Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Noam Eitan <bhebrew AT yahoo.com>]

>
>My question was, what problem could Jews in mountaneous Jerusalem have with 
>those islands?

Why take a narrow Jerusalemite perspective? The prophets were working within 
literary tradition extending centuries back and miles away. Hostility towards 
Sea Peoples could be part of those traditions or memory traces. Why take the 
poetic output of the prophets as a specific delineation of geographic and 
political realities of their period and city? 

J.C. De Moor writes in his book ‘The Rise of Yahwism’, (Pages 205-206):”… 
Israel was still living in Transjordan, far from the sea. Yet the text of 
(Habbakkuk 3) v. 14b creates the impression that the "countrymen" of Israel 
felt threatened by the hordes of Yam. A feasible solution is to assume that 
the poem reflects early Is­rael's reaction to another invasion of the Sea 
Peoples in Canaan, in the last decade of the 13th or the first decade of the 
12th cen­tury B.C. Merenptah records a clash with the Sea Peoples, among 
them Sherdanu, in his fifth year (c. 1207 B.C.). Note the sim­ilarity of 
the designations of Yam, "him who walks in guilt" (Ps. 68:22) and "the Evil 
One" (Hab. 3:13). Again the Israelites were victorious, but the order of 
magnitude of the clash was much big­ger. Apparently we are closer to the 
catastrophal wave of attacks c. 1190 B.C.”

Noam Eitan, Brooklyn, NY


                
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>From joebaker AT cygnus.uwa.edu.au  Tue Jun  8 19:49:28 2004
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Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 07:49:23 +0800
From: Joe Baker <joebaker AT cygnus.uwa.edu.au>
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Subject: [b-hebrew] Re: Documentary Hypothesis -  OT translations
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Hi Peter

Yes I was rushing and made a wide generalised and a mistake in the list of
the LXX "omissions".

I should have said that the LXX "omissions" in 1 Samuel 17-18 include
smaller units that make self contained stories (but I believe they once were
part of a single whole). These units are (with the correct listing)

17:12-31
17:41, 48b, 50
17:55-58
18;30, 17-19 (21b)
18:10-11, 12b, 29b

Now I put this forward in the context of the DH. Now, as you know, one of
the main argument of the DH approach is that one can divide the narrative
into its component sources. But one of the counter arguments of the other
side is that not one of these assumed original documents (in any form)
survives as an independent testament to separate sources.

So I put forward LXX 1 Samuel 17-18 and the LXX "omissions" (as reflected in
the MT version) as just such "original" sources - or rather the ancestor
manuscripts from which MT 1 Samuel 17-18 ultimately derived - which were
combined (cut, rearranged, pasted) during the Persian period. (And no I am
not saying that, overall, LXX 1 Samuel is superior to the MT version).

Like the DH we have two sources which were combined together. The retractor
did not use the full text of the LXX "omissions". What was include and
exclude was up to redactor. For example as you point out he did not include
the meeting of Saul and David or the moving of David to the battle front
(maybe because they were already adequately covered in the existing LXX
account). But on the other hand (maybe for dramatic purposes) he did include
parallel material, one such case caused a "double" killing of Goliath.

Like the DH the redactor may rearrange the narrative sequence of one or both
sources - see the above split. And he may also add a phrase to iron out
perceived inconsistencies in the different narratives - see the note on the
valley of Elah in 17:2 and the addition of 18:21b about a second chance to
marry another daughter (no where else is it even hinted that Merab was once
promised to David).

Regards
Joe Baker ===========\
Perth                |
Western Australia ===/