Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

Dear Walter,

There is perhaps an even better clue on the same lines in the language of
the "Primary History" which throws severe doubt on a Hellenistic date for
it. If this were its date, one would expect to find in it a significant
number of loan words from Greek, and from Persian which influenced Hebrew at
an earlier stage. From what I remember, although there are a few Greek loan
words in the Aramaic of Daniel and many Persian loan words in the books
relating post-exilic history, there are none at all in the Primary History.
This would indeed be remarkable if this was a composition from Hellenistic
times; even if a scribe was careful to avoid Greek loan words, it is
unlikely that he would recognise all Persian loan words, which would have
been in Hebrew already for several hundred years, especially as most likely
such scribes would not know any Persian. In this respect it would be
instructive to compare the Primary History with Hebrew works known to be of
Hellenistic date e.g. DSS, Sirach; how many Persian and Greek loan words are
found in these writings?

There was of course a brief period when Cyrus and the Persians were
recognised as important but the dreams of full post-exilic restoration were
still alive, just after Cyrus' decree and in the very early days of the
restoration. This is the period to which most scholars assign Isaiah 40-55,
because of parallel evidence to that which you give for dating Deuteronomy.
Of course you have to consider whether it is a likely reaction to Cyrus'
decree that anyone would sit down and write most of the Hebrew Bible, or
whether they would be more likely to hurry back to Jerusalem and busy
themselves trying to make the restoration work. For this reason I would
think it is more likely that the Primary History is a pre-exilic work,
perhaps with some post-exilic redaction (although I don't accept that your
Japheth=Cyrus link is more than interesting speculation.)

Peter Kirk

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Walter Mattfeld [mailto:mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com]
> Sent: 12 October 2001 06:10
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: The Case Against a Hellenistic Primary History
>
>
> Dear Tom,
>
> My apologies for this late reply. I am focusing in on the Primary History,
> Genesis-2Kings, rather than the whole of the Hebrew Bible. I am interested
> in seeking clues for a text assembled in a Hellenistic setting, allowing
> that data and traditions of earlier times, Pre-Exilic, Exilic and
> Post-Exilic are present.
>
> I ask questions and then seek answers. If the text was composed in a
> Hellenistic environment what would be the clues ?  My interest in
> archaeology as a dating tool for the texts, caused me to wonder why no
> Hellenistic sites appear in this composition. I know authors make errors,
> they are human, why no slips revealing a Hellenistic site ? Several places
> are enumerated in Joshua, of the Negev, and we have several sites in that
> area from Nabatean times, why weren't they listed in the Negev list ?  Why
> weren't sites whose names were changed in Hellenistic times noted by the
> author, as in Laish becoming later Dan ?
>
> I must confess that I find my attempts to date the texts to be very
> exasperating at times. The clues seem to be contradictory in some
> passages.
>
> Jonathan Safren has noted no mention of Persia in the Table of Nations. If
> the text was put together in a Hellenistic world, why leave
> Persia out ? It
> certainly played an important part in restoring Judah and the
> Temple. Why no
> mention of Cyrus, who is presented as God's "Messiah" by Deutero-Isaiah ?
>
> I have suggested that Noah's blessing for Japheth is a blessing for Cyrus
> and the Persians based on my research into the Athenian Greek Medus myth,
> which makes the Persians, called Medes by the Greeks and Jews
> (cf. Daniel) a
> Japhethic people.
>
> Yet I have to acknowledge some problems. Statements attributed Moses in
> Deuteronomy don't make sense to me in a composition written in a
> Post-Exilic
> world. For instance, Moses predicts the Nation will go into Exile, but he
> also predicts, that after the Nation REPENTS, God will restore them and
> prosper them greater than their Pre-Exilic fathers. The books of Ezra and
> Nehemiah reveal this didn't happen. The returnees still violated
> the Sabbath
> and married foreign women. Times were so desperate the poor sold their
> children into slavery to survive as noted by Nehemiah. Moses said
> God would
> "circumcise" the hearts of his people upon their restoration,
> allowing them
> to fear and obey Him. This didn't happen.
> Why, if the Primary History is a Post-Exilic composition, does the author
> have Moses saying all this -when it didn't come about ???
>
> The statements attributed to Moses in Deuteronomy 30:1-10, look to me like
> an Exilic composition. But this of course clashes with my understanding of
> Japheth being Cyrus and the Persians. About the only way I can see my
> Japheth=Cyrus notion being valid, is that the Exilic text was edited at a
> later period in the 5th century (the so-called Priestly redactor).
>
> All the best, Walter
>
> Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
> Walldorf by Heidelberg
> Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany
> www.bibleorigins.net
>
<snip>