Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

1. Combining the functions of priest and king "as the Hasmoneans did" is
no evidence for the lateness of Gen. 14 or Ps. 110. The ANE monarch
often combined functions of priest and monarch. I wrote about such
priestly functions of the king in the Ugaritic mythological texts way
back in 1976 in my article "The Image of Kingship in Ugarit Compared to
the Image of Kingship in Israel", Beth Miqra 21 (Hebrew).

2. El elyon qoneh shamayim wa-aretz - 2nd millennium BCE Hittite texts
refer to an 'Il qunirsa = qoneh eretz. Sorry I don't have the reference.

The combination el elyon admittedly appears only in Gen. 14. But the
divine epithet Elyon can be shown to occur in texts preceding the
Hasmonean period. In Is. 14: 14, the king of Babylon is depicted as
saying, "I will ascend to the top of a cloud, I will be like Elyon". Why
should a Hasmonean writer want to write a mashal about the king of
Babylon? Do you want to claim that he is referring to a Seleucid? That
passage should be dated no longer than the fall of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire.

3. Ps. 110 - Evidence from silence is no proof. Has every single verse
in the Bible been found at Qumran aside from Ps. 110?

4. Isaiah 19: 18. "Seems specifically to allude to the temple of Onias".
I could, with better justification, claim that it refers to the Jewish
temple at Elephantine of the late 5th century BCE. It could even refer
to some cultic site (unproven) erected by the Judaeans who took refuge
in Egypt after the assassination of Gedaliah ben Ahiqam (Jer. 43-44).
But, taken, in context, it doesn't seem to refer to ANY of the above,
but rather to the Isaianic theology expressed already in Is. 2, in which
all the nations worship the God of Israel.

Sincerely,
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel