Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

Dear Jim,
I think he's got you there. You are evading the point.
As for Cicero, we ARE talking about Cicero and any other ancient writer/ing 
for
whom/which the earliest manuscript is hundreds of years after the autograph.
You MUST apply the same standards of judgment to Cicero, or the Rig-Veda, or 
to ANY
written document that you apply to the Bible. And vice versa.
Yours,
Jonathan
--
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel

Jim West wrote:

> 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
>
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