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  • From: <david.kimbrough AT charter.net>
  • To: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Job & Sumer
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 3:06:18 +0000

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.
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>

David Kimbrough
San Gabriel





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