Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dave:

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 7:39 AM, <dwashbur AT nyx.net> wrote:

> Karl,
> While I would like to see an early date for the book as well, I'm not sure
> we can establish
> any kind of date for it, based on loanwords or otherwise.
>

My argument is that a couple of loan words do not establish a late date.
There are other factors that need to be taken into account as well.

>
> …
>
> > While those parallels are parallels in ideas, they are not parallels
> > in
> > language use. The language of Qohelet is Biblical Hebrew, that of
> > Ben Sira
> > is Hebrew, ... but strange.
>
> Perhaps so, but the ideas in question need to be accounted for, since at
> least some of them
> don't seem to have been a regular part of pre-exilic Hebrew philosophy.


This is one of the factors that points to a Solomon authorship, namely his
apostasy that was noted and condemned by other Biblical authors.


> …
>
> > OK, for the loan word, did it exist in other languages besides
> > Persian? You
> > can´t answer that because of lack of evidence. Your assertion that
> > it didn´t
> > is an argument from silence.
>
> Arguments from silence always cut both ways.  I'm afraid you're arguing
> from silence as
> well, and it seems to me that's the biggest reason that this conversation
> is going nowhere.
>

At least I admit to the silence, which is why I repeatedly emphasized that
this “evidence” is not true evidence because of a lack of surviving
documents needed to answer either one way or the other. Therefore we need to
look to other factors.

>
> Discussions like this one are the main reason I gave on the idea of trying
> to date texts in
> general.  The older I get, the more satisfied I am just to examine them and
> try to figure out
> what they're saying.  As always, YMMV.
>
> Dave Washburn
>
> Karl W. Randolph.