Biblical Hebrew Forum

[<david.kimbrough AT charter.net>]

Harold,

I would point out that according to traditional 
chronologies the Isrealites were in captivity in Egypt at 
this time.  An unlikely place and population to influce 
Sumerian poetry.

We can only go on the evidence at hand.  There is no 
evidence of any kind for the existence of the Hebrew 
language or Hebrew versions of Job-like poems around 1700 
BC. If new evidence arises, it can be considered.  Without 
evidence of some sort, it is just speculation.


> From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
> Date: 2004/06/11 Fri AM 02:49:42 GMT
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [b-hebrew] Re: Job & Sumer
> 
> Dear David K.,
> 
>       In support of Dave Washburn's possibility thinking, 
some ancient 
> orderings of the biblical books put Job right after the 
Pentateuch, 
> and this may be due to the thought that Job lived in the 
patriarchal 
> times. A popular conservative dating for Abraham puts his 
birth in 
> 2166 B.C. By that scheme, if Job had been contemporary 
with Abraham, 
> then his story could have been written prior to 1700 B.C. 
I've 
> recently been reading about the canon, and the fact came 
up that the 
> ancient rabbinic Jews had several conceptions about when 
Job should 
> be dated, and a patriarchal date was one of them.
> 
>                               Yours,
>                               Harold Holmyard
> 
> >Sure, why not?  We're dealing with what I call the 
accident of preservation,
> >for one thing.  The LXX and DSS were done on parchment 
or papyrus, whereas
> >the Sumerian documents were done on fired clay.  Is one 
likely to survive
> >longer than the other?  I would hope so.  Furthermore, 
the DSS are not the
> >oldest examples of "recorded Hebrew writing" that we 
have.  ISTM that the
> >paragraph below has one standard for Sumerian and 
another for Hebrew, which
> >is not a valid procedure.  We have no real idea how old 
the Hebrew language
> >is, and were it not for the accident of preservation, we 
wouldn't have any
> >idea that Sumerian ever existed.  Basing such crucial 
decisions on the whims
> >of nature seems like shaky ground to me.
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
> 

David Kimbrough
San Gabriel