« Steve Lopez and Margaret Carlson on the Katrina Debacle
Main
Media and Politics Clash in the Wake of Katrina »
September 9, 2005
The Tell Dan Stele and Bayes' Method
Jim West at Biblical Theology, Joseph Cathey at Dr Cathey's Blog, Chris Heard at Higgaion and others have been carrying on an abnormally interesting discussion of historical methodology. You should go back through the threads on their sites to get a more complete discussion of the debate than I will offer here. The latest round has focused on the Tell Dan stele.
Chris Heard writes:
I am aware of the various debates over how to read בית דוד in that inscription (and the accusations of forgery, which I find implausible), but in my judgment, given the genre of the inscription and attested contemporary or near-contemporary idioms (e.g., Akkadian Bīt- Humrî, "House of Omri," that is, dynastic lineage of Omri), the strongest case lies with those who read it as "House of David" in the sense of a royal dynasty.
This is a very modest claim, made more so by Heard's comments regarding it. But Jim West objects. I will not rehearse all of his objections here. You can read them yourself. But I do want to point out one of his objections as a segway into two points that I would like to make regarding these kinds of debates.
First, בית - can mean "house", or "dynasty", "household", "family", "estate", "palace", and even "place" or "container" (see the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew- ad loc.). So why have "maximalists" insisted on "house" or "dynasty"? Is it perhaps possible that a) their preconceptions demand that rendering while other possibilities have not even been considered? Or perhaps b) they are interpreting the word only in the confines of its standard usage. Whichever it is, it seems shortsighted to not at least consider, evaluate, present, and weigh other options.
I want to focus on West's item b) which I have highlighted. I will return to item a) in a moment. It seems to me that, when there is doubt with regard to interpretation "standard" usage of an expression is also the most parsimonious usage to that expression. That brings me to the first point I want to make.
First point: I think this debate and its root discussion could be informed by the use of a more formal application of Bayes' method. I am thinking along the lines outlined in Merrilee Salmon's book Philosophy and Archaeology , 50-54. West does suggest that others "weigh other options." This may be interpreted as an indirect Bayesian approach. But I do think that these debates can be helped by clearly expressing what one thinks the probabilities of the various options are. This doesn't mean that precise numeric values need be given to the Bayesian probabilities; terms like "very likely", "very unlikely", "it could go either way" and so forth provide a place to start. However, I do wonder what numeric probability West would assign to "the container of David" as an interpretation of ביתדוד in the Tell Dan stele.
Bayes' method involves a formulaic approach to determining how a body of evidence increases or decreases the probability that a given statement is correct. It is more then simply assigning probabilities. But assigning probabilities is at least a place to start. An important part of Bayes' method is the nonzero prior probability of any hypothesis. This leads me to my second point.
Second point: I would like to see a moratorium on the use of the word "proof" with or without scare quotes. I would like to extend the moratorium to implications that something is proven. Mathematicians and logicians have proofs. The rest of us have confirming or disconfirming evidence. This is true for scientists, biblical scholars and even semi retired marketing guys.
Chris Heard said
If you happen to disagree with me, you are wrong, but not (necessarily) evil, stupid, or blinded by some perverse ideology.
I would much prefer that he had said,
"If you happen to disagree with me, you are most likely wrong, but not (necessarily) evil, stupid, or blinded by some perverse ideology."
In fact, I think that is what he meant but it would help to say it. Now, some of the evidence we have is contaminated. The rich and pervasive theological nature of the various Biblical texts combined with the fact that few, if any of them, are contemporaneous with the events they describe can well be seen as contaminating any and all historical evidence within them and therefore reducing their value as historical sources to little or nothing. However, I can not help but wonder how West, for example, would interpret the Tell Dan stele if David had had the same, relatively small, number of verses applied to him as was spent on, say, Omri. My worry is that the more the theological "overhead" in shear volume, the more the evidence seems contaminated. Remember West's item a) above. But while the Biblical Omri account is relatively short it is itself theologically loaded.
A final remark, the dispute underlying the discussion of the Tell Dan stele is a difficult one for a layperson to get a handle on. While I may seem to be siding with Heard against West in this particularly issue, my intention is to raise questions rather than give answers. I remain committed that a layperson should withhold opinion or at a best offer only an extremely qualified opinion when there is not a scholarly consensus. The exception I would make is when the layperson has done enough homework to have something to offer to the scholarly debate. And, on this issue, I'm just too lazy to do my homework.
Posted by Duane Smith at September 9, 2005 12:19 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telecomtally.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1349
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Tell Dan Stele and Bayes' Method:
» The Tel Dan stele: enlarging the conversation from Higgaion
I link to Duane Smith's comments on the Tel Dan stele and historical methodology. [Read More]
Tracked on September 10, 2005 9:51 AM
Comments
Duane, thanks for the thoughtful addition to the discussion. One little note: in my Higgaion post quoted above, the phrase "you are wrong" was followed by a smiley-face icon intended to serve as a kind of "wink" indicating that the case is not really as certain as the foregoing phrase ("you are wrong") would suggest. Unfortunately, web images aren't transportable in cut-and-paste operations, so the smiley isn't visible in the above quotation. So when I wrote "you are wrong :-)," I hoped that would be taken as "I think you're wrong, but feel free to disagree."
Posted by: Christopher Heard at September 10, 2005 9:09 AM
Chris,
Sorry, you are correct; thanks for pointing out that neglected to insert the very important happy face. I have now added to the main body of the post. I intended to add it originally but go so wrapped up in trying to get two small Hebrew words to remain in the correct order that I forgot to insert the happy face.
Your happy face was the principle evidence for my comment, "I think that is what he meant, but it would help to say it."
Posted by: Duane at September 10, 2005 9:58 AM
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.
Send me an email if it is important.