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  • From: Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: ONE AUTHOR Monotheism was: "admittedly syncretistic..
  • Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 13:26:27 -0500


I wasn't following all the posts in order today, because I had to go out all morning, it is Shabbat in only 3 hours, and I have been rushing

Didn't mean to address this to any one particular person.

shoshanna




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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