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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53 read within the book as a whole

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53 read within the book as a whole
  • Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 15:27:45 -0700

On 27/05/2004 13:02, Lisbeth S. Fried wrote:

Dear Vadim,
I hope by "Jews of this time" you mean the Persian period,
the period in which the text is set. At this time there
was no concept of written law. I'm sure it is Greek.
There is no written law in Mesopotamia and none in Egypt
until the advent of the Ptolemies. There is a lot of work
on law codes, see my article in Persia and Torah for a review.
The word torah should be translated like hep, like data, etc.
I have tried to show that the reading of the torah in Ezra-Neh.
and the concept of Mosaic law which should be followed by all
is an Hellenic invention. That article should be out this fall
in a special Transeuphratene supplement. There were lists of
examples of just decisions, as in Hammurabi's Code, in the hp that Darius collected, in the Priestly Code of Leviticus, etc.,
but this should not be mistaken for a law code as we would
consider laws. The concept of no law except what is written
in the torah is anachronistic for the Persian period. It may
even be anachronistic for the Hellenic period. Perhaps a real
legal system is Roman.
Best,
Liz


Liz, you have done a nice job of setting up a straw man and shooting it down. Of course there was no Roman style legal system in the Persian or earlier periods, as that would be an anachronism. No one has ever claimed that there was. But each of these periods had its own form of written law. Hammurabi's code is written law. So is Leviticus. So are some Egyptian texts. If there are no surviving Persian texts, that's probably because they wrote them on perishable material, for there is certainly evidence of written decrees, as in all the Persian period Bible books. Just because they are not Roman style written laws, that does not imply that they are not written laws. Of course that is not to say that law was restricted to what is written down, any more than it is in England and the USA today where common law is still unwritten. But did anyone ever claim such a restriction?

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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