Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously

[neilgodfrey]

They accused Plato and the Greeks of having stolen from them. They claimed that it was Plato who copied from their scriptures, etc.

In more sophisticated styles there are scholars of the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint today who continue to make the very same argument -- not so much that Plato "stole" from the Judeans, but that the Biblical texts influenced the Greeks.

The methods by which the arguments are sustained are reference to the Phoenicians and any other trading and cultural contacts between the Judeans/Hebrews and Greeks throughout the Persian era and perhaps even earlier.

Even as an undergraduate an ancient history professor told us that it was the Hebrews who pioneered the writing of historical narratives -- the Bible's books preceded those of Herodotus, and presumably in some manner, however indirect, influenced the Greeks.

The evidence is there. How one interprets it is the question.

[neilgodfrey]

[/highlight]Ηere is but one example of what I was referring to in the previous comment. It comes from a 1993(!) publication:

Mandell, Sara, and David Noel Freedman. The Relationship Between Herodotus’ History and Primary History. Atlanta, Ga: University of South Florida, 1993. -- pages 175ff. The italics are original to the text.

Like Primary History [sc. Genesis to 2 Kings], Herodotus' History is concerned with "the mode of law". As we have stressed Herodotus repeatedly depicts the rise to power, the hubris and consequent or, by extension, expected fall of each king or nation upon which his narrative focuses. Although man commits hubris by a free act of the will, that very act is regulated by divine precognition represented by the hallowed words of the Delphic oracle.

It can hardly be accidental that Herodotus and Ezra, both contemporaries of one another, each base their historical formulation in tragic format on the same mode of law. If one of them had access to the other's work, it would have been Herodotus who had access to Primary History as both re-divided and received by Ezra, although it is doubtful that Herodotus, whom we realize knew Imperial Aramaic, the lingua Franca of western the Persian Empire including the satrapy of "Beyond the River," but for whom there is no suggestion that he knew Hebrew, would have had it in Hebrew. Hence, he could have become acquainted with either a translation or targumic form of Primary History in that tongue. The reverse is not likely since Ezra, who had to have known Imperial Aramaic, is not known to have had a command of Greek or even to have had interaction with the Greek world.

Meaningfully, therefore, Herodotus' implied narrator visits Elephantine (History 2.29-30 et alii), a place where he may also have. heard stories about the Sons of Israel in either Greek or Aramaic or both. These may have been different than that in our version of Primary History, but that is not significant. Herodotus, moreover, attributes knowledge of Syria-Palestine to his implied narrator (History 3.5.1) in a brief transitional passage (History 3.1.3-3.16.5). But the lack of textual detail prohibits us from knowing if the author really had any knowledge of it.

Unfortunately, there is no data to support the hypothesis that Ezra and Herodotus were personally acquainted with one another. But if Herodotus really did visit Syria-Palestine as his fictive implied narrator did, the possibility that they met does exist.

Although we must be very hesitant to assume that the real author himself went to the places of which his implied narrator either has knowledge or is depicted as having visited, we must remember that he is the real creator of the implied narrator and of the narrative as. a whole, and, ipso facto, he had to be familiar with the details he attributes to his implied narrator whether or not they represent valid data.

What we do not know is how he received that data. Even when the data are invalid, he may have obtained them from another source or he may have made them up himself. But even when his evidence is valid, he may also have obtained it from a secondary source or he may have had first hand knowledge of it, be it by a visitation to a foreign land or by an acquaintance with a primary source either in its original or in a translated form.

Consequently, the real author, Herodotus, may have been acquainted with Primary History, but in an Aramaic translation or targum. This, however, is not provable; and we can only say that the parallels suggest that Herodotus may have known at first hand or he simply may have heard about the work of the editor, most likely Ezra, who we think separated the Pentateuch from Primary History.⁸⁰ The numerous correspondences suggest that if Herodotus did not know anything about Primary History, then the respective works reflect the same climate of opinion to an astonishing and almost unbelievable extent.

On the other hand, since the period in which the various text traditions were flourishing and that in which Vorlage of the Masoretic text was "stabilized" coincides exactly with that of the Alexandrian Grammarians who are traditionally dated from the 3rd century BCE through he 1st century CE,⁸¹ it is both possible and likely that coincidences in the two works reflect the hand of the same Hellenistic redactor or group of redactors. This is more than suggested by the notable concurrence of at least four different but mutually corresponding architectonic bases in Herodotus' History and Primary History (as received in MT) respectively.⁸²

Since the probability that both works could accidentally be divided respectively into sections of four, one, and four; four and five; five and four; six and three, is rather small, it is likely that the totality of these divisions is the work of the Grammarians. This does not exclude an earlier set of divisions, based more on the coincidence of major λογοι/pericopes than on book divisions as such that may have been put in place by Herodotus and the final redactor of Primary History respectively.

Another Alexandrian hypothesis! From 1993 - Sara Mandell and David Noel Freedman.

[Secret Alias]

This would not be an Alexandrian hypothesis as it assumes Herodotus influenced Judaism directly. Interesting that you see it as an "Alexandrian hypothesis." This hypothesis is far more probable than Gmirkin's IMHO. It doesn't have the difficulties of cramming Samaritanism (which apparently you and Gmirkin either don't think exists or isn't worth considering) and Judaism into the few decades between the earliest Qumran texts and the founding of the library of Alexandria. Again, I don't have the same problems with THIS theory than I do Gmirkin's. I still think it's unlikely. But it doesn't have the same difficulties as Gmirkin's. BTW when Noel died the Times thought he was a girl. Just some trivia. Long before trans was popular. I think he was a convert from Judaism. But that's cool. If not sex change then religion change. It's all good.

[rgprice]

The claim being made is that the works of Ezra influenced Herodotus... which is of course preposterous.

[Secret Alias]

I am saying if he was saying Herodotus influenced Ezra, Ezra influenced Herodotus, they were the product of their age. I'd be fine with any of that. The Pentateuch was not created at Alexandrian in 270 BCE.

[rgprice]

Again:

Consequently, the real author, Herodotus, may have been acquainted with Primary History, but in an Aramaic translation or targum. This, however, is not provable; and we can only say that the parallels suggest that Herodotus may have known at first hand or he simply may have heard about the work of the editor, most likely Ezra, who we think separated the Pentateuch from Primary History. The numerous correspondences suggest that if Herodotus did not know anything about Primary History, then the respective works reflect the same climate of opinion to an astonishing and almost unbelievable extent.

So again. This scholar is claiming that Herodotus must have known the Pentateuch based on the extent of the unique similarities.

So, that there is a relationship between the Pentateuch and Greeks works is widely acknowledged. But virtually all who acknowledge the relationship argue that it was the Greeks who were influenced by the Jewish works. But clearly such a relationship is EVEN MORE improbable than your view of the Jewish works having been influenced by the Greeks.

[neilgodfrey]

Again:

Consequently, the real author, Herodotus, may have been acquainted with Primary History, but in an Aramaic translation or targum. This, however, is not provable; and we can only say that the parallels suggest that Herodotus may have known at first hand or he simply may have heard about the work of the editor, most likely Ezra, who we think separated the Pentateuch from Primary History. The numerous correspondences suggest that if Herodotus did not know anything about Primary History, then the respective works reflect the same climate of opinion to an astonishing and almost unbelievable extent.

So again. This scholar is claiming that Herodotus must have known the Pentateuch based on the extent of the unique similarities.

So, that there is a relationship between the Pentateuch and Greeks works is widely acknowledged. But virtually all who acknowledge the relationship argue that it was the Greeks who were influenced by the Jewish works. But clearly such a relationship is EVEN MORE improbable than your view of the Jewish works having been influenced by the Greeks.

And the bottom line is that the sole reason for the assumption that the direction of influence had to be from Judeans to Greeks is a hypothesis. No independent evidence. A hypothesis that "fills in" centuries of history for which we also are entirely lacking in supporting evidence. The hypothesis begins with a story and assumes that the story must have some truth behind it so that is the whole foundation for the view that the Biblical works must have had an ancient that precedes the Hellenistic era by centuries. The whole business about that "paleo-hebraic" script being evidence of Bronze or early Iron age provenance, the entire notion of a Deuteronomistic provenance somehow being tied to the Kingdom of Judah pre-Assyrian invasion, the imaginative weaving of the various schools of thought slowly evolving at a glacial pace through centuries, even the notion of Jews pining in Babylonian captivity awaiting a call to return to rebuild the temple -- all of that is based on the assumption that a story has some historical core of truth to it.

In other words, it is, ultimately and regardless of any religious or non-religious affiliation of the scholars, a faith-based hypothesis.

At least the Hellenistic provenance theory (the version that makes the Pentateuch and Primary History a Hellenistic era provenance rather than the version that has Hellenistic grammarians editing works that are assumed -- on the basis of belief that there is "something true" in the story --- to be much older) requires fewer assumptions and hypotheses to establish and explain the evidence than the faith-based one.

[rgprice]

I think that both Neil and I shared similar reservations to the proposal of Hellenistic provenance, but really when you get down to the evidence, there isn't much alternative. And yes, once you accept that the Pentateuch couldn't have been authored prior to the invasion of Alexander it does require a lot of rethinking about many things, but the fact is that all of those things are possible.

If you acknowledge the many, many, many parallels between the Jewish scriptures and Greek and/or Hellenistic era works (i.e. Berossus and Manetho are not really "Greek works") then teh issue has to be settled one way or the other. You can't simply claim that all of these similarities are "just coincidence". We are talking about profound similarities between the Pentateuch and at least half a dozen major Greek works. These are not "just" proposed literary parallels but thematic, structural, philosophical, legal, conceptual and geographic similarities.

This is the reason that for millennia both Jewish and Christian theologians have claimed the "superiority" of the scriptures. It has been claimed for millennia that the fact that the Jewish scriptures both pre-date and pre-figure Hellenism was "proof" that the scriptures were divinely inspired, etc.

so, in my view a link between the scriptures and Hellenism is undeniable. The question is the direction of influence. It either has to be that, as theologians have long claimed, the civilization of the Israelites were essentially the most advanced civilization in the world and their writings pre-figured all of the advanced philosophical, legal, and literary achievements of the Greeks, who apparently owe the great achievements of their civilization to the Jews who were over a millennia ahead of everyone else in the world, OR the Jewish scriptures were produced in the Hellenistic era and we have to then explain the apparent explosion of Judaism that took place between roughly 350 and 250 BCE.

It is my view that it is far simpler to explain this explosion of Judaism than it is to explain how the most advanced civilization in the world left virtually zero trace of itself and that Greek civilization was somehow secretly indebted to influences from the Israelites, with dozens of writers somehow having borrowed from the Pentateuch, all while none of them make any mention of it. That is absurd.

On the other hand, we have many, many examples of religions that explode onto the scene and gain significant followings in a short period of time, like Mormonism, Scientology, Baha'i, etc. So my view has become that Judaism must have originated much more like Mormonism than was previously understood. The Pentateuch is not a record of the slow accretion of traditions that developed in a culture over time, chronicling the history of a civilization over hundreds of years. Rather it is something much more like the Book of Mormon or Dianetics, which invents a history that never really existed. And this should not be surprising because this is in fact what we observe among basically every religion which we have witnessed originate in modern times. In addition, it also matches much of what we know about other religions and historical narratives from ancient times. For example, by the first century most Romans believed the story that the Romans were descendants of Aeneas, even though that was an entirely fabricated story that originated in the 4th century BCE as a way of trying to make the Romans descendants of that great pre-Hellenic civilization. These mythological histories were not at all uncommon and were widely believed. In truth the Roman concept of Roman history, origins, and divine relations was just as equally fabricated, mythical and recently invented as Judaism. This is one of the things I stress in the book I'm working on. For example Varro wrote extensively about the supposed Ten Sibyls, once of which was supposedly from the Italian peninsula who produced works that foretold the future of the Roman people. This is really no different than what we see in the Jewish works. And keep in mind that Varro was the head of the Roman library, appointed by emperors, considered the preeminent Roman scholar. Yet here Varro was penning a Roman history that was almost entirely invented and talking about the foundations of Roman Providence laid out by some entirely imaginary prophetess! This was first century Roman scholarship!

So to think, "Oh this just couldn't be!" Come on. Every classicist knows that this type of stuff was not uncommon at all.

[andrewcriddle]

The claim being made is that the works of Ezra influenced Herodotus... which is of course preposterous.

Strictly speaking the core of the argument is that Herodotus was influenced by the Jewish material now found in Judges to Kings. The involvement of Ezra directly or indirectly is chronologically unlikely and produces unnecessary difficulties. IMHO I think the authors are exaggerating the parallels between Herodotus and Jewish history but involving Ezra is probably a mistake even on their premises.

Andrew Criddle

[andrewcriddle]

@andrew

Yes, both Berossus and Manetho are based on older sources, but the issue is the parallels between the scriptures and the specific accounts of Berossus and Manetho. In addition, while Berossus is based on older sources, what case can be made that Jewish writers would actually have had access to those sources?

Here is the problem that I see. When it comes to the parallels between the Jewish scriptures and other sources, two approaches have been used generally:

1) Just ignore it
2) Propose that the Jewish writers used some ancient source, but don't provide any specifics, just assume that to be the case and move on.

Genesis and the Babylonian material is a perfect example. Yes, there are clearly parallels between Genesis 1-11 and various Babylonian/Sumerian stories, and many people are happy to simply say, "Well the Jewish writes must have known those stories and been influenced by them."

Ok. How exactly? In what way? What about the specific word for word literary parallels? If these stories were only written in cuneiform how is it that Jewish writers were reading them? They knew cuneiform? How is this explained? When and where did they come into contact with these materials? How were the materials transmitted? If the stories originated in the 13th century BCE, and one is proposing that the Jewish scriptures were authored between the 6th and 4th centuries in Persian Palestine, how and why were these stories used? If they existed only on cuneiform tablets held in Babylonian libraries, how did the Jewish writes of the 5thish century get hold of them?

No one has any answers and are mostly happy to simply shrug and move on.

What Gmirkin has proposed, however, is well defined and very plausible. It just has the challenge of moving the writing of the Jewish scriptures up to a much more recent date.

The proposition that the Jewish scriptures were NOT dependent on Berossus, Manetho and other Hellenistic era sources requires a detailed explanation for how it is that there are so many parallels between the Jewish scriptures and various Hellenistic works.

Beyond simply saying that the Jews could have been influenced by earlier versions of the Babylonian works, we have to consider the chances of what happened taking place. Within Genesis we have a fairly concise set of parallels to about 5 or 6 (or more) Babylonian/Sumerian works that have been recompiled in a way to create a new narrative that summarizes and reinterprets these various writings. And our earliest definitive evidence that the Jewish works existed is with the creation of the Greek version of Genesis.

Now, at around the same time, it "just so happens" that a Babylonian priest, Berossus, also "published" a Greek summary and reinterpretation of these ancient Babylon/Sumerian stories, that very closely parallels the Jewish account. So you are telling me this is just a coincidence? Or are you going to argue that Berossus was influenced by the Jews? And again BTW, there is extensive evidence of Babylonian civilization and Babylonian knowledge of these going back over 3,000 years. The earliest actual evidence of the existence of Torah observant Jews doesn't come until the 3rd or 2nd century BCE.

So if you are going to make an argument for independence, then that argument has to be made and be convincing. There has to be some convincing argument as to how it is that these two different Greek writings that summarize and reinterpret disparate ancient Babylonian/Sumerian were produced within decades of one another. If the Jewish Greek writing is a translation of a much older Hebrew work that was produced independently of Berossus and which Berossus had no knowledge of, how is it then that these two writers created so many parallels? How did they both draw upon the same collection of stories, which as far as anyone knows, were never put into a collection together and did not inherently go together?

And this is really just one small piece of the puzzle. That's just Berossus and Genesis, but there are many other parallels as well.

But again, everyone wants to say, "Nah, that can't be", but they don't explain the relationships, they just ignore them or wave their hands.

I'm not sure if you are suggesting that the Septuagint of Genesis is the original and the Hebrew secondary. If so this is most unlikely and something Gmirkin and I would both disagree with. If you regard (correctly) the Septuagint as secondary then it is quite possible that the translators knew of Berossus and used it in their work.

There do not seem to be significant clear examples of material in Berossus and the Hebrew Genesis which are not found in the Babylonian/Sumerian texts. In principle there are numerous ways in which the Hebrews could have had access to the Babylonian/Sumerian material. See for example the recent published Akkadian text RS 94.2953 from Bronze age Ugarit. Flood narrative

Outside of a bias in favour of late Greek sources rather than ancient Middle Eastern sources, I see little reason to regard Berossus as a source of the Hebrew Genesis account.

Andrew Criddle