wenham, who also does not state the pasuq. There ***is no****
>such pasuq, viz Wenham:
footnotes and you'll see that I quote Wenham, not copy from him, thank
you very much.
>You provide no reason why "eleph" has anything to do with "armed men."
I most certainly do. In the footnotes I provide a derivation tree of
the word.
Specifically footnote 23 -->
http://www.specialtyinterests.net/im/hebrew_lexicon.html#aleph
Now Jacko, comes the unpleasant part. We're approaching a point where
we won't be able to talk to one another. No, I'm not mad at you, I
hope you're not too mad at me, that's not my point.
Our assumptions are incompatible.
For example, you want psukim, here's a pasuk:
http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08a13.htm - Samuel 13:1 Saul was how
old?
Now you'll look at that and say, "ah hah! only one transmission error
and look how honest we are about it! Ooomein ve ooomein."
I'll look at it and say: "where there's smoke there's fire" and will
say that aluphim can go to alluph which can go to eleph etc etc.
See Jacko, for me truth is in the threshold you set for acceptance as
truth. I just don't buy the whole 3 million thing. You'll spend
nights and days yelling at me to see the light, and I vice versa will
do the same, but we won't truly be able to talk until our thresholds
for acceptance of facts as truth mesh. The core of our disagreement
lies in this, our thresholds for what we accept as truth.
I'm going to be honest with you... you can try to reciprocate...
there's just about nothing you can say to me that will make me believe
that there were 3 million israelites in the desert. It just isn't a
reasonable number due to all the starred reasons I bring out in my
article. I'm being honest Jacko, you can try to honestly tell my why
it's so absolutely necessary that there were 3 million.
yaco...@aol.com
Martin Winer wrote:
> See Jacko, for me truth is in the threshold you set for acceptance as
> truth. I just don't buy the whole 3 million thing.
I said no such thing. YOu misconstrued a TEXT.
I challenged that.
I am uninterested in your "theologyical" reasons why the text may be
wrong. I am interested in the TEXT.
> You'll spend
> nights and days yelling at me to see the light,
Would never happen. Get these misassumptions out of your head.
I am not a preacher I do not care what you think. I am not interested
however in goofing around with the TEXT.
> I'm going to be honest with you... you can try to reciprocate...
> there's just about nothing you can say to me that will make me believe
> that there were 3 million israelites in the desert.
Bully for you. Again I do not care!
The TEXT says what it says however.
Jacko
Tim Meushaw
> I'm going to be honest with you... you can try to reciprocate...
> there's just about nothing you can say to me that will make me believe
> that there were 3 million israelites in the desert.
So, thread over then?
Tim
--
Timothy A. Meushaw
meu...@pobox.com
Martin Winer
argument. I agree that it COULD have happened that 70 -> 3 million in
~400 years.
Another support for Ken's number argument:
http://www.tektonics.org/af/exoduslogistics.html
On Ken's side is the quote: "and they increased abundantly in Egypt",
but it doesn't reconcile much with "and the Egyptians embittered their
lives". 6-8 kids a family with zero infant mortality doesn't sound
like an enslaved oppressed nation to me.
Why I think that it's UNLIKELY that they went from 70 -> 3 million is
due to the starred reasons in my article:
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=106529
Since it seems you all are too lazy to click and read a simple link,
I'll inline them as follows:
* For comparison: "In the 1967 war in which Israel defeated the
combined forces of its Arab invaders, Israel's population of 2 million
provided only 264,000 soldiers." [4] So a modern day army capable of
defeating 3 nations simultaneously is of size 264,000.
* "Alexander, who controlled Greece, Macedonia, Thrace (Southern
Yugoslavia), and a little bit of Western Anatolia, was able to raise
between 90,000 and 100,000 troops total, with about half remaining in
Macedonia when he invaded the Persian Empire." [5]
* Hannibal of Carthage took 20,000 soldiers and besieged Rome for
several years causing 50,000 Roman casualties before his defeat in 203
B.C. [6]
* "It is estimated that the whole population of Egypt at the time of
the exodus was between 2 and 5 million. According to the above
estimates of the population of Israel, the people of Israel would be
the population of Egypt." [7]
* "Archaeologists have shown that the land of Canaan was never invaded
by 3 million Israelites after the exodus from Egypt. At this time in
history, the land only had a population of between 50,000 to 100,000
(at most), and there never was a massive population increase in this
time period." [8]
* "There are thought to have been 20,000 in the entire Egyptian army at
the height of Egypt's empire." [9]
* The ability to supply an army with food and provisions was a limiting
factor to the size of ancient armies. "The figure of 80,000 seems to be
a sort of natural limit to the size of these ancient armies." [10] The
credulous may be able to slip out of supply problems for the ancient
Israelites by invoking 'manna from heaven'. However, it's for certain
that God did not provide for their enemies. Thus, the limiting size of
an opponent would appear to be around 80,000. The Torah claims that the
Israelites had 600,000 military aged men. Thus, they could easily
defeat any army they came across without the fear described in the
Torah. Deuteronomy 7:17,18 "If thou shalt say in thy heart: 'These
nations are more than I how can I dispossess them?' Thou shalt not be
afraid of them thou shalt well remember what the LORD thy God did unto
Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt." [11] There were no larger nations than
600,000 military men, and thus why would the Israelites be afraid of
any of them?
* "The population of ancient Israel was probably about 300,000 at its
maximum in the time of David." [12]
* The ancient Israelites sojourned at Kadesh-Barnea for approximately
38 years. 3 million would have left some manner of record there.
However, "Not even a shard from the Bronze Age has been found
(Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63), despite thorough excavation of
the site and surveys of the surrounding area." [13] Some have argued
that it wasn't the business of the ancient Israelites to leave relics
for archaeologists to discover. Archaeolgists retort that modern
archaeology is "quite capable of tracing even the very meager remains
of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world"
(Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63). [14]
* These points are a good starting point for problems with the 600
thousand figure. Consult the footnotes for more.
So we see that the number 600 thousand is a historically impossible
number. With that many military age men, there is no need for any
miracles in warfare: Israel would conquer the entire Middle East and
likely the rest of the world shortly thereafter.
Herman Rubin
I am hardly an expert, but also I am not that ignorant.
First, one can tell little about a language from the
letters; all linguists agree on this. You may read
about the alphabet in any encyclopedia. There are
other alphabets, not too well related to the early
Semitic alphabet, but most are so related. However,
this has essentially NOTHING to do with the languages.
The early Semitic alphabet, which had many variations,
gave rise to the PaleoHebrew alphabet, the Ugaritic
cuneiform adaptation, and the Aramaic alphabet, which
became the modern Hebrew from. In turn, this gave
rise to the Greek alphabet, and this to the Etruscan
alphabet, and this to the Roman alphabet. We have
lots of writings in Etruscan, and while we may do a
reasonable job of pronouncing it, we still cannot
read much of it.
As for languages, there were three major linguistic
groups in the ancient Middle East, and some others
we do not know much about. The two largest "civilized"
groups are the Afro-Asiatic and the Indo-European.
I am restricting this, because there are several
thousand languages in Papua-New Guinea and Australia.
In the Afro-Asian group are the African group, of which
Egyptian is the best known, and the Semitic family,
which includes, besides Hebrew and Aramaic and Ugaritic,
Ethiopian, Arabic, Assyrian, Babylonian, and lots of
others. The Indo-European group includes the Germanic
and Romance families, of which you know many members,
as well as Albanian, Greek, Persian, Hittite, the Indian
languages, and again lots of others. Sumerian and Elamite,
which are related, do not belong to any known group.
It is true that languages "borrow" from others; this term
is used by linguists. However, this does not mean that
the languages are in any way related. Someone who knows
Hebrew could read Aramaic with difficulty, maybe, and
occasionally Arabic. I doubt that Babylonian would be
particularly easy. I have studied French, Spanish, and
German; I can read (sometimes) Latin, Italian, or
Romanian; but none of this helps much with Greek, which
I can pronounce, or Russian, which I can also pronounce.
Martin Winer
My question, which you didn't answer was relating to the borrowing of
language constructs such as:
Roman: centurion and century(military unity) relating to a possible
Hebrew: eleph/alluph(well armed soldier) and eleph (military unit)
Martin Winer
>> truth. I just don't buy the whole 3 million thing.
>I said no such thing. YOu misconstrued a TEXT.
>I challenged that.
Let me get this straight. You DON"T believe there were 3 million
people wandering around the desert and you only disagree with my
'manipulation' of the text to derive 10's of thousands?
Let me be abundantly clear...
1) do you believe there were ~ 3 million involved in the exodus?
2) if not, why/how in your opinion does the torah say so?
Martin Winer
Actually Tim, lot's of progress is being made. Here's where we stand.
-Rabbi Berger and I agree that the Kuzari Proof as presented by Rabbi
Gottlieb isnt' a valid proof.
-We're learning a lot about languages and constructs in languages
-Many were impressed with the alternate eleph solution
-Jacko and I are getting closer to an understanding. It seems he may
also not agree with the 3 million people wandering around. I have a
post to him to clarify his position.
Herman Rubin
q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk <q_q_an...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
--
I will comment on this, piece by piece. I am familiar
with the written material and the arguments.
>Regarding what evidence is prseented by the 'kuzari argument'. Well,
>the way I see it, we have evidence for the origins of Torah. The
>evidence is the Oral Torah, the Written Torah. We have the claims made
>by each as to their origins, and we have speculation.
We do have this, but are they correct? These are CLAIMS,
and there is evidence refuting these claims.
>The written Torah claims to be fully written by moshe, and accepted by
>all the people in moshe's time, and it documents the miracles that
>occurred.
Now what is the evidence? Was it written by Moshe, or even
was any part written by Moshe? If so, how much? Are even
the miracles miraculous?
Outside of the Orthodox, few believe that a version of the
whole present Written Torah existed before the return from
the Captivity, although Jeremiah is given credit for collecting
most of it and writing most of Deuteronomy. But that only
puts it back to the 7th century BCE. Why do you not read the
arguments here before making your claims? There have been
sources posted.
It is clear that the claim from the Written Torah, is that
>the people that first accepted the Torah are the ones in Moshe's time.
>and the miracles described there are miracles they would have witnesed.
>And we know that the people then took the written torah as accurate,
>they took it seriously.
Again, from the Qumran scrolls, we know that there was not
just one version at that time, but variants of at least four.
We also know that the scribes copying the Torah and Tanakh
trusted their memories more than what they were copying. We
do not know what the scribes put together after the Captivity.
This is important, because it's not that those
>that received it read about themselves and took it as a story, and over
>the years it became taken more seriously.
See the above.
>The Oral Torah claims of course, divine origin, and shows us how
>strongly the jews believed it even back then. They accepted the
>obligations , and the written, as not a legend or story, right from the
>word 'go'. You also have the chain of transmission, Hillel and Shammai
>one of the famous 'pairs of rabbis' the chain of transmission as
>G-d->moshe->elders->prophets->men of the great assembly-->the 5 pairs,
>ending with hillel and shammai. And that's just down the generations,
>it was of course taught to masses of people. Were Hillel and Shammai
>lying? or who lied to them? the men of the great assembly? But they
>were so many.
We know NONE of this except from Pirke Avoth 1:1. We also
know that lots of recognized Jews did not accept the existence
of an Oral Law. I do not know any serious non-Orthodox Jews
who consider this story even a possibility.
>G-d speaking to the people and choosing Moshe would give him the
>benefit of the doubt. Did Joshua lie? But Moshe also taught Aharon and
>his brothers. And all the people were taught, in Moshe's time. It's
>really hard to allege a conspiracy here.
What evidence do we have that what they wrote is accurate,
or EVEN that they wrote it at all? It was passed as legend.
Why would God have told Moshe the bubbameises in Genesis?
It could be that He was trying to tell us about the Big Bang,
but then what about the rest of the "information"? Did Adam
and Eve exist, did Eden exist? Could the Flood have occurred?
Sodom and Gomorra are supposed to be less than 4000 years ago;
where is the evidence?
>Since the oral tradition was recorded 2k years ago fairly on in the
>transmission, so you can se clearly how it goes back to Moshe and to
>HaShem.
Moshe would be well over 1000 years before that. As I have
pointed out, 2k years ago, lots of Jews rejected the Pharisaic
Oral Law, claiming, and I believe accurately, that it was a
purely human invention.
>So te written torah is a bit like a signed testimony, signed by the
>jewish nation that received it. The Talmud - though it wasn't written
>at Moshe's time, contains within it a complete record of the oral
>tradition as it had been received till that time, which was still a
>time when the chain of transmission was well recorded. And early
>enough for there to be no doubt that generations ago they kept it
>seriously. Some generations back and you have the event itself.
See the above; circular reasoning upon circular reasoning.
>I know, my reasoning for Judaism's truth is a bit different to Rabbi
>Prof Dr Gottlieb. And Rabbi Prof Dr Gottlieb's reasoning is a bit diff
>to that of the Kuzari . The author of any kuzari argument is the
>author of the Kuzari.
>Interestingly, Rabbaynu Yehuda HaLevi also mentioned the length of the
>jewish molad lunar month in his argument - a topic that has been
>discussed in previous threads!
The length of the lunar month at the time it was written
could well have been calculated by the excellent Greek
astronomers in Alexandria or Athens. This also proves
nothing.
>I haven't emailed the moderators for auto- yet so my posts may appear
>a bit slow
>-
>q_q_
>.
--
Yisroel Markov
IOW, you're starting with a conclusion, and then try to make the text
fit that conclusion. OTOH, Jacko is accepting the text as is, and
shows that your theories about how it got that way are unlikely to be
true.
IMHO, you're a lot better off arguing that the text is simply wrong.
It is very unlikely that it was merely sloppily redacted.
Yisroel "Godwrestler Warriorson" Markov - Boston, MA Member
www.reason.com -- for unbiased analysis of the world DNRC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Judge, and be prepared to be judged" -- Ayn Rand
Martin Winer
>It is very unlikely that it was merely sloppily redacted.
On the contrary, it's VERY likely that it was sloppily redacted:
1) http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08a13.htm -- Samuel 13:1 "Saul was
---- years old" -- redaction error
2) http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b10.htm 2.Samuel 10:18
And the Arameans fled before Israel; and David slew
of the Arameans SEVEN HUNDRED drivers of chariots, and FORTY THOUSAND
horsemen, and smote Shobach the captain of their host, so that he died
there.
http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt25a19.htm -- 1.Chronicles 19:18
And the Arameans fled before Israel; and David slew
of the Arameans the men of SEVEN THOUSAND chariots, and FORTY THOUSAND
footmen, and killed Shophach the captain of the host.
-- redaction error SEVEN HUNDRED -> SEVEN THOUSAND
3) Language ambiguity:
Consider the following excerpt from a recommendation letter:
"I most enthusiastically recommend this candidate with no
qualifications
whatsoever.
I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine.
I can assure you that no person would be better for the job.
I would urge you to waste no time in making this candidate an offer of
employment.
All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or
recommend him too highly."
Do I like this candidate or not? How do you know?
Eleph(1000)-Eleph(military man etc)-alluph are all ambiguous. My
article contains quotes of multiple uses.
4) The inaccurate redaction I claim occured between the 10th century BC
and the 2nd. Not from the 2nd century to the present day.
yaco...@aol.com
Martin Winer wrote:
> Do I like this candidate or not? How do you know?
> Eleph(1000)-Eleph(military man etc)-alluph are all ambiguous. My
> article contains quotes of multiple uses.
Your article does not say much at all.
I took you at your word and read it in our discussions. Not once did
you demonstrate anything you CLAIMED to demonstrate. When I pushed the
issue you switched me
to the 3M Israelites issue.
Do you sell cameras on Fifth Avenue?
> 4) The inaccurate redaction I claim occured between the 10th century BC
> and the 2nd. Not from the 2nd century to the present day.
That's the common wisdom. Many claim it is "scientifically proven".
Jacko
Martin Winer
You can prove things within a reasonable doubt. You're trying to side
step the fact that the Kuzari proof is unable to prove anything within
a reasonable doubt... that is the point of the conversation here.
yaco...@aol.com
I am not really motivated to brush aside my objections to your manner
of dealing with the text.
If all that was just window dressing for your "disbelief" of a
conjectured 3M people, all you need do is say so.
Then I am even less motivated to answer your abundant clarities.
Jacko