Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Well, indeed, the biblical narrative makes it clear that not all Jews 
accepted the exclusivist position of Deuteronomy, Josiah, Jeremiah etc 
before the exile, and of Nehemiah etc afterwards. So the Elephantine 
Jews were from one of these less exclusive or syncretistic groups. I 
doubt if they got a positive answer from the Jerusalem establishment 
of Haggai and Zechariah's time.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: The Origins of the United Monarchy
Author:  yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il at internet
Date:    03/02/1999 01:51


Ian Hutchesson wrote:


>The Samaritan problem is one of the principal issues that needs to be 
>resolved in order to have a hope of a clearer view of Hebrew history. 
To
>Ben Sira, writing at the beginning of the second century BCE, sees the 
>Samaritans as "the foolish people that live in Shechem" (50:26b), yet 
to
>Jason of Cyrene, the writer whose work was epitomized in 2 Maccabees, 
the
>temple on Gerizim was a Jewish temple, spoken of in the same clause as 
that
>in Jerusalem (6:1-2). The relationship between the two centres is long 
and

I would like to point out in this context that the Jewish inhabitants of 
Elephantine at the end of the 5th century had no problem asking the 
Jerusalemite priests for help in rebuilding their temple after it had 
been destroyed in a local pogrom, and this over 200 years after Josiah's 
centralization of the cult, and in spite of the fact that the 
Elephantine Jews also worshipped, in addition to YHWH, Anath-Bethel and 
Ashima-Bethel. (we don't know if they got an answer/)
Also, wasn't it Onias IV, who, after losing out in a power struggle, 
built a temple to YHWH somewhere in Egypt.
This would seem to indicate either that the Deuteronomistic Reform, not 
to speak of monotheism, either was still unknown or non-normative for 
many Jews, or that it hadn't been invented yet. And this you hear from a 
conservative scholar.
Sincerely,
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel


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