Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Dear All,
I have not read Longman's book, but does the arguement
have to do with the use of first person? I've been wondering
about the use of first person in Ezra, and if that is a pseudo-biography,
I have here Seow's commentary and he agrees that the introductory
verse is in the style of Akkadian royal inscriptions, and belongs to
the fictional Akkadian biography, but he goes on to say that the author
plays against it. Instead of extoling his mighty works, he says that all
mighty works are for naught.
Are these the only uses of first person in the bible, Kohelet, Ezra and
Nehemiah?
Oh, I guess the Psalms too.
Does Longman discuss the use of first person, has anyone?
Thanks,
liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Trevor & Julie
> Peterson
> Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 5:37 AM
> To: 'Biblical Hebrew'
> Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Qohelet Genre T.Longman
>
>
> Peter wrote:
>
> > I wonder
> > if such deliberate confusion of genres ever happened in ancient times,
> > or if writers really kept truth and fiction separate. Of course that
> > impacts historicity discussions - is a text either all truth or all
> > fiction, or can it be a mixture? - but we are not supposed to get into
> > that one here.
>
> This is part of what bothered me about Longman's argument. Again, I'm
> not trying to say that Qohelet really was written by Solomon, but if
> it's a matter of arguing that it was not, I don't know how much his
> genre categories do to help that case. For one thing, I don't recall
> where he ever distinguished fictional autobiography from real
> autobiography (if there was such a thing). How do we know that the form
> was not the same regardless (or that the distinction is meaningless,
> since all story-telling has some fiction to it)?
>
> Trevor Peterson
> CUA/Semitics
>
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