The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by neilgodfrey »

austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:02 am. . . There are indications of supplementation (change of number or person, inclusios, resumptive repetitions etc) these are hints that something is going on textually. It's not a science, but neither is it a free-for-all; it's some messy thing in between (like science itself, of course). . . . .
Again -- we do not disagree about the nature of the text we are reading. We agree that there are layers, seams, etc in the text. That is not in question.

But we need to focus on the content of those strata and understand their literary function. If we begin with the assumption that supplementary passages must have been much later then we will read the evidence with that in mind; but that is not the only way to read the evidence: one can sometimes see clear overall structural designs in the way supplementary material has been added to a core body of text. That suggests a project at a single time to create that work.
austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:02 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 6:08 pm And often the "rules" are actually nothing more than interpretations based on certain presuppositions about chronology. (In the book whose introduction you linked to earlier, Katharina Pyschny, for example, has no qualms in tossing overboard a number of mainstream "traditional" chronological sequences in her discussion of the Korah-Dathan-Aaron-Moses narrative.)
Pyschny's essay sounds very provocative and interesting. It'll be interesting to see if - on a lit-crit basis - her argument improves on some of the others. It hope it doesn't suffer from making the text fit the theory rather than make the theory fit the text. (And, thinking about it, I wonder how she deals with the Deut 11:6 which refers to Dathan and Abiram but not Korah....) But a strong argument is a strong argument. For a long time I resisted the idea that Exodus 12:21-23 was anything but "non-priesty" until Gesundheit's book convinced me it was part of the priestly stratum. I wonder if Pyschny will make a strong enough case to overturn my thinking about the Korah, Dathan episode (which is in flux anyway). Her essay isn't available online and the book probably costs bomb. Perhaps she'll upload a PDF on Academia.edu if I request it.
The point is that the whole question is being debated and there is no common agreement. It is not safe to rely on "the latest" publication of any one scholar as definitive.
austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:02 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 6:08 pm Again -- that the author of Genesis 1 may well have had some notion of an earlier "8 acts of creation" that he was adapting but it does not follow that there was a Genesis account with a creation story that of 8 days or not even divided into days beforehand. It only means that the author has adapted a story to create what we read in Genesis 1. There is no need to postulate any long time between an early Genesis and a later Genesis.
Well, I think there was, and I think I have a plausible account of it. But of course I can't prove it, any more than I could prove that the proposal for an analysis of the "Drunken Noah" story that I posted a few weeks ago (to a crash of silence!) was true. There can be no proof, just theories - . . . .
Yes, this is a point I have been trying to reiterate. Theories that are attempts to explain how a diachronic model would have worked are not themselves, cannot be, proofs or arguments for the diachronic model itself.

Ditto for Gmirkin's thesis. His account of how a collaborative effort actually worked is not itself, logically, for a fact of a collaborative effort.

To think that we have proven a case by saying how we think it would work if it were true is, of course, circular.


austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:02 am . . . . and there is no reason why successive redactions over a longer period of time isn't also equally possible.
Now this involves a quite different argument. I have been avoiding the most fundamental evidence-based case and question of historical method for now since the focus has been on arguments for a diachronic model in place of the collaborative one.
austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:02 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 6:08 pmThe strongest contradiction is the characterization of Yahweh between Genesis and Exodus -- but I have yet to return to an earlier comment of yours to address that in more detail.
Well that is such a big broad issue it's difficult to discuss in concrete terms instead of broad generalities. I've too often seen this sort of issue fly off in very broad assumptions about meaning and motive which are purely speculative. I don't know how that big subject can be brought down to earth.
I'd like to start a thread about it but I really can't handle the thought of two of our companions here going to town again and wrecking it.
austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:02 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 6:08 pmAnother is the Samaria - Jehud/Judea "conflict".
I can't see any obvious cases of Samaria/Judea conflict in the MT or LXX... though there are of course clear "sectarian" differences between those two and the Samaritan Pentateuch.
There was more cooperation or compromise -- though later there are clear signs of the breakdown of that spirit. It is what we can't see vis a vis what we can see that is of particular interest. Again, another discussion.
austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:02 amBut though your pub conversation sounds fine to us 21st century folk... people with word processors for whom adding a bit here and there is an easy thing to do, I'm not at all sure it makes sense with parchment scrolls laborously handwritten by scribes. Simply copying a text without changing it is a big deal. Adding a supplement was itself a bigger deal. And then adding another one to that.... Things simply took longer when there wasn't the time-and-trouble-reducing technology of today. So the picture of the pub-priests sounds a little forced (I know you don't mean it literally, but even so....) I've read interesting things about the notion that texts could get bigger when scripts literally got smaller and you could fit more on a page. I think all of us need to be more conscious of the purely physical conditions of textual production in earlier times.
I think the simple fact that the finished product does contain so many seams, strata, inconsistencies, is evidence of the messiness of the process. Bob in the pub was drinking and had lots of sheets of paper and beer mats to write on and link with arrows and lines before he went home and tried to write it up as a single piece.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 7:01 amMy partner says I'm getting snappy and puts it down to my participation on this board
I thank you for allowing me to engage in what has been for me a friendly and stimulating spirit. You have at times pushed me to expand my awareness of some points with wider reading -- and that's one of the values of a board like this. I have worried sometimes that I may have not worded my responses well and hoped they did not cause offence. But I think we have "put up" with each other in a professional-like collaborative spirit. I'm glad you raised the points you did.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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StephenGoranson wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 9:14 am Ancient ethnic religion texts tend not to delete regarded-as-venerable portions but to add, combine, edit by accretion.
We know from the DSS and other early renditions of the Pentateuch and comparing later versions with earlier ones that in its early years it was NOT considered a document so venerable that it was verboten to delete or change any of its words. We know words were deleted and replaced.
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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Perhaps you missed the word "tend."
In either case, the manuscript variety does not fit the c.273-272 Alexandria proposal in which there was putatively just one text at that time.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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StephenGoranson wrote: Sat May 27, 2023 3:14 am Perhaps you missed the word "tend."
In either case, the manuscript variety does not fit the c.273-272 Alexandria proposal in which there was putatively just one text at that time.
Very good, Stephen. You win again. I'm just no good at the game of casuistry.
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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Well, neilgodfrey, if you consider my first sentence above unworthy,
perhaps you could consider the second sentence:

"In either case, the manuscript variety does not fit the c.273-272 Alexandria proposal in which there was putatively just one text at that time."
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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StephenGoranson wrote: Sat May 27, 2023 4:38 am Well, neilgodfrey, if you consider my first sentence above unworthy,
perhaps you could consider the second sentence:

"In either case, the manuscript variety does not fit the c.273-272 Alexandria proposal in which there was putatively just one text at that time."
I did consider for about 2 seconds responding to that sentence but decided that it would be pointless because you clearly are not as "familiar" [look up the meaning of the word!] with Gmirkin's writings as you claim to be -- Please identify where Gmirkin suggests there was "one text" in the said period -- if interested I can present to you his case that clearly indicates there were multiple texts at that time.
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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I may understand why austendw gave up participation in this thread.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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StephenGoranson wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:31 am I may understand why austendw gave up participation in this thread.
austendw and I have had cordial correspondence away from and since this thread -- so what is it you wish to imply, SG?

you wouldn't be suggesting austendw was being dishonest with his explanation for his leaving, would you?
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

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He said that you were giving him a headache and if he continued (exaggeration for comic effect) his wife would divorce him. Not my definition of a productive conversation.
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