From: ane-digest-owner@oi.uchicago.edu To: ane-digest@oi.uchicago.edu Subject: Ancient Near East Digest V2 #20 Reply-To: ane@oi.uchicago.edu Errors-To: ane-digest-owner@oi.uchicago.edu Precedence: bulk Ancient Near East Digest Wednesday, 5 October 1994 Volume 02 : Number 020 In this issue: tablet find [none] My Tell en-Nasbeh Dissertation Re: Sitchen and Sumerians Re: Sitchin and Sumer Re: Sitchin and Sumer 34thRAI-Istanbul My Tell en-Nasbeh Dissertation, Again News? Re: Sitchin and Sumer Sitchin, Velikovsky et al. Re: News? Pepwy the sailor man! Proclitic l- w/ jussive in Ugaritic Re: News? Mr. S, Velikovski, Van Daniken (sp) etc Re: News? news? Re: Proclitic l- w/ jussive in Ugaritic Re: Mr. S, Velikovski, Van Daniken (sp) etc Re: Sitchin and Sumer Re: Mr. S, Velikovski, Van Daniken (sp) etc Re: Sitchin and Sumer Tell en-Nasbeh Dissertation new address/forthcoming Karanis announcement Re: Proclitic l- w/ jussive in Ugaritic Re: Sitchin and critical thought See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the ANE or ANE-Digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Richard Beal" Date: 3 Oct 1994 17:17:37 U Subject: tablet find tablet find Germans find cuneiform tablets in eastern Syria DAMASCUS, Syria (Reuter) - German archeologists digging near the Euphrates valley in eastern Syria have found 80 cuneiform tablets containing economic and geographic information, the official news agency Sana said Saturday. Similar tablets discovered by the same German mission in 1992 date back to the reign of the Assyrian king, Shamshi-adad I, who reigned about 1850 BC, it said. The new tablets, found at the site of Tell al-Bi'a near the town of Raqqa, list towns that had relations with the site. The tablets are intact and in good condition, according to the agency, which quoted the director of antiquities in Raqqa, 250 miles northeast of Damascus. REUTER Reut10:07 10-01 Reuter N:Copyright 1994, Reuters News Service ------------------------------ From: joshua david holo Date: Mon, 3 Oct 94 18:30:12 CDT Subject: [none] mm ------------------------------ From: Zorn Jeff Date: Tue, 04 Oct 94 07:16:00 PDT Subject: My Tell en-Nasbeh Dissertation From an off-hand comment made by a colleague I understand that my dissertation on the architecture and stratigraphy of Tell en-Nasbeh was the cause of some discussion on the ANE list, primarilyly because of its length. Since I was out of the country when all this occured I missed any chance then of answering questions or replying to comments. I wonder if some kind soul out there could give me a summary of what was said and perhaps I can then clarify things for those interested in the matter? Copies of any original correspondence are especially welcome. Many thanks, Jeff Zorn zorn@hum.huji.ac.il ------------------------------ From: David Lipovitch Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 10:06:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Sitchen and Sumerians The course you mentioned, "Fantastic Archaeology", was taught by Stephen Williams who is no longer at Harvard. He did, however, publish a book on the subject by the same title. David Lipovitch Harvard University ------------------------------ From: "Joe D. Seger" Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 09:29:10 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Sitchin and Sumer I see that the beat goes on!! So much for sanity! Joe Seger On Mon, 3 Oct 1994, Oded Borowski wrote: > I second the motion. > Oded Borowski > Emory University > Atlanta GA > > On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, Joe D. Seger wrote: > > > Hear!! Hear!! > > I second Barker"s statement and wonder why do we (scholars???) fill our > > discussions on ANE with this really useless deliberation--(deliberation??0 > > So enough already! > > > > Joe Seger > > > > > > On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, John W. Baker wrote: > > > > > > > > E. von Dassow is right when she calls this stuff "tripe." But worse > > > than that it is extremely lucrative tripe. I, for one, find it very > > > difficult to be amused by this considering the fact that legitimate > > > research in the ANE often cannot procede for lack of funding, that > > > scholars who have devoted their lives to very difficult research have > > > to beg their universities for meager support, and that many promising > > > students are unable to find jobs in the field after they and their > > > families have put in years of sacrifice for the sake of their studies. > > > > > > John W. Baker / Rice Univ. > > > > > > ------------------------------ From: Hasse Svensson Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 16:07:15 +0000 Subject: Re: Sitchin and Sumer On Tue, 4 Oct 1994, Joe D. Seger wrote: > I see that the beat goes on!! So much for sanity! > Joe Seger > > > On Mon, 3 Oct 1994, Oded Borowski wrote: > > > I second the motion. > > Oded Borowski > > Emory University > > Atlanta GA > > > > On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, Joe D. Seger wrote: > > > > > Hear!! Hear!! > > > I second Barker"s statement and wonder why do we (scholars???) fill our > > > discussions on ANE with this really useless deliberation--(deliberation??0 > > > So enough already! Sometimes it's healthy not to be that sane. Why not allow this type of discussion, after all it *is* on topic, and I'm still not convinced that Sitchin is *completely* wrong. Sad to say, but I find your attitude rather sad not allowing the list members to participate in a fruitful discussion like this one. As I quoted in a previous post; "science is what the scientists beleive *today*..." Hasse Svensson * Academy of Baastad * Sweden * myst@hofors.kuai.se ------------------------------ From: WERNISCH@daheim.ping.at (Bernhard Georg Rems) Date: 04 Oct 1994 20:35:00 +0100 Subject: 34thRAI-Istanbul Hallo ane, Before the summer someone on the list asked where to find the publication of the paper held by A.R.George at the Rencontre in Istanbul. Here's the the reference I have come across: A.R.George: The Day the Earth Divided: a Geological Aetiology in the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, ZA 80 (1990) 214-215. Hope the information is still useful. Renate Rems-Wernisch ------------------------------ From: Zorn Jeff Date: Tue, 04 Oct 94 20:02:00 PDT Subject: My Tell en-Nasbeh Dissertation, Again Many thanks for the responses to my inquiry about the discussion concerning my dissertation on Tell en-Nasbeh. I want to make just a few clarifying remarks. 1. I will be the first to admit that the work is still in a rough stage. No doubt it needs tightening and could be shortened by careful use of the editor's pen. I'm not an artist. Some of my "drawings" are almost cartoonish. 2. Of that total 1700 page length, 141 pages are plans and drawings and 313 are photographs. There is only one such illustration per page. It was just easier for me to do it that way. Another ca. 300 pages are a "locus" list and set of indexes. The total number of pages of discussion was ca. 950. About two- thirds of that is detailed discussion of the ca. 1000 numbered and unnumbered architectural features, grouped where possible into logical buildings. About 360 pages are introductory- methodological discussions, summaries of my revised strata and special treatments on site-wide phenomena, such as the road system, defenses, kilns, and other matters. 3. I worked hard to make it as user friendly as possible. Despite its length I went to great trouble indexing it (and anyone who says a bad thing about Word Perfect 5.2 will hear it from me :->). Each mention of every feature discussed in the text is in the index. There are also indexes for the photographs mentioned in the text, subjects and authors. Each time I cited a photograph in the text I put the number in bold print; each architectural feature is underlined. My intent being to speed up scanning for readers in a hurry. I know that you will all rush out to buy a copy to see if my wonderful description matches reality. I encourage you in this, if for no other reason than that I can use the royalties :-> I hope that anyone who has actually _seen_ it will drop me a note with their impression of it. Now it's on to the pottery! By the way, is UMI using a new process for reproducing illustrations? I was amazed to discover that the photographs in my diss. were as good as well done photocopies; I could actually see what was in the picture! Regards, Jeff Zorn zorn@hum.huji.ac.il ------------------------------ From: "John Nolan" Date: 4 Oct 1994 15:04:58 U Subject: News? News? Has anyone else seen this? Mysterious Graffito Discovered a0822LBY615reulb d i BC-EGYPT-HISTORY-CHRONO 09-28 0563 ^BC-EGYPT-HISTORY-CHRONOLOGY@ ^Mysterious Graffito Discovered@ CAIRO, Sept 28, (Reuter) - Outside of Aswan, among the rock outcroppings which compose the First Cataract of the Nile, an amateur Egyptologist and rock climber claims to have discovered a graffito, written in Demotic script. Demotic is a form of the ancient Egyptian language, in use during the late Pharaonic period through the rule of the Romans. What is unusual about this inscription, claims Dirk "Bubba" MacGuire, graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of Alabama, is its repetitive "sing-song" composition. "We have many dedicatory inscriptions in Demotic," explained MacGuire," but none that repeat the inscriber's name three times -- twice in succession." Other unusual aspects of this graffito are the use of the title after the personal name, as well as its boastful oratory apparently attributing the physical strength of the inscriber, a river pilot named Pepwy, to his vegetarian diet. "Such claims regarding an exclusive diet of plants are almost unheard of in the ancient world," stated MacGuire. While he still has some reservations about the readings of some of the words, MacGuire provided the following provisional translation of the inscription: "Pepwy, the man who sails am I. Pepwy the man who sails am I. It is while I am eating my vegetables, that I am strong to the ends (of the earth). Pepwy, the man who sails am I." The name of the subject of the graffito is mysterious in that it is not a common Egyptian name. MacGuire speculates that the name may be Carian. The Carians were a seafaring people from Asia Minor some of whom settled in Egypt after its conquest by Alexander the Great. REUTER Reut09:43 09-28 Reuter N:Copyright 1994, Reuters News Service .. ------------------------------ From: Anette Svensson Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 21:42:17 +0000 Subject: Re: Sitchin and Sumer cOn Sun, 2 Oct 1994, Sigrid Peterson wrote: > > what we see with the "adjusted" history i.e. the bible. > > Maybe then we can get our answers, answers to more questions > > than the common ones; the ones that > > are "approved" by present science. > > You have lots of very good questions. Do you want *only > the answers Sitchin gives, or would you like to know > the range of answers given in the scholarly world? Thank you very much for your answer. my intention was not to "prove" that S was absolutly right, but to get what you're talking about; the scholars' view of the topic. Not only Z.S has this thoughts about life from space that came and ruled the world. Z.Sitschins theories is almost equal to Samuel N Kramers translations from the Sumerians. Another thing, how could they have all this astronomical knowledge? In Sweden they have recently sent a program about Sitchin and his theories, and he said that the Sumerians knew of all the planets and even had the right colour on them. How could they know, if nobody told them at that time? Another question, which is the oldest, the Sumerian or the Egyptian culture? Anette ------------------------------ From: "John F. Robertson" <35C3WHN@CMUVM.BITNET> Date: Tue, 04 Oct 94 16:29:07 EDT Subject: Sitchin, Velikovsky et al. A hearty second to Gay Robins' suggestion that we ancient historians devotemore effort to "literate laypersons" (or even the not-so-literate ones - their taxes pay many of our salaries just as much). I suspect that anyone who has spent any significant time trying to teach undergrads the rudiments of ancient Near Eastern and/or Egyptian history and archaeology has found out that (a) they enter our classrooms with virtually no knowledge of same, and (b) many of those who have some claim to such knowledge got it from the kind of "tripe" we're talking about or from some infotainment special. Whether we want to face up to it or not, people of ANE/Egypt ilk are becoming increasingly expendable in an increasingly service-oriented economy in which job skills of more "practical" thrust are what's being sought from university grads. We may be called upon more and more to demonstrate why the university, or society as a whole, needs us at all. And we're not going to be able to do that by rolling our eyes, muttering "Poor fools" to ourselves, and continuing to write essentially for each other. ------------------------------ From: "jjs" Date: Tue, 04 Oct 94 16:19:39 Subject: Re: News? Let me guess. This Pepwy the sailor man was also fond of olive oil, sometimes spelled "Oyl." And he used the third person singular form of the verb "to eat" when he should have used the first person singular. Just a hunch. John Steele jjs@fwpa.com PS: I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. News? "Pepwy, the man who sails am I. Pepwy the man who sails am I. It is while I am eating my vegetables, that I am strong to the ends (of the earth). Pepwy, the man who sails am I." The name of the subject of the graffito is mysterious in that it is not a common Egyptian name. MacGuire speculates that the name may be Carian. The Carians were a seafaring people from Asia Minor some of whom settled in Egypt after its conquest by Alexander the Great. REUTER Reut09:43 09-28 Reuter N:Copyright 1994, Reuters News Service ------------------------------ From: Ted Lewis Date: Tue, 04 Oct 94 19:48:37 EDT Subject: Pepwy the sailor man! Following the Stichin and evolution discussions, perhaps ANE does look this gullible. The vegetables Pepwy eats wouldn't happen to be spinach would they? Nice try John. You must be a creative teacher. Ted Lewis Univ. of Georgia ------------------------------ From: Ted Lewis Date: Tue, 04 Oct 94 20:08:17 EDT Subject: Proclitic l- w/ jussive in Ugaritic I hate to interrupt all this fun we are having (Stichin, evolution, Pepwy the sailor man) with a more serious question, but I am in need of grammatical bibliography. Does anyone know of any works analyzing the frequency of proclitic l- used withthe jussive in Ugaritic (similar to the precative in Akkadian)? I am familiar with K. Aartun's extremely brief discussion of l- as a "Wunschpartikel" in his _Die Partikeln des Ugaritischen_ and John Huehnergard's splendid discussion in his "Asseverative *la and hypothetical *lu/law in Semitic" (JAOS 1983), but I am hoping to find more extensive discussions with a statistical breakdown so that I can be more certain about how often l- was used with a jussive in Ugaritic. Thank you in advance. Ted Lewis Univ. of Georgia ------------------------------ From: "Joe D. Seger" Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 19:54:09 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: News? Now look what you've gotten me into Olley!!! On 4 Oct 1994, John Nolan wrote: > News? > Has anyone else seen this? > > Mysterious Graffito Discovered > a0822LBY615reulb > d i BC-EGYPT-HISTORY-CHRONO 09-28 0563 > ^BC-EGYPT-HISTORY-CHRONOLOGY@ > ^Mysterious Graffito Discovered@ > CAIRO, Sept 28, (Reuter) - Outside of Aswan, among the rock outcroppings > which compose the First Cataract of the Nile, an amateur Egyptologist and rock > climber claims to have discovered a graffito, written in Demotic script. > Demotic is a form of the ancient Egyptian language, in use during the late > Pharaonic period through the rule of the Romans. What is unusual about this > inscription, claims Dirk "Bubba" MacGuire, graduate student in electrical > engineering at the University of Alabama, is its repetitive "sing-song" > composition. > "We have many dedicatory inscriptions in Demotic," explained MacGuire," but > none that repeat the inscriber's name three times -- twice in succession." > Other unusual aspects of this graffito are the use of the title after the > personal name, as well as its boastful oratory apparently attributing the > physical strength of the inscriber, a river pilot named Pepwy, to his > vegetarian diet. > "Such claims regarding an exclusive diet of plants are almost unheard of in > the ancient world," stated MacGuire. > While he still has some reservations about the readings of some of the words, > MacGuire provided the following provisional translation of the inscription: > "Pepwy, the man who sails am I. Pepwy the man who sails am I. It is while I > am eating my vegetables, that I am strong to the ends (of the earth). Pepwy, > the man who sails am I." The name of the subject of the graffito is mysterious > in that it is not a common Egyptian name. MacGuire speculates that the name may > be Carian. The Carians were a seafaring people from Asia Minor some of whom > settled in Egypt after its conquest by Alexander the Great. > > REUTER > Reut09:43 09-28 > > Reuter N:Copyright 1994, Reuters News Service > > .. > ------------------------------ From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Date: 04 Oct 1994 20:32:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mr. S, Velikovski, Van Daniken (sp) etc Watching this thread and the recent posts about obligations to lay persons, there is another, occasional benefit, from sensationalist writers. I got hooked into anthro and other interests from reading Robert Ardery's _territorial imperative_ [sometime back in the lower pleistocene, or at least it feels that long ago :)]. Sometimes these writers awaken interests that we can harness to draw students into topics. At least they are reading or watching, and probably doing some thinking when they have "gotten into" such things. That, at least, is better than being asleep. Tom Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 317-658-4519 ------------------------------ From: Glenn Magid Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:41:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: News? "Pepwy, the man who sails, am I." A vegetable diet. Is it just me, or is there something vaguely familiar here? ------------------------------ From: gdoudna@ednet1.osl.or.gov (Greg Doudna) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 22:22:20 -0700 Subject: news? The Reuter's report of the Pepwy inscription sounds like a practical joke to me. - -- Greg Doudna Marylhurst College gdoudna@ednet1.osl.or.gov ------------------------------ From: Hasse Svensson Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 07:42:43 +0000 Subject: Re: Proclitic l- w/ jussive in Ugaritic On Tue, 4 Oct 1994, Ted Lewis wrote: > > I hate to interrupt all this fun we are having (Stichin, evolution, > Pepwy the sailor man) with a more serious question, but I am in need > of grammatical bibliography. > Pewpy for one could not have been serious, but then you're there again; why continue this patronising attitude by calling the other topics not serious? If a person has a beleif in a theory then it's serious at lest to *him* (or them). A good joke doesn't hurt (Pewpy), but Sitchin was (is) never a joke. I knoww some of you has made serious tries to explain *why* Sitchin can't be right, still there are many left who just reject the matter with the previous mentioned attitude. I wish it wouldnt be that way.. In the Fidonet discussion one scholar(?) lowered himself to say: "You don't know anything, I bet your'e not even in the academic world!" If this attitude continues, how can we "outsiders" ever get interested in your views? *We* respect *you*; you should try to show some respect for the thoughts of *others*. (This was not a lecture, just a bit of disappointment) Hasse Svensson * Academy of Baastad * Sweden * myst@hofors.kuai.se ------------------------------ From: Hasse Svensson Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 07:55:18 +0000 Subject: Re: Mr. S, Velikovski, Van Daniken (sp) etc What makes a man devote a lifetime to a subject that he doesn't beleive in? Sitchin had obviously no thoughts about getting rich and famous when he started his work; that's a "spin-off" because of the major interest his work has aroused. This quoted message is yet another example om attitude, and I'd like for the 3rd time to qoute: "Science is what the scientists believe *today*". Not so long ago we believed that the earth was flat, and people with those thoughts were (at the best) laughed at. It's very tempting to say: "Just wait and see...":-) Hasse Svensson Academy of Baastad Sweden On 4 Oct 1994, Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU wrote: > Watching this thread and the recent posts about obligations to lay persons, > there is another, occasional benefit, from sensationalist writers. I got > hooked into anthro and other interests from reading Robert Ardery's > _territorial imperative_ [sometime back in the lower pleistocene, or at > least it feels that long ago :)]. Sometimes these writers awaken interests > that we can harness to draw students into topics. At least they are > reading or watching, and probably doing some thinking when they have > "gotten into" such things. That, at least, is better than being asleep. ------------------------------ From: Jonas Greenfield Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 13:25:17 +0300 (WET) Subject: Re: Sitchin and Sumer Dear Joe and cohorts. I have avoided adding my voice to this nonsense. But I fear that the basic purpose of the ANE network has been traduced by our allowing 'idiocies' to become a topic for discussion. There is no Academy of Baastad (one can play on that last word if one likes) and we should not allow ourselves to be led by the nose by people who have no concept of our field. I am beginning to wonder what a 'serious scholar' is after some of the self-proclaimed have wasted our time with their discussion of Stichin. keep up the good work Jonas On Tue, 4 Oct 1994, Joe D. Seger wrote: > I see that the beat goes on!!So much for sanity! > Joe Seger > > > On Mon, 3 Oct 1994, Oded Borowski wrote: > > > I second the motion. > > Oded Borowski > > Emory University > > Atlanta GA > > > > On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, Joe D. Seger wrote: > > > > > Hear!! Hear!! > > > I second Barker"s statement and wonder why do we (scholars???) fill our > > > discussions on ANE with this really useless deliberation--(deliberation??0 > > > So enough already! > > > > > > Joe Seger > > > > > > > > > On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, John W. Baker wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > E. von Dassow is right when she calls this stuff "tripe." But worse > > > > than that it is extremely lucrative tripe. I, for one, find it very > > > > difficult to be amused by this considering the fact that legitimate > > > > research in the ANE often cannot procede for lack of funding, that > > > > scholars who have devoted their lives to very difficult research have > > > > to beg their universities for meager support, and that many promising > > > > students are unable to find jobs in the field after they and their > > > > families have put in years of sacrifice for the sake of their studies. > > > > > > > > John W. Baker / Rice Univ. > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------ From: Hasse Svensson Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 12:22:57 +0000 Subject: Re: Mr. S, Velikovski, Van Daniken (sp) etc On Wed, 5 Oct 1994, alan kirkland wrote: > I would thank you, sir, to take your pot-stirring elsewhere. > Prior to a couple of days ago, this discussion group had been of a > scholarly nature. Now, alas, it is becoming tedious with this pother > about Sitchin, Sumerians. > Yours, > Alan F.C.W. Kirkland See what I mean! So much for understanding others.. Sad. Hasse Svensson * Academy of Baastad * Sweden * myst@hofors.kuai.se ------------------------------ From: Hasse Svensson Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 12:33:41 +0000 Subject: Re: Sitchin and Sumer On Wed, 5 Oct 1994, Jonas Greenfield wrote: > Dear Joe and cohorts. I have avoided adding my voice to this nonsense. > But I fear that the basic purpose of the ANE network has been traduced > by our allowing 'idiocies' to become a topic for discussion. There is no > Academy of Baastad (one can play on that last word if one likes) and we Well, then I must have been fooled for several years, since I work and teach there :-o Baastad is situatued in the SW of Sweden, and (if someone remembers) is the Tennis Mecka of Sweden (bjorn Borg, remember?) ------------------------------ From: Robert Daniel Ibach Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 08:49:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Tell en-Nasbeh Dissertation Jeff, our library received your dissertation just yesterday, so I have not spent much time with it. I agree, however, that it appears to be as user-friendly as possible. Many scholars will be indebted to you for untangling the Nasbeh materials. We have the Xerographic (hard copy) edition, which I would recommend so one can navigate among the table of contents, indexes, gazetteer, photos, and text more easily than with microfilm. The photos, however, are really quite poor, sometimes being useless. Given the antiquity of the pictures and the degeneration of the duplication process, they may be a good as we can expect. I am grateful for this fine work, as well as for your excellent article in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Bob Ibach Library Director Dallas Theological Seminary ------------------------------ From: twilfong@umich.edu (Terry Wilfong) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 09:55:33 -0500 Subject: new address/forthcoming Karanis announcement Sorry to broadcast this to the whole list, but I am back on email and at a new address, which is given below. Also, in a few weeks I plan to post a formal announcement (hopefully to generate discussion) about a new survey of materials from the 1924-1935 excavations of Karanis at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. In the meantime, if anyone on the list has a special interest in (or is currently working on) materials from the Karanis excavations, I would be very interested to hear from you. Thanks. Terry Wilfong Visiting Assistant Curator Kelsey Museum of Archaeology University of Michigan 434 S. State Ann Arbor MI 48109-1390 phone (313) 936-2593 fax (313) 763 8976 twilfong@umich.edu ------------------------------ From: "K.C. Hanson" Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 09:36:43 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Proclitic l- w/ jussive in Ugaritic On Tue, 4 Oct 1994, Ted Lewis wrote: > Does anyone know of any works analyzing the frequency of proclitic l- > used withthe jussive in Ugaritic (similar to the precative in Akkadian)? Ted, Have you looked in Mitchell Dahood's _Psalms_ commentary (vol. 3 I think). In his "grammar" section he does a lot with various Hebrew grammatical constructions which he compares with Ugaritic. I know it is not a statistical breakdown, but you might get some leads. K. C. Hanson ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ kchanson@creighton.edu ------------------------------ From: Sigrid Peterson Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 11:33:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Sitchin and critical thought According to Hasse Svensson: > > What makes a man devote a lifetime to a subject that he doesn't beleive > in? Sitchin had obviously no thoughts about getting rich and famous when > he started his work; that's a "spin-off" because of the major interest his > work has aroused. Famous where? What kind of fame counts, that of Jonas Greenfield or that of Zecharia Sitchin? To the members of this list, it's that of Greenfield; to you, the fame of Sitchin ennobles his work. Does his wealth argue the strength of his ideas? Since you will be persisting regardless of the responses you get, I'll deal seriously with what you say. To deal seriously with what you say means to critique your ideas and your defense of Zecharia Sitchin's ideas. This is work that most of the people on this list have already done; their critical thinking skills have been honed as part of their advanced education. So, taking you seriously,... > [...] > and I'd like for the 3rd time to quote: "Science is what the scientists > believe *today*". Not so. I am now teaching a course called Modern Religious Thought. I started with two groups of creation myths, ancient Semitic, and ancient Sanskrit, which have been transmitted through traditions to the current day. We also have read and watched scientists, Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, talking about scientific views of the cosmos. Students wrote about "How do we know that Hawking's view is real?" Everyone saw the connection between scientific accounts of creation, and the accounts of creation in these tradition. I went a step further, and taught some epistemology. Science is not just belief, as your quotation states. It is an epistemology, a way of knowing. Scientists do not simply believe in the associations between ideas that we present; when making a state- ment in the context of science, the statement satisfies particular conditions for knowability. Ideas--"what scientists believe *today*"--satisfy particular conditions. Scientist do not simply "believe;" we seek to observe, predict and control the phenomena of scientific interest. As those efforts are refined, a scientist seeks a negative statement that represents a falsification. It sounds very odd, but a statement of falsification is the most we can be sure of anything. Statements that can't be falsified then can't be "known" in the same way, with the same degree of sureness. I demonstrated this with the following group of statements: "If it's raining, the streets will be wet. The streets are dry. Therefore (we don't just *believe*, we know that) it's not raining. If, in contrast, we observe that the streets are wet, we cannot be certain that it's raining. We may be in Utah in the United States, where the streets flooded one spring when all the winter snow in the mountains melted in a three-day hot spell. Sitchin sets up a sequence of ideas (a syllogism) that runs Had humans originated on earth they wouldn't have produced an advanced civilization in a city; Such a city, Sumer, exists. Therefore, humans originated elsewhere. This is not reasoning that produces sure knowledge, because there is no observed connection between the two parts of the first sentence; and because the second sentence does not negate the second part of the first statement. Perhaps it is a particular human idiocy to produce cities, perhaps a network of small towns is a better way to live together, perhaps... In other words, his premise (first statement) is faulty, and nothing else follows from it. > Not so long ago we believed that the earth was flat, > and people with those thoughts were (at the best) laughed at. Please, if you can, rent the videotape of the first two episodes in the series called Cosmos, that featured Carl Sagan--or there is a book made from the series, which should have this. Look with particular care at his depiction of the way in which Eratosthenes, in the third century b.c.e. in Alexandria Egypt produced his proof that the earth was round. He used human tools and human observations and human experimentation to rule out the idea of a flat earth, to falsify the hypothesis of a flat earth. That the earth is not flat, is something we know, as your statement indicates. You and I share that knowledge. It is factual knowledge based on science, and we can be sure that it is so, because we can at any time verify the observations and predictions from the observations that Eratosthenes made. > > It's very tempting to say: "Just wait and see...":-) If you are saying that women from the twelfth planet will turn up, and then we'll know that Sitchin was right, I hope you will think this through some more--on an offline "alias" list, if you like. > > Hasse Svensson > Academy of Baastad > Sweden > Is Baastad anywhere near Norko%ping, in SW Sweden? My grandfather came from there; he never spoke Swedish again. Granted that he and you and I may all be stubborn Swedes, couldn't we take this offline, now? Haven't you proved what you wanted to prove? I'm willing to set up an "alias"-- a short-term mini-list for further discussion of Sitchin and stuff, for anyone who wants to join in, in order to maintain the democracy of the Internet, yet free the ANE list to return to its presumptive world. Sigrid Peterson UPenn petersig@ccat.sas.upenn.edu ------------------------------ End of Ancient Near East Digest V2 #20 ************************************** To subscribe to ANE-Digest, send the command: subscribe ANE-digest in the body of a message to "Majordomo@oi.uchicago.edu". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-ANE": subscribe ANE-digest local-ANE@your.domain.net A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "ANE-digest" in the commands above with "ANE". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from oi.uchicago.edu, in pub/ane/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).