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  • From: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Author of the Torah
  • Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 18:40:49 -0700

As a methodological point: if you are looking for the latest possible date that something could have happened, it is methodologically sound to start with the very latest possible date, and then see whether there are any earlier latest possible dates. The canonical form of the Pentateuch *must* have existed before it could be translated into Greek. That fact is firm, but of course it does not preclude the existence of that text long before that translation was made.

As far as the "Samaritan schism" is concerned, the evidence of the text-types does not really allow for pushing the divergence between the proto-MT and the pre-Samaritan text-type earlier than the 5th century, and actual exemplars of the pre-Samaritan text-type are not attested, if my data is correct, before the Hasmonean period.

The Elephantine papyri are interesting to bring up in this regard. The correspondence going back and forth between Elephantine, Samaria, and Jerusalem certainly suggests that there was a rather high degree of cooperation between those three center of Jewish worship at the end of the 5th century BCE. Bagavahya and Sanballat write a *joint* letter recommending the rebuilding of the Elephantine temple. This shows a degree of unity between Samaria and Jerusalem that can hardly be called a "schism." It also shows that Deuteronomism was not normative for Judaism in this period, at least as practiced in Jerusalem, Samaria, and Elephantine, for sacrifices (albeit only of grain and incense) at Elephantine were approved by Sanballat and Bagavahya, over against Deuteronomic cultic centralization. Moreover, Hananiah's instructions concerning Pesach and Shavuot are not identical to the Torah's, and the fact that Hananiah has to bring instructions for these festivals from outside Egypt may in fact imply that the Elephantine Jews did not have a copy of the Torah. I would say that the evidence from Ezra-Nehemiah and Elephantine, read generously, suggests that the Torah was nearing its canonical form in the 5th century, but not there yet.

Chris

--
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




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