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  • From: Alviero Niccacci <sbfnet AT netvision.net.il>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: J, E, P, or D?
  • Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 19:03:02 +0200


On 1/27/00 (J, E, P, or D?) Jon Bailey wrote:


I am sitting here looking at the Metsad Chashavyahu inscription wondering
why there are doublets in it. Look at how I have divided the clauses:

1 y$m( )dny h&r
2 )t dbr (bdh (bdk
3 qcr hyh (bdk bx
4 cr )sm wyqcr (bdk
5 wykl w)sm kymm lpny $b
6 t k)$r kl (bdk )t qcr w)
7 sm kymm wyb) hw$(yhw bn >$b
8 y wyqx )t bgd (bdk k)$r klt
9 )t qcry zh ymm lqx )t bgd (bdk
10 wkl )xy y(nw ly hqcrm )ty bxm
11 h$m$ )xy y(nw ky )mn nqty m)
12 $m h$b n) )t bgdy w)m l) l&r lh$
13 b )t bgd (bdk wttn )lw rx
14 mm wh$bt )t bgd (bdk wl) tdhm

Well, I was just writing this while waiting for a class, and the time has
gotten away. I don't have time to offer a translation and mark the verb
sequencing as I see it, but it should be obvious that the wyqx at the beginning
of line 8 ends the first sequence and the second is begung with k)$r klt, a
qatal, which is then followed by another qatal (lqx), starting a new
sequence with nearly the same content as the first. Also, lines 10 and 11 build two
sequences based on the yiqtol form y(nw with more or less the same content.

I filled in parts of 12, 13, and 14 from Sandra Gogel's suppositions, but
they do not come into play here. We obviously have doublets in an
inscription which does not represent centuries of religious traditions. So why would
anyone want to redact a text about a slave trying to get his coat back? Who
was it? J, E, P, or D?

Or should we just recognize that doublets are a semitic literary device,
and not clues of redaction?



Dear Jonathan Bailey,

looking at back material in the list, I found your message, which I had previously overlooked. It seems that it has remained unanswered. Do you still look for a comment?

The Metsad Chahavyahu inscription is indeed repetitious but has no doublets in the literary-critical sense. As I tried to show in my book review of I. Young, _Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew_ published in _Liber Annuus_ 47 (1997) 577-596 (spec. pp. 583-584), each clause plays its role and nothing is really redundant.
I would translate lines 2-11 as follows:

"(2) As for your servant--(3) your servant was harvesting (x-QATAL) in Hazer-Asam. (4) Your servant reaped (WAYYIQTOL) (5) and measured (WAYYIQTOL) (the harvest). Then I gathered myself (WAYYIQTOL from 'sm) as usual (? kymm) before stopping.
(6) After your servant had measured (k'$r + QATAL) his harvest and I myself had gathered (WAYYIQTOL from 'sm) as usual (?), (7) there came (WAYYIQTOL) Hoshayahu, son of Shobai, (8) and took (WAYYIQTOL) the garment of your servant.
*It was after <I> had measured (9) my harvest before several days that he took (x-QATAL = ... lqx) the garment of your servant.
(10) And all my comrades will bear witness on my behalf, the ones who were reaping besides me in the heat [of the sun].
*(11) It is my comrades that will bear testimony on my behalf, that I am really clean of any gui[lt]."

It is an oral narrative that begins with x-QATAL (3) and continues with WAYYIQTOL--exactly as in BH. The section (8 second half-10, marked with a * in the translation above) is not simple repetition of the previous one (6-8 first half). By using offline x-QATAL (*... lqx*) the worker specifies what he has already said by highlighting the circumstance that precedes QATAL *lqx*. Note the opposition between the plain, unmarked sentence in (6-8 first half) *wyqx 't bgd `bdk* and the marked, "emphatic" sentence in (8 second half-10) *... lqx 't bgd `bdk*.
The same thing can be said of the sentence in (11, also marked with *) in relation with the previous one (10).
Also note a nonnarrative WAYYIQTOL in (6): "and I myself had gathered". This WAYYIQTOL is distinct from narrative WAYYIQTOL that continues another narrative WAYYIQTOL. The nonnarrative WAYYIQTOL continues a verbform different from narrative wayyiqtol and takes on the same value of the preceding verbform. I called this WAYYIQTOL "continuation WAYYIQTOL" (for more information see _Syntax_ ## 143, 146).
Thus the verb system shown by the Metsad Chahavyahu inscription seems to me exactly the same as that of BH. Even the shift from 3rd person ("your servant") to the 1st is similar.

I would conclude that these are not doublets. In a previous post I stated the same thing concerning the Flood narrative in Genesis. I do not mean that the so-called sources of the Pentateuch are to be abandoned. I tried to show that Biblical narratives are usually very well organized and coherent from the point of view of verb syntax. I think that on that point literary critics are to refine their criteria for detecting the sources of Biblical narratives.
I do not share the idea put forward by some authors in the list that the Pentateuch is as a whole a post-exilic composition. I think that old material is present, and not only as simple historical kernels. Biblical message does not build on myths, although it somtimes uses parables. To detect earlier materials is important for responsible reading.

Peace and all good.
Alviero Niccacci




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  • Re: J, E, P, or D?, Alviero Niccacci, 02/03/2000

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