Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>]

Dear Karl,

No, I am not saying that the writer of Kings and Jeremiah were lying. I am
saying that the use of "all" is more probably a rhetorical device that has 
been
in use since "we were all knee-high to a grasshopper."

It is also evident from the written text that the original Samaritans were a
mixture of those who remained in the land from the Assyrian Exile and those 
who
were brought to the ex-northern kingdom to repopulate the land and 
intermarried
with those inhabitants that remained. There would be some left even after the
three deportations of the Babylonians in 605, 597 and 588 BC. Thus, "all" does
not mean "everyone was removed and no one remained." It does mean that the
majority of the population was removed. Some of the population would have
remained.

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2007 2:41 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Deportation of Judea and Samaria


> Bryant:
>
> On 10/27/07, Bryant J. Williams III <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net> wrote:
> > Dear Yitzhak,
> >
> > It is clear from Jeremiah 40:1-43:7 that the Judeans remaining in 
> > Jerusalem
and
> > Judah fled to Egypt after the assassination of Gedaliah. This around 
> > 582-581
BC.
> > Furthermore, it is clear from Jeremiah that those who would go to Egypt
would
> > never return, but die in Egypt. This did happen, even Jeremiah and Baruch
died
> > in Egypt since he was went with them. Exactly how many went to Egypt is a
good
> > question. The TEXT does not say. It does say "all" in 43:4-5. But you know
as
> > well as I do that "all" does not necessarily mean "all" at this point, but
is
> > being used by Jeremiah for rhetorical purposes (just as my teenagers would
say,
> > "Everyone else is doing it").
> >
> > Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
>
> There is a difference: in 2 Kings 17 mentions that the totality of the
> people were rejected, but it nowhere says that the totality of the
> people were exiled. Contrast that with the record in Jeremiah and 2
> Kings where both say that "all" those who remained after the three
> times captives were taken into exile to Babylon went to Egypt.
>
> Are you claiming the both the writer of Kings and Jeremiah were lying
> when they claimed that all the people who were left went to Egypt, in
> the same way as your teenagers (your teenagers know it's a lie, and
> will admit it if you press them)? What sort of God is that who depends
> on lies to make his points? If you can't trust a God behind the
> writing the Bible on little points like that "all" in Jeremiah really
> meant all, why should you trust him on important themes in the Bible?
> While the above questions are admittedly theological, they show one
> reason why some of us reject the claims of modern scholars who claim
> that there was a pool of Hebrew speakers who remained in Judea during
> the Babylonian Exile. Those questions also expose the fact that the
> claim that there was a pool of Hebrew speakers left in Judea during
> the Exile is just as much a theological claim as to trust the Biblical
> record.
>
> There is also the historical question: who is more trustworthy,
> ancient records written by people who participated in the events
> recorded (Jeremiah) or were recorded shortly thereafter (Kings was
> probably written about 500 BC), or the attempts of modern scholars to
> reconstruct the events based on very fragmentary data at best? (The
> claim that all of Samaria was exiled is just as much a modern
> reconstruction as the claim that there were some Judeans who remained
> in Judea throughout the Exile.)
>
> Then there is the claim that a "dead" language, defined as one where
> there are no native speakers, but one still spoken fluently by
> millions for theological and other reasons, will not change, is belied
> by the example of Latin which was a "dead" language according to the
> above definition, yet was spoken by millions fluently for over a
> millennium after it became a "dead" language and it continued to
> change. The fact that it continued to change was instrumental in the
> debate of Martin Luther with John Eck where Luther showed that some of
> the documents written in Latin that Eck depended on were in fact later
> forgeries (the forgers, too, thought that by writing in Latin that a
> document could be passed off as from an earlier time, not recognizing
> that medieval Latin was recognizably different from late imperial
> Latin). So the same way the existence of Mishnaic Hebrew cannot be
> taken as proof that Hebrew was not a "dead" language according to the
> above definition, and had been "dead" for centuries preceding the
> development of Mishnaic Hebrew.
>
> So the question remains, when did Hebrew become a "dead" language
> according to the above definition? There remains some evidence that
> that happened as early as during the Exile, others claim much later,
> there is not enough evidence either way to be conclusive.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
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