Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Donald:

On what basis can you make your claims below?

While it is true that we don’t have physical texts extant, there is no
reason to assume that the copies that we have from later are not highly
accurate copies of earlier texts.

Not all the Biblical texts have authorship dates on them. Of those that do
have authorship dates, if one dates them according to the claimed authorship
dates, one can see a literary stylistic progression from medium (Torah) to
high (prophets, Job), then suddenly low (post-Babylonian exile). Within this
broad outline, Kohelet clearly fits the high literary style typified by the
pre-Babylonian exile, kingdom era Biblical literature.

The only contradictions I have seen to the above picture have been religious
(philosophical) and not linguistic, therefore off topic for this list.

Karl W. Randolph.



On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. <donaldrvance AT mac.com
> wrote:

> It does no such thing. What are the extant texts from the ninth century to
> which you are comparing it? It, in fact reads very much exilic and
> post-exilic, to the degree that a text can be dated on style.
>
> Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
> Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
> Oral Roberts University
> dvance AT oru.edu
> donaldrvance AT mac.com
>
>
> On Mar 9, 2011, at 11:04 AM, K Randolph wrote:
>
>
> Exactly. The historic evidences within the document indicate ninth century
> BC authorship, language can be archaized, but the literary style is
> consistent with a pre-Babylonian Exile style in a way that was not copied
> by
> any post-Babylonian Exile Hebrew documents, which also shows up in the
> poetry of the document. Therefore, the claim that the one word shows late
> authorship is contradicted by a far greater weight of data indicating early
> authorship.
>
>
>