Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Gabe:

On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Gabe Eisenstein 
<gabe AT cascadeaccess.com>wrote:

> Karl wrote
>
> If Moses were brought up in the royal court as Exodus claims he was, then
> would he not be familiar with the language of diplomacy and other
> governmental processes? Since he repeatedly pictures God's relation between
> God and Israel in the legal status as lord over vassal nation, is it any
> surprise to see here another indication of such legalese?
>
> So you're saying that the curses of Sin, Shamash, Ninurta, et.al. were
> known to Moses from the court, and he thought it appropriate to
> replicate them in a prophecy about Yahweh's punishment of Israel? Isn't
> this a strange theology? And isn't it odd that we have no other
> documents so closely matching it except from the 7th century?
>

With the number of documents surviving from then to now, is it possible that
we have as many as 1%?

Secondly, which I think more likely than that either one copied the other,
is that there was a certain formula common to many such diplomatic
agreements, a formula that was followed for centuries more or less closely,
which both documents drew on.

>
> But in any case, what about the internal structure of Deut.28? What
> would account for its jumbled state besides scribal reworking?


Context. The context says that it was Moses' farewell address. From the
length, I think it was spread out over a few days, which would account for
some repetition within the document. Further, it is given as an oral
document that was only afterwards written down, and as an oral statement,
given largely off the cuff without the formal structure that would typify a
written document.


> Doesn't
> it look like verses 2-10  belong together with verses 15-20 (+25&37)?
> Then isn't it odd that the part leftover from this coherent subtext
> corresponds closely to part of another document? Can you explain this by
> sloppiness on the part of Moses? Or is it possible that Moses produced a
> more coherent text that has been mangled by subsequent transmission?
> (But that's a slippery slope...)
>

When we look at the Pentateuch, we see four formal documents but
recognizable as different by their thematic subjects, and a final one that
is described as a farewell address that was given orally and somewhat
informally and only afterwards written down. Is part of the problem with
looking at Deuteronomy that you are looking for a formal, tightly crafted
and edited document as would befit a document designed to be written, and
what we are presented is a more or less informal speech that was recorded as
given?

>
>
> Gabe Eisenstein
>
> Karl W. Randolph.