Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Søren Holst <sh AT teol.ku.dk>]

Dear Peter Kirk

Well, does Samuel-Kings really claim to be early? After all, it reports
events up to the 37th year of the exile, so cannot possibly be written
before the exile. It's earlier chapters may easily depend on or incorporate
pre-exilic sources, of course, but has anyone tried to show that the
language of the finishing chapters (which simply cannot have pre-exilic
material in them) is more LBH-like than the rest?

(By the way, we actually do have a Hebrew Psalm 151 in the cave 11 Psalms
scroll from Qumran. Professor Avi Hurvitz of the Hebrew University wrote an
article on it's language in Eretz-Israel 8 (1967 - the Sukenik memorial
volume), claiming to find numerous examples of the author slipping into LBH
in spite of trying to write straight Classical/pre-exilic Hebrew. Whether
one agrees with professor Hurvitz's conclusion would of course depend on
one's evaluation of his dating procedure in general as laid out in his
dissertation _beyn lashon le-lashon_, or in a brief abstract in English in
Hebrew Abstracts 14, 1973).

respectfully
Soren Holst
Copenhagen

> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> since Ezra-Nehemiah must be late 
> the best explanation is that Samuel-Kings is, as it claims to be, 
> earlier.
>