Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George:
OK, let’s restate this.

In modern literature, when “ … an author is taking on the persona of someone
else in writing …” there are contextual clues that accompany such high
literature that tell us that this is fiction, and not an attempt to deceive.
If we removed those contextual clues, would we recognize that it is
literature, and not a forgery with the intent to deceive?

On a lower level, I find spam in my mailbox sent from me. Somebody (actually
many) is taking on my persona in writing with the attempt deliberately to
deceive. In this deception the authors attempt to get past spam filters and
to induce readers to read a message thinking it is from an individual.

There are ancient documents that take on the persona of someone else in
writing, but all the ones I have heard of were for the purpose of deception,
namely to make a document appear to be authentic when it in reality was a
forgery. That is, except the ones where there are contextual clues (such as
Jesus’ parables) that indicate that these are fiction, not attempts to
deceive.

Now we come to Qohelet: what literary clues are there that tell us that a
late author has taken on the persona of Solomon for rhetorical reasons? I
know of none. So far you have produced none. Therefore my conclusion that
this is either a late forgery where the author has taken on the persona of
Solomon in order to give his document a patina of respectability that it
does not deserve, or it is a genuine document from the pen of Solomon.

The short, Anglo-Saxon term for a author of a forgery is “liar”.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 11:39 PM, George Athas 
<George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>wrote:

> I totally disagree with you, Karl. Firstly, I'm not arguing that Qohelet is
> a parable - it isn't. You're mistaking a genre issue for narrative
> technique. Lots of the apocalypses use first person perspective, but they
> are not aiming to be parables. Nor, I would argue, are they aiming to fool
> people by telling fibs; it's just a creative literary technique. So, yes,
> the ancient world did have fictional first person perspectives. I suspect,
> however, that you will write them off as 'lies' and therefore not allow them
> into evidence. If that's the case, we have nothing further to discuss.
>
> You are proposing that Dan 4 was actually written by Nebuchadnezzar???
>
> Any reason why not?

After all, Ezra preserved documents sent to him from others, so why not also
Daniel?


> And no, Daniel does not describe the Jewish Revolt of the first century, so
> that argument doesn't cut it.
>
> Daniel 9:26–27

>
>
> Regards,
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
> www.moore.edu.au
>

Karl W. Randolph.