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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (58445)	2/9/2001 12:12:58 AM
From: JF Quinnelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Or not. I assume that's the Salon piece reviewing the maverick archeologist's book. Before 1960 similar critics claimed that Pontius Pilate was pure invention, since his name appeared nowhere outside of the gospel narratives. Now they move on to the next objection, since a dedication stone for an ampitheater was discovered in Syria, and he was the Roman official enscribed on it. This other dude is dealing with even older material, 3,000 years old. And he's using Egyptian 'histories' as a critical source, whereas I understand that Egyptians weren't much into things like timelines and factual narratives. Their 'histories' were more glorifications of the ruling dynasty. Science is science That quote alone marks you as a rank beginner in these battles. Science doesn't magically descend upon us fully defined. Defining science takes you out of the realm of measuring and quantifying and deposits you in the murky swamp of philosophy and epsitemology. "Science" constantly reinvents and revises itself, discarding what 'doesn't work'. Goodbye Newton, hello Einstein. As the little known French scholar Pierre Duhem discovered, western science developed for hundreds of years in the monasteries of Europe, culiminating in such men as Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler. Somewhere in my collection of Stanley Jaki essays I have the names of the obscure monks who developed what we know as the scientific method. If you read The Name of the Rose you saw Umberto Eco tipping his hat to some of them. Occam. The Bacons. But they came later and built on the work of long forgotten men. Many of today's ignorati like to wave about the case of Gallileo doing battle with the Vatican- but those Vatican censors took their cosmology from Plato, for whom the Earth was the center of everything and the stars numbered less than 8,000. Meanwhile, the ignored Psalmist had written that the stars were as numberless as the sands, and the author of Genesis said the universe came into being in an instant, out of nothing. I doubt that the biblical writers were composing a science text, but arguing that they were superstitious simpletons is a fool's game. British mathmetician Fred Hoyle refused to accept Einstein's cosmology because he disliked what he saw as it's uncanny similarity to Genesis.

To: Rambi who wrote (58445)	2/15/2001 2:32:39 AM
From: JF Quinnelly	Respond to of 71178

The Minimalists, the Maximalists, and the Unconcerned: bibarch.com bibarch.com Take note that many nonscientists, e.g., architects, historians, theologians, linguists, and other professionals, are prominent biblical archaeologists. They practice their profession in the archaeology of the bible lands utilizing scientific methodology when they see it as appropriate. This means that there is considerable interpretation present in biblical archaeology rather than scientific explanation. Prevailing practice, which still lies in a historical approach, has most biblical archaeologists calling upon scientific methodology as it fits their needs. One must remember, however, that science is a means of knowledge production not the only means. Epigraphs, textual analysis, linguistic study, and architectural investigation also provide significant information about biblical peoples and their cultures. Knowledge also advances through examination of available evidence by methods other than science such as exegesis and hermeneutics. Objectivity, however, always remains an issue. While an end of science is the production of objective knowledge, in the form of explanation of observable phenomena, science itself has come under attack. It is popular in some circles to argue that science is hopelessly flawed as a method of coming to know the details of the ancient past. The argument is that scientists are not objective, due to their preconceptions, assumptions, techniques, beliefs, and the like, which substantially taints their scientific observations and conclusions. Be aware that certain archaeologists, following a destructivist paradigm, argue that we really cannot know with certainty the details of the ancient past and then choose to provide an interpretation that supports their social and political agendas. This reasoning lies in philosophical hermeneutics and the approach lacks objectivity (see Postmodern Archaeology).