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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[2]: Methods in biblical scholarship
  • Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 00:30:40 -0500


See some more comments on this one below.

Peter Kirk


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Subject: Re: Methods in biblical scholarship
Author: <npl AT teol.ku.dk> at Internet
Date: 26/12/1999 10:40


[Niels Peter Lemche] From the interchange between Peter Kirk and
Ian H.

> Peter wrote:
>
> >I'm not sure how soundly, that the self-attestation of a book,
> >its internal evidence of authorship and dating, should be taken at
> >face value unless good reason is shown why a particular inaccurate
> >attestation has been given -
>
[Niels Peter Lemche]
> and Ian
> I don't think we can give the writer the benefit of the doubt, unless you
> can establish a trend for only one person writing a work in the Hebrew
> religious tradition. We have a number of examples of more than one writer
> to a text, so it would seem to be the norm rather than the exception.
>
[Niels Peter Lemche] First we have to see whether the authorship
can be authentic. If not we have a different situation. Let's forget the
Pentateuch for a moment and take the case of the Books of Samuel. Did Samuel
write his books?...

PK: Has anyone ever said that Samuel did write this book? There is
certainly no internal authorship claim. Note that in LXX the name
Samuel does not appear in the title. So this is, I'm sorry to say, a
red herring. The self-attestation of the books of Samuel is not to
their authorship (which is unknown) but to the relative dating of the
events reported in them.

.. Hardly as he dies in 1 Sam 25. Then we have a case of presuo-authorship
in the HB. When this has been established, it is much easier to cope with
the rest, Song of Songs or Qohelet or Proverbs (Solomon), Psalms (David),
and people who believe in th Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch has a
problem because they have to explain why the situation is different here.
> >and also how a recently written book
> >could become accepted as ancient scripture. (Yes, I know that there
> >are demonstrably pseudonymous books from Hellenistic times e.g. Enoch,
> >but they were never taken as canonical.)
[Niels Peter Lemche]
The is blatantly wrong...

PK: Yes, but not for the reason you think. My meaning was "they were
never taken as canonical in the Jewish tradition", sorry for not
making that clear. So I am more asia-centrist than eurocentrist.
Meanwhile, is there evidence that Enoch was ever treated by Jews on
the same level as the bulk of the Hebrew scriptures?

<snip>





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