Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Reinhard G. Lehmann" <lehmann AT uni-mainz.de>]

> >  And the Siloam inscription was basically workman's
> > graffiti.
> >     
>
> Treaty? Oh, you mean the covenant. Covenants between a god and a person 
> were not on public display. Covenants between a person, a god, and a third 
> party were displayed (Zoilos is a three-party covenant). Law codes are a 
> three party covenant. (That Hittite-Egyptian treaty was also displayed 
> publicly -- even if precious few folks could read it.) The covenant is 
> between Moses and God. (Just as the covenant is between Abraham and 
> God.)  After Moses shows the two tablets to prove their existence, reads 
> the 10C to the public, they are hidden away. Joshua's mishneh of the 
> extended version is the public display.So, here's another ANE tradition 
> referenced in the Torah.
>
> The Siloam inscription...  Hmm, if we consider it a votive offering, (which 
> is a covenant between a person and a god) then we would expect it to be 
> relatively inaccessible... and the tunnel does bear comparison with a cave. 
> Never thought about that aspect before. Thanks.
That the Siloam inscription was a workman's graffito has been claimed 
already by A. Lods in 1955, and others before and after him, and, as far 
as I remember, also by Ian Young, who thinks of Phoenician workers. 
There is another idea by Levi Della Vida (1968) that it  "appears to be 
nothing if not a passage taken from the 'Book of the Chronicles of the 
Kings of Judah', or else, if one so prefers, from its annalistic source".
However, there is not the slightest reason to say that it is a votive 
offering - to whom? and by what "textsorte" or "gattung"? There is also 
no comparison of the tunnel to a grave, which is only a modern idea.

Reinhard G. Lehmann