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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Job & Sumer

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: david.kimbrough AT charter.net
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Job & Sumer
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 03:46:46 -0700

On 10/06/2004 20:06, david.kimbrough AT charter.net wrote:

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.


I'm not sure what "this time" you think anyone else is talking about, but from what I have read others have suggested dating Job in the "patriarchal period", which on any traditional chronology predates captivity in Egypt, and also predates your first Sumerian examples of the Job story.

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.


I see a variety of misunderstandings here, of which the most significant may be the assumption that the book of Job as we have it has an Israelite source or is even in Hebrew. Its language is certainly very strange by the regular standards of biblical Hebrew, and may well have been more strange before being tidied up by later copyists. Meanwhile, there certainly is evidence that languages like Hebrew were in existence in this period. There may be gaps in our knowledge (there certainly are in mine), but there was certainly a progression from something like Eblaite to Ugaritic as well as to early Hebrew. Indeed we can be sure that someone somewhere was speaking a direct ancestor of Hebrew in 1700 BC, even if it is entirely speculative who or where they were. And there is no way to disprove a hypotheses that they already carried with them the story of Job, whether written or as oral tradition. This much we can say, although more than this is indeed speculation.



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





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