Two failures of the 270s creation proposal?

[neilgodfrey]

One more point: to say that there is no evidence for X and that the extant evidence only allows us to go as far as assuming Y -- that does not mean X is impossible or Y is all that we will ever know. Always arguments based on such evidence are provisional. Find more evidence for this or that and we change our views.

[neilgodfrey]

I have trouble distinguishing when proponents of this theory are merely "blue skying" possibilities in an abstract sense and when he wants us to take something as a serious candidate for truth, history, fact etc. The very existence of "Samaritans" so-called necessarily implies some sort of tradition that they were "guarding" in the same way that there had to be something before the "Pharisees" because they represented something "separate" from an earlier orthodoxy. Could the Samaritans have rabidly defended a tradition which wasn't written down but was only codified in Alexandria in 270 BCE? My sense is that no, their status as "Samaritans" necessarily implies a written text, a formal tradition that was passed on by word of mouth based on this written text. It couldn't have just been "guardians" of Gerizim, watchkeepers of the land etc. Now maybe someone very clever can make that case. But it would seem to me that as long as there were "Samaritans" they were watching, guarding, protecting, keeping the WRITTEN commandments, the WRITEEN Torah even though it has also been well demonstrated that the interpretation of this text was passed on either in written (Marqe) or oral (post-Marqe) form.

Okay, that is your view. You have made it very clear with new elaborations most times you have posted it.

But you are still not taking each point of Gmirkin's words and addressing them on their own terms. You don't have to agree with them but unless you can demonstrate that you understand them and can explain why you believe this or that point of his is mistaken (not just repeating your own views but demonstrating some fault with what Gmirkin himself writes) then you are simply ignoring or failing to understand him.

Are you really quite so incapable or reading over Gmirkin's words and addressing what he is actually saying? It seems you cannot bring yourself to actually address them point by point but can only use his conclusion as a springboard for your own thoughts.

You come across as not being capable of working at understanding another perspective or point of view. Your comments seem to imply that you have this cloud of confusion come over your thinking when you read views that do not compute with your own.

The very existence of "Samaritans" so-called necessarily implies some sort of tradition that they were "guarding" in the same way that there had to be something before the "Pharisees" because they represented something "separate" from an earlier orthodoxy. Could the Samaritans have rabidly defended a tradition which wasn't written down but was only codified in Alexandria in 270 BCE? My sense is that no, their status as "Samaritans" necessarily implies a written text, a formal tradition that was passed on by word of mouth based on this written text. It couldn't have just been "guardians" of Gerizim, watchkeepers of the land etc. Now maybe someone very clever can make that case. But it would seem to me that as long as there were "Samaritans" they were watching, guarding, protecting, keeping the WRITTEN commandments, the WRITEEN Torah even though it has also been well demonstrated that the interpretation of this text was passed on either in written (Marqe) or oral (post-Marqe) form.

Leaving aside Gmirkin's argument and addressing the point you make here (you don't seem to want to discuss Gmirkin's view but only make the case for your own) ..... your point here about the Samaritans seems to me to be based on viewing Samaritans of the Persian and early Hellenistic era though literary filters that the archaeological evidence indicates could not have been dominant until much later times.

This is not speaking from a position of prejudice. It's speaking from a position that treats Samaritans and Jews the same way as we look at the history of any people. People and cultures and political and religious systems are known to change. We see evidence of those changes in the archaeological records. There is no reason to think Samaritans should be any different.

The question I am most interested in the Bible's origins. It is obvious that the religion of the Bible has not always existed. Then there was a time when we see clear evidence that it did exist. What changed? What happened? Who was involved? We cannot assume that Samaritans were cleaving to some sort of Pentateuchal belief system from their beginnings -- whatever their beginnings might have looked like.

[StephenGoranson]

neilgodfrey, I still am not clear what you meant by your sentence:

"Gmirkin's argument is that certain "traditions" were not "traditions" prior to the Pentateuch."

[I could attempt to offer multiple-choice responses including "none of the above," but clearer might be your wording--or REG's.]

[neilgodfrey]

Traditions and history can be invented, and sometimes are. Everyone "knows" that the Scotland tradition of wearing kilts and tartans is centuries old tradition, right? Fewer are aware that those Scottish "traditions" were actually invented as recently as around the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century.

Everyone knows that Robin Hood and King Arthur have long been folk heroes of Britain, right? Both legends were late inventions, fictions, using raw material from earlier times but transforming it into something entirely new (unrecognizable from its original provenance) and churned out as fictionalized narratives.

Plato knew that traditions, myths, could be created and taught as if they had divine authority and were inherited from antiquity.

Origin myths were created for Greek colonies. Cyrene, for example, had a founding myth associated with the Argonauts of Jason.

"Old traditions" can be -- and have been -- created complete with all the dust and patina of age to make them believable.

P.S.
One could not help but hear regular claims that the processions of queen's recent funeral were "tradition" as if they go back through the performance of funerals of a line of earlier monarchs, whereas in fact a good number of those ceremonial features were in fact entirely newly invented for the QEII funeral. It happens even today.

[StephenGoranson]

NG, are you saying that the *putative* c. 273-272 delegation did not bring oral traditions to be recorded
but instead invented stories to be used in the proto-fascist Plato way?

[neilgodfrey]

NG, are you saying that the *putative* c. 273-272 delegation did not bring oral traditions to be recorded
but instead invented stories to be used in the proto-fascist Plato way?

Oh dear! Is the invented tradition of Santa Claus also "proto-fascist"? Is every strand of tradition that can in some way be traced back to Plato's thought "proto-fascist"? Is the myth of Atlantis "proto-fascist"? Is the myth of the cave "proto-fascist"? Is the story of the fate of Socrates as shaped by Plato "proto-fascist"? Is the tooth-fairy "proto-fascist"?

I am trying to go no farther than the evidence allows. The evidence of Elephantine does not allow us to assume that there were traditions about Moses and the Exodus associated with observances of Passover and Unleavened Bread prior to the Hellenistic era.

Call me a minimalist if you like. But I tend to think that we need some evidence to support a hypothesis in order for a hypothesis to be useful.

[StephenGoranson]

ng, you did not answer my question.
to restate: in the REG proposal, was the putative delegation participating in creating faked tradition?

[ABuddhist]

to restate: in the REG proposal, was the putative delegation participating in creating faked tradition?

With all due respect, the fact that you are asking this rather undermines the credibility of your condemnation of Gmirkin's proposal. Generally, people who credibly condemn proposals reveal that they are, at minimum, aware of exactly what the proposal proposes.

If you are asking rhetorically, then please forgive my misunderstanding.

[neilgodfrey]

ng, you did not answer my question.
to restate: in the REG proposal, was the putative delegation participating in creating faked tradition?

I have told you exactly what my position is. If you want to ask REG about his position then you should be asking him. I am not REG.

You have not responded to my clear expressions of my own views but have ignored them and tried to pin me up instead as a target in your war against REG.

Gmirkin has proposed a model to explain how the Pentateuch came about. I find that model of interest and consistent with the evidence we have. My own position is that there may in fact be other possible explanations for how the Pentateuch came about but they all zero in on the Hellenistic era. I have not proposed my own model for how the Pentateuch came about and I cannot speak for REG.

I can, at most, try to clarify or correct what I perceive to be misunderstandings or misrepresentations of REG's views. You have accused me of being some sort of mindless "fanboy" as a result -- which says more about you than me, I think.

I have refrained from expressing my own views here because my views are still in flux and exploring various hypotheses and still learning about the details of the evidence.

Forgive me if am not as dogmatic and sure of "what happened" and "how it happened" as you are.

Now will you explain to me what evidence there is that there were myths about Moses and the Exodus being reserved in oral traditions before the Hellenistic era? Silver amulets, perhaps?

Also, a bonus question for you (as you like to give others): If every practice or idea that has been attributed to Plato "neo-fascist"?

[John2]

The evidence of Elephantine does not allow us to assume that there were traditions about Moses and the Exodus associated with observances of Passover and Unleavened Bread prior to the Hellenistic era.

Not to sidetrack you, but for me it's enough that the Elephantine Papyri mention Passover to assume that the writers were aware of Moses (from oral or written traditions), the same way I would assume that someone who mentioned Disneyland knew about MIckey Mouse. If one element doesn't exist without the other in Passover traditions outside of Elephantine, why assume that this was the case for Elephantine Jews?

I understand your "why go beyond what the evidence in the Papyri suggests" position, but the reason why I do that is because these elements are found together everywhere outside of the Papyri. Maybe they weren't written down until Greek times, but it's as hard for me to imagine a Passover without Moses as it is a Disneyland without MIckey Mouse. Can it be proven? No, but it's a simple and satisfying assumption for me to make.

I'm still eager to read more of Gmirkin's books though (it's a matter of money for me), and I'm open to the idea that the OT was written in Greek times, but it's hard for me at this moment to imagine that Jews and Samaritans in the time of the Elephantine Papyri observed some kind of Moses-free Passover, whenever the Torah may have been written.