austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:41 pm
austendw wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 6:05 am but I think it pretty much demands that any answer must take into account that there
was earlier pre-existing material that editors did not have free reign to junk,
and this is exactly what Gmirkin's thesis does.
Does he? I didn’t get that from him. For the avoidance of doubt, I really meant written material. I'm not clear that Gmirkin acknowledges much pre-existing written material in the Pentateuch, barring a few bits (like the Hammurabi Laws brought to Samaria by Babylonian deportees). And my impression is that he considers most of the differences between the Biblical text and Greek “originals” as being adaptations introduced by the Judeo-Samarian writers, rather than being derived from their own pre-existing literary creations, incorporated into the Pentateuchal composition. But he doesn’t go into great detail about this so it’s difficult to be definite.
Yes, he does. It's a major part, if not the major part, of his proposal of a collaborative effort of multiple interested parties in the composition of the Pentateuch. It's hard to miss. There is more than a "few Hammurabi-like bits" in the Pentateuch and Gmirkin addresses many of them.
But I'm not sure what your point is about "written" material exactly. It's all written material that is being addressed.
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:41 pm
austendw wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 6:05 amand that the text grew over a period of time.
and this raises the question I have been seeking an answer to but that answer has so far been absent. Why is a period of time greater than a year or two necessary?
It is very difficult to discuss this in terms of broad generalisations. Some parts of the editorial activity could indeed take little time. But in other cases, texts show evidence of sustained scribal activity - repeated, successive amplifications of a text that cannot seriously be squeezed into such a short period. This sort of textual amplification has nothing at all to do with the Documentary Hypothesis either in principle or detail.
An example would help. How many or which of the various "seams" and redactions would necessitate more than a few months? And how does one explain such efforts that leave the contradictions standing?
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pmAnd here I have to ask you how familiar you are with the various different Pentateuchal literary theories? I presume you are familiar with the Documentary Hypothesis, though I don't know if you are familiar with it in terms of precise textual analysis or justknow of it in outline, as the once standard scholarly position. I suppose that if you eliminated the dates that R E Friedman give the traditional source documents, you could probably come up with a version that more or less compatible with a shallow composition period that you are advocating. (And the Neo-Documentary approach might work too.) However much modern literary analysis of the Pentateuch has seriousoly exploded the structure of the DH (with the exception of the priestly/non-priestly distinction that remains an almost universal constant) and approaches texts in a different way and with a different understanding of the supplementary, redactional and scribal activity. So the redactional architecture of the Pentateuch that they are proposing is often very different to that of the old Documentary approach, and I think does not fit well into the shallow 2 year+ period you are suggesting. I will have to see if I can come up with a good case that illustrates what I mean clearly.
I have explained what I mean when I use the term "documentary hypothesis" because I am very aware of certain criticisms of the original DH -- but I would prefer you to be specific with actual examples that address the question I have raised. I look forward to the good case you come up with.
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:41 pm
If a text expressing a particular ideology or belief system was inherited by a generation that held different views, would we not expect the new generation to either replace or rewrite the old text so that they would have a work that reflects their new understanding?
No, I wouldn't expect it – not necessarily. What we find are nuanced revisions, expansions, supplementations of earlier versions that seem to express evolving views rather than extreme shifts of ideas that call for the "suppressing" the old. We can certainly see evidence of different "scholarly schools" - Priestly, Deuteronomistic - whose texts all show signs of parallel successive development. But at some point the different scribal writings were all viewed as valid, or somewhat compatible, or above all of value to later redactors/tradents, despite the discrepancies. On top of that we see what one might call post-amalgamation redaction/supplementation - overlaying both priestly and non-priestly texts, which presupposes that they have already been conflated, perhaps undertaken with a view to bringing them into closer alignment. In addition to that that, we see cases of piecemeal scribal supplementations (see below) and these too often show signs of wanting to bring different narratives or laws into cloers harmony with each other. The shear complexity and variated nature of the stratification and supplementation, the differences in approach and its successive nature bespeaks a pretty long period of complex development, not a short-term process. At least, so it appears to me
So if the different scribal schools were all in harmonious cooperation to produce the horse that looked like the camel, then why is it necessary to place them in some kind of diachronic time-line of activity? If they are in dialogue with one another, why does that have to be over a century or decades and not, rather, years? Would not a shorter time actually favour the likelihood of maintaining a long enough cooperative spirit?
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:41 pmBut that's not what we see in the Pentateuch. Whoever was piecing together the different pieces of literature was clearly not overly bothered by maintaining contradictory and variant and inconsistent accounts.
Which is certainly hard to align with Gmirkin's notion that the Pentateuch was a single project authorised by the High Priest, and that the scholars had the same Greek source or sources. If Plato was the source of the laws, how can one explain the 3 "competing" corpora of laws being derived from them? Or, to put it another way. He/you suggest that the text is shows evidence of "different groups, priesthoods, traditions" which suggests a coming together of diverse texts. But, according to Gmirkin, a vast amount of this same textual material is derived from the Greek texts "discovered" in Alexandria. So how did the textual diversity happen in the first place? How did the "different groups" get to develop their own versions of the Greek texts they all began with, which then had to be re-combined? The two elements of the theory (the origin of the Pentateuch as a specific project, and analysis of it as a comflation of different texts) pull in precisely opposite directions.
Why is it hard to align with Gmirkin's theory? Are you assuming that the High Priest is a dictator who is incapable of a cooperative spirit?
Plato was not the only and sole source of the laws. The Pentateuch is not a revision of Plato. It is an amalgam of Greek and Asian thought -- the very definition of "Hellenistic".
The authors of the Pentateuch were not blank slates being exposed to Plato. No-one has suggested anything like that. They had their traditions, their rituals, that they brought into the effort.
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:41 pmDoes not such a body of work appear to be the work of a "committee"? You know, a camel is a horse designed by a committee, as they say.
If we try to explain a body of texts as being revised in successive generations to reflect different ideologies then we have a situation where a single mind or idea -- even if represented by several editors -- are in charge of each stage. If their intent was to introduce new ideas and supplant the old ideas then we have the problem of why they did not smooth out the contradictions.
But that's not what I think. It is very complicated, and impossible to think about in abstractions or broad generalisation. I am talking mostly about scribal and redactional revision and supplementation rather than someone "supplanting old ideas". Some of the constituent elements (pre-Pentateuchal texts that became integrated into the Pentateuch) do seem to rival other texts (but this is hard to be sure about), or at least didn't expect them to be appearing in the same collection as they do appear in now. Others seem to be intentional efforts to override earlier material (sometimes while seeming to faithfully repeat them!) The earlier stages were clearly not about producing an authoritative law book. They were simply scribal works and made far less grandiose claims
Well, it is very clear that the final product did not survive word for word as if God-breathed. It was clearly subject to revisions from the get-go by other parties. We know that from the DSS and what we can learn from the various Greek renditions comparing Hebrew remains, including the MT.
As for the main text that we have today (or texts, LXX and MT -- neither of which are the pristine copies of the original) -- thinking in concrete terms is absolutely essential -- as you say.
But though I've been using the term "cooperative" a lot, it is also clear that -- like in many groups that are attempting to work together -- some factions do dig their heels in and the end product is not what everybody would have liked. And that's exactly what Gmirkin sees in the Pentateuch -- as do you -- but the difference is that Gmirkin (and I cannnot fault his reasoning here) sees the final product of contradictions emerging from a "group project". If it were not a group project then the contradictions are so stark that it is very hard indeed to imagine the dominant later party allowing "wrong ideas" to stand. They would be rewritten -- as normally happens in such scenarios. That there was a group effort does help explain why contradictions were allowed to remain.
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:41 pmBut if we have authors representing different groups, priesthoods, traditions, working together, in a cooperative spirit -- as at least one specialist scholar has argued was indeed the case with Samaritan and Jerusalem priests -- then would we not expect what we in fact have: the different traditions etc all wrapped up into one.
As I say, it is difficult to think about this in broad generalisations but I don’t get the feeling that the many tensions in the Pentateuch really express a contemporary cooperative spirit in any meaningful sense at all. And when you say "traditional" I'm not sure what you mean. Written traditions? Oral traditions? What concrete traditions are you thinking of that can be identified in the text we have now?
I have specific instances in mind -- not just "abstractions" -- e.g. the conflict between the rather laissez-faire atmosphere re gods in Genesis by comparison with the jealous god of Mount Sinai. I'm thinking of the different ten commandments -- how the fourth commandment has two quite different rationales in different places. I'm thinking of the absence of the mention of Jerusalem vis a vis Mount Gerizim, etc.
As for traditional -- I'm thinking that the rituals of certain sacrifices were longstanding before the Hellenistic era. So was the worship of Yahweh, obviously. Some of the motifs attached to that god in Canaan-Syria are carried over into the Pentateuch. There were evidently traditions relating to various places in Canaan that emerge in narrative of Genesis. Gerizim had its traditions, no doubt, as did Jerusalem. Passover had its traditions that were not identical to how they ended up in the Pentateuch.
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:41 pmOr if we find such an idea unlikely, is it any more unlikely than the former, which is surely not without its own problems or unanswered questions.
I'd say that the sheer evidence of the complexity of the text makes the notion of a longer period more likely than any “couple-of-years” theory. The texts themselves give evidence of very complex levels of literary interventions. The DSS offer interesting evidence of this sort of scribal activity. See 4Q22 PaleoExodus in which, inter alia, a passage from the Deut 5 narrative has been spliced into Ex 20 narrative. There is evidence that the same sort of supplementation happened earlier in the transmission of the text and can be found in various texts of the Pentateuch, where successive additions have either sought to update ideas, particularly with ideas expressed elsewhere in the five books, and thus bring texts into greater consistency.
Again, specific examples to illustrate the necessity for decades or centuries would help.
Why does "complexity" require a gradual evolution over a very long time? Over time, the need for revision would be expected to come from a new situation where a new group is dominant -- in that case, though, one would expect the contradictions to be erased.
You disagree, saying the different groups existed side by side with some sort of tolerance, iiuc. But if that's the case, then why the need for a long time instead of it happening within a relatively short project time period?
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pmMy opinion doesn’t really start from an overall theory and chronology - it start with texts. Concrete cases. Chapters, paragraphs, verses, words. Examination of texts in detail reveals the stratification that for me simply doesn't look like scholars sitting round a table, as at a seminar, planning a "collaboration" ... though that doesn't rule out some editorial decisions being made in this fashion.) Could some texts be combined over a short period of time? Yes. Could other texts have developed in a couple of years? No. The Pentateuch is too complex to be reduced to a single, simple model.
As regards absolute chronology, as I’ve said very often, I’m pretty agnostic because I’m more interested in “excavating” the textual strata than giving them absolute dates.
You may accept that I, too, am starting with concrete cases, chapters, verses, etc. That would help the communication, perhaps.
Again -- I would be interested in examples of contradictions that cannot be explained in the group-project theory. You presumably have some in mind that can be explained over a short period of time but also have others that cannot be so explained. What are some examples of the latter?
I don't deny that there are some passages that may have intruded in at much later dates or in a different environment (though an example does not come to mind right now -- unless it's the daughters of Zelophehad -- but we are talking about core stuff.
austendw wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 6:05 am
This is not to mention the festival laws, which (though Gmirkin presumably does not consider them as connected to Plato)
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:41 pm
Plato's
Laws stresses the importance of regular festivals, and lots of them.
austendw wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 2:25 pm
Do you believe that the texts regarding the festival laws in the Pentateuch existed before Plato? Or were they created afresh by Plato-influenced scholars in order to follow Plato's suggestion?
I don't "believe" anything for which we have no evidence. The Elephantine papyri indirectly indicate that there were no written festival laws comparable to what we read in the Pentateuch. There were certainly festivals, and probably some inscriptions somewhere relating to observance of them. But let's stick with the evidence.
In sum, my takeaway from your reply is that the Pentateuch is "too complex" to imagine a cooperative effort. This is the assumption that is being challenged by Gmirkin and others -- that "there had to be written texts of such and such a kind" in the Persian era and there "has to be an earlier version of the Pentateuch writings" -- simply because it's so complex and it's how we've been hard-wired to make sense of it all.
My response is that we should not be misled to thinking that "cooperative" means always of the same mind in all details. Often parties agree to work together for common causes despite strong differences and then we have the horse looking like a camel product.
My impression of your disagreement is that it is based on incredulity -- and some lack of awareness of the details of Gmirkin's works. I would really appreciate specific examples to support your case -- what are some instances that simply defy a likelihood of different priestly groups, Judeans and Samaritans, working together, with some more Hellenistically inclined than others?
Incredulity is evident when you ask if I have much familiarity with the opposing theories and suggest I am speaking at an abstract level. No, it is the awareness of those opposing theories which have occupied most of my reading time, and I have tried to regularly bring the discussion down to requesting specific examples or explaining things in concrete terms.