Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Christian M. M. Brady" <cbrady AT tulane.edu>]

On 1/19/01 6:28 PM, "Dan Wagner" <Dan.Wagner AT datastream.net> wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Liz Fried [mailto:lizfried AT umich.edu]
>> Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 19:14
>> To: Biblical Hebrew
>> Subject: RE: singular and plural for Isaiah's servant
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Dan Wagner [mailto:Dan.Wagner AT datastream.net]
>>> 
>>>> 3rd-I doesn't like Cyrus being called the Servant, Messiah, etc.
>>> 
>>> OK, this explains my posted question: "[Why would your
>>> "Trito-Isaiah" insert
>>> it, anyway?]." But if you're right, he didn't do a good job
>>> editing the text
>>> of Isa. 45:1 where Cyrus is called God's "messiah."
>> Redactors don't subtract, they just add.
> 
> Who imposed that rule upon them? How can we know that? Are we at liberty to
> make them do whatever we want? Why wouldn't they want to subtract to
> accomplish their subtle agenda? What could prevent them?

I guess this is a bit late in the thread and I hope I haven't missed it
already being addressed, but I would have to agree with Dan here.

Liz, how can we, objectively and concretely demonstrate that redactors
always add and never subtract? There are all sorts of problems with this
(common) assertion, not the least of which is that not everyone can agree
upon which portions of a given biblical text belong to which "layer" of
redaction. 

So, please elaborate/defend this assertion.

> (Obviously i don't accept RC, at least not on this kind of a theological
> agenda-based level.)

FWIW, I value redactional criticism, but we need to be careful about
artificially imposing boundaries upon the redactors.

Cb
cbrady @ tulane.edu
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