Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
Russell Gmirkin
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by Russell Gmirkin »

Hi, I just learned about the existence of this discussion thread from a friend in Canada. I only have time for a couple brief factual comments and corrections.

(1) The Ketef Hinnom silver amulets with verbal parallels to Num 6:24-26 are extensively discussed, with bibliography, in Berossus and Genesis, 27-28. It is agreed by Gabriel Barkay (2004), who discovered the amulets (nice guy—met him in Jerusalem in 1997 when he led an archaeological tour of the City of David for a group of us Dead Sea Scrolls scholars), Ada Yardeni (1991), Levine (1993) and others that the amulets reflect an oral priestly formula and are of no evidentiary value in dating the Pentateuch/Numbers as a written text.

(1-a) I don’t know which one of the four authors of Barkay, Lundberg, Vaugh and Zuckerman 2004 wrote the following in the Conclusions section, which seems to have tendentious theological overtones consistent with the Fuller Theological Seminary (Lundberg), USC School of Religion (Zuckerman) or the [Lutheran] Gustav Adolphus College (Vaugn): “We can thus reassert the conclusion reached by most scholars that the inscriptions found on these plaques preserve the earliest known citations of biblical texts. The new readings outlined in this article show that these plaques not only contain biblical quotations, but they also provide us with the earliest examples of confessional statements concerning Yahweh.”

(1-b) This was certainly NOT Gabriel Barkay (contra Goranson), given that the very next paragraph [which Neil Godfrey also quotes] essentially reverses this unwarranted conclusion, citing Barkay’s earlier publication notes: “As has already been noted (Barkay 1992: 176-81; Yardeni 1991: 181-85), the presence of the Priestly Blessing in this late preexilic context does not in and of itself prove that the biblical context in which the blessing appears in the MT had already been consolidated. However, this does point to the preexilic presence of formulations also found in the canonical text, particularly when the confessional statements concerning Yahweh in Ketef Hinnom I are taken into account.” This reiterates Barkay's and Yardeni’s reasonable position in other articles that the oral priestly formula is pre-exilic, but not necessarily part of the written biblical text known from later times.

(2) As to whether I have read Timaeus, my 2022 book Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts cites Timaeus probably a couple hundred times, with 4 pages of two columns each in the Index alone.

(3) The current project on dating the Dead Sea Scrolls in terms of both radiocarbon dating and paleography led by Mladen Popovic of Groningen University (with whom I am in occasional correspondence on the subject) hasn’t published its results yet, but as yet no biblical text appears to be definitively dated prior to ca. 270 BCE.

(4) A number of scholarly studies in the 2000s (by Reinhold Kratz, Christophe Nihan, Ingrid Hjelm and others) acknowledge a substantial Samari(t)an role in the creation of the original text of the Pentateuch, which assigns a larger role to Israel/Gerizim than Judah. The Samaritan Pentateuch, a slightly revamped text that writes Gerizim into the Ten Commandments, etc., appears later, around 100 BCE ±.

Otherwise, those participants in this discussion thread who have actually read my books are doing a good job in accurately and fairly presenting my views. Most of the critical comments and inaccuracies I see are from non-readers. (Someone should tell Stephen Goranson how to fill out an interlibrary loan request, since his reading is seemingly limited to that one lonely Duke University copy of Berossus and Genesis in the Divinity School library. I’ve written a bit more on the subject since 2006.)
Avis Redivivus
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by Avis Redivivus »

That is great! Thanks for the clarification
StephenGoranson
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by StephenGoranson »

What counts as a "biblical text"?
One view, which I currently share, is that some parts of the Torah were written down before other parts of the Torah were written down.
Rather than all at once.
To argue that attested written parts don't count because maybe other parts were not provably contemporary with those parts, therefore such a view must be wrong, is an argument whose force is vanishingly small.

(Maybe consider Homer, Vedas, Avesta....)
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by Secret Alias »

The Samaritan Pentateuch, a slightly revamped text that writes Gerizim into the Ten Commandments, etc., appears later, around 100 BCE ±.
Hi sir. The point isn't when the earliest surviving text arose but the fact that 'Jerusalem' doesn't appear in the narrative and the geography is concerned with Samaria (northern Israel) and Shechem rather than Jerusalem and southern Israelite locales. For lack of a better terminology it's likely a 'Samaritan' text that later became appropriated by 'Jews' rather than the reverse. Taking the conventional view that the text is Jewish has more to do with historical circumstances than actual study of the text. What exactly is specifically 'Jewish' about the Pentateuch? Why is Judah relegated to a whoring with his daughter-in-law while Joseph and his sons are the obvious heirs of Israel? Would or could a Jew have constructed that arrangement? Not to mention the geography again? It's convenient for your theory to take over the 'Jewish' origins of the Pentateuch but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny I think.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by neilgodfrey »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 7:41 am What counts as a "biblical text"?
One view, which I currently share, is that some parts of the Torah were written down before other parts of the Torah were written down.
Rather than all at once.
To argue that attested written parts don't count because maybe other parts were not provably contemporary with those parts, therefore such a view must be wrong, is an argument whose force is vanishingly small.

(Maybe consider Homer, Vedas, Avesta....)
Or consider Kuntillet'Ajrud. Now there we see a part of the "biblical text" "written down before other parts of the Torah were written down" and even before it was redacted for the final cut. It is even an illustrated version! ;)
Russell Gmirkin
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by Russell Gmirkin »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 1:02 pm
The Samaritan Pentateuch, a slightly revamped text that writes Gerizim into the Ten Commandments, etc., appears later, around 100 BCE ±.
Hi sir. The point isn't when the earliest surviving text arose but the fact that 'Jerusalem' doesn't appear in the narrative and the geography is concerned with Samaria (northern Israel) and Shechem rather than Jerusalem and southern Israelite locales. For lack of a better terminology it's likely a 'Samaritan' text that later became appropriated by 'Jews' rather than the reverse. Taking the conventional view that the text is Jewish has more to do with historical circumstances than actual study of the text. What exactly is specifically 'Jewish' about the Pentateuch? Why is Judah relegated to a whoring with his daughter-in-law while Joseph and his sons are the obvious heirs of Israel? Would or could a Jew have constructed that arrangement? Not to mention the geography again? It's convenient for your theory to take over the 'Jewish' origins of the Pentateuch but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny I think.
Hi Secret,

I don't think you quite followed my posting. I view the Pentateuch as a joint or collaborative Samaritan-Judean composition, written in a brief period in the early Hellenistic Era when the two groups were on relatively friendly terms. That Judah was included among the twelve indicates Jewish participation in this literary project, but the Samaritans were the major authorial force, given the dominance of the twelve tribes, the relatively minor (and as you note sometimes negative) role of Judah, the mention of Gerizim and Ebal and omission of Jerusalem and other factors that I have written about elsewhere. Southern locations often such as Hebron appear in Genesis, so one cannot exclude Judah in the mixture.
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by Secret Alias »

I am not hostile to your re-evaluation of history. Hebron is hardly important to the narrative. The central focus is the land around Gerizim which is the home of God, Paradise etc. How do you explain 'angels' in the LXX at Deuteronomy 33.2 to translate a Persian loanword eshdat lamo in the Hebrew? Why would Persian creep into a late composition as you suggest but not in the Greek translation?
Russell Gmirkin
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by Russell Gmirkin »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 5:59 pm I am not hostile to your re-evaluation of history. Hebron is hardly important to the narrative. The central focus is the land around Gerizim which is the home of God, Paradise etc. How do you explain 'angels' in the LXX at Deuteronomy 33.2 to translate a Persian loanword eshdat lamo in the Hebrew? Why would Persian creep into a late composition as you suggest but not in the Greek translation?
The LXX of Deuteronomy 32-33 have at least 3 "angels" (I don't have the text right in front of me), and in 2 instances (Deut. 32.8, 43) this is widely acknowledged to be a softening of the scandalous original Hebrew reading of "sons of God" (see Tov and others). The MT of Deut. 32:3 IS notoriously problematic, and some consider it corrupt. I imagine (with some other scholars) Deut. 33.2 to have had a similar scandalous original underlying original text. If it 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.) Translating the "saints" (as it's usually understood, although not without problems) of Deut. 32:2 as "angels" is thought perhaps to be an interpretive choice perhaps influenced by Zech. 14:5 (“the Lord my God will come and his holy ones with him”) where the holy ones are pretty clearly angelic hosts. That said, I don't consider myself an expert on the Septuagint, which is its own highly specialized discipline (although I was an invited presenter at a recent LXX conference).

That said, I will attempt to bow out of further discussions as I have other writing projects to attend to.
Russell Gmirkin
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by Russell Gmirkin »

Correction, the MT for Deut. 33:2 [not 32:3] is notoriously problematic.
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts [Gmirkin]

Post by Secret Alias »

I personally don't see how a Persian loan word is a problem in a Hellenistic Era text under my dating proposal
Of course you can see what the implications are for your theory. Having the Persian loanword isn't FATAL. It doesn't disprove the idea that it was written when you say it was. But it is SUGGESTIVE that it was written earlier. My difficulty of course is with the GREEK TRANSLATION. If it was done shortly after the Hebrew one would expect closer alignment. The shape of Paradise (another Persian loanword) as a Persian garden too. We have a situation where Mount Gerizim has at its summit a Persian garden (with four rivers going out from the center)

Image

Further along in the same original four books 'trousers' are mentioned which are only invented in the Persian period (not detrimental for your theory but difficult for those who seek to place the document beyond the Persian period). But then an additional book is added to the one where the Persian garden is associated with the Jewish god. And in that later addition a Persian loanword is found. Could the entire Pentateuch have been written in an environment where Persian had such a strong influence over Jews and Samaritans alike as you suggest?

Another difficulty, the differences between the Samaritan and Jewish Hebrew texts but also the LXX. So with regards to Qumran, Samaritan (and I would argue the Jewish text of R Ishmael) Exodus chapter 20. The bits of Deuteronomy that were present in the original book of Exodus were removed so as to limit the explicitness of two powers. This was done in the second century CE presumably. But it underscores another broader difficulty that you don't account for citations of the LXX in Philo that don't correspond or agree with our surviving LXX. Again this is not fatal for your theory. But I am not sure you could ever prove a later date for the composition of the text given that we don't have an exact idea what the LXX looked like in the form known to Philo and the Alexandrian Jews of his age. Very interesting ideas. Will have to investigate this with more attentiveness.
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