Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

> From: Ian Hutchesson

>
> Hi Liz.
Hi Ian,
You're back providing some spice to these lists, I see.

>
> You wrote:
>
> >I agree with this.
>
> The problem is: was there ever such a list of "Canaanite" peoples? We know
> the Hittites fit like a square peg in a round hole. Perizzites
> doesn't make
> sense and the best etymology I've seen is that of Garbini who argues that
> Perizzites is a form of the name Peleset ["I filistei", Milano 1997, pp.
> 85-86], showing that there is no root PRZ bearing idea of "village" and
> that the term seems only used for Perizzites. Any evidence in the
> epigraphy
> for any of these "Canaanite" groups?

Arguing that the author of the book of Ezra knew this list is not arguing
the list is historical.



>
> If not, one can probably not make any historical conclusions based on the
> information. It could easily be a late mishmash based on mangled
> traditions.
Certainly that describes much of Ezra-Nehemiah.

>
> >I do not share the understanding of Ezra that the commentators on
> >Ezra-Nehemiah have had.  I survey temple-palace relations during the
> >Achaemenid period in Babylon, Asia Minor, and Egypt. I conclude
> that Ezra's
> >mission is entirely consistent with Persian policy, but I understand his
> >mission differently from most.
>
> But it would seem that you assume that mission and that character. Do you
> actually provide some evidence that there was such a person or is it taken
> as granted, Liz?

I don't provide evidence for him, per se, but for his mission.

>
> >As an historical character, he did not have the
> >impact on Judah that Nehemiah did. The bulk of the book
> attributed to him I
> >think is midrash on his historical mission.
>
> It's hard to believe that someone apparently of direct Zadokite descent
> (brother of Yeshua!?, so apparently around a couple of generations before
> Nehemiah), who brought about the purification of the Hebrew
> people and gave
> them the law, would not have had the impact necessary for him to be
> remembered.
I think all this is midrash.

>
> >One reason for suggesting Ezra is not historical is the lack of outside
> >references to him in Maccabees, Ben Sira, etc. I don't think
> there was any
> >reason for him to have been mentioned there.
>
> You seem against the current trying to make Ezra of little account!
Probably.

I also wanted to take issue with something Davies said in his BAR article.
He asserted the Jews in Yehud in the Persian period were xenophobic.
That is certainly not my reading of the text. I see two Persian officials,
Nehemiah and Ezra, foisting a law against intermarriage upon the bulk of the
population.
Accroding to the text, the Judaeans had completely intermarried with the
peoples of the land, half the children knew no Judaean.  This is not a
picture of a xenophobic population.


>
> >The book of Ezra-Nehemiah is
> >one book. It was probably known as the book of Nehemiah, and
> Ezra simply a
> >character in it.
>
> which was put together after Josephus's time: Reading Josephus
> and he knows
> both a Nehemiah book and an Ezra book. You'll note that his Ezra book
> follows closely the contents of 1 Esdras including the location of Ezra's
> reading of the law. It is not in his Nehemiah book. In fact his Nehemiah
> book ends less than half way through the canonical book and it is after
> that point that the canonical book has the law reading. This ostensibly
> puts the construction of the Ezra-Nehemiah complex as we have it
> *post-Josephus*.
OK, I haven't delved into the composition of the books. If they weren't
combined till much later, then it is only Nehemiah which was redacted in
335.
But maybe I'll relegate that sentence to a footnote.

Williamson considers your theory in his commentary and rejects it.
He doesn't provide an explanation of the theory, or the reason for
rejecting it.

>
> (I can argue on literary grounds that the Vorlage to 1 Esdras was written
> before canonical Ezra and was the source for the latter.)
Are you arguing they have the same vorlage? That makes sense.
Why not?

>
> >I think the book of Nehemiah as we have it was redacted during the
> >reign of Darius III, 335-333, no earlier and no later.
>
> I can't see the letter to Aristobulus at the beginning of 2 Maccabees,
> which talks about Nehemiah building the temple (1:18b), being
> written after
> the Nehemiah tradition being settled.
I don't understand this. Why can't traditions continue to develop about a
biblical
person even after the book has been written down?
>
> I would also refer people to the Garbini article on my site regarding
> "Biblical Aramaic" in which he argues that the Aramaic of Ezra doesn't
> represent an Aramaic of a particular era, but was a pastiche written by
> someone attempting simulate Persian chancelry Aramaic, and therefore wrote
> long after the Persian period, though having access to materials from the
> Persian era. The indications are that the text was first written in Hebrew
> and at a later stage partially translated into ye olde Aramaic, causing
> some interesting errors.

I quote this from your translation of Garbini:

"The exactness of of the epistolary detail, already probably misunderstood
by the author of Ezra, nevertheless lead to the supposition that he had
access to original documents, using them as a model for his hashings (23)."

"(23) The use of ni$tawan with the wider sense of "official letter",
documented at Elephantine (AP 17, 3), is that which has put the author of
Ezra off the road (cf. also P.E. Dion, "Aramaic words for 'Letter'," in
Semeia, 22 [1982], pp. 80-81."

This doesn't rule out Ezra as an historical person, quite the contrary.
>
> >I have applied to give a talk on this at SBL in the fall. But in
> any case,
> >it is in my dissertation, which will be available on microfilm
> after May 11.
>
> Good going.
Thanks.
Best to you,
Liz
>
>
> Ian
>
>
> Ian Hutchesson
> mc2499 AT mclink.it
> http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/5210/histreli.htm
>
>
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