Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Michael Banyai writes:

>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

(I gather you mean 33:10.)

>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?

I don't see any such ceremony in 33:21, so I don't
accept your premise.

>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,

Neither does the text.

>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.

Really? You haven't established any historical
scene, so it's difficult to place any players
on or off it.

>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 text doesn't say this. The first-born was
functionally Ephraim. Jer 31:9 has God describe
Ephraim as "my first-born".

>the prince among his brothers -

The "prince" interpretation of the text is an assumption.
The text uses the word nzyr ("dedicated"), as in "Nazirite".

>nothing similar is said of Judah -

If the text was originally a northern text, that's not
surprising.

>thus we may assume the
>only king in Jeshurun was from among Joseph but than where does the
>powerfull reference to Jerusalem come?

A reference to Jerusalem here is an assumption.

>Where is there a reference to the
>(during the period of the divided kingdom) all-important Israelite temple
>of Beth-El?

What, in a Jerusalem tradition preserved text? It's
hard to say what the original text was like.

I get the feeling that it is hopeless trying to get
coherence out of this material, at least as presented
by you. The questions you ask are built on an artifice
you personally have created, which assume you have
also created an answer to them.

>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.

The conclusion doesn't seem to follow from anything
evident.

You may have something to say, but I don't think
you've done so in these recent posts.


Ian

>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.