O Professor Emérito de Culturas do Antigo Oriente Médio e de Linguística Semítica da Universidade de Tel Aviv, Israel, Anson Rainey, tentou mostrar, em artigo recente na Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), que os primeiros israelitas são pastores nômades originários da Transjordânia. Ele argumenta que a Bíblia é clara sobre este ponto e que os dados linguísticos lhe dão razão. Para ele toda a pesquisa dos últimos 46 anos, desde Mendenhall, em 1962, que mostra Israel surgindo a partir de Canaã, carece de fundamento e está equivocada.
Levou “cascudos” de tudo quanto foi lado. Merecidos. Incorreu em vários equívocos conhecidos e amplamente debatidos por dezenas de especialistas nesta área.
Vale a pena acompanhar a polêmica que o artigo suscitou. E vale a pena ler mais sobre o assunto em vários textos, em português, que estão em minha página e em meu blog.
O artigo de Anson Rainey:
:: Inside, Outside: Where Did the Early Israelites Come From? – By Anson Rainey – BAR 34:06, Nov/Dec 2008 – Reproduzido em Bibbiablog
Before they settled in the hill country of Canaan, where did the earliest Israelites come from and what was the nature of their society? The Bible is very clear. They were pastoral nomads who came from east of the Jordan. Much of the scholarship of the last part of the 20th century, however, has reached a far different conclusion. One might almost describe it as diametrically opposed to the Biblical account. According to this scholarship, the Israelites were originally Canaanites fleeing from the city-states of the coastal plain west of the hill country.
Algumas reações:
:: Anson Rainey, ‘East of the Jordan’ is not ‘The Rest of the Ancient Near East’ – Posted by ntwrong at October 23, 2008 – Blog N. T. Wrong
Anson Rainey’s article in the latest BAR (34:06, Nov/Dec 2008) is a confused and misleading piece of popular apologetics. The best to be said for it is that, in trying to prove a Transjordanian origin for ‘Israel’, it has managed to undermine its broader thesis (which argues that the biblical account of Israel’s origins are historically true).
:: Rainey’s Selective Use of Evidence For Israelite Origins – Posted by Douglas Mangum at October 25, 2008 – Blog Biblia Hebraica
I’ve only just had the time to read over Anson Rainey’s recent BAR article on Israel’s origins. I have to admit I was baffled by his selective use of evidence and his conflation of archaeological, historical, and biblical material unrelated to his primary claim. He starts off on the wrong foot and continues down the non sequitur path. I’m sure his argument made sense in his own mind, but what he’s presented is a jumble of selectively chosen facts, a false dichotomy of competing theories, and a caricature of the evidence and arguments for Israelites as native Canaanites. There are so many issues with his assumptions and use of evidence that I can’t imagine taking the time to offer a complete critique. Fortunately, I don’t need to do all the work on this one. Several others have pointed out some of the issues with Rainey’s article already.
:: On The Selective Use Of Linguistic Data – Posted by Duane Smith at October 25, 2008 – Blog Abnormal Interests
The other day I accused Anson Rainey of selectively using linguistic data to make a point about the origins of the Hebrew language and the people who spoke it. In an earlier post I listed most, if not all, of Rainey’s examples and gave a couple of counter examples of my own. I decided to do a little experiment. I make no claim of completeness. First, I when through Garr’s table, 206-214, of isoglosses between various North West Semitic languages and noted those where Hebrew agreeds with Phoenician, more or less unambiguously, over against Aramaic. I may have missed one or two but here is I what found.
