Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Dear Peter,

You write:

>I'm not sure what you are trying to prove here. 

I was interested in establishing whether Josephus could have derived the
Greek forms of names he did without having the Greek 1 Esdras before him.
I'm inclined to think not.

>But your method does 
>not say anything about the dating of Ezra or any other Hebrew text. 
>Surely the most obvious explanation is that Josephus, writing in Rome 
>(is that right?) in Greek, used the version of the story of Ezra which 
>was most easily available to him and convenient for his work, 2 Esdras 
>as in the Septuagint - which I guess was more easily available in Rome 
>than any Hebrew texts. 

Josephus had remarkable access to literary works... nearly all the OT/HB,
works such as 1 Maccabees, Philo, Aristeas, Jubilees (or similar), other
non-biblical patriarchal legend sources, an enormous quantity of non-Hebrew
historical and apologetical works. If Ezra was available to anyone at the
time, there would be no reason for Josephus not to have had it. He gives us
an outline of the most accepted Jewish works that seems to reflect some
notion of canon, but he didn't have Ezra!

>If elsewhere he was closer to the Hebrew, 
>perhaps it just means that he better remembered the Hebrew (or 
>Aramaic?) form of those passages. 

He was not working from memory: he was epitomising the texts. That should
be obvious from a comparison of the order of the information he provides
based on the various works.

>It does not mean that he did not 
>know the Hebrew of Ezra (or that he did) but rather that he used the 
>source in front of him.

From solely the works of Josephus, this would be correct. He is, however,
the first person to tell us about Ezra. No work that we know of prior to
his cites anything that is recognisably from the biblical book of Ezra.

But I did not want to go through all the evidence to show that Ezra is a
problematic book that cannot in any sense be treated as a historical
source. You might consult the essay by Garbini on my website on the Aramaic
of Ezra (and Daniel) www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/5210/histreli.htm
You can read his "History and Ideology in Ancient Israel", ch 13. C.C.
Torrey wrote a lot about Ezra that hasn't received much attention early
this century. I have just finished a draft of a brief paper on the
theophoric references in 1 Esdras and Ezra in which I attempt to show the
priority of 1 Esdras, if you're interested.


Yours,


Ian