Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

Nobody is trying to prove anything about authorship or date.

My original question was an attempt to understand why the LXX has these five 
separations. Were 
these introduced by the LXX translators? Did the LXX translators faithfully 
translate five 
seperations which already existed in Hebrew culture? Did the LXX translators 
originally translate 
the torah as one book and the seperations were introduced later?

It's just that I have often heard claimed as fact that the torah was always 
on one scroll (or considered
as one book) and that the seperations are a direct result of the influence of 
the LXX. Yet BHS has 
seperations in exactly the same places. I was just wondering on what evidence 
these bold statements 
had been based and now it seems as though there is none. Jesus continual 
reference to the 'law' seems 
to indicate that in his day it was considered one work (whether it was 
physically on one scroll is 
irrelevant. I just want to establish how the torah was viewed (1 or 5 
stories)).

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Yigal Levin
Sent: Sun 8/21/2005 6:42 AM
To: b-hebrew
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 5 scrolls or 1
 
This has already been discussed. All five books of the Torah have been
written on a single scroll and used in the synagogue for centuries. Such a
scroll is usable for ritual reading, but very inconvenient for actual study.
So yes, the Torah, once composed and conceived of as a whole, could have
been written on a single scroll. I just don't think that that proves
anything about the actual authorship or date of composition of the Torah.

Yigal
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sujata" <shevaroys AT yahoo.com>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 2:28 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 5 scrolls or 1


> True. By 2nd Century CE Mosaic authorship and single
> scroll were established facts and those that who wrote
> it down as facts believed those facts came down to
> them from thousands of years ago.
>
> If this tradition of Torah facts needs to be refuted
> today by researchers, should it not be refuted with
> hard evidence and not assumptions?  a) there should be
> hard evidence that the Torah was written over a long
> period of time by different authors that did not
> 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.
>
> Best wishes,
> Sujata
>
> --- Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> wrote:
>
> > The "regulations" all appear in rabbinic literature,
> > written, at the
> > earliest, in the second century CE. By then, we can
> > assume, the Torah was
> > written (at least in some circles) on a single
> > scroll like it is today, and
> > the tradition of Mosaic authorship of the whole
> > Torah was firmly established
> > (in fact, it is assumed by Josephus and Philo).
> >
> > Yigal
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Sujata" <shevaroys AT yahoo.com>
> > To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 12:55 AM
> > Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 5 scrolls or 1
> >
> >
> > > When tradition says it was a single scroll, unless
> > > there is hard evidence that it was written in
> > multiple
> > > scrolls,   why should a researcher's "assumptions"
> > be
> > > taken seriously.
> > >
> > > Are there not regulations on how many columns a
> > > pentateuch scroll should contain? Would that not
> > > suggest a single scroll?
> > >
> > > Best wishes,
> > > Sujata
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Jim West wrote:
> > >
> > > well yes there is.  unless we suppose that the
> > author
> > > of genesis is
> > > also
> > > the author of exodus is also the author of
> > leviticus
> > > and that he wrote
> > > them all out on one scroll and that example was
> > > followed from that time
> > > onward.  these books were, at some point, just
> > single
> > > books or
> > > fragments
> > > of books, correct?
> > >
> > >
> > >  or are you suggesting that they were written in
> > > huge
> > > multi book chunks?  even given the length of the
> > > deuteronomistic
> > > history
> > > (a multi volume "work", if you will) it is so
> > > extensive that no one can
> > > suppose, can they, that it was originally a one
> > scroll
> > > composition.
> > >
> > > Only the 3-fold method in Qumran and the 5 fold
> > method
> > > > known from Qumran, modern Jewish tradition, as
> > well
> > > as the
> > > > Septuagint.
> > >
> > > positing ancient reality from fragmentary examples
> > and
> > > modern practice
> > > seems a bit hazardous.  what we need is hard
> > evidence.
> > >
> > > >
> > > > I have also received the following in reference
> > to
> > > your mention of
> > > Tov's book
> > > > and the "five scrolls" from Carla Sulzbach:  "I
> > > checked my copy, and
> > > indeed,
> > > > on p. 4 he speaks of Five Megillot. However,
> > that is
> > > in a section on
> > > the order
> > > > of the books in the "Hagiographa", the Ketuvim,
> > and
> > > ... he does not
> > > refer to
> > > > Torah scrolls, five or any other number, but to
> > Shir
> > > ha-Shirim, Ruth,
> > > Eicha,
> > > > etc."  I don't know.  In the Hebrew edition, he
> > > doesn't seem to
> > > discuss
> > > > methods of order of the books at all, at least
> > not
> > > where I could see
> > > it, so
> > > > perhaps it is an addition in the English
> > version.
> > >
> > > Well whoever added it didnt do a very good job of
> > > being clear.
> > >
> > > best
> > >
> > > jim
> > >
> > >
> > > -- 
> > > Jim West, ThD
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > ____________________________________________________
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> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
>
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Although this thread has the potential to easily go off topic I just want to 
make clear before starting 
that it is my sincere intention that this discussion be a linguistic one.

The canonical christian greek writings and the works of the church fathers 
contain many direct quotations 
from the hebrew bible. I am trying to form a well layed out article which 
explores the translation policies 
of the 1st century christians and their later counterparts, the church 
fathers. All help would be greatly 
appreciated.

I want the article to have particular attention both to translation of 
grammatical forms and of semantics 
and pragmatic factors. Although such a discussion would involve heavy usage 
of both Hebrew and Greek I feel
it has a rightful place in a Hebrew linguistic forum because such 
considerations form an important linguistic
link to a dead language.

To set the ball rolling I wanted to consider the translation ofverbs with 
particular attention to tenses used 
to tranlslate the various hebrew verb forms. 

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From: Sujata <shevaroys AT yahoo.com>
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Chris,
I agree, however, my (b) does not stand alone by
itself, but stands in the context of there being a
traditional belief that the Torah was one scroll.

Yes, God could have created us as amphibians, but that
is not an age old belief unlike the single scroll
Torah. The single scroll is a thousands of years old
belief and it is doable, so needs to be refuted with
evidence.

Deu 31:26 talks of a single scroll. In the early days,
the scroll would have existed only in the Tabernacle
and not with individuals or groups of individuals.

11Q1 I think is a 1st/2nd century partial scroll, not
a complete one.

Best wishes,
Sujata

--- "Heard, Christopher"
<Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu> wrote:

> 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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> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>




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