Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously

[Secret Alias]

The theory lives or dies on the least critical most literal acceptance of the basic chronological understanding of the Letter of Aristeas while employing napalm to the actual historical reality reported i.e. the pre-existence of a Hebrew Pentateuch "written on leather skins" brought from Jerusalem. Who can waste their time on such subjectivity?

[rgprice]

Hellenistic provenance has nothing to do with the Letter of Aristeas or the LXX. Why you continue to go on about this, like so many other side distractions, is beyond me.

[StephenGoranson]

rgprice, just above, in part:
"Hellenistic provenance has nothing to do with the Letter of Aristeas or the LXX."
rgprice on Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:59 pm, in this thread, in part:
"Qumran has nothing to do with it."

hmmmm

[Secret Alias]

The LXX came after the Pentateuch was already being used by many generations of Jews and Samaritans. "A different option was taken by the translators of the LXX, roughly contemporary with the interpretation of the Qumran community." https://books.google.com/books?id=efh1D ... ry&f=false The Pentateuch was not invented at Qumran. The interpretation of the Qumran community was necessarily secondary to a pre-existent Judean orthodoxy. The Samaritan use of the Pentateuch was even before that in my IMHO.

[neilgodfrey]

. . . reject the fucking absolute core of the letter, that (a) the LXX was a translation of a pre-existent Hebrew document (b) related to a "Jewish High Priest" (how can there be a "High Priest" without the same Pentateuch already pre-existent in the Letter) and which mentions (c) a division between Jews and Samaritans both of whom use this pre-existent Law.

It has already been made very clear that there were high priests and temples to Yhw throughout the Syria-Nabatean regions long before the Persian and Hellenistic times and long before there was any Pentateuch and among peoples who never had anything to do with the Pentateuch. High priests and temples and sacrifices and festivals -- even aniconic cults in some places -- among Jews, Samaritans and other Yhw worshipers throughout the Syrian-Nabatean region were part of that religious landscape.

.So you're "straightforward explanation" is just straight up bullshit. It's like when a Trump election denier says "yeah I accept there was a 2020 election but it was stolen." I know Neil is always pretending that the historical process is learning to critically examine documents like the Letter of Aristeas. But surely a gulf separates "critical examining" something and "taking the parts that suit your theory and rejecting the rest."

Doing an apples to apples comparison the LXX came after the Qumran material. If you accept only the parts of the Letter of Aristeas you like and rejecting the parts you don't like you're not engaging in real historical analysis. You're acting more like a Trump election denier (most of whom think they are "engaging in real historical analysis" just like Gmirkin and his two or three followers.

This is outright offensive trolling. Please stop. Address the arguments. Stop harassing me with accusations of "pretending" and intellectual dishonesty. One sign of trolling is ignoring the arguments presented and you are clearly ignoring what I have written about the letter of Aristeas.

None of the letter to Aristeas has any relevance to the argument for a Hellenistic dating for the Pentateuch. Gmirkin uses the letter to propose an explanation for how the Pentateuch was written, not when.

[neilgodfrey]

rgprice, just above, in part:
"Hellenistic provenance has nothing to do with the Letter of Aristeas or the LXX."
rgprice on Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:59 pm, in this thread, in part:
"Qumran has nothing to do with it."

hmmmm

Except insofar as evidence from Qumran alongside other texts helps confirm that neither our current MT or the current LXX is the same text that was originally created -- first in Hebrew then in Greek. Our surviving MT and LXXs testify to the results of redactions to the originals.

Greek texts were written for Diaspora Judeans. I don't think the Qumran texts represent the Diaspora Judeans.

[Secret Alias]

None of the letter to Aristeas has any relevance to the argument for a Hellenistic dating for the Pentateuch

Without Aristeas Qumran fragments are dated to 250 - 200 BCE and LXX fragments to 200 - 150 BCE. Only Aristeas argues for a pre - 2nd century dating for the translation. Samaritan records date the LXX to around 150 BCE. What beside being attracted to Gmirkin's theory and Aristeas pushes the LXX translation to before 200 - 150 BCE?

[neilgodfrey]

What beside being attracted to Gmirkin's theory and Aristeas pushes the LXX translation to before 200 - 150 BCE?

We have already answered that in the arguments so far presented. Have a look at those and respond to them. Look at what has been written even in just the recent posts in this thread. Have you read them? What parts of those arguments -- be specific, not a sweeping "bullshit" assertion -- are flawed?

Gmirkin did not invent the Hellenistic provenance idea. Forget Gmirkin's arguments for now. This thread was about the Hellenistic provenance per se -- not about Gmirkin's works in particular.

If you continue to blatantly ignore what I have written about the letter to Aristeas I will consider your response with respect to Aristeas outright trolling.

[neilgodfrey]

And as Francis Borchardt (What Do You Do When a Text is Failing? The Letter of Aristeas and the Need for a New Pentateuch) notes https://www.jstor.org/stable/26551194?r ... b_contents "John Bartlett, Jews in the Hellenistic World: Josephus, Aristeas, the Sibylline Oracles, Eupolemus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 16-17, argues on the basis of an analysis of Aristeas’s relationship to other literature, including Hecataeus of Abdera, the Greek translation of the Pentateuch, and Aristobulus, that a date in the middle of the second century BCE is most likely." This is the date the Samaritans give for the translation. If this is true its game over for this wretched theory.

Others apart from Gmirkin who argue for a Hellenistic provenance of the Pentateuch date the LXX much later than does Gmirkin -- even as late as the second century BCE. You have clearly not understood the nature of the evidence advanced for the Hellenistic provenance of the Pentateuch. Have you read the posts here discussing the evidence? Can you respond to specific points made in those posts?

[Secret Alias]

We have already answered that in the arguments so far presented

Not to my satisfaction.