Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 12.47 03/02/99 -0500, Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG wrote:
>
>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. 

The problem I have with this statement, Peter, is that there is no way I
know of to date the texts you are using as absolute references. The only
absolute reference we have are the Elephantine letters which were written
in the fifth century in southern Egypt by people who were exilic or
pre-exilic Hebrews. These people were writing to a post-exilic Jerusalem
without any indication that their non-monotheistic was not the norm.

(As TLT has indicated in another post today, the evidence from within the
OT/HB texts can only be construed to supply a relative dating of their
progressive production, based on linguistic changes. What historically
fixed scale can this relative chronology be seriously applied to?)

>So the Elephantine 
>Jews were from one of these less exclusive or syncretistic groups. 

This is only hypothesis for there are no contemporary indications of the
real state of affairs in Jerusalem. The little evidence we have is in the
letter you are branding "exclusive or syncretistic". The writer then wrote
to Samaria with more success. The two centres were evident then.

>I doubt if they got a positive answer from the Jerusalem establishment 
>of Haggai and Zechariah's time.

What exactly makes you think that?


Ian