Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Thomas L. Thompson" <tlt AT teol.ku.dk>]

Dear Yigal and Uri,
I do apologize for mixing your letters up. I have trouble in my old age 
following and counting the arrows and all. I have decided to give some 
response to Kitchen as requested but fear my difficulty in understanding some 
of his criticisms of my work will make my response unsatisfactory to some.
 
I have not responded to Kitchen earlier primarily because I have not felt 
that his objections and criticisms to what I have written express much 
understanding of the issues I have addressed and I did not want to be part of 
a long drawn out quarrel signifying nothing. I feel that his book avoids the 
actual debates that occurred in the 70s and 90s and is largely judging a 
debate that is over.
 
Kitchen addresses my work directly in two sections: my work of 1992 on pages 
450ff. and the debates of the 1970s on pp. 475-484 as he identifies these as 
two discussions "more than a generation apart". He does have his way of 
making me seem older that he is! I had always judged the period of the 80s as 
most decisive for the debate on historicity, but that is not the issue for 
today.
 
In his discussion of the golden-oldies of the 70s he takes up Redford, Van 
Seters and me without always clearly distinguishing between us. I do remember 
these works and the discussion well, so I believe I recognize when he is 
referring to my work. Page 475f (alsp. 342), he discusses patriarchal names 
and draws conclusions that are essentially compatible with what I wrote in my 
Historicity of 1974. This is also the case in his treatment of the "Amorites" 
(476f.) and about the Nuzi tablets (480f): the most important  three issues 
of my work. In this respect, I suspect he would agree with me against Van 
Seters (see my JAOS 1978 article), especially in regard to the chronological 
distribution of such names. I do wish Kitchen had written something just as 
scathing in the 1970s, but he didn't.
 
There are, of course, some issues of disagreement. He prefers--with Dever in 
his 1977 article in Miller-Hayes!--the MB II period as the time of the 
patriarchs, but he has missed my response to Deveer in JSOT 9(1978), 2-43, 
though Dever at that time was still clinging to the Amorite hypothesis, which 
I had emptied.
 
On the issue of the direction of migration, Kitchen's proposal that Abraham's 
family was transhumant nomadic is beside the point, as the direction of 
migration was an argument of Buccellatti/ Kupper and especially Dever that 
there was evidence for a migration westwards, which there was not.

Unfortunately, he does not really understand the argument of Irvin (not 
Irwin) and folktale studies. She did not argue that the use of folktale 
motifs  and structures in the Joseph and Moses stories, made these figures 
unhistorical, only--as Kitchen himself does--that these elements of their 
stories are.
 
I also wonder at his association of me with the documentary hypothesis and 
that tradition of scholarship. Most--including myself--have understood my 
work as substantially opposed to that kind of "historical criticism" 
(Again,see my JÁOS 1978 article). 
 
Finally, on this early period. It does not pertain that Kitchen thinks there 
may be other treaties more relevant than Mendenhall used, I was writing my 
article in 1977.
 
I will continue these comments with Kitchen's more interesting discussion of 
my work from 1992.
 
Thomas
 
Thomas L. Thompson
Professor, University of Copenhagen

        Dear Yigal,
        I don't really have a "position" about a temple in Jerusalem, 
destroyed by the neo-Babylonians. I expect that it was built and destroyed. 
When it would have been built, I cannot say. I see Jerusalem becoming a 
significant regional power between the mid-8th and mid 7th centuries and so 
certainly think of this period, but I have no compelling reason. In 
Jerusalem, one would expect the temple deity would be Yahweh, but Ba'al and 
Asherah might also be included.
        
        I fail to understand your rhetoric concerning "one of the inventions 
made up in Hellenistic times." It is not quite my own.
        
        I will take a look at Kitchen's remarks, as it has been some time 
since I read his piece.
        
        I am familiar with some of the literature on Beth Shemesh, but I am 
uncertain about what it supports.
        Thomas
        
                -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
                Fra: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org på vegne af Uri 
Hurwitz
                Sendt: ma 21-03-2005 18:25
                Til: Thomas L. Thompson; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
                Cc: ihj AT hum.ku.dk
                Emne: Re: SV: [b-hebrew] Samaritans
               
               
        
                    Dear Thomas,
               
                     It is not clear from your reponse below  what your 
position is about a temple in Jeruslem that according to HB was detroyed by 
the neo-Babylonians. Do you accept that such a temple existed,or do you 
consider it also one the inventions made up in Hellensitic times? If ,on the 
other hand, you accept the existence of such a temple, do you have an 
appreciation as to when it was built,   to what deity it was dedicated, and 
by whom?
                 
                  Have you responded to the very specific criticisms of K. A. 
Kitchen in pp. 450 - 458 of his On the Reliability of the Old Testament? 
Surely these highly specific comments by a major scholar deserve an answer.
               
                  If you're interested, I'll forward you offline an overview 
of an on going major archaeological site in Israel  -- Beth Shemesh --the 
findings of which support the existence of a stong central political body in 
the late 10th - 9th century.
               
                  Finally, I'm sure everybody would join me in wishing your 
wife a speedy recovery.
               
                   Uri
               
                   
               
                "Thomas L. Thompson" <tlt AT teol.ku.dk> wrote:
                Dear Yigal,
                Well the Samaritans and their relationship to Judaism is not 
directly my own field, and it has only been a relatively short time that this 
question has taken up much of my time, but I will try to address your two 
questions, as both of them seem to me to be quite important.
               
                2) This is an intriguing question. I think quite possibly 
that Gerizim is original to the Pentateuch. How early that is is another 
question that is partially dependent on a satisfactory description of its 
composition. I suspect, for instance that Genesis--or much of it--is later 
than, for example Exodus-Numbers. Whether the torah is common to Palestinian 
literature or whether it is adopted by Judaism is an important consideration. 
If it is common in its origin to both Judaism and Samaritanism, this might 
suggest a Persian period + chronology.
                As for the status of Gerizim, the excavations strengthen the 
idea that this may be very early indeed. How early is something we will have 
to wait for patiently as--insofar as I have understood--they have not gotten 
down to bedrock yet, but 6th century is early indeed--far earlier than 
Jerusalem's temple.
               
                1) I argued already in my Early History of 1992 that the 
populations of the regions of Judea and Samaria should be dealt with in 
separate but related histories from the Iron Age. Judaism seems to be the 
relatively latecomer, when one begins to consider identification and 
self-identity as Jews and Samaritans (that is, Shomronim)--a relationship of 
the older tradition of the Samaritans and the younger Judaism, which has many 
confirmations in the biblical traditions (see here my new book, The Messiah 
Myth, Basic, New York, April, 2005). Ingrid's 2000 book on the Samaritans 
deals extensively--and I think essentially correctly--with Josephus' 
treatment of the Samaritans as both tendentious and distorting.
               
                Sincerely,
                Thomas
               
                Thomas L. Thompson
                Professor, University of Copenhagen
               
               
               
                Yigal Levin wrote:
               
                Dear Thomas,
               
                If you are willing to share them, I would be interested to 
hear your views
                on the following two issues:
                1. The role that the political division between Samaria and 
Jerusalem,
                especially during the Persian Period but perhaps also during 
the Iron Age,
                had on the development of Judaism and Samaritanism into two 
distinct groups.
               
                2. As far as it is possible to tell from the archaeological 
and textual
                evidence, when do you think that Mt. Gerizim attained its 
status as the
                Samaritans' cultic center? Was it not only after the sack of 
Samaria by
                Alexander and its conversion into a Greek city? Or is there 
evidence of it
                having occurred earlier? Would this not then give us a date 
for at least the
                inclusion of Mt. Geranium into the Samaritan Pentateuch?
               
                Thank you,
               
                Yigal
               
               
               
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