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.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

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

Post by neilgodfrey »

austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 3:49 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 1:17 pm It is a matter of interpretation. One interprets the overlaps, stratification, etc as either accumulations over an extended time or one interprets them as some sort of collaborative project.

The evidence is the same as yours -- the inferred different social, religious groups etc. who contributed to the different layers.

Did they succeed each other over an extended time or did they work together?
Well, literary criticism has certain "rules". There are certain identifiable technical factors that can distinguish an earlier and a later text by one's literary relation to another. And if there are supplements to supplements one can identify a relative chronology.
They are very variable "rules" and if they were real rules, clear and certain rules, then I don't understand why there is so little agreement in the various books and articles on which bit came first, etc, or which direction the relationship moved.

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.)

austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 3:49 pm It is for example quite clear that when laws concerning the Sabbath day and how holy and significant it is can I think always be shown to be supplementary additions to earlier base texts. The Sabbath laws are always supplements added to earlier texts. The most obvious case is the first in Genesis 1. The six day creation scheme plus a rest day, awkwardly added to the eight acts of creation, added to the the fact that no other cosmogonic narrative anywhere divides the process into days, strongly indicates that these passages were added to an earlier creation account that lacked both day divisions and the divine rest. They were later additions as the Sabbath clearly is an addition to the festival list in Leviticus 23.
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.
austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 3:49 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 1:17 pm Again the same question: How likely is it that those with a particular agenda added to a document with a contrary agenda instead of replacing it or revising it entirely to conform to what they believed the correct agenda?
What specifically contrary adendas that were diametrically opposed to earlier agendas are you referring to? There are many reasons why ancient documents came together and I've gone through some of them in my previous post. But older texts that presumably weren't totally objectionable and were valued in themselves could be "extended" to incorporate "updated" views. Or made to harmonise with other texts. Of course it's possible that editors did scrap some texts that they felt they could do without, for ideological reasons or for editorial expediency. We'll never know if they did or not.
So why does that "fact" of "updating" or "harmonising" have to have happened over a long period of time?

The 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. Another is the Samaria - Jehud/Judea "conflict".

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 1:17 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 1:17 pmIf they kept different agendas side by side then some might think that suggests some sort of collaborative compromise.
Yes, it may well be a compromise, but I see it as a redactional compromise, rather than authorial collaboration from the start. That ultimate redactional aim was to be as inclusive as possible, to unite different scholarly schools in one all-inclusive formula, and often to find ways of accomodating and disguising differences between texts or harmonising them. Actually it has been argued by some diachronic scholars that the Holiness School, one of the later post-priestly schools, actually does seem as a matter of content and style to combine characteristics of the other strands - both priestly and non-priestly.
I imagine exactly the same sort of process happening with the various priest-scribes all sitting around in the pub having drinks and telling the best handwriter how to write the story -- he starts out telling us about the need to send a message to the Levites to keep their place and not aspire to the priesthood, but then Joe says -- it's not the Levites I'm so worried about, but it's the riff-raff who think they can just defy the temple entirely and go off and sacrifice anywhere on their own authority. Okay, says the writer, Bob, I'll add that bit about Dathan not wanting to go up to the Tent of Meeting, too. [That image is not mine, by the way, but a flippant rendition of a scholar discussing something "off the record".]

If Joe was not part of that pub scene but was worried that what he was reading in the Pentateuch did not have a story about the riff raff simply denying the Mosaic authority altogether, I think it would be easier for him to construct his own story and add it to the Pentateuch rather than mix it up with another tale with a different theme. But Numbers 16-17 mixes up two messages in a slightly confusing manner: one stressing the rights of the priests against the Levites and the other stressing the importance of recognizing the centralizing Mosaic cult itself.

That sounds more like the work of "a committee", not a series of redactors each with their own agenda.
austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 3:49 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 1:17 pm
The volume may nevertheless contribute to a renewed discussion of the shift of the focus of the pentateuchal study from the literary stratification of different layers to social, economic, religious, and political agendas behind the texts and the scribes who produced them.

The question raised by the Hellenistic provenance viewpoint is whether such agendas came one after the other or were in some sort of contemporary dialogue.
"One after the other" is a simplification of what diachronists are proposing, as indicated in my previous post. Some of these scribal schools developed in parallel over time - eg Priestly and Deuteronomistic "schools" - only later coming together when other redactors took on the job of collating and combining to create a unifying anthology of shared tradition.
I understand the nature of the diachronic type of hypothesis. It is impossible to avoid it in any work on the Pentateuch. It is discussed in depth and detail. But it is always nested in the assumption of a historical reconstruction and gradualness of its creation through different sociological and economic and political and cultic phases. But those phases are derived from interpretations of the text itself -- in other words, circularity.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Thu May 25, 2023 6:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

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

Post by neilgodfrey »

austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 3:49 pm Well, literary criticism has certain "rules". There are certain identifiable technical factors that can distinguish an earlier and a later text by one's literary relation to another. And if there are supplements to supplements one can identify a relative chronology.
Not so much rules as interpretations:
We clearly have cases within the Pentateuch where a distinct literary work reuses earlier material still preserved elsewhere in the Pentateuch (e.g., Deuteronomyʼs use of the Covenant Code); though direction of dependence can be debated, the fact that some sort of reuse took place is indisputable.


Zahn, Molly M. “Innerbiblical Exegesis.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by Jan Christian Gertz, Bernard M. Levinson, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, and Konrad Schmid. Forschungen Zum Alten Testament 111. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. p. 114 --- many such quotations can be found.
austendw
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 11:10 pm

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

Post by austendw »

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 6:08 pm They are very variable "rules" and if they were real rules, clear and certain rules, then I don't understand why there is so little agreement in the various books and articles on which bit came first, etc, or which direction the relationship moved.
There aren't clear rules at all. It isn't obvious. And direction of influence is particularly difficult to establish for sure. 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). And when it comes to deciding which version you prefer, it can be based on a number of issues, some technical, some simple a matter of plausibility.Thus, for example, Gesundheit has one analysis of Genesis 12, Christoph Berner has a somewhat different one. In respect of a couple of technical issues I broadly prefer the Gesundheit version... but not completely.
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.
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 - some more some less plausible. Anyhow, you and I are now going around in circles and the discussion is I suspect coming to an inevitable close. Which I would probably welcome as spring has come at last in the UK and I'd like to get out a bit more. But do I have the willpower to let it close? Hmmm.....
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 6:08 pmSo why does that "fact" of "updating" or "harmonising" have to have happened over a long period of time?
I'm not sure it has to have happened over a long, long, long time, in every case, but redactions upon redactions upon redactions suggests it wasn't over an afternoon in the pub in some cases, such as the Passover passages I mentioned before. But if Gmirkin's chronology is not convincing for other reasons (and I don't think it is) then the chat over the pub scenario is not particularly necessary either, and there is no reason why successive redactions over a longer period of time isn't also equally possible. I feel that the redactions have structure, rather than spotty randomness, which is perhaps why successive redactions describe the textual fabric more accurately. But there are no easy answers when the text is so complex.
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.
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.
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 1:17 pm I imagine exactly the same sort of process happening with the various priest-scribes all sitting around in the pub having drinks and telling the best handwriter how to write the story -- he starts out telling us about the need to send a message to the Levites to keep their place and not aspire to the priesthood, but then Joe says -- it's not the Levites I'm so worried about, but it's the riff-raff who think they can just defy the temple entirely and go off and sacrifice anywhere on their own authority. Okay, says the writer, Bob, I'll add that bit about Dathan not wanting to go up to the Tent of Meeting, too. [That image is not mine, by the way, but a flippant rendition of a scholar discussing something "off the record".]

If Joe was not part of that pub scene but was worried that what he was reading in the Pentateuch did not have a story about the riff raff simply denying the Mosaic authority altogether, I think it would be easier for him to construct his own story and add it to the Pentateuch rather than mix it up with another tale with a different theme. But Numbers 16-17 mixes up two messages in a slightly confusing manner: one stressing the rights of the priests against the Levites and the other stressing the importance of recognizing the centralizing Mosaic cult itself.
The last point is interesting, and I actually have been wondered that myself: why conflate two stories with different endings that needn't have been conflated at all but given separately... it's not as if there weren't similar stories elsewhere. I have been considering another solution to that problem... diachronic naturally.... but haven't "tested" it by close examination of the text. That's why the Pyschny essay is of particular interest.

But 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.
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 1:17 pmI understand the nature of the diachronic type of hypothesis. It is impossible to avoid it in any work on the Pentateuch. It is discussed in depth and detail. But it is always nested in the assumption of a historical reconstruction and gradualness of its creation through different sociological and economic and political and cultic phases. But those phases are derived from interpretations of the text itself -- in other words, circularity.
I'm not sure that the progression of cultic development in history is an absolute assumption that all scholars make. Many diachronic approaches suggest that the textual redactions are programmatic, not descriptive, and the relative chronology is a result of textual analysis - though I agree that it is sometimes easy to confuse the two, and many a text analysis has been determined on the theory rather than the theory derived from the text analysis - or its an uneasy back and forth between the two. I'm not sure that I'd want to just ditch the entire enterprise however, which is why the Katharina Pyschny is of interest if it is well-argued.

But I also don't think that the notion of cultic evolution is a particularly bizarre assumption to make, as assumptions go. Cults and theologies do develop and change, after all. So it's only really a question of whether the cult changes are documented within the fabric of the text, or are assumed to be only vaguely indicated by the text; whether the text developed alongside cult and ideology, or whether the text just recalled it in tranquility at a much later time. In any case, I'm not sure the notion of organic cultic evolution it's any less plausible than the Platonic "Cultural Revolution" in Samaria and Judea that has been proposed and discussed on this board.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

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

Post by neilgodfrey »

austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 7:54 am But acknowledging this connexion means that some, perhaps even many, of the parallels between Greek and biblical literature can and should be understood as cases of the cultural affinity that had existed since the Greek Archaic period (if not before) . . . .

This is not to say that there couldn't also be much later "borrowings" directly from Plato, as Gmirkin proposes, but it does raise the bar for determining whether a parallel is the result of a longstanding cultural affinity or a later borrowing.
We have clear concrete evidence of substantial Greek-ANE cultural fusion from the Hellenistic period on. Prior to that, let's keep in mind Darshan's point about stable societies preserving their identities against relative newcomers and resisting their cultural influences in origin-stories.
austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 7:54 am In her book Making a Case: the Practical Roots of Biblical Law Sara Milstein discusses the "quality of parallels" between CC and Mesopotamian law, and refers to Bruce Wells who "prposes the following terms for assessing the relationship beween CC and other legal traditions (in increasing order of closeness): "resemblance," " similarity," "correspondence," and "point of identicalness" - and Morrow, who "presents a helpful set of criteria for determining allusions: translaton or close paraphrase; textual oprganization (i.e., content that appears in the same order; density of criteria (i.e., multiple points of contact); uniqueness, as opposed to coincidence." This sort of precise evaluation on a case by case basis is not something Gmirkin does.
No, not at all. Gmirkin does not structure his argument explicitly under criteria headings -- I was expecting him to do that but it soon became apparent why he chose his other structure -- but any quick perusal of any of Gmirkin's analytical arguments reveals that he does indeed deploy the same depth of analyses as we find under explicit criterion heading: densitiy, specificity, distinctiveness (or your resemblance, correspondence...) ... all of these are the bread and butter of his analyses.
austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 7:54 am The question of the "goring ox" is a good case. The somewhat "mathematical" answer that Gmirkin gives is simple:

Goring ox: Pentateuch: Yes; ANE (Hammurabi): Yes; Greece: no; Ergo: From ANE
Killing ox: Pentateuch: Yes; ANE: No; Greece: Yes (mule); Ergo: From Greece.

But if there was indeed a shared cultural commonwealth between the Pentateuch and Greece (and the shared casuistic sacrificial regulations proves that this is the case) then that equation doesn't go without saying. It may be that the shared Eastern Mediterranean cultures developed a notion that animals that kill humans must be killed. We can't know for sure, but it is possible. Looking at the other side of the coin - ie how close are the treatments of this issue in Plato's Laws and the Pentateuch, we find that there are considerable differences. Formally, Plato's mule (not an ox, and presumably not edible), . . . .
I refer you to my earlier comment with the Bali art work ..... there are many details the modern artist has not duplicated, ..... but that is immaterial in the context of what has been selected for imitation and the cultural reasons for that.
austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 7:54 amI also have difficulties with Gmirkin's understanding of how he explains the ANE motifs that he does identify in the Pentateuch. Again, he is unwilling to see them in terms of any normative cultural links to Mesopotamia and either (a) goes down the Hellenistic line (adapted from Berossus) or (b) insists that these motifs came with the Babylonian deportees to Samaria - as if Babylonian cultural motifs could only reach the Levant by means of actual ethnic Babylonians, which I think is an oddly literal attitude at the very least. [1]
This sounds like you are saying that Gmirkin should not rely on clearly demonstrable data points but fall back on theoretical possibilities instead.

more to follow....
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

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

Post by neilgodfrey »

austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 8:08 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Mon May 22, 2023 5:10 pmThe archaeological evidence that we have of Samaria from that time and right through to the end of the Persian period offers us no support for any hypothesis that distinctive Pentateuchal ideas were known or practiced throughout that time. Samaria's Yahweh worship appears to have been no different from other forms of Yahweh worship among other peoples throughout that era.
Not sure I know what evidence archaeology could really provide to support the existence or non-existence of "ideas," distinctive or not, let alone a text. What would you expect to find that could support the existence of a text one way or another (barring a copy of the text itself, of course)?
Adler has recently had his book of such evidence published -- The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal. Also the many publications on the Elephantine evidence: interesting there to compare interpretations that assume a biblical background and those that keep the bible in abeyance when they examine the same evidence.

A certain kind of literacy also presumes the existence of a certain level of economy and material infrastrucure. All the evidence we have is that pre-Hellenistic Samaria and Jehud were little different from any other society of Yahweh worshipers throughout the Syria-Canaan-Nabatean regions.

The narrative theme of the Pentateuch synchs perfectly with Greek foundation narratives -- but is an alien feature in the context of the traditional ANE literature.

more to follow....
austendw
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 11:10 pm

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

Post by austendw »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:14 am We have clear concrete evidence of substantial Greek-ANE cultural fusion from the Hellenistic period on. Prior to that, let's keep in mind Darshan's point about stable societies preserving their identities against relative newcomers and resisting their cultural influences in origin-stories.
Where did he say that about Judah and Samaria? I thought he was saying that about the big empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt where no foundation stories involving migrations & conquests are found. Presumably they valued their autochthonous been-here-forever character above all. But not Greece, Phoenicia, Samaria, Judea, Edom, Ammon, etc, that smaller, newer states where, he argues, the "fashion" was for migration and conquest foundation stories; these were the narratives that were valued highl, even when the actual reality of their foundation was somewhat more varied. I didn't get any impression of Greeks, Judahites or Phoenicians "preserving their identities against relative newcomers." But perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you are getting at.
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:14 amI refer you to my earlier comment with the Bali art work ..... there are many details the modern artist has not duplicated, ..... but that is immaterial in the context of what has been selected for imitation and the cultural reasons for that.
we're going round in circles I think.
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:14 am
austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 7:54 amI also have difficulties with Gmirkin's understanding of how he explains the ANE motifs that he does identify in the Pentateuch. Again, he is unwilling to see them in terms of any normative cultural links to Mesopotamia and either (a) goes down the Hellenistic line (adapted from Berossus) or (b) insists that these motifs came with the Babylonian deportees to Samaria - as if Babylonian cultural motifs could only reach the Levant by means of actual ethnic Babylonians, which I think is an oddly literal attitude at the very least. [1]
This sounds like you are saying that Gmirkin should not rely on clearly demonstrable data points but fall back on theoretical possibilities instead.
I'm saying no such thing. I'm saying that to characterise the social, cultural and historical background to those "clearly demonstrable data points" as mere "theoretical possibilities" is not helpful. To put it another way, to argue that, despite Judah/Yehud being in the sphere of the Assyrian cultural world since the 8th century, nevertheless the only plausible way that Babylonian or Mesopotamian genres & motifs could have entered South Levantine literature was when actual Babylonians were deported there (and he is very clear about that) is, I think, a superficial way of thinking about cultural contact which claims to be scientific but i's really rather simplistic. He discusses foreground events (Babylonians deported to Samaria) but ignores the context, the cultural and social background (centuries-long Assyro/Babylonian/Persian/Levantine cultural relations) as if they were merely questionable theories. And to argue that Baylonians were the ones who brought Mesopotamian culture to the Levant, despite accepting the notion that Judeans returned to Judah in the earlier Perisan period (which he, unlike some minimalists clearly does believe), is a totally unwarranted reductionist approach. You say that Gmirkin tries to broaden and widen the scope of research by including Hellenistic possibilities, but here is a case of dismissing certain possibilities for no good reason. I don't see how it's defensible.
austendw
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 11:10 pm

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

Post by austendw »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:20 am Adler has recently had his book of such evidence published -- The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal. Also the many publications on the Elephantine evidence: interesting there to compare interpretations that assume a biblical background and those that keep the bible in abeyance when they examine the same evidence.

A certain kind of literacy also presumes the existence of a certain level of economy and material infrastrucure. All the evidence we have is that pre-Hellenistic Samaria and Jehud were little different from any other society of Yahweh worshipers throughout the Syria-Canaan-Nabatean regions.
Adler is careful not to draw any conclusions about literary matters from evidence of archeological cultic practice, because I think he knows that it is unwise to overinterpret one in terms of the other. But I've said that before and I think we are going round in circles again.
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:20 am The narrative theme of the Pentateuch synchs perfectly with Greek foundation narratives -- but is an alien feature in the context of the traditional ANE literature.
Agreed. But the case of the the casuistic sacrificial regulations, synching perfectly with Pentateuchal priestly texts without Hellenistic literary borrowing, shows that this fact doesn't necessarily have the sinificance of implications that you give it.

Again we are going round in circles, and I'm pretty sure that it really is time to knock this on the head, while we are still on the right side of disagreeing agreeably. We clearly have different paradigms, and it is notoriously difficult for people with different paradigms to connect their thinking about things. I had thought that there was some common ground in our view of things, and I still think there might be... but for Gmirkin's theory which is clearly a major sticking point for both of us. Someone else may come up with a more compelling argument for the late composition argument that Gmirkin and you propose - an argument so compelling that I will be comfortable jettisoning my current paradigm, but in the meantime we must agree to disagree. My partner says I'm getting snappy and puts it down to my participation on this board, and he may be right. So I'm going to step back from here before I regret staying on. I may continue reading what you, Neil, and others have to say on this and other subjects but I am going to try to sit on my hands and not intervene. If I can.

The sun is shining, the garden needs my attention, I have books that need reading and cucumbers that need pickling.
StephenGoranson
Posts: 2308
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

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

Post by StephenGoranson »

Plainly, I agreed more often, in this thread, with austendw (and others) than with neilgodfrey (and others). Thanks to all for clarifying some issues.

If I may try out a comparison, admittedly quite far from perfect, but possibly (?) of some heuristic use: the United States Constitution, about which we have considerable documentation of its (whether or not by any reader considered sausage-) making.

Why suggest this?
RE Gmirkin used "constitution" in all three of his books. (I am familiar with his writing.) He, REG, proposed, more or less, a unique (so not to be compared with others?) new history (the sort perhaps favored also by NP Lemche and GL Doudna?) of Torah "constitution" instantiating ideas from Plato (excellent dialog writer; failed politician; failed poet) plus several other Greek writers (the list keeps growing, becoming even more iffy).

The US Constitution was finalized in a roughly similar length of time as the c.273-272 Alexandria imagined proposal.
Of course, this US Constitution was later amended (modified by addition) several times.
Ancient ethnic religion texts tend not to delete regarded-as-venerable portions but to add, combine, edit by accretion.
The US Constitution framers disagreed, importantly, about, for example, slavery. (That issue eventually led to the US Civil War; the cause of that War would not be irresponsibly reduced by any competent historian to a punctiliar event, shots fired from Fort Sumter, South Carolina.)

So the USC framers made a compromise. (Arguably ridiculous; certainly racist.) Blacks in slavery in the south would count, for census purposes for apportioning Representatives in the Congress House, as three-fifths human.
That imo is NOT any such sort of negotiation that actually led to written Torah.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

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

Post by neilgodfrey »

austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 7:54 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri May 19, 2023 6:54 pmI have asked austendw for specific contradictions and duplications etc that he believes cannot be explained apart from a model of a very long -- let's say at least a generational -- process. I really would appreciate anyone positing such "evidence" for what austendw calls the "diachronic" model.

The strongest one that comes to my mind is the two natures of Yahweh: the relative "liberal" of the early chapters of Genesis and the "godfather" figure of Exodus.
Actually I don't get how you might construe the characterisation of the character of Yahweh in the two books as potential evidence of diachronicity. For me, diachronicity is primarily implied by the literary-critical evidence of stratified supplementations. A difference of view could surely, especially from a Hellenistic period perspective, be attributable to contemporaries with differences of opinion.
Agreement is pleasant.
austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 7:54 am
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?
I don't argue that there wasn't textual intervention from different "interest groups" ...as it is very likely that various different strata had difference sociological origins (priests, levites, lay interests ) and different axes to grind. What I do I suggest is that this did not take the form of the scholarly collaboration or such-like that Gmirkin proposes.
The reason for that view — the view that it could not or was not the product of some sort of collaboration — is what I am looking for, though.
austendw wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 7:54 amI suddenly think of Deuteronomy 1-11. The repeated 3rd person introductions (1:1; 1:3; 4:44; 4:45;5:1a) and the various 1st person introductions to the laws: (4:1, 5:1b; 6:1; 8:1) which go unfulfilled until the actual start at 12:1. . . . . All this suggests repeated supplementation by scribes - not necessarily the result of huge conflicts between sociological groups but different, differently motivated additions.
But are not the first person introductory chapters matched by the concluding first person chapters — they frame the main content of material. That looks to me like the design of a person or persons who were creating the text as a single project, not happenstance supplementations over extended.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

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

Post by neilgodfrey »

austendw wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 7:01 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:20 am Adler has recently had his book of such evidence published -- The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal. Also the many publications on the Elephantine evidence: interesting there to compare interpretations that assume a biblical background and those that keep the bible in abeyance when they examine the same evidence.

A certain kind of literacy also presumes the existence of a certain level of economy and material infrastrucure. All the evidence we have is that pre-Hellenistic Samaria and Jehud were little different from any other society of Yahweh worshipers throughout the Syria-Canaan-Nabatean regions.
Adler is careful not to draw any conclusions about literary matters from evidence of archeological cultic practice, because I think he knows that it is unwise to overinterpret one in terms of the other. But I've said that before and I think we are going round in circles again.
Adler presents the evidence. It is clear that there is no evidence for the biblical ideas through the Persian period. If one wants to fall back on the possibility that the Pentateuch was a text known to a handful of scribes and had no impact on the rest of society then that's fine, but a historian is looking for evidence.
Post Reply