Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 9/17/06, Shoshanna Walker wrote, quoting me:

> > Belief in prophecy is not a condition for reconstructing history, much less 
> so
> > when the text involved (Daniel) is a complex prophecy that is not clear on 
> what
> > it refers to.

> It is very clear when you agree that Chazal made it their business to
> know our history and record it in writing.

It is not a matter of agreement.  I offered evidence, that R' Yose's dating
scheme for the Persian period was erroneous.  In fact, I think most
Orthodox Jews (I don't know about Haredi Jewry), would accept that R'
Yose may have been in error.  Similarly, most would accept that the
traditional interpretation of Daniel which is based / related to R' Yose's
dating scheme may be similarly wrong.  In any case, even though I
offered evidence his dating scheme was erroneous based on documents
that were written (not simply copied or passed down orally) during the
times "events really happened", you have not countered this evidence.
You don't have to, but it makes no sense to then criticize me a week
afterwards for not "agreeing" that HZ"L made it their business to know
our history.

The very fact that you claim to need HZ"L to interpret the text means that the
text itself is not straightforward and simple, but complex.  The HZ"L 
traditions
may be one way to interpret the text, and may even offer several competing
ways to interpret the text, as is Christian tradition, and as is reviewing the
text itself to see what it means based on the merits of the text
itself.  In fact,
I view the exact dating independently of the events so that I do not 
necessarily
believe that the exact dating of the years corresponds to actual events.  They
may or they may not, and this itself has to be judged, in my opinion, on the
merits of the text itself.

Yitzhak Sapir