Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Author of the Torah

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>
  • To: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
  • Cc: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Author of the Torah
  • Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 16:03:07 -0400


On Friday, July 29, 2005, at 03:58 PM, Heard, Christopher wrote:

On Jul 29, 2005, at 12:46 PM, Brian Roberts wrote:
I would also want to know which canon is being referred to here? The
universal elements shared by all canons? Or are talking about LXX
versus
Masoretic again? Or the Christian OT?

Brian,

Of course, I can only speak for myself, but on this particular thread
we have been discussing the Torah, which has the same "table of
contents" in all of the canons you listed above, plus the Eastern
Orthodox, Slavonic, Ethiopic, Samaritan, and any other Judeo-
Christian traditions you want to name.

Now, of course, if the Tanakh itself includes references to a five-
book Torah, the authors would be presupposing neither the Masoretic
Text nor the LXX nor the Samaritan Pentateuch nor a DSS text-type,
but a (theoretical, but in my judgment almost unassailably probable)
precursor text-type that all of these later text-types would share in
common.

Of course, it would be entirely legitimate to question whether the
fairly simplistic
"family bush" model I've used above is valid, that is, to interrogate
my assumption of *a* single "canonical Torah," be it text or text-
type, from which all of the extant text-types descend. But that is a
big question to which I have no ready answer.

In any event, if the LXX project was indeed begun c. 385 BCE, that is
good evidence that by c. 400 the Torah/Pentateuch was seen and
circulating as such, that is, as a collection of five books, Genesis
through Deuteronomy. The unresolved question is how much *earlier*
that happened, and whether any of the Tanakh references to "the book
of the law of Moses" refer to that five-book collection as such.

Chris

Thanks for the clarification. I would also suggest not placing too many eggs in the "precursor text-type" basket, because, attractive as the idea is, it is also inadmissible as scientific evidence because it is demonstrably unfalsifiable. :)


--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew


Best Salaams,

R. Brian Roberts
Amateur Researcher in Biblical Archaeology





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page