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- From: ncramer@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
- Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
- Subject: Re: 2 vs 14, P vs J, etc. [was: Would "Noah's Ark" have been large enough?]
- Message-ID: <lftcqnINNe9m@news.bbn.com>
- Date: 9 Nov 92 18:52:07 GMT
- References: <721211122.AA08113@csource.oz.au> <GERRY.92Nov9122337@onion.cmu.edu>
- Reply-To: ncramer@labs-n.bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
- Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
- Lines: 31
- NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com
-
- gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:
- >Why is it that all biblical scholars, i.e., those with formal
- >training, those who speak Hebrew and Greek, etc, support the JEPD
- >theory of biblical authorship; while it is the fundementalists who
- >don't? Don't these fundies ever feel like they're pissing into the
- >wind?
-
- I don't think Joe Slater (i.e. the person arguing against the Documentary
- Hypothesis in this thread) has yet betrayed himself as particularly
- "fundamentalist" (on the other hand this is the only experience I've had of
- him, so I can't speak more generally). So far he seems to be actually, if
- somewhat abrasively, asking for information and evidence --which I hope to
- supply when I get a little more time to type.
-
- However, what I _do_ object to is the line of argument that Mr Slater seems
- to have put forth. We've seen this sort of thing many times before:
-
- o Model X is a view/model/opinion held by the majority of the experts in
- a given field.
-
- o I (a person with no knowledge of the field and who am demonstrably
- ignorant of the most basic data involved) am confused by something
- in this line of arguement.
-
- o Therefore: Since it certainly is not possible that _my_ understanding
- is flawed in any way, the Model X must be a pile of crap.
-
- Mr Slater is not the first --and far from the worst-- source of this
- particular line of "reasoning". It is, nonetheless, somewhat irritating.
-
- N
-