Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Just for clarification: My point here is that there is no 
contradiction between the situation described in the Biblical texts 
and the Elephantine letters, and thus no argument here against (or 
for) the reliability of those texts as a historical record.

The reign of Josiah and the governorship of Nehemiah are clearly dated 
in the Biblical texts (with reference to known Babylonian and Persian 
chronologies), and the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah even more 
so, to the precise day. Of course you can argue that these dates are 
forgeries, or perhaps more plausibly that the dates are original but 
the surrounding material has been edited extensively. The Biblical 
texts clearly present Josiah and Nehemiah as champions of a very 
exclusive form of religion, and suggest similar views for Haggai and 
Zechariah. If this picture is anything like accurate, I would not 
expect this party to reply positively for help from the syncretistic 
temple (by which I mean one in which Yahweh and other gods were 
worshipped) at Elephantine. It is perhaps significant (especially to 
those who are prepared to argue from archaeological silence) that they 
are known to have received a reply from their fellow syncretists at 
Samaria but not from Jerusalem.

What is your opinion concerning the emergence (e.g. its dating) of an 
exclusivist party in Judah, i.e. a group which rejected the worship of 
other gods alongside Yahweh?

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: The Origins of the United Monarchy
Author:  mc2499 AT mclink.it at internet
Date:    03/02/1999 18:06


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



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