Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

Hi George,

thanks for this. It was an interesting and well thought out post.

Quoting George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>:

> I think the point that Petr was trying to make (correct me if I'm   
> wrong, Petr) is that there is a logical leap from saying that   
> because Genesis **apparently** portrays events in the Early Bronze   
> Age and it does so in Hebrew, that Genesis is therefore evidence for  
>  the state of Canaanite or Semitic languages in the Early Bronze  
> Age.  If that's Petr's position, he's absolutely right. There is a  
> big  leap in logic there.

I think it is perhaps best to drop terms like EBA in this discussion.  
I don't think they are very helpful. The author of Genesis had no  
concept of EBA. It is perhaps, IMO, to consider things from the point  
of view of how they are presented by the author. The author cannot be  
held responsible for any chronology that came after the torah was  
written. His only chronological concern is with reference to the  
beginning of mankind. In other words he's working forward in his  
dating system while we are trying to work backward. The two systems  
are incompatible.

That's just my opinion for what it's worth.

And regarding language, the Torah doesn't seem to make any specific  
claims of the language used by just about anybody. All we can see for  
sure is that Joseph's brothers were using an interpreter. This  
suggests a different language being used in Egypt. And we have a table  
of nations. And we have a story about when languages got confused. But  
that is all we have. Any assumptions about what language the ancients  
spoke have been read into the text not out of it.

> Firstly, let's assume that the events portrayed in Genesis are   
> staged in the Early Bronze Age (EBA). Though I doubt that's the   
> case, let's assume it is for the moment. The most we can say is that  
>  the characters in the book of Genesis, who occupy the world of the   
> text, speak Standard Biblical Hebrew.

But one of the key questions to this discussion is 'can we really say  
that?'. We do not even know for sure that the Hebrew torah we have  
today is not a translation from what Moses originally wrote in a more  
ancient language. We just assume that Hebrew tradition has it correct  
that the Torah was originally penned in Hebrew and then we work  
backwards heaping assumption upon assumption to get to the conclusion  
that the characters in Genesis spoke BH. This is not made explicit in  
the text and is one of the key questions that the text engenders.


> Logically, you have to argue  the case that you can then extend the  
> world of the text to the real  world of the real EBA of the real  
> past such that Standard Biblical  Hebrew becomes a language of the  
> EBA. You can't simply use the text  to do it, because that's  
> completely circular evidence: "The biblical  text speaks about the  
> EBA, so the biblical events look like the EBA,  and therefore when  
> we look at the EBA it looks just like the  biblical text. Therefore,  
> the Hebrew of the biblical text is EBA  Hebrew." That line of  
> reasoning is trying to hold itself up by its  own bootstraps. It  
> doesn't work.

> You have to look for some kind of anchor point outside of the text   
> to test the hypothesis. And there is virtually no evidence, as far   
> as I know, of Hebrew in the EBA. In fact, if anything, the   
> linguistic trajectory that Hebrew seems to be on suggests that   
> Semitic languages in the Bronze Ages looked a little different to   
> what they did in the Iron Age and the Persian Era.

Ok. Granted. But we also have to consider this. If, and I concede that  
this is a big if, Moses did indeed originally pen the Torah in Hebrew  
and start up a tradition of it being copied by Joshua then this  
represents a moment in the history of the Hebrew language which froze  
the language and its evolution did not happen at the same rate as its  
contemporaries.

> Furthermore, there are good arguments that the biblical texts were   
> written during Iron II and the Persian Era, with some final   
> redactions occurring in the Hellenistic Era.

Sure. This is possible. And something we should keep an eye out for if  
we are interested in restoring the Torah to its original form.


> References to  Chaldeans, Sheba, and probably a good few of the  
> other names in the  Table of Nations (Gen 10) smell like the 8th or  
> 7th century BC.

I'm not entirely sure this is true. We would have to go into dating of  
each these terms independently in depth to put this claim to the test.  
Also, even if they did prove to be true they could easily be reduced  
to minor redactions of the original text that help it be of value to  
its contemporaries. e.g. change a few place names here and there so  
that folk understand which place you are talking about. This is not  
necessarily indicative of entire sections being interpolated. This is  
the kind of thing that copyists would notice and may raise an  
objection to. While a series of small changes that appear acceptable  
at the time is far more plausible.


> There's barely much evidence to put them any earlier.

I disagree. We definitely see a limit to the number of generations  
listed in the table of nations. In a late origin I would expect many  
more generations showing me who was the father of each town and city.

Each time we see a genealogy it takes us closer in time to the time of  
Moses. In Esau's genealogy we see lists of Sheiks for a few  
generations, for example.


> The result is  that the long distant past of Genesis looks a lot  
> like the 7th  century BC (or so). It's a bit like those Renaissance  
> paintings of  biblical scenes, where everyone is wearing Italian  
> garb of the 15th  and 16th centuries. It's not difficult to make the  
> case, therefore  that the Hebrew spoken by the characters of Genesis  
> is at home in  the 7th century BC.

I can see your line of reasoning but in order to make those conclusion  
we first need to have an accurate picture of the 7th century. Do we  
have one? Even if we do, we also then need an accurate picture of  
later centuries to make the comparison with. Do we have one?

Even if we had all of this we would then need to stop and consider  
whether we are talking about minor alterations, interpolations that  
the scribes felt rendered the tradition more accessible to their  
contemporaries or are we talking about coordinated large scale  
fraudulent forgery of ancient texts?



> Finally, the claim that many of the dates in the biblical texts   
> co-ordinate with 164 BC is not all that far-fetched and baseless.   
> It's a case of doing the math. What you make of the calculations is   
> a different matter entirely, but the observation is intriguing. And   
> no, it does not mean that the biblical texts were invented in the   
> Maccabean Era. All it means is that the numbers in the final form of  
>  the text might have been reconfigured in the Maccabean Era.

Now this is perhaps the most interest thing you have said. Because  
this would perhaps give us an explanation of why we have two different  
traditions with conflicting dates.

If we can trust the logic you applied above it would seem that the  
numeric tradition we see in the Samaritan, Greek and DSS traditions  
are more reliable.

This view would seem to be backed up by one view of the Qumran  
community as refugees from the wicked priest who has no right to be  
high priest.

With Roman domination, a fake High Priest with no real right to be in  
that office, and a pretender to the throne of David Jerusalem was  
perhaps in its darkest hour in the first century CE and you can see  
why the people were waiting for a Messiah.

James Christian






> Regards,
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
> www.moore.edu.au
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew



--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.