Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Dear Peter,

There does seem to have been a general breakdown in our communications.

>Ian wrote to Lloyd:
>
>"Do I understand correctly that despite your acceptance of some form of 
>documentary hypothesis that the sources involved are fundamentally a 
>reflection of the epoch they refer to rather than of the epoch they were 
>written in?"
>
>Perhaps he should allow Lloyd the option of believing both of these, 
>because the epoch they refer to is, or at least is close to, the epoch 
>they were written in. 

Are you implying that the redaction of texts that went towards the making
of an biblical book reflected the opinions and theological viewpoints of a
period several generations if not several hundred years before that redaction?

>That need not rule out "some form of documentary 
>hypothesis" as there could have been at a later stage editing, even 
>collation of sources. (Some forms of this hypothesis make it sound as 
>if the redactor just pasted together the sweepings of the floor of 
>that Qumran cave Dave was talking about where each fragment had three 
>part words on it! 

If you look at the distribution of divine names found in those texts you'd
find some very interesting results. Sometimes it does look like cut and
paste, though at other times it looks more like crochet.

>But maybe the redactor was actually intelligent and 
>included some real historical information in his work.)
>
>Not everyone, not even everyone who is not evangelical, agrees with 
>your dating hypotheses. 

My "dating hypotheses" weren't involved in the above statement you've
quoted, just the assumption of a date gap to separate the time referred to
from the time of writing and then the time of redaction.

>Lloyd was brave enough to ask people if they agreed with his theory. 

Yes, brave indeed.

>I wonder what the response would be if you 
>asked the same question about e.g. your proposed post-Maccabean date 
>for Genesis and its sources.

I don't claim that Genesis en bloc was post-Maccabean, and, if you mean
post-Hasmonean, then none of Genesis to my understanding is that late.
There is nothing at all in my posts to justify your understanding as stated
above, so I don't understand where you got the idea from. I stated a
hypothesis that the Melchizedek narrative was Hasmonean. I've also stated
that the earliest biblical documents we know of are from the second century
(ie some of those found at Qumran) and that Ezra was probably finalized
after Josephus.

If I've stated anything particularly different from the last paragraph, I'd
be happy to know where. Otherwise, where did you get your interpretation of
what I have said?


Ian