Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

G'day Liz!

I wrote:
>> 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?

You responded:
>Arguing that the author of the book of Ezra knew this list is not arguing
>the list is historical.

I'm not doing either! I'm indicating that we have neither an a quo or an ad
quem for these clues. One cannot use the information for historical purposes.

>> >I do not share the understanding of Ezra that the commentators on
>> >Ezra-Nehemiah have had... 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.

Yet the font for "his mission" is untenable historically, given that the
sources cannot be dated within about four hundred years. There are no
primary sources, so nothing to indicate the hope of veracity.

>> >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.

Why do you think there was a historical mision though. Have you got any
contemporary source? If so, you've been hiding it.

>> 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.

So far, all I can see is midrash then: when she got there, the cupboard was
bare.

>> >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.

So, no scribe extraordinaire? Just unspecified, undocumented mission?

>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. [..]

I would think that the xenophobia came with the hellenistic crisis. That's
when I think 1 Esdras was written.

>> >The book of Ezra-Nehemiah is one book...
>>
>> 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... 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.

Still Josephus doesn't permit the Nehemiah stuff being redacted that early.
Josephus has the basic story found in Neh 1 - 6, but it is very difficult
to see any evidence of epitomizing. It would seem that he had a very
different source than what became Neh 1 - 6. Josephus seems reasonably
faithful to his sources when he epitomizes them. Just consider his use of 1
Macc, 1 Esdras, or the first half of Daniel.

>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.

No reasons, no value. I thought ex cathedra pronouncements went out with
Albright. (-:

>> (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?

Obviously, the Greek 1 Esdras had a Hebrew Vorlage, which was hacked about
to produce Ezra and provide the law reading for Nehemiah. The Zerubbabel
stuff got cut back and the Chronicles type stuff at the beginning got
lopped off. Use of divine names has become coherent in Ezra. There's a long
line of analysis to note. I should try to put it together one day.

>> >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?

The traditions that we have about Nehemiah put forward in that letter are
quite wayward with regard to the mainline, which if it had had ascendency
at the time would not have allowed the Aristobulus letter to talk of
Nehemiah building the temple as it had "already been built" by Zerubbabel
and Yeshua.

As these traditions are conflictual, it strongly suggests that there was no
normative traditions about Nehemiah at that time, ie middle second century
BCE.

>> I would also refer people to the Garbini article on my site regarding
>> "Biblical Aramaic"... [Ezra was probably] written in Hebrew
>> and at a later stage partially translated into ye olde Aramaic [..]
>
>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)."

Yes, that's why I said above that the writer had "access to materials from
the Persian era," though Garbini doesn't give you the hope that he had
actual materials from Ezra, but badly understood examples of Persian
epistolary efforts -- note the notion of "model" in Garbin's words.

Cheers,


Ian


Ian Hutchesson
mc2499 AT mclink.it
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/5210/histreli.htm