Chanukah and Maccabees (I)

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Well, that's quite possible. Josephus mentions a book about the Maccabees, but this is otherwise unknown to Jews in the ancient world. All of the Maccabean books reek of Christian writing or re-writing, and of course the Christians considered the Maccabean martyrs to be Christians, since they built a shrine to them at Antioch. Nothing resembling 1-3 Maccabees was found at Qumran, as astonishing omission if these books were written in the 100s BCE as our scholars assure us they were.

To this day no one knows who was at Qumran nor if they wrote anything found there. There is a lot of talk and speculation but no evidence. In fact a few years back someone actually grouped the materials found by their dating and found three distinctly different ages about 60 years apart. That is not the sort of thing one would expect if written by people living there, whomever they were.

Another problem is the "bible scrolls" found there are abbreviations of the Septuagint versions of the same scrolls. And the Masoretic is an abbreviation of the Qumran versions. And there is nothing in the Masoretic which in not in the Qumran which is not in the Septuagint. This points to the Septuagint being the original.

As to Christian rewriting there is nothing indicating any doctrinal issue we know about. Rewriting or creating from scratch "ancient" works to address current doctrinal issues was a Christian specialty. If they were rewritten it was before there was any differentiation of Christians from Jews. Some followed a Messiah they called Jesus and later some followed a Messiah called Bar Kochba.

[spin]

It is interesting how the story of the institution of the holiday of Chanukah is expressed in the Books of Maccabees, the Talmud and the Scroll of Antiochus.
Neither 1 Maccabees or 2 Maccabees make any mention of the menorah lights lasting for eight days on an amount of oil sufficient for one day. In fact they give no actual reason for the institution of the eight day holiday for all time.

As with prophecy this indicates the other Septuagint stories were written after the Maccabean victory. There are so many indications the "hebrew" is the translation once compared to real history it is surprising so few have noticed it.

Can we have some linguistic evidence to justify this claim? Please be specific.

Another fun fact is the nine candles but arch of Titus what one assumes is the most important candleholder from the temple has only holds seven. So it is also an unanswered question as to when the Hannukah thing started.

This confuses two different issues. The menorah was kept in the temple. The hannukah candelabra was used by ordinary people.

One assumes it was after Titus. How long after is a separate question. Simply from archaeology, what is the oldest example of a nine candle holder? Even a drawing on a wall some place. There is a seven candle one drawn on one of the catacomb walls outside of Rome along with a drawing of someone, presumably Moses, striking a rock and water flowing. Which raises a third question, when the prohibition against making images of people was invented.

[spin]

Another problem is the "bible scrolls" found there are abbreviations of the Septuagint versions of the same scrolls. And the Masoretic is an abbreviation of the Qumran versions. And there is nothing in the Masoretic which in not in the Qumran which is not in the Septuagint. This points to the Septuagint being the original.

You need more than assertions to make an argument. When you talk about the Septuagint, which text do you mean exactly? The one found in Codex Sinaiticus? What about Codex Aleandrinus? Or perhaps the Codex Vaticanus? Which of these differing 4th and 5th century manuscripts is it that you refer to as the Septuagint?

What makes you think that a shorter text is necessarily the younger one? Is the longer book of Daniel found in the LXX older than the Hebrew text?? How would you know? What evidence can you bring to bear to justify your assertions??

[A_Nony_Mouse]

It is interesting how the story of the institution of the holiday of Chanukah is expressed in the Books of Maccabees, the Talmud and the Scroll of Antiochus.
Neither 1 Maccabees or 2 Maccabees make any mention of the menorah lights lasting for eight days on an amount of oil sufficient for one day. In fact they give no actual reason for the institution of the eight day holiday for all time.

As with prophecy this indicates the other Septuagint stories were written after the Maccabean victory. There are so many indications the "hebrew" is the translation once compared to real history it is surprising so few have noticed it.

Can we have some linguistic evidence to justify this claim? Please be specific.

If you have already determined the only kind of evidence you will accept you are more than half way to declaring your belief in your preconceived conclusion. Linguistic only would of course be far from all there is and would certainly not be "beyond a reasonable doubt."

But you can start with no evidence "hebrew" was ever other than an invented liturgical language, never a spoken language, never used in writing for anything but liturgical materials save for two personal letters found at Qumran.

Then there is the claim of the Septuagint containing "hebraicisms" which has been around for centuries. The Septuagint was a sore thumb compared to classical Greek until a rather large cache of Greek documents was discovered in Egypt in the 1880s using exactly those "hebraicisms." That came to be called Koine Greek. Unsurprisingly believers have yet to grasp the obvious even 130 years later. The discovery of Koine Greek reversed the evidence and leaves "hebrew" a pidgin Greek used by Aramaic speakers. See Hebrew is Greek by Joseph Yehuda, Becket Publications, Oxford 1982.

We also have the script called Hebrew being 1st c. AD Aramaic script.

Another fun fact is the nine candles but arch of Titus what one assumes is the most important candleholder from the temple has only holds seven. So it is also an unanswered question as to when the Hannukah thing started.

This confuses two different issues. The menorah was kept in the temple. The hannukah candelabra was used by ordinary people.

That is an interesting belief. If used by ordinary people and then assuming for an annual celebration then there should have been one per home all over bibleland or Judea at a minimum. Even by the expulsion mythology that would be every year from around 150BC to 133AD, hundreds of thousands of homes over nearly three centuries. The place should be littered with them. Archaeologists should be tripping over them. Museums around the world should have many examples dated from that time period. Where are they?

One assumes it was after Titus. How long after is a separate question. Simply from archaeology, what is the oldest example of a nine candle holder? Even a drawing on a wall some place. There is a seven candle one drawn on one of the catacomb walls outside of Rome along with a drawing of someone, presumably Moses, striking a rock and water flowing. Which raises a third question, when the prohibition against making images of people was invented.

All together it raises the issue of when the Hanukhah celebration was invented. What is the earliest mention of it being a required observation? When even the first mention that people do consider it a required observation? Consider just a few decades ago it was a minor, quite forgettable holiday until Jews in the US mainly decided they needed to public competition with Christmas.

It is not reasonable to assume present day religious tradition is correct without physical evidence. Religious tradition is unprovenanced therefore it is worthless as evidence.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Another problem is the "bible scrolls" found there are abbreviations of the Septuagint versions of the same scrolls. And the Masoretic is an abbreviation of the Qumran versions. And there is nothing in the Masoretic which in not in the Qumran which is not in the Septuagint. This points to the Septuagint being the original.

You need more than assertions to make an argument. When you talk about the Septuagint, which text do you mean exactly? The one found in Codex Sinaiticus? What about Codex Aleandrinus? Or perhaps the Codex Vaticanus? Which of these differing 4th and 5th century manuscripts is it that you refer to as the Septuagint?

What makes you think that a shorter text is necessarily the younger one? Is the longer book of Daniel found in the LXX older than the Hebrew text?? How would you know? What evidence can you bring to bear to justify your assertions??

Pardon. I have been reading what I wrote in so many places and in apparently different forms that they are not copies of each other. I mentioned it more as a reminder than a debating point. If it is a problem lets just ignore the issue.

I do grant talking about "the" Septuagint requires much preliminary agreement as to what that shorthand reference should mean.

The real issue of course is who, what, when, where, why and how of its creation both if it is the original or a translation of some Aramaic or Phoenician, aka "hebrew" to believers, text. There are consequential problems if any of the answers indicates other than a haphazard, incidental translation.

[spin]

As with prophecy this indicates the other Septuagint stories were written after the Maccabean victory. There are so many indications the "hebrew" is the translation once compared to real history it is surprising so few have noticed it.

Can we have some linguistic evidence to justify this claim? Please be specific.

If you have already determined the only kind of evidence you will accept you are more than half way to declaring your belief in your preconceived conclusion. Linguistic only would of course be far from all there is and would certainly not be "beyond a reasonable doubt."

So you freely admit you have no linguistic evidence for the fundamentally linguistic topic translation. You are utterly incapable of saying anything about translation without linguistic evidence, so you are talking about something you have no reason to talk about.

But you can start with no evidence "hebrew" was ever other than an invented liturgical language, never a spoken language, never used in writing for anything but liturgical materials save for two personal letters found at Qumran.

See, if you cared to get your hands dirty with what you need to know about, ie linguistics, you'd know that you are making a clueless argument. An analysis of the Hebrew in the DSS would help you to understand your blundering where you shouldn't go. There are various books and papers on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are different dialects and different amounts of Aramaic influence, but this is all inconsequential to your tendentious nonsense. You don't care about evidence and never have.

Then there is the claim of the Septuagint containing "hebraicisms" which has been around for centuries. The Septuagint was a sore thumb compared to classical Greek until a rather large cache of Greek documents was discovered in Egypt in the 1880s using exactly those "hebraicisms."

Can you cite the linguistic evidence for the claim here? No, of course not. You're getting it third hand and know nothing about what you are saying.

Can you give some examples of "hebraicisms"? No, of course not. You have to rely on others' opinions, which you bend to your purposes.

That came to be called Koine Greek.

Maybe scholars of Greek were not to aware of Koine Greek a few centuries ago, but Koine Greek is not just one variety of Greek. It's a melting pot term

Unsurprisingly believers have yet to grasp the obvious even 130 years later. The discovery of Koine Greek reversed the evidence and leaves "hebrew" a pidgin Greek used by Aramaic speakers.

This is utter nonsense spoken by someone totally ignorant of the evidence. I defy you to provide linguistic evidence for this stupidity. This crass, vulgar, racist stupidity.

See Hebrew is Greek by Joseph Yehuda, Becket Publications, Oxford 1982.

Why don't you show your linguistic prowess and interact both with what Joseph Yehuda says and what the rest of the linguistic community says?

We also have the script called Hebrew being 1st c. AD Aramaic script.

Beyond the assertion, evidence?? Ever consider the Hebrew script in the DSS?

Another fun fact is the nine candles but arch of Titus what one assumes is the most important candleholder from the temple has only holds seven. So it is also an unanswered question as to when the Hannukah thing started.

This confuses two different issues. The menorah was kept in the temple. The hannukah candelabra was used by ordinary people.

That is an interesting belief. If used by ordinary people and then assuming for an annual celebration then there should have been one per home all over bibleland or Judea at a minimum. Even by the expulsion mythology that would be every year from around 150BC to 133AD, hundreds of thousands of homes over nearly three centuries. The place should be littered with them. Archaeologists should be tripping over them. Museums around the world should have many examples dated from that time period. Where are they?

Was there some actual argument in that? Why do you conflate the two cultic items?

One assumes it was after Titus. How long after is a separate question. Simply from archaeology, what is the oldest example of a nine candle holder? Even a drawing on a wall some place. There is a seven candle one drawn on one of the catacomb walls outside of Rome along with a drawing of someone, presumably Moses, striking a rock and water flowing. Which raises a third question, when the prohibition against making images of people was invented.

All together it raises the issue of when the Hanukhah celebration was invented. What is the earliest mention of it being a required observation? When even the first mention that people do consider it a required observation? Consider just a few decades ago it was a minor, quite forgettable holiday until Jews in the US mainly decided they needed to public competition with Christmas.

It is not reasonable to assume present day religious tradition is correct without physical evidence. Religious tradition is unprovenanced therefore it is worthless as evidence.

There is no advancement in this stuff from the assertion "One assumes it was after Titus." You could have just repeated it and saved yourself some effort.

Evidence is what makes assertions start being arguments. So far you have provided no evidence and are full of assertions.

[spin]

Another problem is the "bible scrolls" found there are abbreviations of the Septuagint versions of the same scrolls. And the Masoretic is an abbreviation of the Qumran versions. And there is nothing in the Masoretic which in not in the Qumran which is not in the Septuagint. This points to the Septuagint being the original.

You need more than assertions to make an argument. When you talk about the Septuagint, which text do you mean exactly? The one found in Codex Sinaiticus? What about Codex Aleandrinus? Or perhaps the Codex Vaticanus? Which of these differing 4th and 5th century manuscripts is it that you refer to as the Septuagint?

What makes you think that a shorter text is necessarily the younger one? Is the longer book of Daniel found in the LXX older than the Hebrew text?? How would you know? What evidence can you bring to bear to justify your assertions??

Pardon. I have been reading what I wrote in so many places and in apparently different forms that they are not copies of each other. I mentioned it more as a reminder than a debating point. If it is a problem lets just ignore the issue.

I do grant talking about "the" Septuagint requires much preliminary agreement as to what that shorthand reference should mean.

The real issue of course is who, what, when, where, why and how of its creation both if it is the original or a translation of some Aramaic or Phoenician, aka "hebrew" to believers, text. There are consequential problems if any of the answers indicates other than a haphazard, incidental translation.

Still no content.

What would you like to provide to demonstrate that Phoenician and Hebrew are the same (if that's what you are trying to assert with 'Aramaic or Phoenician, aka "hebrew"')?

[A_Nony_Mouse]

...

Can we have some linguistic evidence to justify this claim? Please be specific.

If you have already determined the only kind of evidence you will accept you are more than half way to declaring your belief in your preconceived conclusion. Linguistic only would of course be far from all there is and would certainly not be "beyond a reasonable doubt."

So you freely admit you have no linguistic evidence for the fundamentally linguistic topic translation. You are utterly incapable of saying anything about translation without linguistic evidence, so you are talking about something you have no reason to talk about.

But you can start with no evidence "hebrew" was ever other than an invented liturgical language, never a spoken language, never used in writing for anything but liturgical materials save for two personal letters found at Qumran.

See, if you cared to get your hands dirty with what you need to know about, ie linguistics, you'd know that you are making a clueless argument. An analysis of the Hebrew in the DSS would help you to understand your blundering where you shouldn't go. There are various books and papers on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are different dialects and different amounts of Aramaic influence, but this is all inconsequential to your tendentious nonsense. You don't care about evidence and never have.

I was not clear. I would prefer some mention some place of the existence of Hebrew as a spoken language used by the Judeans. Everything I have ever found indicates they all spoke Aramaic natively and Greek secondarily. No "hebrew" ever mentioned. Just a few secular inscriptions using it would go a long way to making the case. A modest surviving sample of the tens of millions of words worth of secular documents would make the case.

But if you would share your functional definition of linguistics it might help this exchange.

Then there is the claim of the Septuagint containing "hebraicisms" which has been around for centuries. The Septuagint was a sore thumb compared to classical Greek until a rather large cache of Greek documents was discovered in Egypt in the 1880s using exactly those "hebraicisms."

Can you cite the linguistic evidence for the claim here? No, of course not. You're getting it third hand and know nothing about what you are saying.

Can you give some examples of "hebraicisms"? No, of course not. You have to rely on others' opinions, which you bend to your purposes.

It appears you know what I am talking about with hebraicisms but do not like my conclusions from their existence after they were found to be Koine.

That came to be called Koine Greek.

Maybe scholars of Greek were not to aware of Koine Greek a few centuries ago, but Koine Greek is not just one variety of Greek. It's a melting pot term

None classical, not the Queen's English, the common usage of the language. This changes what?

Unsurprisingly believers have yet to grasp the obvious even 130 years later. The discovery of Koine Greek reversed the evidence and leaves "hebrew" a pidgin Greek used by Aramaic speakers.

This is utter nonsense spoken by someone totally ignorant of the evidence. I defy you to provide linguistic evidence for this stupidity. This crass, vulgar, racist stupidity.

I intended nothing more than to reverse the argument. The same evidence before and after the discovery of Koine. Simply observing that it changes the conclusion. Again, no literate culture in Judea to have created it prior to the 2nd c. BC so it had to have come from some place other than religious tradition. Keep in mind the "hebrew" version has no provenance.

See Hebrew is Greek by Joseph Yehuda, Becket Publications, Oxford 1982.

Why don't you show your linguistic prowess and interact both with what Joseph Yehuda says and what the rest of the linguistic community says?

Do you or do you NOT want citations and sources? The problem with most sources is they put their religious beliefs before everything. And in this case I mean most. Even when it comes to the fake atheists who call themselves Jews they are bound up in the crime of Zionism and political necessity to support that nonsense. There are so few sources both apolitical and atheist that I can do as well on my own as by reading those with hidden agendas.

...
Beyond the assertion, evidence?? Ever consider the Hebrew script in the DSS?

Ever compare it to 1st c. AD Aramaic from the region? By inspection they are the same within a couple letters of slightly different shape. Given the dating puts scrolls in three groups about 60 years apart slightly different letter shapes are hardly surprising.

Besides look at a Torah scroll today. The tradition of perfect copy could not have existed prior to the existence of that script as that is the criteria of perfect else transliterated copies could be perfect.

...
This confuses two different issues. The menorah was kept in the temple. The hannukah candelabra was used by ordinary people.

That is an interesting belief. If used by ordinary people and then assuming for an annual celebration then there should have been one per home all over bibleland or Judea at a minimum. Even by the expulsion mythology that would be every year from around 150BC to 133AD, hundreds of thousands of homes over nearly three centuries. The place should be littered with them. Archaeologists should be tripping over them. Museums around the world should have many examples dated from that time period. Where are they?

Was there some actual argument in that? Why do you conflate the two cultic items?[/quote]

Since the 9 style are not littering bibleland, are unknown from that period, it was obviously not a custom in the beginning.

...

One assumes it was after Titus. How long after is a separate question. Simply from archaeology, what is the oldest example of a nine candle holder? Even a drawing on a wall some place. There is a seven candle one drawn on one of the catacomb walls outside of Rome along with a drawing of someone, presumably Moses, striking a rock and water flowing. Which raises a third question, when the prohibition against making images of people was invented.

...
All together it raises the issue of when the Hanukhah celebration was invented. What is the earliest mention of it being a required observation? When even the first mention that people do consider it a required observation? Consider just a few decades ago it was a minor, quite forgettable holiday until Jews in the US mainly decided they needed to public competition with Christmas.

It is not reasonable to assume present day religious tradition is correct without physical evidence. Religious tradition is unprovenanced therefore it is worthless as evidence.

There is no advancement in this stuff from the assertion "One assumes it was after Titus." You could have just repeated it and saved yourself some effort.

Evidence is what makes assertions start being arguments. So far you have provided no evidence and are full of assertions.

That is all fine with me and now that I have seen the rules you wish to play by I ask you to produce the evidence for all the assertions you have made. If you have no basis for your disagreement then there is nothing to discuss.

As there is no evidence save a forgery by a criminal dubbed Aristeas regarding the origin of the Septuagint by whatever definition we use for the name no one knows where it came from.

We do know there is no evidence of a literate culture in Judea (if you disagree produce the evidence) of a literate culture in Judea prior to the 2nd c. BC. So if Judea is considered the origin then we have the earliest possible date being after the appearance of a literate culture.

Pardon but some discussion groups are loose, others quite strict, your attitude nearly academic. I await learning from your properly sourced posts. I certainly have much to learn from someone who can rattle off proper citations without a second thought.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

...
You need more than assertions to make an argument. When you talk about the Septuagint, which text do you mean exactly? The one found in Codex Sinaiticus? What about Codex Aleandrinus? Or perhaps the Codex Vaticanus? Which of these differing 4th and 5th century manuscripts is it that you refer to as the Septuagint?

What makes you think that a shorter text is necessarily the younger one? Is the longer book of Daniel found in the LXX older than the Hebrew text?? How would you know? What evidence can you bring to bear to justify your assertions??

Pardon. I have been reading what I wrote in so many places and in apparently different forms that they are not copies of each other. I mentioned it more as a reminder than a debating point. If it is a problem lets just ignore the issue.

I do grant talking about "the" Septuagint requires much preliminary agreement as to what that shorthand reference should mean.

The real issue of course is who, what, when, where, why and how of its creation both if it is the original or a translation of some Aramaic or Phoenician, aka "hebrew" to believers, text. There are consequential problems if any of the answers indicates other than a haphazard, incidental translation.

Still no content.

What would you like to provide to demonstrate that Phoenician and Hebrew are the same (if that's what you are trying to assert with 'Aramaic or Phoenician, aka "hebrew"')?

Let me attempt to calibrate your questions. Are you saying you have never seen the Hezekaiah inscription? Granted it has been removed from context and has no connection to any king of Jerusalem but one can see by inspection it is Phoenician script. Are you saying you have never read biblical, aka fake, archaeologists say they use to bible to determine geography to "distinguish" Phoenician from Hebrew?

Those are not accusations. Simple yes and no is sufficient. It is just an attempt to establish at what level we share a common knowledge base.

[spin]

See, if you cared to get your hands dirty with what you need to know about, ie linguistics, you'd know that you are making a clueless argument. An analysis of the Hebrew in the DSS would help you to understand your blundering where you shouldn't go. There are various books and papers on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are different dialects and different amounts of Aramaic influence, but this is all inconsequential to your tendentious nonsense. You don't care about evidence and never have.

I was not clear. I would prefer some mention some place of the existence of Hebrew as a spoken language used by the Judeans. Everything I have ever found indicates they all spoke Aramaic natively and Greek secondarily. No "hebrew" ever mentioned. Just a few secular inscriptions using it would go a long way to making the case. A modest surviving sample of the tens of millions of words worth of secular documents would make the case.

You need look any further than the obvious existence of Hebrew dialects among the DSS.

But if you would share your functional definition of linguistics it might help this exchange.

Do you have trouble with the existence of the academic pursuit of linguistics that you need to have the scholarly analysis of languages defined for you??

Then there is the claim of the Septuagint containing "hebraicisms" which has been around for centuries. The Septuagint was a sore thumb compared to classical Greek until a rather large cache of Greek documents was discovered in Egypt in the 1880s using exactly those "hebraicisms."

Can you cite the linguistic evidence for the claim here? No, of course not. You're getting it third hand and know nothing about what you are saying.

Can you give some examples of "hebraicisms"? No, of course not. You have to rely on others' opinions, which you bend to your purposes.

It appears you know what I am talking about with hebraicisms but do not like my conclusions from their existence after they were found to be Koine.

Answer the question and don't try to change the discourse. You made assertions about "hebraicisms". Either you know what you are talking about or you don't. So far you are indicating that you don't.

That came to be called Koine Greek.

Maybe scholars of Greek were not to aware of Koine Greek a few centuries ago, but Koine Greek is not just one variety of Greek. It's a melting pot term

None classical, not the Queen's English, the common usage of the language. This changes what?

Unsurprisingly believers have yet to grasp the obvious even 130 years later. The discovery of Koine Greek reversed the evidence and leaves "hebrew" a pidgin Greek used by Aramaic speakers.

This is utter nonsense spoken by someone totally ignorant of the evidence. I defy you to provide linguistic evidence for this stupidity. This crass, vulgar, racist stupidity.

I intended nothing more than to reverse the argument. The same evidence before and after the discovery of Koine.

Koine wasn't discovered. It was always there. Linguistics has simply provided a coherent basis for understanding the phenomenon.

Simply observing that it changes the conclusion. Again, no literate culture in Judea to have created it prior to the 2nd c. BC so it had to have come from some place other than religious tradition. Keep in mind the "hebrew" version has no provenance.

What does that mean?

See Hebrew is Greek by Joseph Yehuda, Becket Publications, Oxford 1982.

Why don't you show your linguistic prowess and interact both with what Joseph Yehuda says and what the rest of the linguistic community says?

Do you or do you NOT want citations and sources?

I want you to cite your sources, and cite them properly, eg supplying specific pages, giving a specific example from the source. When you use sources the scholar interacts with them so as to show a coherent argument. You need to interact with your sources.

The problem with most sources is they put their religious beliefs before everything. And in this case I mean most. Even when it comes to the fake atheists who call themselves Jews they are bound up in the crime of Zionism and political necessity to support that nonsense. There are so few sources both apolitical and atheist that I can do as well on my own as by reading those with hidden agendas.

Perhaps you can understand the need for interacting with your sources.

...
Beyond the assertion, evidence?? Ever consider the Hebrew script in the DSS?

Ever compare it to 1st c. AD Aramaic from the region? By inspection they are the same within a couple letters of slightly different shape. Given the dating puts scrolls in three groups about 60 years apart slightly different letter shapes are hardly surprising.

I'm well aware of the principal fonts from the DSS. Some texts are dated to the second and third centuries BCE. So, when you claim "[hi=90FFB0]We also have the script called Hebrew being 1st c. AD Aramaic script[/hi]", you need to be able to support your assertion. Go ahead.

Besides look at a Torah scroll today. The tradition of perfect copy could not have existed prior to the existence of that script as that is the criteria of perfect else transliterated copies could be perfect.

?? Ya wot?

...
This confuses two different issues. The menorah was kept in the temple. The hannukah candelabra was used by ordinary people.

That is an interesting belief. If used by ordinary people and then assuming for an annual celebration then there should have been one per home all over bibleland or Judea at a minimum. Even by the expulsion mythology that would be every year from around 150BC to 133AD, hundreds of thousands of homes over nearly three centuries. The place should be littered with them. Archaeologists should be tripping over them. Museums around the world should have many examples dated from that time period. Where are they?

Was there some actual argument in that? Why do you conflate the two cultic items?

Since the 9 style are not littering bibleland, are unknown from that period, it was obviously not a custom in the beginning.

Evidence is what makes assertions start being arguments. So far you have provided no evidence and are full of assertions.

That is all fine with me and now that I have seen the rules you wish to play by I ask you to produce the evidence for all the assertions you have made. If you have no basis for your disagreement then there is nothing to discuss.

You need to make specific requests at the appropriate point where you find evidence lacking.

As there is no evidence save a forgery by a criminal dubbed Aristeas regarding the origin of the Septuagint by whatever definition we use for the name no one knows where it came from.

We do know there is no evidence of a literate culture in Judea (if you disagree produce the evidence) of a literate culture in Judea prior to the 2nd c. BC. So if Judea is considered the origin then we have the earliest possible date being after the appearance of a literate culture.

Do you consider, as there is evidence for Hebrew being used from the 3rd century BCE that it came out of a vacuum born fully formed in the 3rd century??

But when you now talk of 2nd century BCE (wrongly) you have changed your tune from 1st century CE. We've now moved the goal posts back a few hundred years and you have nothing to bleed about.

Pardon but some discussion groups are loose, others quite strict, your attitude nearly academic. I await learning from your properly sourced posts. I certainly have much to learn from someone who can rattle off proper citations without a second thought.

When you come peddling piffle we require you to get a bit more coherent and logical and less off the wall.