Wouldn't it be helpful to discuss specific arguments?
In the end, it doesn't matter what a minority or majority currently thinks or what is extreme or not. As scientists, we are searching for truth and weighing up arguments. Sometimes even new arguments against a previous majority :-)
And based on my study, the result seems to me to be:
- Either CBH/LBH cannot be attributed to post-exilic and pre-exilic Hebrew – because several widespread CBH characteristics appear in Isa 40-66. If Isa 40-66 is dated to the post-exilic period, one must therefore justify and say that CBH could still be written after the exile (which is entirely possible). But then CBH and LBH in general simply do not indicate a chronological classification.
- Or one would have to reconsider whether a pre-exilic dating (of most of Isa 40-66 – smaller parts could of course have been added later – the language does not say anything about this) could also be a possibility.
Or are there objections to this? Both are possible, of course – one must consider which makes more sense in the overall picture. With the first solution, the question remains open for me: Is it plausible that there was no traceable chronological linguistic development? Or is there another option and linguistic features that trace a completely different development? So, for certain dates of the books in the Old Testament, is it possible to trace such a uniform linguistic development and linguistic features that are clearly distributed across different eras in other ways? Otherwise, what remains for me is the interesting finding that traditional dating of Isa 40-66 also yields a surprisingly coherent linguistic picture, for which I, at least, have not yet found a more uniform system.
Wouldn't it be helpful to discuss specific arguments?
In the end, it doesn't matter what a minority or majority currently thinks or what is extreme or not. As scientists, we are searching for truth and weighing up arguments. Sometimes even new arguments against a previous majority :-)
And based on my study, the result seems to me to be:
- Either CBH/LBH cannot be attributed to post-exilic and pre-exilic Hebrew – because several widespread CBH characteristics appear in Isa 40-66. If Isa 40-66 is dated to the post-exilic period, one must therefore justify and say that CBH could still be written after the exile (which is entirely possible). But then CBH and LBH in general simply do not indicate a chronological classification.
- Or one would have to reconsider whether a pre-exilic dating (of most of Isa 40-66 – smaller parts could of course have been added later – the language does not say anything about this) could also be a possibility.
Or are there objections to this? Both are possible, of course – one must consider which makes more sense in the overall picture. With the first solution, the question remains open for me: Is it plausible that there was no traceable chronological linguistic development? Or is there another option and linguistic features that trace a completely different development? So, for certain dates of the books in the Old Testament, is it possible to trace such a uniform linguistic development and linguistic features that are clearly distributed across different eras in other ways? Otherwise, what remains for me is the interesting finding that traditional dating of Isa 40-66 also yields a surprisingly coherent linguistic picture, for which I, at least, have not yet found a more uniform system.