Late Nights and Late-Canaanite Ostraca
It's true: I'm different than Jacob. I've come to the conclusion that I do my best work not in the morning, not in the afternoon, not even in the early evening, but late LATE at night. It's currently 2:00 and I'm feeling energized in the research for my Intro to Hebrew Bible paper on the historicity of the conquest narrative (Joshua/Judges). After being demoralized by the Anchor Bible Dictionary's 20 some page article stating that the biblical account is pretty much all lies, I've discovered a wonderful lecture by K.A. Kitchen of the University of Liverpool. The lecture tears down one-by-one the Dictionary's arguments against the conquest. And it's humorous at points as well. For example:
"That there is 'no archaeological evidence for an exodus' is true only in the very narrowest sense, that no Ramesside, Late-Bronze, Hebrew work camps have been found suddenly abandoned in the East Delta, complete with Late-Canaanite ostraca [pottery-sherds w/ inscriptions] saying 'I hate Ramesses!', or 'Let's go with Moses!' Nor have we any right whatsoever to expect evidence of this kind."
That Kitchen! What a guy...
"That there is 'no archaeological evidence for an exodus' is true only in the very narrowest sense, that no Ramesside, Late-Bronze, Hebrew work camps have been found suddenly abandoned in the East Delta, complete with Late-Canaanite ostraca [pottery-sherds w/ inscriptions] saying 'I hate Ramesses!', or 'Let's go with Moses!' Nor have we any right whatsoever to expect evidence of this kind."
That Kitchen! What a guy...
Andrew--
I got your message. Sorry I wasn't up at 3:00 this morning. I guess there's always hope for tomorrow though. I just really needed to sleep in a little bit today.
Posted by
Jacob |
4:36 AM
Kitchen has a new book out that deals with historicity across the Old Testament. I haven't looked at it yet, but it looks good. Here's a review.
Posted by
Jeremy Pierce |
6:35 AM