Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 12.11 20/02/99 +0200, Jonathan D. Safren wrote:
>Let me point out that in all this discussion, Ian has ignored my
twice-repeated
>comment that in the Ancient Near East the king could assume the functions
of priest.
>I didn't invent this; it's documented; and I've written on it regarding
the Ugaritic
>mythological texts.

I didn't complain about it. You simply have to demonstrate its
applicability in our case. You have not done so other than say that because
it existed in other cultures and that it's talked about regarding this
David person, it must have been the case.

Let me argue similarly: the countries in the near east all had flood
stories, so there must have been a flood story in Egypt as well, right? Wrong.

>In similar fashion, Julius Wellhausen, in his zeal to demonstrate that the
sacrificial
>cult in Judaism was late and a deviation from the pristine Israelite
religion (and
>therefore, as a 19th-century German Protestant theologian, to demonstrate
the Catholic
>cult and ritual were late and a deviation from the original and pure
Christianity),
>ignored the already-known evidence from the ANE that the pomp and
circumstance of the
>temple cultus were quite ancient, and that the Israelites didn't have to
invent it.
>It wasn't until some 50 years later that Yehezkel Kaufmann, in his
Religion of Israel,
>demonstrated the fallacy of Wellhausen's arguments, and persuaded many
scholars that
>at least the description of hte cult ion the Priestly Code could be early.

I also have problems with Wellhausen.

>Are we going to have to wait another 50 years until someone demonstrates
the fallacies
>in the arguments of the Copenhagen School?

Or till people begin to apply stricter historiographical methods?


Ian