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  • From: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 5 scrolls or 1
  • Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 20:30:48 -0700

Sujata, your reasoning in (b) is erroneous for this reason: people don't always actually do everything that is within their capabilities. Lack of capability can be evidence against something, but capability is not evidence for it. Right now I have the capability to set fire to my condominium and burn it down, but I am not going to do it (it would prove most inconvenient). God could have made human beings amphibious, but didn't. Capability does not prove actuality, and it is a logical fallacy to default to "if it can be done, somebody did it, unless it is proven that somebody didn't do it," as your point (b) implies.

We do in fact have _hard evidence_ that the books of the Torah were at least _sometimes_ written on individual scrolls in Hasmonean-Roman times. That evidence is the manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, 11Q1 (Paleo-Leviticus). I apologize for not being more precise but I am not sure when 11Q1 is dated as a physical production.

Chris

On Aug 20, 2005, at 5:28 PM, Sujata wrote:
co-exist in any given time period or b) evidence
should be provided that it was beyond the capabilities
of people of that time to sew together (or carry) a
single scroll that could carry the entire Torah. I saw
a Torah scroll for sale weighing 25 pounds which
shouldnt be too much for a man to carry.

--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Seaver Fellow in Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
Professional Web Page: http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
Internet Resource Index: http://www.iTanakh.org
Personal Web Page: http://www.heardworld.com





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