Biblical Hebrew Forum

[goranson AT duke.edu]

Ken,
Of course you likely won't want to expand the topic in all directions 
if you want to finish the dissertation. Here, in no careful order, are 
a few possibilities, some of which you might consider considering.

"Why Did the Qumran Community Write in Hebrew?" is a good question, 
and an article title by Steven Weitzman JAOS 119 (1999) 235f. Related: 
Wm. Schneidewind "Qumran Hebrew as an Antilanguage," JBL 118 (1999) 
235f (the adopted term "antilanguage" is not satisfactory, but the 
article is better than the title); J. Campbell, "Hebrew and its Study 
at Qumran," Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda (1999) 38f.; S. 
Segert, "Hebrew Essenes--Aramaic Christians," Mogilany 1995...(Krakow, 
1998) 169f; etc.

Chronology matters. Before 1948 many thought Hebrew was little-used in 
late second temple period, deferring to Aramaic. Hence, for example, 
the 2 then-popular Aramaic guesses for etymology of "Essenes." As is 
now increasingly recognized, "Essenes" comes from a self-designation, 
found internally at Qumran, and in acccord with external evidence. 
This self-designation--like the choice to write Rules and Pesharim 
[itself an important term of course; and genre may matter (subsets of 
prose)]--in Hebrew, is significant.

At Brown University, where such papers were quite welcomed, no one 
presented any good reason to deny that Essenes lived at Qumran; the 
positive evidence is ineluctable. so the Greek etc. accounts, used 
appropriately, are relevant.

Chronology matters for evaluating claims of development (e.g. Avi 
Hurvitz of Hebrew U., or Kutscher Isaiah book and supp.; or Qimron's 
word lists & cf. Leshonenu articles and Materials for the Historical 
Dictionary of the Hebrew Language microfiche, apparently now on CD) or 
archaizing. 

One repeated dating error, noted by me and Dr. Jull of the Arizona lab:
To say: these mss were written no later than X date, and so any C14 
date ranges after that date are wrong. Circular, basic 
misunderstanding of C14 tests and their reported probabilities. Why 
some doggedly prefer wrong dates is another topic.

Martin Abegg's tagged concordance is on CD, OakTree (printed version, 
Brill; Stephen Pfann Concordance, Bibal Press, TX, fc). It may be of 
interest to see if your verb lists match; note readings or 
interpretations which are disputed; whether your taggings match.

How to read the 390 years in CD? Can it mean 390 after the end of 
Babylonian Captivity? That would accord with other pointers to 
Alexander Jannaeus as Wicked Priest.

best wishes,
Stephen Goranson
>From KLNoll AT kwc.edu  Fri Feb 28 08:29:02 2003
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From: "Kurt Noll" <KLNoll AT kwc.edu>
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Subject: Re: RE: [b-hebrew] The Priestly Stratum (Liz)
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Liz wrote (in part):
I was not aware of Khirbet el Qom.  It is indeed in the heartland of
Judah. I did not discuss this site, and it was not brought to my
attention, probably because these are tomb inscriptions and it is not a
cult site, there is no cultic material. I should have discussed it tho.
***
First, I am beginning to wonder whether this discussion is on-topic for
b-hebrew.  Isn't b-hebrew more concerned with matters linguistic?  If,
however, we are not off-topic, I will make these comments... 

Liz, as you know, I have a great respect for your research and have
learned much from our on- and off-list exchanges.  But on this issue, I
worry that you are trying to describe the elephant by examining only its
trunk.  Cultic material, as you know, is but a portion of the material
remains of religious experience.  To assert that all the people of Iron
Age II Judah were not polytheistic on this basis seems to me a bit
reckless.  A site such as el Qom is essential to the discussion (and, by
the way, Deir Alla is not Edomite.  I'd guess that its inhabitants saw
themselves as "Israelite" in some sense, and its material remains give
us a glimpse at a version of an "Israelite" religion).  More
significantly, if you wish to argue (as apparently you do) that the
Bible "history" is more or less accurate but the prophetic critique of
polytheism is a post-exile interpretation that was logical but
inaccurate, then you need to examine Mark S. Smith and others, who have
a great deal to say about the Bible evidence.  Texts such as the MSS
variants in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 suggest to many of us that even scribes
who were writing material that eventually became "Bible" presupposed a
theism that is more akin to "poly-" than to "mono-".  The fact that the
MSS variants survived at all suggests that the emergence of monotheism
was a long time a-comin' and was not the only Jewish religious option
even at a relatively late date.

Shalom,
Kurt

*********************************
Dr. Kurt L. Noll
Kentucky Wesleyan College
3000 Frederica Street
Owensboro, KY  42302
http://www.kwc.edu/academic/religion/index.html
(270) 852-3220
KLNoll AT kwc.edu

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
                                            - Upton Sinclair
**********
>From lizfried AT umich.edu  Fri Feb 28 08:59:37 2003
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From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: RE: RE: [b-hebrew] The Priestly Stratum (Liz)
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 09:06:07 -0500
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Dear Kurt et. al.
Fine, I will take back what I said about Judah not being
polytheistic in Iron Age II until I read Mark's book again.
My article in JAOS was an investigation of the putative
destruction of the high places by Hezekiah and Josiah.
I concluded that there was no such destruction.
That is the entire gist and conclusion of the article.

That said, however, it was a great shock to me that
cultic material was virtually non-existent. In the
dozens of cities, towns, and villages that had been
excavated in Iron II Judah there were no cult sites
anywhere to be found that could be dated after 701.
Now I identified a cult site as a public area that contained
an incense or sacrificial altar or a matsebah. It seems
to me that actual worship ought to involve these things.
If worship in the Iron Age does not involve an altar then
I don't know what worship means. Worship as it is described
in the biblical text includes burning incense at least.

But right, I don't know how germane this is to the list.
I had begun the thread to find out if there was any linguistic
or other evidence for dating the priestly stratum to the Persian
period, or if there was a linguistic reason for believing that
the author of core Deuteronomy wrote at a different time from the
authors of Leviticus and Numbers.

Best,
Liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Kurt Noll
> Sent: Fri, February 28, 2003 8:28 AM
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: RE: [b-hebrew] The Priestly Stratum (Liz)
>
>
> Liz wrote (in part):
> I was not aware of Khirbet el Qom.  It is indeed in the heartland of
> Judah. I did not discuss this site, and it was not brought to my
> attention, probably because these are tomb inscriptions and
> it is not a
> cult site, there is no cultic material. I should have
> discussed it tho.
> ***
> First, I am beginning to wonder whether this discussion is
> on-topic for
> b-hebrew.  Isn't b-hebrew more concerned with matters linguistic?  If,
> however, we are not off-topic, I will make these comments...
>
> Liz, as you know, I have a great respect for your research and have
> learned much from our on- and off-list exchanges.  But on
> this issue, I
> worry that you are trying to describe the elephant by
> examining only its
> trunk.  Cultic material, as you know, is but a portion of the material
> remains of religious experience.  To assert that all the
> people of Iron
> Age II Judah were not polytheistic on this basis seems to me a bit
> reckless.  A site such as el Qom is essential to the
> discussion (and, by
> the way, Deir Alla is not Edomite.  I'd guess that its inhabitants saw
> themselves as "Israelite" in some sense, and its material remains give
> us a glimpse at a version of an "Israelite" religion).  More
> significantly, if you wish to argue (as apparently you do) that the
> Bible "history" is more or less accurate but the prophetic critique of
> polytheism is a post-exile interpretation that was logical but
> inaccurate, then you need to examine Mark S. Smith and
> others, who have
> a great deal to say about the Bible evidence.  Texts such as the MSS
> variants in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 suggest to many of us that even scribes
> who were writing material that eventually became "Bible" presupposed a
> theism that is more akin to "poly-" than to "mono-".  The
> fact that the
> MSS variants survived at all suggests that the emergence of monotheism
> was a long time a-comin' and was not the only Jewish religious option
> even at a relatively late date.
>
> Shalom,
> Kurt
>
> *********************************
> Dr. Kurt L. Noll
> Kentucky Wesleyan College
> 3000 Frederica Street
> Owensboro, KY  42302
> http://www.kwc.edu/academic/religion/index.html
> (270) 852-3220
> KLNoll AT kwc.edu
>
> "It is difficult to get a man to understand something
> when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
>                                             - Upton Sinclair
> **********
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