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In the new-orientating book-series, “Assassinating
Moses”, new and sensational material about the historical Moses are presented by
Ove von Spaeth. The publishing are contributing to new insights in an essential
part of our history and cultural background. Nobody had ever before written five
books about this, not even a two-volume work about
Moses.
The
reception of the books has been surrounded by the most positive interest - and
also some pyres. From the latter, mostly academic, group the books have often
been met with a peculiar attitude and even an actual stage of war - i.e.
circumstances that have caused interested parts to put forward their objections
against the methods of the attackers. Also based on the radical impact raised by
the books it has been concluded that the importance of the books cannot be
neglected.
Critical resistance against new theses - and against old and tested theses as
well - are science’s vital guidelines. Critical resistance can give a recharging
and also push forward our knowledge to increased recognition. And, concerning
the unfortunate actions from the aforementioned group, this article are going to
illustrate essential principles which have an effect on all of us when we are
recipients of results from the sciences.
Pros and
Cons
Initially, here a reply is presented to all the many kindly
expressions about the books - on the Internet and in many letters: thank you for
your kind interest and co-insight. Indeed, undeniably the material, which forms
the background in the information of the books, has proved to be very inspiring.
And now it appears, that the many new facts presented in the book-series - which
certain groups (within some university lines) chose to find provocative -
eventually are giving even further support to the material’s already strong
foothold. Note, however: from the beginning and continuously, these books on
Moses have not been aiming at being provocative. And the text of the books is
not at all intentionally polemical.
Definitely, it has been a positive
experience that so many - especially also academic people - have taken the
opportunity to contradict a special kind of academic behaviour (in a number of
typical cases) towards the books. The following presents some interesting
features.
The question here is not, of course, whether the books have
been positively reviewed or not; that is not essential in connection with the
subject. What really matters, however, is the fact that the books contain an
unusually amount of research material collected during 25 years - and also a
bibliography on almost everything of 120 years’ informative publications on
Moses, now concentrated in one edition or collection. The books are thoroughly
analyzing much material which was so far neglected, and are pointing out a
number of new, expanded historical perspectives inevitably obtained by that.
Whether or not the results can be agreed upon on this background is
rather unimportant taking into consideration that now for the first time a
major, coherent material is finally presented and available to be used for
further research. In future no explaining may be acceptable for researching in
Moses without focusing on these sources, being now generally accessible to such
a broad extent. Being without could be scientifically unserious.
Neglecting Important Sources
A qualified opposition is an essential part of the scientific
process. Nevertheless the priority of the material of the books has caused
compulsive disturbance and inexplicable anger despite the fact that the official
research so far had avoided to deal with the majority of the material. The
frequently generalising accusations against the books, e.g. in reviews and on
the Internet, make it difficult to know exactly which subjects may have caused
some molestation of the academic representatives in question, and for that
reason: a more professional way of expressing their disagreement with the books
should have been possible to deliver.
From Antiquity a comprehensive
number of sources are known (for instance the ancient writers and the early
Rabbinical text-collections), which in connection with the material arriving
from especially modern archaeology have necessitated a new evaluation of Moses
as a historical figure with a long-range influence on posterity. If we will open
to this knowledge and new orientation we shall be able to better understand many
circumstances in our history as being also a background for our present culture
and standards.
Sometimes we can experience, for instance, after a
politician have been warned against unwanted consequences, that he uses a
certain cliché by saying, “I cannot imagine that”; this may reveal that this
ability in fact is to be desired or alternatively he should have hold another
job. It cannot be denied, that similar situations also are observed within
science, where solutions to problems there have no unambiguous interpretation
can be experienced to be met with an automatic denial, if the solution is found
not to be in accordance with “local” trends. For instance, one of these trends
is the idea that “the Bible is a myth”.
This is in particular the case
within Egyptology and Theology - if not in general then at present among
dominant schools, where the mentioned trends’ often less well-reflected,
so-called reality images are meticulously maintained, and upheld although having
been radically ill reputed for a long time due to an abundant, new material and
its new perspectives.
In this way a lot of new data from different
scientific areas have been rejected, for instance more exact data about a better
determination of time for one of the most important Egyptian periods (i.e. the
18th and 19th dynasties). Likewise, it is rejected that John Garstang’s
archaeological excavation of Jericho - published in 1940 - contains important
indications, although these are corresponding in minute detail to the biblical
narrative about the actions of the Israelites at this city. Poorly informed
critics, in fact, should criticise their own steps, when they place themselves
as targets for present day lack of history.
The rejection of the biblical
information is maintained by the influential academic schools, although
Garstang’s results are confirmed multiple, for instance by modern ceramic dating
methods (e.g. by John J. Bimson), and have never been proved wrong, but have
been hidden conveniently. The selection of this kind of material of the
book-series on Moses has also been disputed for being too “one-sided”, which is
curious because so many of these important sources in particularly are not at
all to be observed as forming a part of the same critics’ own foundations and
texts.
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Competency or Diffuse Discontent
On the exact analysis methods to be used by the research in
question a short overview can be given here for laymen. To the critical
procedure when dealing with historical subjects, distinctions - although not
completely - are made between especially three main groups of historical
sources, i.e. 1) written documentation (for instance
inscriptions and archive items); and 2) non-written
documentation (normally called material sources, for instance archaeological
artefacts and dating); and 3) traditions (for instance still
living traditions and anthropological traces).
For extracting further
knowledge from the factors, three indirect ways can be used:
4) the negative argumentation (substantiated contradictive
testing); 5) the decision stemming from
experience/suppositions; and 6) the independent deduction by
logics (a priori argumentation) based solely on facts. All the means could be
included with the process of evaluation of sources. The methods were chosen and
arranged into a concept by Ch. de Smedt in “Principes de la critique de
historique” (Liège, Paris 1884) and are being used internationally, not the
least in English speaking countries. Also they are often seen being in official
use, even by the Catholic Church’s academic biblical research and history
research.
In addition, an important condition (method) also being used
in exact science is this: a theory actually has to be self-consistent (i.e. not
self-contradictive). Also here, however, the “bible-myth” hypothesis is seen to
be failing, because of its refusal of any Israelite invasion and their action of
destroying Jericho, approx. 1400 BC. By the fact that the city remained a ruin
in 1200 BC the schools in question are placing the dating thus 200 years later
than 1400 BC, and hereby maintain that the “proof” of the myth-hypothesis is
that the destruction of the city was not possible (obviously not) at this
late.
A more recently accepted discipline is the so-called contra-factual
history writing, a method already used by Pascal for special hypotheses.
However, this method is now seen being “misunderstood” by certain reviewers, who
have produced unrecognizable accounts from the book-series on Moses - but
professional people when making reviews should have abstained from misquoting to
a great amount.
On these backgrounds it seems peculiar that documented
counter-argumentations have not been existing in the critical resistance against
the book-series’ presentation of historic-factual relations. As a prior matter,
of course, questions for instance about to the degree of success of the use of
methods in the books, should have been asked, (whereas the very selection of
method would generally have been approved within of today’s recognised and
defendable method of pluralism).
Another important point is the fact that
substantial founded questions have not been asked about the correctness (or
plausibility) or incorrectness of data of the books. It should be evident that
even in case of possible less avoidable incorrectness in the latter (data), this
does not necessarily hit the first (the goals achieved). But it is
inappropriate, for taking stand of any kind, only to criticise the books by
mobilising diffuse discontent just the way this has happened. In short, the
book-series on Moses have not been evaluated according to scientific criteria by
opponents from certain theological schools and their from a scientific view
non-defensible biblical myth-theories.
Unverified Hypothesis Used as an
Indisputable Fact
Such a denial-of-problem (the myth-hypothesis)
as being exposed here (above) should be met with a certain indulgence; - also
because the presented frustration of many of the critics in question should be
understood by observing an often seen practise of limiting focus to only the
information usable to maintain their own views - often done to satisfy alone
what is expected.
To them it may present a problem thus undesirable to
find conditions not fitting into the previously accepted patterns. To know what
you are looking for is being limited by what you know already. As pointed out by
Karl Popper (1902-1994), the Scientific Philosopher, observations are depending
on theories; and furthermore, that probability is a poor target for the science.
Also reality shows that openness and contact to controversial subjects (the less
probably for the time being) can be strengthening to scientific capacity.
Whereas “traps of conception” may easily appear, when somebody in fact believes
to know more about their own subjects, if they know less about the fields of
others.
Of course the problem is more serious when information and
arguments are being pretended to be over and above debate, - like the so-called
antinomies, e.g. as the medieval clerical dogmas, which in principle should not
be refuted. But science must not work as a religious authority or a totalitarian
inquisition - if somebody should dare to commit ‘the ‘crime of going against the
established opinion. A closed system creates monopolies of lines of approach and
the evaluations. The books with new research on Moses present controversial
material - a fact that hardly can be non-existent, so instead the messenger can
be punished.
Typically, several theological-academic reviewers have
based their rejection of the data and evidential material of the books by
asserting that their maintaining that the Bible (the Old Testament) consists of
a number of myths without special real-historical connections. This was a trendy
hypothesis long ago, but through the last hundred years many relating hypotheses
have been added, which have caused people involved to refer to this untenable
construction’s latest off-springs or issues, as if these were a full-proof
fact.
The unfortunate ‘science myth’, which without arguments has
promoted itself from hypothesis to ‘fact’, can be seen as an actual attitude of
research policy almost favouring, that past events have never took place, but
are existing as fiction only. From this stage of disrespect for the ancient
reports, a number of important findings are also being rejected despite that
their very existence are in the strongest opposition to be subject for
rejection, and that they are destabilizing the researchers’ own myths. The fact
becomes even more evident on the background of the broad perspectives appearing
when the number of professional lines are being combined, for instance when
executed as by the book-series on Moses.
When these books openly and
meticulously state the sources and clearly refer about which capacities have
been saying what, where, and how about exact findings and historical relations,
it is far from professionally relevant to continue - without the least
moderation - to refuse it all as myths, especially not when this
myth-argumentation never in the specific cases is seen supported by exact
sources.
It has never been the intension that scientists should appear as
bureaucratic commissioners defending themselves against perspectives of other
kind. In that way they will never be able to live up to scientific integrity and
objectivity - because when, for instance, two interpretations of a material seem
to be possible, a serious and honest evaluation should be an obligation. Yet,
the intension with these examples is not to refute a number of factual errors,
but only to present a basic reason for their appearance: if some biblical texts
may contain “myths” it is obvious a mistake to let this be automatically valid
in general for text groups alså of almost all the other periods of the Old
Testament.
When Provisional Models Are
Mistaken for Facts
The Bible is the most scrutinized book in the
world - and yet something goes wrong. 400 years ago Steno (Niels Stensen) -
although very religious - was able to present two new scientific lines about the
history of the planet separated from the clerical edition of religion. He did it
by the use of principles so logical that it contributed as a decisive element in
the basis of modern scientific methods.
Thus, all the now presented
progresses through history of science - including examples of what
scientific views appropriately can be based on - have been known for a long
time. So there is actually no excuse for having not comprehended this and used
it in serious, scientific procedures - and also in alternative
research results of the biblical narratives on Moses.
Two ideas of
attitude seem to be preferred among research lines on the Bible: - Either to be
over-careful in interpreting the findings. Actually, reactions can here be seen
due to previous wrong tracks, where confidence was lost to the biblical texts as
real-history material due to those researchers’ own lack of knowledge. - Or, the
findings are interpreted with such a narrow focus on the mini-area locally,
historically, and text-wise, that the influence of the surrounding world is
systematically forgotten. Especially the majority of the comprehensive and so
especially important Egyptian influence is
“neglected”.
Still, in science a critical opposition has to watch out for
the Pavlovian conditioned reflex deeply rooted in habitual opinion. Because - as
for instance Jean-Paul Sartre said about the idea of history - almost nothing
changes as often as the past: later generations are creating their own image of
history. The related changing sets of assumptions - called paradigms by Thomas
Kuhn, the Physicist and Science Historian - have for various generations been
the operative basis for the scientific work, through times. In a historical
analysis Kuhn shows that paradigms would typically cause a sort of collective
blindness connected with irrational motives.
However, by entire
generations within bible-related research it is again and again forgotten the
hypothetical background - e.g. the historical sequence, which
covers the biblical period where Moses’ Pentateuch should be placed, has no
definite image but only provisional models. Considerations, whatever reasonable
they may be, are not facts! Lack of knowledge has given rise to a vast number of
opinions. Opinions are frequently mistaken for knowledge.
To be tracing
to the widest extent the exact sources and informing data is, of course, a
necessity. When interpreting this material the disagreement will often arise -
always so necessary for science. When at this basic level new sources and data
are being dismissed or even not inspected, it is really regrettable.
And
it is not unusual that an expert-tyranny is sheltering themselves behind
exorcise formula like “everybody knows” or “it is obvious that” - referring to
their present prioritized trends. Actually, it requires quite some courage of
one’s conviction to go against this. Especially the book-series on Moses
presents an unusually amount of sources, allowing the readers to get acquainted
with many different points of views and research alternatives - including those
they would not themselves have selected in advance. Simultaneously it can even
be avoided that these possibilities beforehand will be subject to a sentence of
being expelled when competing with the hitherto trends.
The material’s
richness, possibilities, and presentation appears thus to have caused
problematic reactions by certain university people. Written on the official
letter paper of his Institute one of the academic teachers of the University of
Copenhagen has sent a detest-letter to the personnel of the publishers of the
book-series on Moses now presenting completely undocumented and defamatory
accusations against the books and their writer.
Also, by false
disguising as reviewers from a magazine, and hiding that the magazine did not
existed any longer, two other persons from the same (Carsten Niebuhr-) Institute
tried - with no luck - to perform a negative pressure on a group of scientific
people, who were supporting the book-series. Apparently, the considerable amount
of sources structuring the books were too hard to produce an argumentation
against. This ought to have suggested the unfortunate actors some humility by
experiencing thus, that several angles of history can still teach us
something.
Perspectives By New
Insights
If the trendsetters are always right, then how do we
collect new knowledge? Non-agreement is what drive science forward, so that we
can grow wiser. Staying one-eyed will limit, whereas two eyes present a stereo
vision in several dimensions on things. Phobia and opinions against those
perspectives which are going outside of the researchers’ myths about Moses,
prevent recognition and analyses of the right-under-our-eyes historical reality
of many old and new findings.
Thus, it is a fatal blunder to use also
later offshoots of the aforementioned and from the beginning very insecure
complex of hypothesis. Although the hypothesis was never able to deliver any
significant proof of either history or the justification for its continuance, it
is now seen used as a kind of verity parameter to evaluate the reliability of
the book-series on Moses.
This kind of “test” has thus been executed
erroneously by being based on definite incompetent premises which, also, create
considerable doubt as to whether the books at all have been read by the
reviewers in question - e.g. because the book-series do not
maintain that the Bible in its present edition is always historically
correct. Whereas the contents of the books instead are referring to the fact
that several parts of the oldest biblical core prove surprisingly
plausible and well-founded - and thoroughly logically cohesive with a
outstanding amount of findings and ancient sources.
In 1942, Robert K.
Merton, the American Science Sociologist, presented certain rules (the Cudos
norm) - widely used internationally in connection with scientific integrity. So,
according to these, for instance, “disinterestedness” must be adhered to as:
research must be impartial. But the aforementioned, narrow, selective
information has proved also to influence textbooks and examination requirements.
Within humanities an irrational scenario is here to be seen, in which
well-tested results from other lines of research may be rejected or ignored by
trusting own discourses as being representative of reality. The unfortunate
imbalance benefits judgemental ideas and arrogance of preferences, i.e. an
unscholarly manner which can obstruct the possibility of a real debate.
Nevertheless, reviews might be written without respect for special background
knowledge. The result will reflect the method, however.
And yet it can
also be seen that representatives of the new generation of researchers may show
the way to a break through the formerly often narrow, academic limits. The way
is being prepared for constructive, scientific work and for turning
disagreements into a positive tension, hopefully leading to improvements. As for
the research on Moses is concerned, it is encouraging that also that many
outsiders have proved a severe interest in this project.
Ove von
Spaeth
Writer, Historian, Independent
Researcher - Copyright © 2002 - www.moses-egypt.net
Ove von Spaeth’s book-series "Assasinating
Moses" - C.A. Reitzel Publisher and Booksellar, Copenhagen - info@careitzel.com
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