Current State of Samaritan Studies (Hexateuch)

[Secret Alias]

So both Jews and Samaritans contributed stories to Genesis

While I don't know the names or identities of individuals or parties who wrote the Tetrateuch I assume the text was written at a time early enough that Gerizim was the center of the cultural identity of Hebrew peoples. Again, as with Christian history I am happy and at peace with not knowing or pretending to know everything about everything. Whoever wrote the Tetrateuch did so with an inherited predisposition toward the sacredness of Gerizim and the foreignness of Jerusalem.

[Secret Alias]

The Samaritans were always the favorites of the Samaritans.
The Judeans were the favorites of the Judeans.
Neither was ever the favorite of the other.

I disagree. My assumption would be that the story that Abraham traveled to Gerizim and lived in the 'basement' of God's house was known or accepted by both traditions. The relationship was in a way similar to the contemporary situation between American evangelicals and 'the Jews.' Evangelicals basically accept the 'authority' of the 'Jews' save only for the Jews refusal to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I think before the Common Era or perhaps before the destruction of the Samaritan temple the most authoritative Jewish families accepted the authority of the northern traditions.

[Secret Alias]

Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.’
But the men that went up with him [including Joshua!!!] said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than us.’

I am not sure if you are aware of this but in the period before the creation of the modern state of Israel there was a lot of religious discussion as to why Sabbatai Sevi and other messiah's failed. When would Israel inherit the land? The answer was always - when God allows for it. There is always this struggle in the history of the Jewish people. As a naturalized American I have noticed that aggression is inevitably viewed as a virtue in this country. You notice the foreignness of American virtue in British football commentary when they speak of an imperfect pass as "ambitious." Americans never see ambition as negative. I am sure that if I dig deeply enough I will find Caleb's ambition criticized.

When my wife's mother died her horrible sister had to deal with the Catholic priest to give her the last rites (I don't remember what they call it now, my wife mentioned another name). The horrible sister thanked the priest for all he did. The priest angrily retorted that she shouldn't thank him but thank God. Not sure that the ancients were that different. Caleb thinking he could invade the land without God would have been celebrated the way you read the text.

[Secret Alias]

If the Jews through all of time were unable to impose a Jewish Bible on the Samaritans, why would one imagine the Samaritans were able to impose a Samaritan Pentateuch on the Jews?

The original Hebrew tradition was rooted at Gerizim. Jerusalem was an impure foreign site. Not getting your question.

[Secret Alias]

I just think this is an interesting topic and I hope this thread has been of interest to the participants of Jewish Texts and History.

Best of luck to all.

Indeed we are thankful for the time you spent here and you have given us much to think about. Nevertheless as I noted at the beginning your lack of mention of Samaritans leaves one of two possibilities - (a) you gave the appropriate attention to the Samaritans as they are not very important to the understanding of the development of the Pentateuch and Hexateuch or (b) your lack of mention represents an oversight which might not allow enough time for the development of a specific Judaean 'sect' divorced from the proposed and specifically northern origin of the Hexateuch, Deuteronomy and Joshua given that specifically Jewish fragments of the Pentateuch turn up at Qumran within the same century as you propose the material was written. I think the lack of mention of Jerusalem, the supposed 'holiest city in the world' is suggestive of (b) as well as the consistent mention of northern geographic markers. But this isn't the place for continuing the discussion. It is left for members of the forum to decide.

Thank you again Russell. I greatly admire your intellect and plan to devote more of my attention to your ideas after my busy period for work ends closer to the summer.

[Russell Gmirkin]

As a Jew, I am predisposed toward things which were designed to flatter Jews - that we have special 'blood' that comes from Abraham, that we are by nature intelligent, funny, born for psychology etc. Anything but being good dancers.

Really? I thought for sure I saw you busting a few moves in Golimaar. You know, that Indian music video Michael Jackson ripped off when he did Thriller?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHhcKxdI4Xc

[Russell Gmirkin]

As a Jew, I am predisposed toward things which were designed to flatter Jews - that we have special 'blood' that comes from Abraham, that we are by nature intelligent, funny, born for psychology etc. Anything but being good dancers.

Really? I thought for sure I saw you busting a few moves in Golimaar. You know, that Indian music video Michael Jackson ripped off when he did Thriller?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHhcKxdI4Xc

I bet Woody Allen has the same secret fantasy, but he's stuck with being intelligent, funny and psychological.

[neilgodfrey]

. . . .

What's Judah going to a prostitute for? What's the reason why Jews wanted to portray themselves as sons of whores, de puta madre? Again the assumption is that a Jewish author was just 'reporting the facts' that he and his countrymen were sons of an incestuous relationship and their forefather was a whoremonger. Really? They're that truthful? Is any one are any peoples THAT honest? I'll go for Samaritan authorship on that one alone.

Before I get to the seven points, let's briefly dispose of this tale.

First, the story is one of trickery by Tamar for a "righteous" purpose, one of several such entertaining tales in Genesis (like Jacob and Esau). . . . . . Tamar poses as a prostitute, gets pregnant by Judah, which looks scandalous, but when all is revealed she becomes a righteous hero, . . . .

Second, and rather importantly. In the Bible (as elsewhere throughout both the Ancient Near East and the Greek/Mediterranean world), prostitution was not particularly frowned upon. Wives were for having children, prostitutes were for sex, as desired. Prostitution was not illegal in the Torah, . . . .

So the idea that Judah was doing something bad by going to a prostitute is a modern prudish idea that is just not biblical. . . .

Indeed. That story of Tamar was so hard for me to understand when I used to read it through modern values and judgements. The story was told without any shame or embarrassment implied over the contract with the prostitute itself -- all the shame was over other customs that mean nothing to us today (especially not marrying your childless brother's widow).

Part of deprogramming modern readers to appreciate that story in its original intent should be a deeper study of Rahab, the prostitute God used to protect Joshua's spies and facilitate the conquest of Canaan. Prostitutes (whether the one-timer Tamar or the professional Rahab) were given heroic roles in both the histories of Judah and Joshua's pre-conquest intelligence gathering. Nor was the Gileadite Jephthah's biblical honour and heroism stained by his mother being a prostitute.

Another compulsory reading should be the Epic of Gilgamesh where a prostitute is a heroine who literally humanizes Gilgamesh's wild friend Enki. There are several books on the relevant ancient values easily accessible and many articles on jstor and open source.

[Secret Alias]

its original intent should be a deeper study of Rahab

Really? How do you think people encountered the text of Genesis? They were all 'scholars' and availing themselves of 'commentaries' and 'parallel texts' from other cultures? In my judgement the text was 'announced' (likely to Levites only originally and then the greater population as the theocracy crumbled in the Hasmonean period). I have drawn the exact opposite conclusion. I think originally it was 'what you see is what you get.' This is another difficulty I have with a 'Platonic origins' theory or that the Pentateuch was inspired by Plato.

When I read Philo I see a Jew struggling with the EXPLICIT anthropomorphisms of the text. According to my understanding (and the Ethiopian tradition filtered through Bob Marley and the Wailers) God is a man. He's there encountering Abraham and his descendants as a man - or as Man - wrestling with them, dining with them, walking through the garden (initially) etc. God having a house and a Persian garden as a Man shows the primitiveness of the understanding, an understanding NOT influenced by Platonic understandings. But that's just me and my feeble understanding.

I don't see a deeper subtext to any of these stories beyond the occasional allusion to numerology. What you see is what you get. Abraham to Isaac, Isaac to Jacob, Jacob to Joseph, Joseph to Moses. Man is God, God is Man and God wants to reshape humanity made after Adam into man made after Man. Hence Moses's transfiguration. There's not much beyond that. All these 'deeper readings' of Genesis and Exodus is out of keeping with a text being encountered by hearers in a public setting.

I used to read it through modern values and judgements

I would argue ETERNAL values and judgements. All men have availed themselves of prostitutes especially in Mediterranean cultures where the purity of daughters and mothers are sacrosanct and the only sex people get are with prostitutes or other men. These are timeless value judgements. Good women don't have sex. Sex is bad (mostly because pregnancy lowers the value of a father's 'investment' in his daughter). Whores are always desirable and detestable in these cultures, and paradoxically an absolutely necessary part of existence. No I do not believe that modern antipathy toward prostitutes (epitomized by the use of puta, putain etc in everyday parlance). Even as sexual mores have changed, the 'scapegoating' of the prostitute has not.

[neilgodfrey]

its original intent should be a deeper study of Rahab

Really? How do you think people encountered the text of Genesis? They were all 'scholars' and availing themselves of 'commentaries' and 'parallel texts' from other cultures?

No. What I meant was that we should learn to read the text "on the what you see what you get basis" and not to read it through the lens of modern values. There is no hint of shame or disgrace expressed in the story regarding the spies' visit to Rahab. It is told as mere matter of fact. A harlot becomes the hero.

I don't see a deeper subtext to any of these stories . . . . What you see is what you get. . . . All these 'deeper readings' of Genesis and Exodus is out of keeping with a text being encountered by hearers in a public setting.

I think you have misunderstood my point. I am agreeing with the above. We can bring our own values concerning prostitutes into our reading of the text -- a natural reading process for us -- or we can take the text on a "what you see is what you get" basis -- that the Rahab is the hero and there is no fault implied in the story on the part of either Rahab's profession or Joshua's spies visiting her.

What is potentially hard for a modern reader to accept is that the story is told this way. The only reason I spoke of "deeper study" was to learn a little more about the values of the time in which the text was written in order to remove the confusion that a modern reader is likely to have.

I used to read it through modern values and judgements

I would argue ETERNAL values and judgements.

But we know that values and judgements with respect to prostitution do change throughout history. Even in our own time we have seen values change with respect to the public status of sex-workers, LBGTQI people, domestic violence and women's rights. There may be pockets in the US where they have not changed since the nineteenth century, but I am speaking more generally than that.

My reference to "deeper learning" was nothing more than a pointer to looking beyond our own limited world view and seeing the bigger picture, past and present. That's not a complicated or hard study. It's merely broadening our understanding of the world of the author and his/her audience.

I thought you would welcome my point because it rescues Joshua from any "shame" in the role of Rahab in his conquest of Canaan.