Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On 1/25/01 7:42 AM, "Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu> wrote:

> 
>> -----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

Thanks Liz that does clarify your position. I don't believe, however, that
even assuming the context described above, it has ever been conclusively
demonstrated that the redactors, at the level of redaction, were always
considering the texts sacrosanct to the point that they would not remove
material. The fact that they would be adding other material to a received
tradition is as transforming to that tradition as removing material would
be. 

I am merely suggesting that we need to be open to the possibility of
subtraction as well as addition. Of course, I also tend to that much of that
is unknowable so we ought to deal with the text as it has been received
rather than with our hypothetical reconstructions! ;-)

Cb 
cbrady @ tulane.edu
-- 
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
~ Mark Twain