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  • From: "Reinhard G. Lehmann" <lehmann AT uni-mainz.de>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Moses' writing?
  • Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 23:00:12 +0200


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


  • Re: [b-hebrew] Moses' writing?, Reinhard G. Lehmann, 10/27/2006

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