Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Banyai Michael" <banyai AT t-online.de>]

Dear Ian,

I regrett to contradict you, since you often are right, so for example
with your reading of the "Dan will judge...as a people in Israel".

But to make it short, because the more we get into detail, the more you
loose the oversight and the less you remark the fatal contradictions into
which your disidence over some detail of my interpretation leads you.

I´ll show you this, assuming you were right by a reductio ad absurdum
reasoning.

Suppose you are right, and Benjamin is no odd occurence in Deut. 33 but
belongs to the original layer of the text:

1.      it follows, since we have here in Deut. 33,12 an allusion to the
Jerusalem temple (which became only after Solomon an important Israelite
temple - not to say it didn´t exist at all before), that the text is later
than the regiment of that king of Judah.

2.      How is this to harmonise with Deut. 33:5 plus Deut. 33:21 which speak
of a coronation ceremony in the region of Gad?
There arose a king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people were
gathered, all the tribes of Israel together.
Gad ...And he provided the first part for himself, for there was the
lawgiver's (Moses) portion reserved; And there came the heads of the
people...

We don´t know of any Judean king being crowned in Gad, and still lesser
about a king chosen by all the tribes of Israel (a situation quite rare in
Israelite history - I could remind only 4 names Gideon, Saul, David and
Solomon as "chosen" kings of all Israel).

3.      After Mesha´s rebellion did Ruben and Gad disappear from the
historical scene, here they are against any odds.

You see, you have created by your opposition a historical window of about
100 years between Mesha and Solomon, but nothing could within this time
frame fit.

4.      Joseph is said in this text as being the first-born, the prince among
his brothers - nothing similar is said of Judah - thus we may assume the
only king in Jeshurun was from among Joseph but than where does the
powerfull reference to Jerusalem come? Where is there a reference to the
(during the period of the divided kingdom) all-important Israelite temple
of Beth-El?

5. Which is the sense of "bring him to his people,by his hands" concerning
Judah? Where do we read about a personal union between Benjamin and Judah
in the Judahite kingdom.

You see, the attempt to accept Benjamin as non intrusive to the text and
to reject my cannonical argument, as well as my hint to the wordgame about
"shoulders" / Shechem is fatal to its understanding.

That´s all my argument about contexts and their importance.

In the moment a reconstruction of Venus of Millo begins to look after a
Picasso, you shouldn´t ask yourself, whether Picasso lived 2300 years
earlier, but instead whether the restaurator was wrong.

All the best,

Michael Bányai