Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

One could even use the silence of Herodotus as some kind of evidence against the Hecataeus account -- one of those occasional moments when silence is suggestive and deserves a "hearing".

Let's count how much evidence is deemed "useless."

The collective tradition that Ezra wrote the Pentateuch in the Persian period.
The collective tradition that the LXX was TRANSLATED by scribes in Alexandria and celebrated as a translation by generations of Alexandrian Jews with a festival down to the time of Philo
The Samaritan tradition of the LXX being from around 150 BCE.
Hecateos's testimony regarding Jewish practices from 300 BCE.

What is accepted as "convincing evidence."

Jewish scribes in Alexandria "worked on" the LXX
There are parallels with Berossos's Babyloniaca published by 278 BCE
There are vague similarities with Plato.

The fact the Library of Alexandria with Berrosos's Babyloniaca existed before the earliest fragment of the Pentateuch at Qumran (c 250 - 200 BCE) it "stands to reason" that "Samaritan and Jewish scribes" employed Greek texts in the library "collaborating" to "invent" the Pentateuch by about 270 BCE.

However some obvious difficulties.

1. Cherry picking of evidence - the Letter of Aristeas.

You accept its dating of the translation of the LXX under Ptolemy II. Nevertheless the same text makes explicit the Seventy worked on a translation not an "invention" of the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is assumed by Aristeas to be a pre-existent Hebrew text already established elsewhere. There is no other source other than Aristeas which dates the Library to Ptolemy II. Hard to see why evidence that favors your proposition is "accepted" while evidence from the same source which disproves your thesis is rejected.

Dating of the LXX.

Gmirkin's dating of the LXX to 272 - 273 BCE is a lot earlier than most scholars.

"The Septuagint, the oldest translation of the Old Testament by the Jews into Greek (about 250 B.C.E.), was written in Alexandria." Myrto Theocharous.


2. the Samaritan tradition suggests the latest date possible which Hjelm does not reject out of hand and seems to promote.

3. as a result the dating of the LXX by many, many scholars is contemporary with or later than the earliest Qumran fragments (c. 250 BCE).

"Regarding the date of the translation, the Letter of Aristeas could be transmitting accurate information, though a date to the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes I (246–222/221 BCE) or Ptolemy IV Philopator I (222/221–204 BCE) cannot be fully excluded." Luke Neubert
"One of the major intersections between Hebrew and Western orthography occurred when the Hebrew bible was translated into the Greek Septuagint (250 B.C.E.—150 B.C.E.?)" Robert J. Scholes

The arguments for the dating of the Septuagint to 250 BCE are not even that solid. https://books.google.com/books?id=_g_UA ... nt&f=false It could be as late as 150 BCE. Like I said, you take the earliest date for the LXX, the Library of Alexandria and the presence of Berossos there and the latest possible date for the Hebrew texts. If you do all that you attain a holocaust of Hebrew literature. Like I said you're not killing Jewish people, just Jewish books. If it makes you happy so be it.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2023 5:58 pm Let's count how much evidence is deemed "useless."

The collective tradition that Ezra wrote the Pentateuch in the Persian period.

I read no further. That is not "useless" evidence at all. It is not evidence at all. Evidence consists of sources. A "collective tradition" is not a source. You need to cite a source.

(The Swiss have a collective tradition that William Tell shot the apple on his son's head, but that is not evidence that William Tell really did such a thing, or even that there was a historical William Tell. -- Australian aboriginal peoples have a collective tradition about the rainbow serpent activities at the beginning of time -- that's not evidence for the rainbow serpent actually existing back then, etc.)

But I am going to regret actually responding to this one, I just know it.

But Secret, I have learned from bitter and painful experience, you are not at all interested in give and take discussion -- only in trouncing those you deem to be "eggheads" and whatever views they propose if they question the status quo.

(Stephen -- before replying, try to consider and think through the REASONS RGPrice said a certain piece of evidence was "useless" -- try not to resort to a knee-jerk response of offence that a piece of evidence was rejected, but think through the REASONS for that decision. Was it really because RGPrice just "didn't like it"?)

But the theory depends on (a) ignoring evidence and (b) overtly calibrating cherry picked data from the remaining texts which also contain evidence which contradict fundamental assumptions of the same theory (the Aristeas letter).

If it's standard to accept Qumran Pentaeuch fragments date from around 250 BCE the LXX is roughly contemporary with these fragments (270 - 150 BCE) and unlike enough from the Qumran evidence that direct borrowing is absolutely ruled out. How can any of this even be possible?

Accepting this fringe theory has motivations beyond "seeking after the truth." The Pentateuch was established as a Hebrew text outside of Alexandria and then translated into Greek at Alexandria sometime between 270 - 150 BCE. That's the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence unless you are actively working to make (the historical relevance of) Jews and Jewish texts "disappear."

And how is it explained that the LXX is the "exemplar" of the other two texts?

Deuteronomy 32.43, Masoretic
.
.
1 Shout for joy, O nations, with his people
-------
2 For he will avenge the blood of his servants
3 And will render vengeance to his adversaries
-------
4 And will purge his land, his people.

Deuteronomy 32.43, Qumran

1 Shout for joy, O heavens, with him
2 And worship him, all you divine ones
-------
-------
3 For he will avenge the blood of his sons
4 And he will render vengeance to his adversaries
5 And he will recompense the ones hating him
6 And he purges the land of his people.

Deuteronomy 32.43, Septuagint

1 Shout for joy, O heavens, with him
2 And let all the sons of God worship him
3 Shout for joy, O nations, with his people
4 And let all the angels of God be strong in him
5 Because he avenges the blood of his sons
6 And he will avenge and recompense justice to his enemies
7 And he will recompense the ones hating
8 And the Lord will cleanse the land of his people.

Sheer folly. Lunacy.

A few things:

1) I don't think Neil or myself are claiming that 100% of Gmirkin's thesis and all positions are correct. Hellenistic era authorship of the Pentateuch does not require Gmirkin's thesis. It does not require that the LXX came first. The basic argument is simply that the Pentateuch was authored after Alexander the Great conquered the Persians, that's all.
2) Of course there are many claims that contradict this position. That's the issue. If it were evident then this wouldn't be controversial and would have been acknowledged long ago.

Almost all of Biblical scholarship is plagued by the same set of problems, which is that assumptions about when various documents were produced have been highly influenced by misinformation, misquoted material, misrepresented material, forgeries, propaganda, and intentional efforts to mislead readers as to the date of authorship of materials.

"Traditional" Biblical scholarship is rooted in naïve readings of all of this material. Critical scholarship tried to peal back the curtain and use more sound assessments of the material. However, given the entrenchment of traditional scholarship, even critical scholars are challenged by "just how critical to really be".

This stems from two main reasons. Many "critical scholars" are still faithful believers, or at least people who believe in the general framework of traditional scholarship. Many critical scholars, for example, delved into critical scholarship in order to, "identify the true teachings of Jesus", or "understand who Moses really was," etc. But there comes a point when critical scholarship starts to reveal that there was no Jesus or Moses at all, there was no First Temple, there was no Ezra. Then they get uncomfortable and start to back off. So there are plenty of scholars who pursue a veneer of criticality.

That's where we get into stuff like readings of Josephus and Diodorus. There are plenty of "critical scholars" who still want to treat stuff like "quotes" from Hecataeus by first century writers as if we had an authentic copy of Hecataeus' first draft in our hand.

But we don't, and we never will.

But the heart of the matter is that our understanding of exactly when and how all of these things developed is GROUNDED UPON these flawed witnesses to begin with. It was the work of figures like Josephus and Diodorus and many others that gave rise to the "traditional" understanding of what happened.

But now what we see are conflicting pieces of evidence. Evidence that conflicts with the claims made by Josephus and Diodorus, etc., that puts their supposed "quotes" into question. We can't assume that their quotes are correct. And if we have no other way to corroborate what Hecataeus wrote in the 4th or 3rd century BCE, then we simply have to toss out the supposed evidence of Hecataeus, or at least down-grade it to a lower level of significance compared to other forms of primary evidence.

If you are interested in the real answer to the relationship between these different versions of the Pentateuch you'd be studying Hebrew. I am not interested in these questions right now. I only know the fraud being perpetrated when people are asked to pretend that the LXX is the source of the surviving text types. A Greek translation from 270 - 150 BCE cannot be the witness the source of the MT, SP and Qumran texts. That's all I know. Have no aptitude in any of this for any of this except to know bullshit when I see it. The LXX knows of an early text type. But it is not the exemplar nor does it know the source from which all the others derive. When I was a child I thought like a child. My guess and it is only a guess is that the LXX is somewhat of a harmonized translation. I don't think Ptolemy could ignore the Samaritans. This idea does not arise from anything other than my political, "gut" sensibilities.

Among those not persuaded by Gmirkin's dismissal of Hecataeus of Abdera:
Lester Grabbe, Judah Between East and West... 2013, 75-77.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 7:47 am But the theory depends on (a) ignoring evidence and (b) overtly calibrating cherry picked data from the remaining texts which also contain evidence which contradict fundamental assumptions of the same theory (the Aristeas letter).

How you can say this after all the time and space Russell Gmirkin spent here with you addressing your specific questions is a mystery. (Even in this thread you have been directed to Gmirkin's ARGUMENT on the Aristeas letter but you choose to ignore it or are incapable of understanding it.) Only by choosing to remain ignorant of the actual arguments can anyone make such a characterization. Responding with insult, ridicule, charges of antisemitism, doesn't cut it but only shows that you are more skilled at trolling than intelligent reasoning.

Given that you, neilgodfrey, wrote, above, on July 4, in part:

"I also think, at least to some extent, that this MAY be an area where I take a different approach (at least to some extent) from Russell Gmirkin -- which is possibly why I find myself not so confident about how he uses the "letter of Aristeas"."

might your directing SA to RG's argument about Aristeas be a tad disingenuous?