Comment 72
Steefen:
Use the best method.
Did I make a request of the Oracle of Delphi?
Why be so elusive?
Let me ask a direct question to see if I get a better result:
Why shouldn’t linguists follow the comparative method and instead follow the sounds-like “method” that Ammon espouses?
I asked Claude and Gemini the following:
Why should linguists follow the comparative method and not the sounds-like method?
Although they went into detail, I’ll only share the first part of the responses:
1) “In historical linguistics, the Comparative Method is the gold standard because it seeks to uncover systematic history, while the “sounds-like” principle (often called Folk Etymology or Chance Resemblance) usually leads to dead ends or coincidences.
The core difference lies in regularity versus randomness.”
2) “The comparative method is linguistically rigorous while the “sounds-like method” (identifying words as related simply because they sound similar) is misleading and unreliable.”
BJH1960 said
I asked Claude and Gemini the following:
Why should linguists follow the comparative method and not the sounds-like method?
Although they went into detail, I’ll only share the first part of the responses:
1) “In historical linguistics, the Comparative Method is the gold standard because it seeks to uncover systematic history, while the “sounds-like” principle (often called Folk Etymology or Chance Resemblance) usually leads to dead ends or coincidences.
The core difference lies in regularity versus randomness.”
2) “The comparative method is linguistically rigorous while the “sounds-like method” (identifying words as related simply because they sound similar) is misleading and unreliable.”
Yes, an excellent example of the difference between requesting that generative AI be creative or to make critical judgements on a hotly contested field, and requesting it to summarize a current strong consensus.
It can be excellent for this kind of “Intro 101” synopsis, where the distinction is so straightforward that it is not just a consensus among the experts in the field, but also among general consumers of that expertise whose discussion may form a substantial part of the database for the statistical model.
If the goodness of fit statistics generated by Claude and Gemini were provided to the public, as they would be by research grade generative AI model runs, it would surely be a very high fit.
Now, it’s not uniquely good for this kind of “Intro 101” synopsis, as they would also likely to be readily available by a browser that is not excessively laden with monetization as opposed to browsing functions.
…the sounds-like “method” that Ammon espouses…
“Sounds-like” sounds like the “looks-like” method beloved of pseudo-scientists in Ancient Astronaut speculation. Since Erich Von Daniken recently sloughed off this mortal coil I will take an example from his imaginings.
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Comment 81
Use the Power Lawn Mower since this is 2026.
Did the horse get you from point a to point b? Well, not only do we have cars now, we have Hybrid cars and electric cars that can get you from point a to point b in a more thorough and effective way.
Comment 82
King David is a composite character of historical fiction.
King Solomon is a historical fiction character.
The Quest for the Historical Israel, Israel Finkelstein said: Hebrew writing started around the 8th or 9th century BCE. Meaningful writing started around the 8th century BCE. This is after the historical Labaya, the biblical King Saul, King David, and King Solomon. The original language of the biblical book of Joshua, the Psalms, and Proverbs:
- Joshua → Classical Biblical Hebrew, but written down in its present form no earlier than the late monarchic / early exilic period (8th–6th c. BCE), drawing on older oral and possibly fragmentary written sources.
-
Psalms → Biblical Hebrew, with multiple layers:
- Early royal/cultic Hebrew (pre-exilic),
- Standard monarchic Hebrew,
- Late/exilic and post-exilic Hebrew,
- A few Aramaic-influenced psalms.
- Proverbs → Biblical Hebrew, but late monarchic to post-exilic, with clear evidence of scribal school composition and international wisdom influence (especially Egyptian).
So: Hebrew is the language, but the writing down comes later than the events the texts describe.
There is no evidence that:
- Joshua
- Psalms
- Proverbs
were originally written in:
- Sumerian ❌
- Akkadian ❌
- Egyptian ❌
- Aramaic ❌ (though Aramaic influence appears later)
But there is strong evidence they absorbed:
- Mesopotamian mythic motifs
- Egyptian wisdom traditions
- West Semitic poetic structures
They were composed in Hebrew, but largely written down in Hebrew centuries after the periods they describe, often from oral traditions, court lore, cultic hymns, and ideological memory.
How many Psalms are “of David”?
- The Book of Psalms has 150 psalms
- 73 are labeled le-David (לְדָוִד)
But le- does not mean “written by” in a strict sense. It can mean:
- “belonging to”
- “in the style of”
- “for”
- “associated with”
- “from the Davidic tradition”
Ancient Hebrew did not use authorship the way we do.
Other attributed groups
Psalms are explicitly attributed to multiple sources:
- Asaph (12 psalms: 50, 73–83)
- The Sons of Korah (11 psalms: 42–49, 84–85, 87–88)
- Solomon (Pss 72, 127)
- Moses (Ps 90)
- Heman the Ezrahite (Ps 88)
- Ethan the Ezrahite (Ps 89)
And many psalms are anonymous.
What this tells us historically
- Psalms is a collection, not a book written by one person
-
It spans several centuries:
- Early monarchic cultic poetry
- Royal ideology
- Exilic lament
- Post-exilic liturgy
- “David” functions as a foundational symbolic figure — a patron of sacred music — not a sole author
This is directly parallel to:
- “Solomonic” wisdom
- “Mosaic” law
- “Homeric” epics
Why this matters (especially for historical accuracy)
If all Psalms were Davidic, we’d expect:
- Uniform theology ❌
- Uniform language ❌
- Uniform historical assumptions ❌
Instead we see:
- Temple theology after Solomon
- Exilic trauma (“by the rivers of Babylon”)
- Persian-period universalism
Which proves layered composition, not single authorship.
Bottom line
David is a tradition-anchor, not the sole composer.
The Psalms preserve Israel’s worship memory across generations, edited and canonized long after the earliest compositions.
King David almost certainly did not have a fixed, written “copy of the Torah” in the way later Judaism understands it.
Now the careful historical unpacking.
If David had Torah traditions, what language were they in?
Spoken language
- Early Hebrew (Northwest Semitic)
-
Closely related to:
- Phoenician
- Moabite
- Edomite
This is the language David and his court would have spoken and heard.
If anything was written at all, what would it have looked like?
Language
- Early / Archaic Hebrew (not Classical Biblical Hebrew)
- Less standardized
- Largely formulaic and cultic
Script
- Proto-Canaanite / Paleo-Hebrew script
- Visually similar to early Phoenician
- Not the later square Aramaic script used in biblical manuscripts
Think inscriptions, not books.
But here’s the key historical point
In David’s time (c. 1000 BCE):
- There was no Pentateuch
- No Genesis–Deuteronomy corpus
- No continuous legal narrative
- No Deuteronomistic theology yet
What likely existed instead were:
-
Oral traditions
- Patriarchal stories
- Exodus memories
- Tribal laws
-
Short written items (at most)
- Covenant formulas
- Cultic laws
- Victory hymns
- Royal or temple liturgy
Comparable to:
- Early Greek epic before Homer was written
- Vedic hymns before compilation
- Sumerian myths before canonization
So what didn’t David have?
- ❌ A scroll of Genesis–Deuteronomy
- ❌ A Mosaic law code as we know it
- ❌ A centralized national scripture
Those emerge centuries later, especially:
- Late monarchic period (8th–7th c. BCE)
- Josianic reforms
- Exilic and post-exilic redaction
The most precise answer you can give
If David possessed Torah traditions, they would have existed primarily in oral form, spoken in early Hebrew. Any written material would have been fragmentary, composed in archaic Hebrew using a proto-Canaanite (paleo-Hebrew) script, long before the Pentateuch took its later literary shape.
That answer will stand up in:
- Archaeology
- Biblical studies
- Textual criticism
- ANE comparative history
And it fits perfectly with Finkelstein, Römer, Van Seters, and Cross.
David had the Ten Commandments!
Maybe David did not have the Ten Commandments.
The Bible said the Ten Commandments were re-written.
In later Israelite and Jewish tradition, no one treats Exodus 34:10–26 as what is in the Ark.
When people say “the Ten Commandments in the Ark,” they mean:
- Exodus 20 / Deuteronomy 5
- The ethical Decalogue
- Two stone tablets
- A fixed, authoritative text
That is how the tradition solidified.
But here is the historical problem scholars are dealing with
The Bible itself creates a tension you can’t wish away:
- Exodus 34:28 explicitly says those commands are “the Ten Words”
- Exodus 20 never says it is what was written after the calf incident
- Deuteronomy 10:1–5 says tablets were rewritten — but without repeating the text
So the text preserves multiple memories, not one clean story.
Why “nobody talks about Exodus 34” is actually the point
Later tradition selects:
- Ethical Decalogue = Ark contents
- Ritual Decalogue = sidelined
That selection tells us something about when the tradition was stabilized.
Later theology needed:
- Universal ethics
- Portable moral law
- Covenant beyond temple ritual
So Exodus 20 wins the memory battle.
The question you’re really asking (and it’s fair)
Does the Ark + Temple tradition require the ethical Ten Commandments to already exist in David’s time?
Historically: No.
Traditionally: Yes.
Those answers are different because they belong to different explanatory frameworks.
The tightest statement that respects your objection
By the time Israel’s tradition stabilized, the Ark was understood to contain the ethical Decalogue. Historically, earlier covenant traditions—reflected in Exodus 34—were likely reinterpreted and overwritten by later theological developments.
This does not deny:
- The Ark
- David’s religiosity
- Israel’s continuity
It explains why Exodus 34 survives at all — as a fossil.
One last clarification (important)
Scholars do not argue:
“Exodus 34 is what everyone believed was in the Ark.”
They argue:
“Exodus 34 preserves an older covenant form that later Israel redefined.”
That’s a big difference.
Bottom line
You are absolutely right about tradition and reception.
Exodus 34 matters not because it was remembered — but because it wasn’t, and yet the text still insists on calling it the Ten Words.
Abraham did not bring the language of Sumer into a culture that only had proto-Hebrew.
Abraham didn’t bring the Sumerian language because:
- He’s not a historical Sumerian migrant
- He’s a theological ancestor constructed later
- His Mesopotamian setting provides authority, not ancestry
- Language was deliberately not inherited, because it would expose the borrow
Steefen, from what I can gather from Post 87, you recognize the comparative method as being superior to the sounds-like principle and believe it’s the one linguists should use. You also acknowledge Hebrew is not derived from Greek (Post 91) as Ammon (Post 12) and Yahuda (Post 25) have claimed. Is that accurate?
BJH1960 said
Steefen, from what I can gather from Post 87, you recognize the comparative method as being superior to the sounds-like principle and believe it’s the one linguists should use. You also acknowledge Hebrew is not derived from Greek (Post 91) as Ammon (Post 12) and Yahuda (Post 25) have claimed. Is that accurate?
Steefen
It’s not that important to me.
I’m satisfied with what Luke and Ammon said.
I don’t have an axe to grind.
= = = =
Now, I have watched some of the Gnostic Informant video.
The Gnostic Informant said Luke should have demanded that Ammon support his argument with a specific example of magical text (not just a categorical mention of magical text) that supported his sounds-like principle position. I remember Luke mentioning Ammon conflated three separate issues in his claim that magical texts supported his methodology.
= = = =
No, your statement is not accurate. What of “It’s not that important to me” do you not understand? What of “I took notes on a conversation, and I’m watching a second video by Gnostic Informant about that conversation do you not understand? When the second video discusses this topic and I am watching that part of the video, I might have more notes to take.
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