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To: editor-surveyor; metmom; ealgeone

Miles who?

An internet search turns up nothing whatsoever. Hardly a foremost expert.

Oh wait, the link is from a painfully biased source.

I should pay attention to this guy no one ever heard of instead of centuries of history why again?


295 posted on 08/02/2018 11:49:12 AM PDT by Luircin
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To: Luircin

.
You can live with your embraced confusion. I’ve given up trying to get through to you.
.


307 posted on 08/02/2018 2:26:52 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Luircin
Miles who?

I found this interesting article that questions the "foremost expert" attribution on Miles Jones:

https://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2012/09/26/Was-An-Archaeological-Forgery-Mistakenly-Portrayed-As-Authentic.aspx

    After my article was posted online, Dr. Miles Jones came forward to take responsibility for translating the name “Yahweh” on the tablet. Jones has a Ph.D. in (modern) foreign language education from the University of Texas at Austin. In Dr. Jones’ biographical information there is no mention of any background or training in Hebrew or any other Semitic languages, especially South Semitic, or Thamudic, the language of the inscribed stone. This language needs to be mastered before one can properly translate this text.

    Dr. Jones self-published a non-peer reviewed book entitled The Writing of God. In the book Jones attempted to interact with my above-mentioned article. He tried to dismiss the possibility that this inscription was a forgery because: “In Saudi Arabia there is no antiquities market selling artifacts to tourists. There are no tourists in Saudi Arabia” (2010:147). The statement is incorrect on two counts. First, Dr. Macdonald, writing from personal experience, informs me that: “His [Jones’] statement that there are no fakes or forgeries in Saudi Arabia merely displays a complete ignorance of the situation in the Middle East, and he is very naïve if he really believes that because something is against the law in any country (even with draconian punishments) some people will not take the risk of law-breaking for profit” (personal correspondence, October 24, 2009, emphasis added).

    Second, contrary to Jones’ statement, there are many foreign tourists visiting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia every year. The statistics from 1996 to the last recorded Hajj (2011) state that there were well over one million foreigners each year that made the pilgrimage to Mecca for the Hajj. Interestingly, the owner of the object in question was given the inscribed artifact by the Saudi prince who was the governor of Mecca (2010:147), the same city where the Hajj takes place.

    Jones further attempts to convince the reader that Macdonald’s and Younger’s identification of the letters and translation of the word YHWH are incorrect. Yet, an understanding of the ancient language in question leads one to the conclusion that the artifact is not genuine. For example, the diacritical marks underneath the letters “wḥẖy” are in the text of the article. But the Semitic letter H with a line under it (ẖ) and the Semitic letter H with a dot under it (ḥ) are two different Semitic letters rather than the plain Semitic letter H, like in the word YHWH. So the letters that made up the word on the inscribed object do not spell “YHWH,” whichever direction it is read. Jones also said that “the ‘dot’ under the H is a pit in the stone” (2010:148). However, the diacritical marks underneath the letter “H” are scholarly convention for familiar modern Latin letters to represent Semitic letters and do not appear in the ancient lettering! Further, it has nothing to do with the pit in the stone.

    Jones also attempts to dismiss the suggestion by Dr. Kahn that the object with the inscription was “recently scultured” [sic] by saying “the patina within the grooves of the engraving is the same color as the rest of the stone, a sign of its age. It is not a newly made gash in the stone” (2010:148). Yet, it is common knowledge among antiquities collectors that a modern forgery can be buried in the ground for a year or more after it is made in order to give it the appearance of age and patina.


334 posted on 08/02/2018 7:01:20 PM PDT by boatbums (Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy he saved us.)
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