Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT Highland.Net>]

At 12:02 AM 12/30/99 -0800, you wrote:

>So you would say, based on this, that the LXX was first produced in the
>4th-5th cent. AD


This is simply incorrect.  We have LXX mss from as early as 100 BCE.

> and the burden of proof is on those who say it was from
>an earlier time.  You would be required to say, by what you say here,
>that Aristotle, Cicero, Thucydides, Herodotus, Homer, etc., were first
>created after the 7th cent. AD.  Do you wish to defend these positions? 

We are not talking about cicero.  We are talking about evidence.  

>No one in classics of LXX studies would take you seriously.  Why is the
>Hebrew Bible any different?  The problem is that some posters are
>conflating two issues that are separate issues:  the date of the
>autograph of a text; and the historical reliability of that text based
>on some definition of external evidence (a useful but problematic
>criterion).

Im not making any such mistake.  In fact, i am simply asking, over and over
again because folk evidently dont get it, that people realize that evidence
is one thing and supposition is another.  Ms evidence is hard proof.
Suppositions about other things are just that, suppositions.

>
>   I'm treating only one of those two questions right now:  what does
>the date of MS tell us about the autograph's date?  According to you,
>the burden of proof is on me to show that the LXX was written prior to
>its appearance in Vaticanus.  Now, please deal with this issue alone. 

I already have.  There are ample mss predating the 1st c. BCE for LXX.  I
dont see why you are stuck on Vaticanus- it ISNT the earliest ms.

>Do not conflate it with validating the events recounted in that
>document.  In fact, how about choosing a book like Qoheleth, which isn't
>really about any specific events, or Proverbs.  

Choose any book you like if you wish.  FInd the earliest manuscript of that
text, and I will gladly admit that it existed at that time.  But if you
start blabbering that it must have existed in the time of Moses I will ask
that you provide proof and not supposition.

>
Best,

Jim

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
jwest AT highland.net
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest