Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian M. M. Brady [mailto:cbrady AT tulane.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 11:15 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: singular and plural for Isaiah's servant
>
>
> On 1/24/01 10:02 PM, "Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu> wrote:
>
> > [I said]
> >
> >>>> Redactors don't subtract, they just add.
> >
> >
> > Dan said:
> >
> >>> 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?
> >
> > C. M. Brady said
> >> 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.
> >
> > I don't have much to contribute to this discussion.
> > It's based on the assumption that texts are holy.
>
> I am sorry Liz, could you clarify: whose position is based upon the
> assumption that the texts are holy?  (Mine is not.)
>
I'm not saying that *we* think the texts are holy.
I'm saying that we assume that it was holy to those who
copied them. The image I guess is of monks in the monistaries
in the middle ages. They'd copy the texts to prevent them from
decay, etc. So a scribe could add something in the margin, but he
wouldn't knowingly delete something.

Of course, your comment had to do with redactors and not
copiests. One can look at the story of Noah. I think this is
discussed in Altar's book. It seems as if two separate stories were
combined and that stuff wasn't thrown out. You have a 40 day
flood and a 150 day flood. You have animals 2 x 2 in one place,
yet in another you have 7 pairs of the clean animals.

hope this helps,

Liz