Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by neilgodfrey »

I have separated this discussion between SA and me into a thread outside the one Russell Gmirkin initiated for his discussion with SA. I think that thread is best restricted to their exchange and anything between me and SA is best kept apart. (MrMacSon posted serious questions that have not been responded to so far- - maybe they can be addressed here, too.)
Secret Alias wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:16 am
My point has been that there is no evidence for the Pentateuch having been known in the Persian era.
. . . There is evidence. I've brought it up during the course of the discussion. Not the same thing as saying PERSUASIVE evidence (where 'persuasive' is ultimately a subjective determination). The evidence is:

1. Persian words translated into Hebrew
2. Persian words translated into the Greek translation
3. Persian concepts like pardes, dat
4. Josephus's citation of a presumably Jewish source that Jews and Samaritans practiced levitical laws (calculation of Sabbatical years)
5. the consequences of Samaritan primacy argument (which we are discussing here) namely
(i) a Samaritan text defining Jewish religious life could only have or more likely have been written in an age where northern Israelite culture was at its zenith
(ii) the amount of time necessary for the Qumran fragment to have been produced in a specifically Jewish and specifically isolated setting like Qumran given (a) Joshua being written after Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy after an original Tetrateuch and this Hexateuch to have originated in Samaria and then brought to 'Judaism' and then Qumran specifically c. 250 BCE.

Whether you are persuaded by these arguments they constitute arguments and evidence (where in the case of 5ii a chronological reconstruction is evidentiary).
A follow-up comment:
Secret Alias wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:28 am
Have you read any of the works you cited earlier or any of my responses to that point? You have not addressed them but only return to repeating your original point as if nothing those articles I said or anything I have proposed needs any engagement at all.
You said THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE for a point of view. I merely restated that there was evidence, you know there's evidence but - for whatever reason - that you have determined it wasn't persuasive. That's an important distinction. You were overstating the situation.

We have discussed the evidence.
I have to disagree, sorry. We have each stated our points of view but that's only the first step before a discussion can take place.

Maybe it is better if we try not to cover everything in each comment. Can we take just one exhibit at a time?

Exhibit #1: Persian words translated into Hebrew

Can we be specific so we know exactly what we are addressing here? Earlier, we saw a specific response to this point, if I understand and recall correctly:
Russell Gmirkin wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 7:52 pm . . . If [Deut 32:2] does contain a Persian loan word, this would be the only Persian loan word in the Pentateuch. (And I personally don't see how a Persian loan word is a problem in a Hellenistic Era text under my dating proposal.) . . . .
Is not a Persian loan word or translated Persian word a piece of data that can be explained in many different ways?

You like to use analogies. Here is one of mine: I like watching murder mysteries. The detectives are always being led by "suggestive" associations and possibilities that they are imagining from what they experience and see and hear but they only find clear evidence at the end of the show. Until then, they are looking at lots of data, lots of persons, and trying to imagine all sorts of theories about "who done it". They have lots of data but none of it will stand up as evidence in court to prove their theories -- until they finally at the end discover the true culprit.

Back to the point:

When I use Latin, Greek, Persian, Indonesian, French, Aboriginal words in my writing and speaking, that is only evidence of cultures that came before me and with which my ancestors had close contacts and have influenced my culture today. The borrowed words I use are not evidence that I live in Roman, Greek, etc times.

Contrast what is clear evidence of dating events:
  • A coin with a Persian king stamped on it is evidence that the coin was minted in the time of that Persian king.
  • A monument with an inscription declaring that its author is the Persian king is evidence that the monument belongs to the time of the Persian king.
  • A letter dug up in Egypt addressed to an officials and dating in the year of a Persian king is evidence that the letter was written in the time of the Persian king.


Now it is possible that each of the above is a forgery. But if the tests and studies for authenticity in each case are positive, then they are evidence for those items being produced in the time of a particular Persian king.

But words I use (Latin, Greek, French...) are only evidence of contacts that have happened either in my own day or in previous times.


Perhaps I should respond to one more related point about the discussion in general:
Secret Alias wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:28 am That "there is no evidence" for the Persian period would be odd given that it is a more widely accepted position than your preferred third century BCE theory.
Yes, it would be odd. But scholarship is littered with a long history of ideas that had to be discarded because they lacked evidence and were based on theories alone. The theories lead scholars to interpret data in a certain way that is favourable to their theory. The data is not evidence for the theories. It is merely interpreted as if it supported the theory. People once believed that dinosaur bones were planted by the devil or evidence for some other world that fit the theory of their religious beliefs.
Secret Alias wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:28 am This state of affairs would imply that all those who espouse the Persian dating are pathologically motivated, maliciously motivated, acting in a way contradictory to good scholars (i.e. for having developed a model without any actual evidence).
Not at all. Not at all. No no no no no no. People can be misguided and have ideas that later prove to be wrong but they are still acting in good faith, with all sincerity. The Documentary Hypothesis is a reasonable theory. But our reasoning is not always correct. When evidence emerges that contradicts our theories, our reasonable conclusions, then we will usually try very hard at first to defend what we have long believed, but eventually, if the evidence is secure, the ideas will have to be discarded. But we are human. It often takes us longer to discard wrong ideas than to embrace new ones that newly considered evidence points towards.

Secret Alias wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:28 amAs long as we acknowledge that both sides develop their arguments FROM EVIDENCE there is nothing more to say. THERE IS EVIDENCE FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE TETRATEUCH IN THE PERSIAN. Whether or not it is persuasive is an ongoing debate/discussion. The fact that you feel that Persian loanwords, Josephus's testimony and the chronology incorporating a Samaritan text into Judaism aren't persuasive doesn't make it a "non-evidentiary" position.
Maybe in another comment we can address why historians do not read Josephus as evidence for events centuries before his time.
Secret Alias
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by Secret Alias »

Is not a Persian loan word or translated Persian word a piece of data that can be explained in many different ways?
Again Josephus is evidence. Persian words are evidence. Whether or not they are persuasive evidence is to be determined. That was the original context of that statement. Let me find your statement that led to that post. But regarding your statement that we need to keep the Samaritan thread open for Russell to respond. My point was that Russell ignored the Samaritans. So what's there to discuss? As I said, either the Samaritans have no relevance and Russell was right to ignore them, or the Samaritans are important for understanding the development of the Torah and the omission is problematic. But 'leaving open' a discussion to something that was ignored by another scholar - for what purpose? Either the Samaritans matter or don't matter for the understanding of the development of the Pentateuch, Hexateuch etc. That's the limit of the discussion.
Secret Alias
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by Secret Alias »

I want the opportunity to frame the discussion of my ideas.

1. the Samaritans were favored in the Persian period. The Jews took advantage of the coming of Alexander and exerted increasing influence over the subsequent periods until the Samaritan were basically a footnote in the study of 'Judaism.'
2. if the Samaritans were to be the authors of the Pentateuch their influence in the Persian period would account for why Judaeans took over what was ostensibly a northern Israelite text.
3. Genesis understands that Gerizim was the omphalos of the world. An anthropomorphic god created Adam in his image and planted him in the garden/paradise in front of his house, Bethel.
4. the Samaritans maintain the tradition that Paradise was at the peak of Gerizim, the highest mountain in the world, and the river from which the four rivers of the known world, in Armenia, Mesopotamia, Egypt originate (the only way a river at the top of a mountain could feed the mountain starting point of all these other rivers would be if this 'highest of all mountains' reached up into heaven). Philo hints that Paradise was on the highest mountain top.
5. the highest mountain in the world status is confirmed when Gerizim is the place Noah lands as the floods recede (the highest mountain would be the first to appear)
6. Abraham is directed by God to live in God's 'basement.' From time to time God 'takes the elevator' and makes himself manifest as a 'man' to Abraham and his descendants.
7. the central concern of the Pentateuch is 'the land' specifically the land around Gerizim which is holy because God lives there (and everything associated with God is necessarily so).
8. there were Samaritan sects which bore Greek names and who were numerous at Alexandria and claimed to have the original Torah which was altered by their Samaritan 'normative' rivals. These 'Dositheans' may prove to be fruitful ground from which Gmirkin can find the Alexandrian originators of his 3rd century BCE Torah. They apparently venerated facing Gerizim from the place Jacob saw God descend from his house but said the mountain was no longer holy because we were living in an era of disfavor. They objected to the establishment of a permanent structure being placed on the highest VISIBLE part of the mountain (presumably because the real 'Bethel' was in heaven at the true peak of Gerizim).

As I have said I am attracted to Gmirkin's ideas because the Pentateuch was obviously written at a time where 'the land' was taken away. Whether this means after the cult at Gerizim was prohibited to Israelites or whether it was during a sojourn at Alexandria (as per Gmirkin) is to be decided. But that Gerizim is the central focus of the Pentateuch and that the Penateuch is reflective of an estrangement from 'the land' seem to be self-evident to me.

Whether the Persian words, Persian concepts prove that the text was written in the Persian period is debatable. They attest to Persian influence. Why else would "God's house" have a Persian garden in his front lawn? The description of Paradise is similarly in keeping with a Persian garden where in effect Adam and Eve were kept as one of the many domesticated animals which would adorn a satrap's garden. If Gmirkin is right παράδεισος is in the LXX because it stands closest to the original text of Genesis and confirms that gan Eden is a pardes (something otherwise demonstrated by the shape of the garden). Again I argued that Gmirkin did not think the Samaritans were that important or important enough to mention with any specificity or to incorporate their traditions into his study. I took exception to this and argued that the Samaritans are descendants of the original authors of the Pentateuch and Joshua. I favor the supposition that the Tetrateuch was written in the Persian period because it allows for enough time for a Samaritan ur-Deuteronomy, Samaritan ur-Joshua to have been written and then taken over and altered by Jewish sectarians especially with respect to the Book of Exodus which was heavily redacted.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by MrMacSon »

neilgodfrey wrote: (MrMacSon posted serious questions that have not been responded to so far- - maybe they can be addressed here, too.)
=>
Secret Alias wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:16 am
My point has been that there is no evidence for the Pentateuch having been known in the Persian era.
Well. You see. There you go again. There is evidence. I've brought it up during the course of the discussion. Not the same thing as saying PERSUASIVE evidence (where 'persuasive' is ultimately a subjective determination).

The evidence is:
  1. Persian words translated into Hebrew
  2. Persian words translated into the Greek translation
  3. Persian concepts like pardes, dat
  4. Josephus's citation of a presumably Jewish source that Jews and Samaritans practiced Levitical laws (calculation of Sabbatical years)
  5. the consequences of Samaritan primacy argument (which we are discussing here) namely:
    1. a Samaritan text defining Jewish religious life could only have or more likely have been written in an age where northern Israelite culture was at its zenith
    2. the amount of time necessary for the Qumran fragment to have been produced in a specifically Jewish and specifically isolated setting like Qumran given
      1. Joshua being written after Deuteronomy; and
      2. Deuteronomy after an original Tetrateuch; and
      3. this Hexateuch to have originated in Samaria; and
      4. then brought to 'Judaism' and then Qumran specifically c. 250 BCE.
Whether you are persuaded by these arguments they constitute arguments and evidence (where, in the case of 5.ii., a chronological reconstruction is evidentiary).

OK. Let's elaborate on some of this.

A. What is
4. *Josephus's citation* of a presumably Jewish source that Jews and Samaritans practiced Levitical laws (calculation of Sabbatical years) [??]

B. re 5.i.
"a Samaritan text[s] defining Jewish religious life...written in an age where northern Israelite culture was at its zenith"
  1. When do you think "northern Israelite culture was at its zenith" ??
  2. Do you have a specific Samaritan text in mind ??

C. re 5.ii.
"the amount of time necessary for the Qumran fragment to have been produced in a specifically Jewish and specifically isolated setting like Qumran"
  1. What Qumran fragment/s are you referring to ??
  2. What do you mean by a "necessary" amount of time ?? | Why does its/their production require a "necessary" amount of time ??

D. re 5.ii.b.
"Deuteronomy after an original Tetrateuch"
  • What evidence is there for "an original Tetrateuch" ??
Secret Alias
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by Secret Alias »

A. Josephus says X is testimonial evidence.
B. i. the Persian period ii. the Hexateuch
C i 4Q17 Exodus-Leviticus ii Qumran texts of the books of the Bible are often different. These are the oldest texts of the Bible. I don't understand why we assume that our texts are the 'right' texts. I know this is complicated but Exodus and Deuteronomy cover the same material and the Samaritan and Qumran texts demonstrate that "what is Exodus" and "what is Deuteronomy" isn't always clear. Look at some of the early so-called "Deuteronomy" fragments. There was a proto-Torah. A lot of time elapsed between the LXX and the proto-texts of Bible.

(a) proto-tetrateuch (northern Israel/Gerizim)
(b) proto-tetrateuch + Deuteronomy (= "second/another law"). The Hebrew is not the same as (a). Written by someone else.
(c) proto-tetrateuch + Deuteronomy + Joshua
(d) specifically Jewish sectarian version of the original northern Hexateuch (i.e. perhaps without the 11th commandment)
(e) the LXX is a Greek translation of (d) written in the 3rd century BCE. When then were (a)(b)(c) and (d) written. Answer: sometime before (e). How much longer? That depends on when you think (e) was written and when (d) would have been allowed to flourish. My assumption (d) was sometime after Alexander. If (d) = "sometime after Alexander" (a) (b) (c) were written during the Persian period and the lack of favor from the Persian authorities allowed for the sectarian reworking (= Jewish) of the originally northern Israelite document.

D. Δευτερονόμιον = "second law." The rabbinic sources repeat the understanding that Deuteronomy was a "second law" cf. Abraham Heschel. As such the Tetrateuch, the four books before the "second law" = the first law or the original law before the second law.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by neilgodfrey »

I hope you will forgive me but before moving on to other things I would really like to discuss this first point I offered. We haven't discussed it yet. You have made a claim; I have made a counterclaim. But for a discussion we need to discuss talk about each others ideas and try to understand where each other is coming from.
Secret Alias wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:46 pm
Is not a Persian loan word or translated Persian word a piece of data that can be explained in many different ways?
Persian words are evidence. Whether or not they are persuasive evidence is to be determined.
What does a Persian word in a Hebrew text tell us? Just that little bit of data alone. One Persian word in a Hebrew writing.

What is it evidence of?

All anyone can say is that it is evidence that the Hebrew author had contact with ideas expressed in the Persian language or in a Persian context of some kind.

The fact that there is a Persian word in a Hebrew text does not tell us -- cannot possibly tell us -- that the Hebrew work was written under Persian rule.

How can it? All it can tell us is that the Hebrew author had some contact with something Persian. That's it.

How can we explain that piece of data? that appearance of the Persian word in the Hebrew text?

Several possibilities come to mind. Did the Hebrew author pick up the Persian word from a very old text? Did he learn Persian himself and have talks with Persian storytellers? We don't know. We need evidence to try to find out why we have this Persian word in a Hebrew text.

We can assume that the Hebrew author was living in a Persian dominated world. But we don't know that. There could be other ways the Persian word came to be used by the Hebrew author.

The simple fact that there is a Persian word in a Hebrew composition is not by itself evidence that the Hebrew work was written in the Persian empire.

How can it be?

That the Hebrew author lived in the Persian empire is only one of a number of possible explanations. By itself, that lone Persian word is not evidence for any of those explanations. We need other evidence to help us understand why the Hebrew author used the word.

Does that make sense? That's why I don't believe we can say the fact of a Persian word in a Hebrew work is itself evidence for when that Hebrew work was written. I have used Latin loan words in this comment. Does that mean I am writing in the time of the Roman empire? Of course not.

We have a few Aboriginal words in our common speech and they are used world-wide. That is not evidence that the English speakers learned those words when Aborigines ruled over them, though.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Just one more point....

A Persian word in a Hebrew composition is a fact that needs to be explained. It is not necessarily by itself evidence for any particular explanation. What we need to try to find the best explanation for the fact of a Persian word in a Hebrew text is evidence for particular explanation.

The fact that needs to be explained, and the evidence we can find to support any particular explanation, are different things. The fact to be explained; the evidence for a proposed explanation. Evidence is not the same as the fact that needs explanation.
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by rgprice »

Can we get some citations on the supposed Persian words in the Jewish scriptures, because I recall reading recently that there are very few Persian loan-words in the Jewish scriptures, fewer than scholars expect if it were a Persian era writing. In fact, the dearth of Persian loan-words in the Torah has been used for centuries as an argument in favor of pre-Persian authorship.
Russell Gmirkin
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by Russell Gmirkin »

Persian loan words are mainly found in the late texts Song of Songs and Qohelet (Ecclesiastes).

A good article by Ian Young, the celebrated Australian linguist of the Hebrew Bible, incidentally deals with the issue of Persian loan words:

https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/yount357913

One particular quotation stands out:

On the one hand, it is generally considered, as Mats Eskhult has recently put it, that "Persian loanwords...almost unequivocally point to the Persian era" (c. 500–300 BCE). The other side of this argument is also well put by Eskhult: "What deserves to be stressed is that Persian words are not to be found in the Pentateuch at all! If loanwords of Persian origin are considered a strong argument when dating biblical texts, then the lack of every vestige of such loanwords ought to be considered as an important evidence for a date of origin prior to the Persian era."

So basically no Persian loan words in the Pentateuch. [The single Persian word dat = law at Deut. 33.2 (MT) is believed to a textual corruption.]

Personally I find linguistic dating of texts to be junk science. For instance, in the entire corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls (ignoring the Copper Scroll from Cave 11 which appears to be unrelated to the DSS) there is not a single Greek loan word.
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Re: Evidence for the Pentateuch being a Persian era work?

Post by StephenGoranson »

The Copper Scroll is from Qumran Cave 3 not Cave 11.
*If* the Torah books were first written in Alexandria in the 270s by the same people who translated it into Greek, as REG claimed, might some expect some Greek loan words?
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