the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

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StephenGoranson
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

Post by StephenGoranson »

neilgodfrey,

Oxford Dictionary of English (3 ed.) and the Oxford English Dictionary (latest ed. online) are two different publications. The latter gives more detail and several historical quotations.

Dictionaries, though not perfect, can offer help, but those who interpret words do not always accept that help.

Some here may realize that the c. 273-272 Alexandria "whatever"-- to use Russell's word above--was asserted based on "limited evidence."
Basically, no direct evidence.
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

Post by StephenGoranson »

MrMacSon wrote above:
"I don't think 'hypothesis', 'proposal' or 'model' would be appropriate any more.

'Creation of the Torah in ca. 273-272 BCE' or thereabouts might well be better described as a cogent argument or an induced conclusion.

And not just based on Russell's studies ie. other scholars have wondered or even argued similar or the same eg. Thomas L Thompson, Giovanni Garbini, Philippe Wajdenbaum, Gerhard Larsson, Lukasz Niesiolowski-Spano, and probably others"

******
You reject my, SG, chosen word and Gmirkin's chosen word.
When I began this thread, I chose the word hypothesis as a neutral term and did not name anyone in the title in order to try to avoid personalizing.
I could have used other descriptive terms, some of them pejorative.
Nothing wrong in offering a hypothesis, usually, unless perhaps it depicts a group of humans as fools.
I have not written that nobody agrees with the "whatever," in whole or in part.
In fact, I have asked Neil whether he disagreed with anything Russell wrote ever. Don't recall an answer.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

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StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 4:10 am neilgodfrey,

Oxford Dictionary of English (3 ed.) and the Oxford English Dictionary (latest ed. online) are two different publications. The latter gives more detail and several historical quotations.

Dictionaries, though not perfect, can offer help, but those who interpret words do not always accept that help.

Some here may realize that the c. 273-272 Alexandria "whatever"-- to use Russell's word above--was asserted based on "limited evidence."
Basically, no direct evidence.
So you quote no contrary definition -- let me guess: because none exists. You are good at playing word games and lying -- or sorry, should I say you have a track record here of saying things you "believe" to be true especially when you see the evidence is not what you want to see.

And yes, a hypothesis begins with "limited evidence" -- that's why it's a hypothesis. Then there is a conclusion that is arrived at as a consequence of researching the question --- you clearly have difficulty in understanding the difference. It's a pity a dog ate your illegal photocopies of Russell's book before you got around to reading them ;-)
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neilgodfrey
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

Post by neilgodfrey »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 4:24 am In fact, I have asked Neil whether he disagreed with anything Russell wrote ever. Don't recall an answer.
Here's something else you won't understand, Stephen.

When I read a book I don't decide "I agree/disagree with that", -- Instead, I look at the arguments, the evidence, and I think: so that's an challenging or interesting or something-or-other point of view, proposal, .... I'll like to do some more reading on that to see what other perspectives there are in the discussions of the evidence. You know -- it's called trying to understanding different arguments and using them as stepping stones to learn more and more about a topic. But sometimes I see some people not treat an argument fairly and I can see that even if I myself am open to being persuaded and wanting to explore more deeply before making up my mind, so I point out where those persons are simply misrepresenting and unfairly responding to the argument. At the same time, I see other people who jump on board a new argument too quickly and run with it without due care - and I am a bit embarrassed by that because I fear they may come a cropper too soon.

It's called keeping an open mind and being open to seriously engaging with all perspectives, Documentary Hypothesis included -- and knowing what are the histories of those different points of view, how they historically emerged, what their foundations and assumptions are, knowing their strengths and weaknesses. It's about being able to engage with ALL the arguments fairly and honestly and seriously -- no knee-jerk worship of "authorities" while denigrating the morals and character of anyone who questions them, and no criticizing any view unless one knows it well enough to be able to present it informatively and fairly.

But by now I suspect your eyes are glazed over and you have no idea what I'm talking about. :-)
StephenGoranson
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

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Neil suggests, again, that I did not read Gmirkin's 2006 book, yet there is my review on amazon.com, dated January 20, 2007, titled "unlikely story,"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was not persuaded that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible were "composed in their entirely about 273-272 BCE" in Alexandria. A lot of research went into this book, but, I suggest, faulty methodology and odd framing of questions led the work astray, to quite implausible conclusions about the origin of the Torah and its Greek translation. The book mostly addresses Greek writers, or rather the fragmentary remains of such. But the Hebrew Bible is in Hebrew not Greek. The book overfocuses on Greek; underfocusses on the Hebrew text. I'm reminded of A. Momigliano's earlier complaint about another work: that it was "Hellenization of an unknown entity." The book's bibliography lacks, for instance, the names Tov, Kraft, Wevers and Schniedewind, who could have offered Gmirkin more reasonable and well-informed views of the composition of the Hebrew Bible and its translations; Gmirkin misspelled the Hebrew scholar Gesenius as Genesius.
Berossus was largely ignored in his day; that's one reason his works survive only in fragments; few bothered to copy him. Gmirkin fails to inform readers about this. Yet the book urges that 70 or 72 (?) bilingual Jewish scholars went from Jerusalem to Alexandria to write (in Hebrew) a polemic response to his Greek: Genesis. There's a tension in the book, between the page one thesis claim quoted above and later weasle words allowing that perhaps sources were available earlier. Even in Gmirkin's internally-inconsistent book, in some pages, the Bible did not "start" when other pages insist. Gmirkin somehow takes the foundation myth Letter of Aristaeus, assigns it a new author, and extracts the part he finds credible, useful to him. Gmirkin seems to me to use two standards of proof. Was Berosus' work, for instance, even known to have been in the Alexandria Library? There's no direct evidence, but Gmirkin assures that it was, doubtless. (Plausible, arguably, but not doubtless--a word overused by Gmirkin.) On the other hand, arguments from silence (in some Greek texts! after a quite iffy reassigning text away from Hecataeus of Abdera) are used implausibly against pre-273 Hebrew written Torah--and against pre-273 Greek translations. And when Moses was called a lawgiver, that's explained away as a non-writing variety lawgiver, despite a long-functioning temple. Too many ifs. On pages 53-55 Gmirkin attempts to reassign text that shows awareness of written Torah away from Hecataeus of Abdera, who most scholars agree wrote this; but that attestation, by itself, disproves Gmirkin's proposal by predating his imagined composition time. So he seeks to reassign it a new author and date it much later. This text also says that the Jews were "so docile...they fall to the ground and do reverence to the high priest...." Gmirkin's proposal implausibly places the time of "docile" Jews right at the end of the civil war by the two high priest claimant sons of the warrior Alexander Jannaeus, and supposedly written in the view of one travelling with Pompey. An odd time for one with the Roman army to mention docility.
I recommend James Barr's "Did the Greek Pentateuch Really Serve as a Dictionary for the Translation of the Later Books?) in the Muraoka Festschrift--earlier translations than the LXX, and hence earlier Hebrew Torah, are quite the sensible conclusion. Gmirkin's dismissal of Linguistic Dating of Texts (p. 17 and three lines on p. 18) could be considered too skimpy to do that subject justice. The book and its bibliography lack much direct attention to the Hebrew text. One might have expected, given his thesis, quotes from, say, Berossus in Greek, then the Hebrew Torah, then Greek translation, with detailed comment on how Genesis supposedly depends on Berossus. Genesis simply does not read as Gmirkin's scenario would require. Also, the temple in Elephantine does not attest to non-existence of written Torah then, any more than does the later temple at Leontopolis. In fact, the Elephantine papyri, Cowley 33 and 32, may well attest to Deuteronomy 12, and possibly the Pentateuch as well, by promising to the governor of Yehud to comply with its explicit law limiting the burnt sacrifice, the 'olah, to one place only.
This book fails to give a plausible account of the origin and nature of Hebrew Torah, and of the Greek translations (including both understandings and misunderstandings), and of its Vorlage in comparison to other texts, such as MT.
Given Gmirkin's interest in Sherlock Holmes, one may suggest that the question has been unfortunately framed. Holmes, alas, did not say: Dear Watson, the Torah was composed anciently over a long time by many, many of whose names I know not. The book tends toward a discrete, new, conclusion, of "the butler did it" variety. The book is characterized by strident ("doubtless") overreaching for novelty, unfortunately, because it results in a thesis which is a work of fiction.
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MrMacSon
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

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StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 4:24 am ******
You reject my, SG, chosen word and Gmirkin's chosen word.
When I began this thread, I chose the word hypothesis as a neutral term and did not name anyone in the title in order to try to avoid personalizing.
I could have used other descriptive terms, some of them pejorative.
Nothing wrong in offering a hypothesis, usually, unless perhaps it depicts a group of humans as fools.
I have not written that nobody agrees with the "whatever," in whole or in part.

I don’t reject them. I just think we’ve moved beyond hypotheisis, proposal, and perhaps model
StephenGoranson
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

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Today I met someone who is writing a dissertation on a text of Homer. I asked what are the earliest copies. Without going into detail (the subject is easy to search online), fragmentary copies exist from several hundred years later than the date range of authorship, and complete extant copies are medieval, more than one thousand years later than the fragmentary copies. Similarly, the Vedas and the Avesta are available in copies centuries later than when they were first written, perhaps after a stage of oral transmission. Locally, the Cherokee language was spoken long before it was written down. Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the late 1940s, the earliest Hebrew Bible copies known were medieval. With C14 date ranges--and more to come--now we know we have BCE Bible fragments, including, so far. back to third century BCE. The TaNaK (text and eventual canon) evidently grew, with variant versions, by long accretion and editing.

For anyone interested, here is Oxford English Dictionary online sense 3 for hypothesis (skipping the etymology, the other senses, and the historical example quotations):

"3. A supposition or conjecture put forth to account for known facts; esp. in the sciences, a provisional supposition from which to draw conclusions that shall be in accordance with known facts, and which serves as a starting-point for further investigation by which it may be proved or disproved and the true theory arrived at."

Nobody complained about my use of "hypothesis" during many posts until RG objected to it. Then so did his follower. I consider that the 2006 book failed to make a plausible case for proving the c. 273-272 whatever-you-wish-to-call-it.
Secret Alias
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

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I've always said that laypeople have this weird obsession about 'the date of the earliest manuscripts.' A parallel example is the survival of floor mosaics in ancient buildings. Are we to assume that because TODAY a disproportionate number of floor mosaics survived as compared with ancient wall mosaics that we can extrapolate the same ratio existed in antiquity. Of course not.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

Post by neilgodfrey »

Secret Alias wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 10:30 am I've always said that laypeople have this weird obsession about 'the date of the earliest manuscripts.' A parallel example is the survival of floor mosaics in ancient buildings. Are we to assume that because TODAY a disproportionate number of floor mosaics survived as compared with ancient wall mosaics that we can extrapolate the same ratio existed in antiquity. Of course not.
The dates of manuscripts are very important and it is in scholarly works that you will find discussions about their dates. Gosh, it is only scholars, as far as I am aware, who normally have access to the carbon 14 dating facilities. There are scholarly disciplines dedicated to specific techniques that are required for dating.

Every scholarly work that addresses the point of survival of different types of evidence, from my reading and recollection, at some point tends to point out the question of how representative the limited numbers of surviving data can be said to be of the ancient situation.

Most lay people interested in the question, in my experience, pick up a scholarly work at some point to find out what the scholars say and learn very quickly learn the above facts about the relevance of surviving manuscripts and their dating, both relative and absolute. Scholars, for most part, like it when they find their work is accessed by lay readers for such purposes.

It's a big internet and bigger world, but personally I do not recall coming across anyone, lay or scholar, who has declared that the earliest ancient manuscript is the autograph of a work. From my experience, it is universally understood that the date of a manuscript is important for establishing the ad quem of a work, not the a quo.

What Russell Gmirkin is doing is entirely within the limits of how historians of other literary works work. The difference between his approach and that of most Old Testament scholars is to widen his evidence base to include Greek works for comparison. The conventional wisdom has been to exclude Greek works from consideration because they do not fit the assumptions of the theoretical model proposed by the documentary hypothesis. That is an entirely legitimate exercise.

(Yes, SGor, before you post your predictable response yet again, I am well aware that Greek influence is granted for a few widely acknowledged late works and the LXX translation but try to note the context of what I am discussing and to what I am referring.)
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neilgodfrey
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Re: the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

Post by neilgodfrey »

StephenGoranson wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 10:22 am
Nobody complained about my use of "hypothesis" during many posts until RG objected to it. Then so did his follower. I consider that the 2006 book failed to make a plausible case for proving the c. 273-272 whatever-you-wish-to-call-it.
You have a track record of telling lies, sorry, saying what you say you "believe" even though the evidence before your eyes flatly contradicts what you want to believe. I posted an explanation of my position and was clearly correct in saying it was a thought you would not understand and that your eyes would glaze over attempting to read it.

Your resort to ad hominem against someone who dares to actually present fairly new ideas instead of "properly" condemning "wrong ideas" from the outset, is predictable and tiresome.

Is not this forum meant to be a place for discussing new ideas? Or is it a place where firing squads are ready to shoot anyone who attempts to point out misrepresentations and misunderstandings?

You have made it clear that Russell Gmirkin's 2006 book in your view is "bad" because it "argued the wrong ideas" and did not endorse the conventional wisdom. Your posts seem to indicate that having expressed your disapproval of an earlier work you have a responsibility to attack and smear the ethics and characters and motives of others with a different viewpoint and blatantly misrepresent what both they and RG say.
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