Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Thomas L. Thompson" <tlt AT teol.ku.dk>]

Dear Ian,
Your new table makes a great deal of sense. The suggestion that Genesis is
'closer' to 'the earlier tradition' than Jubilees and GenAp on the basis of
more explicit discourse is unconvincing as it stands. For under 'earlier
tradition' one might well be dealing with a wide spectrum of texts from a
variant version of the same 'tale-type' to multiple 'earlier traditions'. It
is even possible to think of the issue apart from sources with concepts such
as 'common goal or purpose' or 'interactive discourse'. For example, what
are the 'sources' for the peshering parts of Pesher Nahum? Or for that
matter Genesis 4? (cf. Jubilees 5). I find source theories less and less
capable of explaining anything more than what we already know implicitly.
However, that none of these traditions are original seems a sound starting
point. That Josephus and Pseudo Philo seem to be using genesis seems likely,
but which version of Genesis?

        Ian Hutchesson wrote:
> >>                    the earlier tradition
> >>                               |
> >>             -------------------------------------
> >>             |                                   |
> >>             |                                Genesis
> >>             |                                   |
> >>      ----------------                -----------------------
> >>      |              |                |                     |
> >>   Jubilees*       GenAp*         Josephus             Pseudo-Philo
> 
> 
        On the question of 'return from exile', Ian writes:

> I don't know how non-Hebrew people would have been accepted into the
> religious fold easily enough to have their traditions absorbed.
> >The enuma elish, for example is used as a ritual text during the entire
> >first millennium. 
> Again, I would wonder what sort of cultural trajectory you could seriously
> imagine to have allusions from the enuma elish enter the Hebrew tradition
> (and they are there) without direct Hebrew contact with an environment
> that
> used the enuma elish.
> 
        [Thomas L. Thompson] Here I would start my answer with reference to
my discussions in my Early History of 1992 and Mythic Past of 1999 and
suggest that 'the religious fold' is the product of this amalgamation of
peoples and traditions which at least by the 4th-2nd century become
identifiable among the many Judaisms with its biblical tradition in process.
How the enuma elish itself becomes involved in such process--and I do not
see the biblical tradition simply as borrowing or using it--is the subject
of an article I am now writing.


        Ian wrote:
> "Post-destruction" was an attempt to maintain the idea of an exile in
> which
> Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and, according to the biblical
> accounts,
> deported numerous people. 
          But II Kings here is drawing on a literary trope, and must be so
understood, before we can talk about its historical uses. 

> >>  [Thomas L. Thompson]   Here I would start thinking about the potential
> >> contemporaneity between Jubilees, Genesis and GenAp,
> 
         Ian: This is basically what I have in mind.

> >>  [Thomas L. Thompson]   but all quite clearly
> >> seem to be secondary uses of this geographical narrative which is a
> >> well-known Hellenistic form, so your a quo must be ca. 4th cent. at the
> >> very earliest.  
> though I don't really know anything about the sort of geographical
> narrative you have in mind that would reflect on what is found in
> Jubilees.
> 
        Here I am thinking of issues of genre: how geography was written
through the creation of eponymy, genealogy and travelogues. I put something
of this together in my Patriarchal Narratives but must return to it some
day(p. 311ff.)
> .
> 
        Ian: Well, what exactly do you mean by "massoretic tradition"? And
does it imply
> a post-rabbincal dating?
        [Thomas L. Thompson]  Not at all. It only implies that tradition we
find in the Aleppo or Leningrad codices. This is already developing in our
Qumran texts.

        All the best,
        Thomas

        Thomas L. Thompson
        Professor, University of Copenhagen,