Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

An example of the influence of a (foreign) language into other languages (now that it is World Cup time) is the prevalence of English words in virtually every language. Many languages directly borrowed the word for football: fotbal (Rumanian), le foot(ball) (French) and futbol (Turkish). Others literally translated the meanings for “foot” and “ball”: fußball (German), voetbal (Dutch) and jalkapallo (Finnish).

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:43 am An example of the influence of a (foreign) language into other languages (now that it is World Cup time) is the prevalence of English words in virtually every language. Many languages directly borrowed the word for football: fotbal (Rumanian), le foot(ball) (French) and futbol (Turkish). Others literally translated the meanings for “foot” and “ball”: fußball (German), voetbal (Dutch) and jalkapallo (Finnish).

That's "most fascinating" but has nothing to do with the point that you have repeatedly made -- despite the evidence to the contrary that has been shown you -- that Gmirkin's thesis is undermined by the presence of "Persian loanwords" (plural) in the Pentateuch.

What is being discussed here is whether or not there is even a single Persian loanword in the Pentateuch.

Can you accept the evidence that it is unlikely that there is even a single Persian loanword in the Pentateuch?

What is being discussed here is whether or not there is even a single Persian loanword in the Pentateuch.

It is being discussed as a deflection from the OP which read:

Jim Davila "But the Hebrew language of the Pentateuch doesn't look like it was written in a Greek-speaking environment (Alexandria). I would expect noticeable Greek influence on the Hebrew. There isn't any."

The thread is entitled "The Most Consistent Criticism of Gmirkin's Hypothesis." Since Gmirkin thinks the Septuagint was written about the same time as the Hebrew Pentateuch the LXXs use of
παράδεισος would be a second "Persianism" (according to the thesis). There would be Persian words in both Hebrew and Greek texts but no Greek in the Hebrew text.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 6:18 pm

What is being discussed here is whether or not there is even a single Persian loanword in the Pentateuch.

It is being discussed as a deflection from the OP which read:

So you cannot bring yourself to admit the evidence when it undermines an assertion you have been repeating in this forum over and over.

No it's not discussed as a deflection. It's being discussed because you brought it up when you said -- after the time Russell Gmirkin spent on pointing out that there were no Persian loan words in the Pentateuch -- that there were "Persian loanwords", implying they were in the Pentateuch and therefore invalidated Gmirkin's thesis. It was as if you were never involved in any of those earlier discussions and you went right back to square one -- as if you wiped your memory clean from anything you found to be inconsistent with you beliefs.

I take it, then, that you simply cannot accept the evidence that we cannot say that there is a single Persian loandword in the Pentateuch.

You would look a lot better if you could actually admit that and no-one would hold it against you at all. Very much the opposite. And you can still fight tooth and claw and reptilian brain for a Persian era Pentateuch on other grounds.

But you do look a bit stubborn (even "anti-intellectual" once again) when you flatly refuse to concede the evidence that there is no instance of a Persian loanword in the Pentateuch.

That you are now trying to introduce another word into the mix only suggests how scarce the evidence really is. You never responded to my earlier comments in other threads that pointed out how loan words --- as we see in our own language --- can only indicate the earliest possible time a text was written, and that we have Persian loan words in biblical books that are generally acknowledged as Hellenistic novels (Esther, eg).

I know. As you are without a doubt my intellectual superior when I oppose you I am necessarily "anti-intellectual." Nevertheless as the resident moron please help me out. If Gmirkin is right and there are two Persian loanwords in the texts of the Pentateuch developed by its Alexandrian authors why aren't there any Greek loanwords or Greek influence on the Hebrew text? Sorry to get right back to business. My lack of imagination and nuance is dictated by my intellectual shortcomings.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:47 pm I know. As you are without a doubt my intellectual superior . . .

Stephan -- cut the crap and stop dishing out the snearing sarcastic insult. I was really hoping against hope that you were not digging your heels in simply because you respect, fear, despise and distrust scholars who write books, and it is from books that we have learned that there are no Persian loanwords in the Pentateuch. Shit, I'm no scholar but at least I try to have a wee bit of humility when reading books by scholars in the belief that I can learn something I didn't know before.

This has nothing to do with "intellectual shortcomings". My god, it's simply a matter of reading the evidence and accepting it. No Einstein needed. Just a wee drop of humility.

If Gmirkin is right and there are two Persian loanwords in the texts of the Pentateuch developed by its Alexandrian authors why aren't there any Greek loanwords or Greek influence on the Hebrew text?

It's not Gmirkin who is right. Gmirkin was merely reading and accepting the evidence he read from others. As we have done. We are all on the same page, or can be if we are more willing to respect and learn from each other than we are ready to insult and abuse them.

Your question makes no difference to the absence of Persian loanwords in the Pentateuch. So it should really be uncoupled from that fact.

But there most certainly is lots of Greek influence throughout the Pentateuch and other books in the Bible. The very idea of such a lengthy prose history in several books, a mix of miraculous and "history", beginning with early myth and featuring a great conflict with a great power and then longer historical narratives -- that's very similar to the way the first Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote.

You have indicated you don't trust a scholar suggesting you read his book. But other scholars have observed the same: one scholar argues that somehow the direction was the other way around and that Plato somehow got hold of Hebrew ideas, perhaps through Phoenician traders. Others say that Phoenician or other contacts brought Greek influence to Canaan long before Alexander. These are attempts by others to explain what looks like Greek influence in the Pentateuch or Pentateuchal influence in Greek thought. (One of them even goes farther than Gmirkin and posits that the Bible was written around 200 BCE!) They are not the majority but they are enough to suggest that the Greek influence is more than a mirage. And reputable academic publishers do publish their work.



-------
P.S.
You obviously know a hell of a lot about Samaritans and for that reason I am on the lookout for something from you that I can learn from. But I can learn nothing when you are preaching and refusing to even try to understand the other point of view. Though some of the things you have posted have led me to borrow various works on/by Samaritans. If you were willing to have a bit more give and take I would be interested in discussing some things with you -- but I won't while you abuse me when I try to explain there is a reason to hold a different point of view.

P.P.S.
When you dogmatically post time and time again, pages and pages of quotes and stuff, and pouring personal abuse and insult on anyone who dares to try to challenge your conclusions with other ideas or facts, posing as the only authority here who has to correct other people all the time and complaining about the quality of posters while blind to your own shortcomings -- then you've got to admit, you deserve to be met with a bit of a put-down once in a while. The tragedy is that no-one was putting you down --- only someone insisting you face up to a fact against your oft repeated belief system that you were hammering away to declare only you were smart enough to "get it" and all others, even scholars, were wrong.

I think Gmirkin's theory is interesting and it is possible - in theory - that freshly arrived Jews and Samaritans from Judea/Samaria would have repurposed Persian terminology/concepts in their newly created Hellenistic text. I am all for that as a 'possibility' something to look at. The point here is why is there Persian in both the Hebrew and Greek texts but no Greek in the Hebrew text.

I don't dislike you. I like you. The viciousness of a debate is no indication in my case at least of any hatred or enmity. We're actually on the same side on a lot of issues. I have an almost pathological interest in objectivity which I know gets me in trouble with you. I will stop talking because I will inevitably bring up something that bothers you or someone else. No harm, no foul. I actually enjoyed the debate and will hopefully read an entire Gmirkin work over the holidays when I have to endure in-laws.

Thank you

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:47 pm If Gmirkin is right and there are two Persian loanwords in the texts of the Pentateuch developed by its Alexandrian authors why aren't there any Greek loanwords or Greek influence on the Hebrew text?

Correction: only one possible/alleged Persian loan word, which is widely disputed.

Others have detected various Greek loan words in the Pentateuch. I don't have time to dig them all out, but there's a few. One example was mentioned by Etienne Nodet in his lengthy and largely positive review of my 2006 Berossus and Genesis book in Revue Biblique 2007: 585-591.


As for Greek influences on the Pentateuch and Hebrew Bible, here are a few:

Greek Influences on the Hebrew Bible

Distinctive historiographic tropes:
Greek historiography (Van Seters 1983; Gmirkin 2016, 2019)
Greek ethnography with eponyms and genealogies (Van Seters 1983; Gmirkin 2006)
Greek gods taking human wives (Van Seters 1983; Gmirkin 2020)
Greek combination of legal materials and narratives (Gmirkin 2017: 220-259)
Greek Ktiseis or Foundation Stories (Weinfeld 1993; Gmirkin 2016, 2019)
—with ancestral promises, colonizing expedition as mobile army, divinely appointed expedition leader (oikist) who acts as military commander, religious leader and lawgiver; conquest of ancestral promised land; establishment of national constitution and laws; apportioning territory among twelve tribes; land allotment to colonists.
Synchronistic history (Gmirkin, forthcoming)

Distinctive Greek legal features:
Constitutional Law (Gmirkin 2016; 2017: 9-72)
Distinctive twelve tribe national organization (Gmirkin 2017: 18-22)
Public display of religious laws (Gmirkin 2016)
Divine promulgation of laws (Gmirkin 2017)
Public recitation of laws (Gmirkin 2017)
Public ratification of laws (Gmirkin 2017)
Public display of laws (Gmirkin 2017)
Covenant curses and blessings (Gmirkin 2017)
Prescriptive force of laws (Gmirkin 2017)
Treason laws (Gmirkin 2017: 125-136)
Ethical commandments (Gmirkin 2016; Gmirkin 2017: 139-142, 204-5)
Hortatory legal content (Gmirkin 2016, 2017)
Motive clauses attached to laws (Gmirkin 2016, 2017)
Educational legal content (Gmirkin 2019, 2017)

Greek Prophecy:
Schools of the Prophets (Gmirkin 2020)
Prophet as persecuted social critic (Gmirkin 2020)
Charismatic prophets (Gmirkin 2020)
Wandering prophets (Gmirkin 2020)
Oracles Against the Nations (Gmirkin 2016, 2020)

Distinctive Greek Genres:
Philosophy (Gmirkin 2016)
Greek scientific cosmogony (Gmirkin 2022)
Greek theological cosmogony (Gmirkin 2022)
Peri Phusis (“On Nature”) on cosmic and human origins (Gmirkin 2016)
Plays [Job] (Gmirkin 2016)
Erotic poetry (Gmirkin 2016)
National sacred literature (Gmirkin 2016; Gmirkin 2017:250-299)

Bibliography

Gmirkin, Russell E., Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch. Library of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 433. Copenhagen International Series 15. New York–London: T & T Clark, 2006.
—“Greek Genres and the Hebrew Bible.” Pages 91-102 in Ingrid Hjelm and Thomas L. Thompson (eds.), Biblical Interpretation Beyond Historicity. Changing Perspectives in Old Testament Studies 7. London: Routledge, 2016.
—Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible. Copenhagen International Seminar. New York–London: Routledge, 2017.
—“Historiography”. Volume 2 pages 342-43 in Daniel M. Gurtner (ed.), T&T Clark Companion to Second Temple Judaism. 2 vols. New York: T & T Clark, 2019.
—“Jeremiah, Plato and Socrates: Greek Antecedents to the Book of Jeremiah” in Jim West and Niels Peter Lemche (eds.), Jeremiah in History and Tradition (Copenhagen International Seminar; London: Routledge, 2020), 21-48.
—Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts: Cosmic Monotheism and Terrestrial Polytheism in the Primordial History. Copenhagen International Seminar. New York–London: Routledge, 2022.
Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983.
Weinfeld, Moshe, The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

only one possible/alleged Persian loan word, which is widely disputed.

If you're right, παράδεισος.

מכרה https://cal.huc.edu/showjastrow.php?page=674