Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yitzhak:

On Dec 27, 2007 2:43 PM, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Already the Talmudic sages were divided on the last verses of the Torah,
> and others (prominently Ibn Ezra) also noted anachronisms.  These were
> all good god-fearing people who believed in prophecy, and yet they allowed
> that anachronisms are not necessarily explained by prophecy.   What is
> significant, however, is that a prophecy can tell the future, but it
> speaks to
> the present.  Thus, even a prophecy of the future should show signs of
> recognizing all the conditions (for example, the political conditions) of
> the
> time it was given, even if they would be long gone by the time the
> prophecy
> is fulfilled.  Someone who substantiates a text's anachronisms on
> prophetic
> grounds, must still show how it applied to the time to which he believes
> it was originally given.


This is a view of prophecy that is not accepted by many on this list. The
moment that the requirement that a prophecy apply also to the time it was
given is removed, so also the "anachronisms" connected with them are
removed.

You are adding a requirement that did not exist in the original text, i.e.
you practice eisegesis.

>
> Besides, as I stated originally, even aside the DH, there are other
> factors
> such as archaeological evidence that is incompatible with many details of
> the Patriarchal, Exodus and Conquest narratives.  That alone is sufficient
> to
> lead us to understand that the composition of these narratives is in the
> 1st millennium BCE, and mainly faint memories if even that go back
> further.
> I'll discuss this more when I finish Kitchen's article.


I echo Shoshanna Walker here concerning archeological evidence.

>
> Yitzhak Sapir


Karl W. Randolph.