Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Uri Hurwitz wrote:

> Ingrid Hjelm wrote, inter alia:
>  ...." The Former Profets in some
> forms date to the centuries before the common era as we know 
> from Dead Sea Scrolls, the Greek and Latin evidence, Josephus 
> and rabbinic sources"...
> 
>   Excuse me, but this is not clear. Could you explain what you 
> mean?
> 
>  (you did make clear that this doesn't refer to the MT --  a different 
> matter, which in itself  can be divided into consonantal text and  
> vocalization. As for the first, the good people who judge it to be 
> mediaeval forget that the Mishnah, when quoting biblical texts, is 
> practically using the MT).

Hi Uri, I think you got this all wrong.  This does refer to the MT
Former Prophets (ie, so called Deuteronomistic History, but without
committing to the existence of a "Deuteronomistic History").  In
asking ourselves the question "When did the MT Former Prophets
exist?", we must answer, "we only know that by the 2nd century
BCE or 1st century BCE at the latest, that the Former Prophets
existed."  This is because of the various translations, Septuagint
foremost among them, but also Aramaic and Latin, and in 
references in the Dead Sea Scrolls, copies in the Dead Sea 
Scrolls, Josephus paraphrases, and references in the Mishnah 
and other Rabbinic writings.  If they wouldn't have existed as a
whole, we wouldn't have seen translations as a whole to the 
Greek language spoken in this time, etc.  Thus, "The Former 
Prophets in some form date to the centuries before the common 
era as we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Greek and Latin 
evidence, Josephus and Rabbinic sources."

Yitzhak Sapir