Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Not all the words attributed to me below
were made by me. 
I was responding to a post by Rolf.
The differences were lost when the switch
was made from Rich Text to Plain Text.
Liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shoshanna Walker [mailto:rosewalk AT concentric.net]
> Sent: Fri, January 25, 2002 12:51 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: ONE AUTHOR Monotheism was: "admittedly syncretistic..
> 
> 
> There was a computer research done in Israel, a few years ago, and it 
> found that all five books  of the Torah were written by the same 
> author, and that the differences in style were differences in the 
> style of one single author.  I don't know all the details, I will 
> probably have to inquire, and look it up.
> 
> Shoshanna
> 
> 
> 
>  
>  
> It seems to me that something like a dogmatic religion has been built 
> up around modern critical scholarship. Noth's theory of a 
> deuteronomistic history etc and many other speculative hypotheses 
> have almost been elevated to data, while the truth is that hard facts 
> regarding when the different books were written and who were the 
> writers are completely lacking. For instance,in my linguistic 
> analysis of the participles of the Tanach I found a use which was 
> uniform throughout the book of Isaiah but almost non-existent in 
> other books. I will not say that this proves that there was one 
> author of the books, but the evidence for two or three authors is 
> very weak indeed. 
>  
> P eople do now argue for one author of the book of Isaiah but they 
> place him in the fifth century.
> 
>  
> 
> As to my position, I am very positive to the text of the Hebrew 
> documents, because of all the single data I have found to be of a 
> higher quality that that of contemporaneous documents. It is my 
> impression that the concept of God in the Tanach is sublime and 
> elevated, in stark contrast to that of other nations around. Your 
> interpretations regarding the divine suzerain and polytheism are 
> possible but hardly the only alternative. I see no conflict between 
> Isaiah 41-- and Exodus 20 because the subject is addressed from 
> different angles. Isaiah does not deny the existence of the $EDIM, 
> but he points out to those who think that carved images have 
> intrinsic life and power that this is a false view. And similarly, 
> the writer of Exodus does not say that the carved images have life 
> and power. In view of the sublime descriptions of the one Creator I 
> take the implication of the writer of Exodus of other living gods to 
> refer to the $EDIM.
> 
>  
> I suggest that you have a view of the god of the HB that is colored 
> by Christian and
> Hellenistic conceptions. I suggest, respectfully, that you are 
> falling into the trap
> that many fall into, and you are not reading the text that is 
> printed, but the text that is
> in your head. I give a lecture called "What does God Look Like ? the 
> view from the
> Bible." It sure does wake people up to the text.
> 
> Best,
> Liz Fried
> 
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