Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>]

At 06:31 AM 12/29/1999 +0100, you wrote:
>At 00.16 29/12/99 -0500, Stephen C. Carlson wrote:
>>At 06:11 AM 12/29/99 +0100, Ian Hutchesson wrote:
>>>At 00.02 29/12/99 -0500, Stephen C. Carlson wrote:
>>>>At 05:53 AM 12/29/99 +0100, Ian Hutchesson wrote:
>>They don't necessarily imply "such substance," but, even so, the
>>substance could derive from oral tradition.  After all, literacy
>>levels were very low.  
>This has little weight given that texts were usually read aloud anyway --
>think of the Ezra account of the reading of the law.

Are you now supporting the view that Ezra is a correct reflection of the
religious system for the centuries before Qumran? What text do you assume
they were reading? (BTW this argument is worthless. Oral
exposition/readings of texts does not exclude the explanation and expansion
on the ideas of the text. I think a reading of Ezra would support such a
view.)

>>Because of this, the inference that these
>>citations must derive from the extant Enoch literature is not
>>justified.  There are too many other possibilities here.
>If there weren't acknowlegements of the Enoch tradition in Jubilees and CD
>you might have a stronger gripe.

The question is NOT that there was a tradition of a person called Enoch.
The question is as to which text predates the others, and this line of
argument is falacious. 

>The interesting question has been asked before: why has Genesis obfuscated
>regarding the Enoch material?

This can be asked the other way, why has there developed a whole Enoch
liturature around an obscure character in Genesiss. (BTW it seems that you
are using a similar falacious argument with Malkitzedek.)

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