Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

        Dear Yitzhak,
        I do not know whether Ingrid Hjelm will respond as she has been ill. 
        Most of your comments have little to do with me. Perhaps only what 
you have in points 3 and 4.
         
        a) "assumptions" of a late dating for the Deuteronomistic history. 
Though Hjelm argues this extensively and hardly "assumes" it, I would point 
out that late dates are what we have with our manuscripts. The issue is to 
argue for early ones for the texts of our manuscripts. I would also not 
assume that a so-called deuteronomistic history exists and that has much to 
do with Hjelm's discussion.
         
        b) Not knowing whom you might identify as in the "minimalist camp", I 
will guess that you include Ingrid and me. She deals with the relative dating 
of biblical texts,,,,,, extensively in her discussion of the primacy of 
Isaiah over Kings in Jerusalem's Rise to Sovereignty, but then your criticism 
implies that this is not a "satisfactory" treatment of the issue. I have an 
explicitly inadequate, but nevertheless positive response to Polzin and 
Hurvitz in my The Origin Tradition of Ancient Israel (p.191-194). Hurvits has 
not really done much more on the dating of ancient Hebrew than what I accept 
here. Much criticism of Hurvitz' position has been published in many places. 
I would hardly identify that with a "minimalist camp".
        Thomas

                -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- 
                Fra: Yitzhak Sapir [mailto:yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com] 
                Sendt: ma 11-04-2005 01:23 
                Til: Thomas L. Thompson; Ingrid Hjelm; 
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org; ihj AT hum.ku.dk 
                Cc: 
                Emne: Re: [b-hebrew] Samaritan script/proto-hebrew
                
                

                Dear Prof. Thompson, and interested listmembers,
                
                I have now read and reread Chs.4 (Deuteronomist vs.
                Yahwist) and 7 (Conclusion) of Ingrid Hjelm's Jerusalem's
                Rise to Sovereignty.  My feeling and thoughts regarding
                these are decidedly negative.  Rather than elaborate my
                negative comments, in what would have become a very
                negative criticism, I have decided to summarize my main
                points of criticism.  Hopefully, this will allow these
                criticisms and questions to be addressed, if not now,
                then in the future.  I do think some points raised by
                Ingrid are worthwhile, and that her book does a great
                service in making available more knowledge about the
                Samaritans.  I don't think proper Biblical study can
                proceed without objectively viewing the Samaritans as
                a separate community, even if it had cultural and perhaps
                political ties, with Judea.
                
                For those interested, an article by her (SBL/2002) that
                iterates some of the comments mentioned in this book
                is available at:
                
http://www.mystae.com/reflections/messiah/samjudah/Shiloh&Shechem.htm
                
                My criticisms:
                1) Mutilations of Biblical verses.  The most glaring are
                on page 179.  Some seem to mix Samaritan and Judaic
                spellings.  I think this is very severe.
                2) Not properly referencing past research.  For example,
                p. 171 regarding tri-partite Isaiah being severely
                questioned in recent work.
                3) Assumptions of very late datings for the Deuteronomistic
                History (p. 301), while at the same time taking the AF (a
                Samaritan Chronicle by Abu Fath) as valid evidence in light
                of very meagre arguments (p. 188).   Particularly, I think 
that
                the story brought on p. 211-213, about Samaritans proving
                to Darius that Gerizim was the proper Temple site based on
                exegesis of the Torah, suggests that it comes from a time
                when Samaritans did not have an "addition" to the
                Decalogue.  As it is quoted in an Arabic source and refers
                to the Qibla within the story, I think this would suggest that
                as late as the 7th century CE, the Samaritans did not have
                such a commandment.  One need only consider the
                warnings by Lemche in SJOT 7/2, p. 169 - 170 regarding
                dating the books of Samuel, to realize the problematic
                methodology that is employed in using the AF (and the
                Samaritan Pentateuch) uncritically in studies of the
                Hellenistic times and earlier as is done in p. 184 onwards.
                4) Not dealing with linguistic issues (p. 188).  I would
                particularly like to know if any linguist on the "minimalist"
                camp has convincingly dealt with criticisms by important
                linguists:
                
http://www.mail-archive.com/orion AT panda.mscc.huji.ac.il/msg00402.html
                
http://www.mail-archive.com/orion AT panda.mscc.huji.ac.il/msg00405.html
                
                I am currently studying the background of the books of
                Samuel, and yet, I look forward to reading Ch. 5 which
                apparently deals with some of these books.  I doubt I
                will agree, but I am sure it will contain much useful
                information.  I would like to thank Prof Thompson for
                participating in this discussion and Prof Hjelm for
                making the Samaritan evidence more available and for
                pointing the need to focus Biblical research in its light.
                
                Yitzhak Sapir