Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

How is it "anti-Semitism" if a related people to the Jews hold the plain reading of the text? Nobody wants their mother likened to a whore. No one. Not even a whoreson.

You quote a late Samaritan writing.

Current Samaritan tradition puts Marqe in the time of Baba but without any evidence. As far as I can make out the earliest statement to this effect is in A.F. at 133: 11-12 and the Tulida (= Chronicle Neubauer) on p. 404 (French translation p. 441). However, as Ben Hayyim says (vol. 3 part 2 p. 15) this is a mere bare mention of the name of Marqe, and it would have been expected that much much more would have been said. The deafening silence is inexplicable if Marqe really lived at that time! The bare statement is a mere guess. After the mention of someone called ‘Amram in a list of administrators, it says ONLY AS A CASUAL REMARK that this ‘Amram was the father of Marqe. The Tulida (but not A.F.) says this ‘Amram was the same person as Tût.a the father of Marqe. Well, if Marqe was like Moses, he had to be the son of ‘Amram!! The first person called ‘Amram that could be found has been seized on. This is repeated in the Comprehensive History written by Finaas bin Is.aaq (Hebrew) = Khad.r bin Ish.âq (Arabic) in 1875. Chronicle Adler derives from this book and is not an independent witness.

The Tulida calls Marqe BDW’H DH.KMTH the originator of wisdom and A.F. calls him the spring of wisdom. I think this to be an old traditional title. This is genuine even if the dating is rubbish. I don’t think I expressed how unfocussed on Marqe this note is. Here is a translation. In a list of district administrators:

Ye’usha the son of Baraq the son of ‘Adan was given [the area] from Kafar ‘Allol to Bit Shabaṭ. The Priest with him was ‘Amram the son of Sered. (This ‘Amram is Ṭûṭa the father of Marqe the originator of wisdom peace to his spirit amen).[Then the next person on the list].

This note is a guess. The title given to Marqe seems older than the note. To turn this round: It is amazing that nothing is said about what Marqe did or composed anywhere in the Samaritan written records. Of the previous main author ‘Amram Dâre nothing whatsoever is said. That he was before Marqe seems to be known only by notes in the mss. of the liturgy. We know Marqe wrote certain hymns only from the headings to the hymns. We only know he wrote the Tîbat Marqe because the headings to the mss. say so. The name of Marqe’s father Ṭûṭa and the fact that Ninna was his son is only known from headings to hymns. Anything else can only be a guess from the content of the hymns. THIS ABSENCE OF INFORMATION INDICATES DELIBERATE OBSCURING OF DATES AND EVENTS.

All of the existing mss. of the Tulida have serious omissions of names of High Priests in the centuries between the wars of the Jews against the Romans and the coming of Muhammad. Look at the list in Abul-Fataḥ. His list is complete. If we try adding up the length of years of each High Priest in the Tulida and this becomes obvious. If you add all the High Priests from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE (just before the death of the High Priest Azqayya) till the surrender of Palestine to the Islamic forces in 625 CE the number of years listed in the Tulida is not enough.

If you add the years from the Jewish wars against Rome up to Muhammad, you see that is where names have been lost. Adding the years up from Alexander or Hadrian gives a date of about 450 CE for Muhammad! Someone has seen this, so they have counted backwards from Muhammad. This puts the start of the period of Baba Rabba in about 320 CE. If you keep counting backwards you see it puts Jesus in about 200 CE!

This confusion must have occurred very early. Although Abul-Fataḥ has a complete list of names, he still had to put events into two (sometimes three) sets of narrative. Dositheos appears twice [Actually thrice. Look carefully at the long section on Dositheos and notice how he is first mentioned as some unknown person fleeing from Judaea, then he is suddenly the son of the High Priest].

After Dositheos three times there are the categories of Dositheans, but with Jesus and Philo in between. So he goes forward from the sects of the Dositheans then Jesus, Philo of Alexandria etc. to Commodus and then briefly mentions Dositheos A FOURTH TIME and then the notable deed of Garmon. Then he stops his narrative and gives a list of High Priests up to that point. Then he goes back in time and starts again with Jesus etc. then various events up to Muhammad.

Approximate correct dates are these: (a) End of the time of Baba Rabba (or more exactly the start of his captivity) 180 CE. This was when the policies of Commodus took effect in Syria-Palestine. Adding years puts Garmon (Germanos) in about 202 CE.

There is no direct historical evidence for the date of Marqe. Tulida 9a, p. 90 in Florentin’s edition. “and the Priest with him was ‘Amram ban Sârad. This ‘Amram was T.ut.e the father of Marqe the originator [or creator] of wisdom, may his spirit be at rest, Amen”. The note in the Tulida is correct but in the wrong place. If Marqe and his son Ninna had lived in the time of Baba Rabba, then there would have been a lot of information about them. The fact is that all knowledge on this subject has been lost. My personal opinion is that the note is correct in saying T.ut.e was called ‘Amram. I think this is in fact ‘Amram Dare. [The reason for saying this is that the name Marqe is a substitute for Mushi. ‘ Amram for his father is conventional. Amram is Moses’s father. It is like the name of the author of the book on inheritance Abu Ish.âq Ibrahim. The epithet Dare would then mean elder in relation to Marqe]. But I see no evidence for putting them in the time of Baba Rabba. As said, the lists of High Priests in the Tulida is incomplete. Also, the Aramaic used by Marqe is very early. This is aside from the mistake of putting Baba 170 years too late. A date of Marqe in about 320 CE is just impossible. The Durran might perhaps be from the time of Baba. I say this because several of the hymns speak of repentance for the errors of the very recent past. [See H. G. Kippenberg, article Ein Gebetbuch für den samaritanischen Synagogengottesdienst aus dem 2. Jh. N. Chr.]. If Marqe and ‘Amram and Ninna are before this, then the latest possible date must be before 140 CE. An earlier date is possible.

I agree that Baba Rabba was held in custody by the Romans, but it was not in Constantinople. I know Constantinople is mentioned, but that is an adjustment of the name of the place to its later name. If I say the grave of Joseph is near Nablus (instead of Shechem), I don’t mean Joseph lived after the coming of Islam! As for the stupid stupid stupid stories about the tricks played by Baba on the forces of Constantinople, how he tricked them into thinking the dead were fighting for him, and all the rest, I agree with Abul-Fataḥ, who said he only mentioned them so no-one would think he did not know about them.

The dates in the Arabic book the Comprehensive History At-Târîkh ash-Shâmil by Finaas ban Yeṣaaq or Khaḍir bin Isḥâq are not tradition. They are modern new calculations. This book by Finaas is wonderful. It is indispensable. I use it constantly. BUT the author and his associates tried to do what could not be done with the information available at the time. As an eample, his list of names and periods of the Kings of the Time of Favour is mostly taken from the Jewish Book of Judges. His date for the birth of Samson (Shamshom) is a guess. In the same way, his list of High Priests follows the Tulida, without noticing that the text is incomplete. Thus his chronology is wrong. [Chronicle Adler, which is a short Hebrew version of the book by Finaas, has the same mistake]. Notice that Samaritans stopped using his chronology in about 1950.

Rory Boid

Marqe as first century has proponents. Marqe as second century has proponents. Marqe as third century has proponents. "Some time between the 1st and 4th century and more likely early rather than late" is probably the fairest way to contextualize the dating. The Aramaic is very pure. Some notes from things scholars have written about Marqe:

" It is most probable that Marqah culled his sources from Samaritan writings as far back as the second century B.C. , some of which sources may well have been written in Greek " https://books.google.com/books?id=T2kbA ... AXoECAQQAg
"first century BCE" https://books.google.com/books?id=KSEWD ... 22&f=false
"first century" https://books.google.com/books?id=oxEcA ... AXoECA4QAg
Kippenberg dates the Defter to the second century C.E.
"Memar Marqah was composed probably between the 2nd and 4th centuries C.E." https://books.google.com/books?id=drPgS ... 22&f=false
"lived sometime between the second and fourth centuries CE" https://books.google.com/books?id=gGlUD ... 22&f=false
"third-fourth century" https://books.google.com/books?id=1MS9A ... 22&f=false
"third-fourth centuries" https://books.google.com/books?id=6NsxZ ... 22&f=false

.... rewritten....

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Sun Dec 04, 2022 8:05 am Marqe as first century has proponents. Marqe as second century has proponents. Marqe as third century has proponents. "Some time between the 1st and 4th century and more likely early rather than late" is probably the fairest way to contextualize the dating.

Right. No-one puts Marqe as a contemporary with the composition of the Pentateuch. The earliest anyone puts Marqe is a contemporary with, say, the author of the Gospel of Matthew.

The author of the Gospel of Matthew included Tamar and Rahab and Bathsheba in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Neither he nor his belief about the reaction of his readers suggested that the names would be read with anything other than respect and some kinds of positives for the ancestry of Jesus.

That is, no-one thought that Tamar was a woman of shameful memory. (except a hostile anti-judean racist looking for dirt.)

As the Gen 38 narrative says, Tamar was righteous. She found a way to inveigle Judah into doing the right thing by his deceased brother.

The name Tamar is even found in narratively later works as presumably being given to daughters as a mark of honourable memory -- the way many religious people give names Peter and John after the apostles.

The ancient authors of Judea-Samaria were not obsessed with the values of certain American of prudish heritage today where the mere mention of a prostitute sends them into a blind tizzy so that they cannot read the narrative's plain message. Even today, outside America, I can identify cultures that have a more open attitude towards the notion of prostitutes. Your American values and emotional reactions are not those of all peoples of all times.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Sun Dec 04, 2022 7:55 am How is it "anti-Semitism" if a related people to the Jews hold the plain reading of the text? Nobody wants their mother likened to a whore. No one. Not even a whoreson.

I didn't say Marqe was antisemitic. The closest I said was that M was from a time of rife antisemitism but I carefully avoided using "antisemitic" in relation to Marqe. Though the notion of anti-semitism has come to have the restricted meaning of targeting Jews -- hence even the Arabic Koran is said to contain anti-semitic diatribes.

Your comment is merely playing with words. No-one can reasonably say Marqe is expressing an objective concern for the welfare and correct representation of the reputation of the Jews. We are reading a hateful diatribe.

Right. No-one puts Marqe as a contemporary with the composition of the Pentateuch.

I don't remember saying that. I don't even see the relevance of that. So what Joe Biblioblogger comes up with is on the same standing as a tradition which always prided itself as the 'guardians' of the original understanding. Even the Pharisees - those of a "separate" tradition - embraced their outsider status. I am not saying that Marqe didn't add flourishes and originality in any way. But the Samaritan tradition at its core remained about as immune to change as the Jewish Sadducees. I think scholarly interpretation of Philo as an "ancient Protestant" essentially inventing interpretations is wrong. Yes at the periphery Philo would adapt a core teaching to his Greek audience. But the reason there are so many similarities between Marqe and Philo (as Broadie notes) is because there is a common core interpretation.

Again not sure how Marqe not being from the time of Pentateuch is relevant.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Sun Dec 04, 2022 2:36 pm
Again not sure how Marqe not being from the time of Pentateuch is relevant.

Why are you avoiding engagement with the evidence that Jews did not view the Gen 38 Tamar episode as an unmitigated national disgrace and shame but recycled Tamar's name as a badge of honour --- even being referenced in various times in a positive or neutral manner right up to the time it was included in the genealogy of Jesus Christ?

As Russell Gmirkin said, you simply do not discuss or engage with evidence that stands against your ideas. I was trying to bring you back to his point to actually prompt you to discuss evidence that disproves your assertions.


As for your comment -- yes, you have often made it clear that you do not think evidence from time A is relevant to the events of time A, but that you are quite okay to assume that statements from centuries later, in different cultural settings and for different purposes, are relevant to those events in time and place A. I tried to put forward the basic logic of the need for contemporary evidence here but you never responded - merely repeat assertions that have no link to the time and story you are trying to explain. Again, that's not a discussion: it's like trying to talk to a person who keeps repeating themselves and is entirely deaf to anything one tries to say.

No historian would agree with you, but you have also made it clear you think anyone who is a scholar and writes more than a page to explain something is not to be trusted -- though when you post pages and pages it is entirely trustworthy. Again, that's not how conversation works. One is supposed to engage with the ideas of the other person.

Why are you avoiding engagement with the evidence that Jews did not view the Gen 38 Tamar episode as an unmitigated national disgrace and shame but recycled Tamar's name as a badge of honour

I brought up instead the oldest evidence from the Targums that at best Judah was praised for repenting. Perhaps I should have went back even further to the retelling in Jubilees.

And in the forty-fifth jubilee, in the second week, (and) in the second year, Judah took for his first-born Er, a wife from the daughters of Aram, 4 named Tamar. 2. But he hated, and did not lie with her, because his mother was of the daughters of Canaan, and he wished to take him a wife of the kinsfolk of his mother, but Judah, his father, would not permit him. 3. And this Er, the first-born of Judah, was wicked, and the Lord slew him. 4. And Judah said unto Onan, his brother: "Go in unto thy brother's wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her, 1 and raise up seed unto thy brother." 5. And Onan knew that the seed would not be his, (but) his brother's only, and he went into the house of his brother's wife, and spilt the seed on the ground, and he was wicked in the eyes of the Lord, and He slew him. 6. And Judah said unto Tamar, his daughter-in-law: "Remain in thy father's house as a widow till Shelah my son be grown up, and I shall give thee to him to wife." 7. And he grew up; but Bêdsû’êl, 2 the wife of Judah, did not permit her son Shelah to marry. And Bêdsû’êl, the wife of Judah, died in the fifth year of this week. 8. And in the sixth year Judah went up to shear his sheep at Timnah. And they told Tamar: "Behold thy father-in-law goeth up to Timnah to shear his sheep." 9. And she put off her widow's clothes, and put on a veil, and adorned herself, and sat in the gate adjoining the way to Timnah. 10. And as Judah was going along he found her, and thought her to be an harlot, and he said unto her: "Let me come in unto thee"; and she said unto him: "Come in," and he went in. 11. And she said unto him: "Give me my hire"; and he said unto her: "I have nothing in my hand save my ring that is on my finger, and my necklace, and my staff which is in my hand." 12. And she said unto him: "Give them to me until thou dost send me my hire"; and he said unto her: "I will send unto thee a kid of the goats"; and he gave them to her, (and he went in unto her,) and she conceived by him. 13. And Judah went unto his sheep, and she went to her father's house. 14. And Judah sent a kid of the goats by the hand of his shepherd, an Adullamite, and he found her not; and he asked the people of the place, saying: "Where is the harlot who was here?" And they said unto him: "There is no harlot here with us." 15. And he returned and informed him, and said unto him that he had not found her; "I asked the people of the place, and they said unto me: 'There is no harlot here.'" And he said: "Let her keep (them) lest we become a cause of derision." 16. And when she had completed three months, it was manifest that she was with child, and they told Judah, saying: "Behold Tamar, thy daughter-in-law, is with child by whoredom." 17. And Judah went to the house of her father, and said unto her father and her brothers: "Bring her forth, and let them burn her, 1 for she hath wrought uncleanness in Israel." 18. And it came to pass when they brought her forth to bum her that she sent to her father-in-law the ring and the necklace, and the staff, saying: "Discern whose are these, for by him am I with child." 19. And Judah acknowledged, and said: "Tamar is more righteous than I am. And therefore let them burn her not." 20. And for that reason she was not given to Shelah, and he did not again approach her. 21. And after that she bare.two sons, Perez and Zerah, in the seventh year of this second week. 22. And thereupon the seven years of fruitfulness were accomplished, of which Joseph spake to Pharaoh. 2 23. And Judah acknowledged that the deed which he had done was evil, for he had lain with his daughter-in-law, and he esteemed it hateful in his eyes, and he acknowledged that he had transgressed and gone astray; for he had uncovered the skirt of his son, and he began to lament and to supplicate before the Lord because of his transgression. 24. And we told him in a dream that it was forgiven him because he supplicated earnestly, and lamented, and did not again commit it. 25. And he received forgiveness because he turned from his sin and from his ignorance, for he transgressed greatly before our God; and every one that acteth thus, every one who lieth with his mother-in-law, let them burn him with fire that he may bum therein, 1 for there is uncleanness and pollution upon them; with fire let them bum them. 26. And do thou command the children of Israel that there be no uncleanness amongst them, for every one who lieth with his daughter-in-law 2 or with his mother-in-law hath wrought uncleanness; with fire let them bum the man who hath lain with her, and likewise the woman, and He will turn away wrath and punishment from Israel. 27. And unto Judah we said that his two sons had not lain with her, and for this reason his seed was established for a second generation, and would not be rooted out. 28. For in singleness of eye he had gone and sought for punishment, namely, according to the judgment of Abraham, 3 which he had commanded his sons, Judah had sought to burn her with fire.

It's just pathetic. Dishonesty. Failure to admit when you are wrong. Bullshit after bullshit. No one calls their mother a whore. What is it Socrates said about sophism? A deliberate effort to make the weaker argument stronger. That's you. That's the modern attempt at rehabilitating the passage. Judah was second rate when compared to Joseph.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Mon Dec 05, 2022 2:29 pm

Why are you avoiding engagement with the evidence that Jews did not view the Gen 38 Tamar episode as an unmitigated national disgrace and shame but recycled Tamar's name as a badge of honour

I brought up instead the oldest evidence from the Targums that at best Judah was praised for repenting. Perhaps I should have went back even further to the retelling in Jubilees.

. . . .

It's just pathetic. Dishonesty. Failure to admit when you are wrong. Bullshit after bullshit. No one calls their mother a whore. What is it Socrates said about sophism? A deliberate effort to make the weaker argument stronger. That's you. That's the modern attempt at rehabilitating the passage. Judah was second rate when compared to Joseph.

You seem not to even know how to engage in discussion.

Instead --- you ignore the evidence the other side advances and repeat something you have said from another perspective and then add personal insults and accuse me of dishonesty -- Is that because I produce evidence that undermines your position?

When you address the simple fact that Tamar was a woman respectable and reputable enough for an evangelist to make special mention of her in the family tree of Jesus Christ -- that is, when you address the evidence that Tamar was considered righteous -- and when you address the fact that by the laws relating to a childless deceased brother that Tamar was NOT a prostitute, that pretending is not the same as reality -- then we can say that you have actually engaged in a discussion of the evidence advanced against your assertions.

It seems you are so convinced you have to be right that anyone who advances serious evidence and arguments against your positions is nothing but a dishonest sophist.

Nice.

In other words, no-one can lay out evidence that contradicts your assertions -- you will always be right and anyone who attempts to prove the opposite will be dishonest.