Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
At this point you are just trolling. What has been stated is clear. There are literary relationships between Jewish and Greek works. Those relationships have to be explained. For millennia they have been explained as a Greek dependency on Jewish literature. Do you agree that Greek writers, such as Herodotus, Plato, Heraclitus, Sibylline writers, Manetho, etc. all copied from Jewish works?
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StephenGoranson
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Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
Above, I noted the oddity of the REG claim that a Torah was deposited at least in Alexandria and Jerusalem but was, on that same hypothesis, somehow, soon lost.
Robert M. Price responded "Meh..."
It is difficult to attempt dialog with such a reply.
To try to find any agreement, yes, OT took longer than NT (without accepting rmp's 5 years gospels-writing as possible).
To compare Pentateuch creation with Scientology creation is another suggestion of obliviousness.
Greek and Aramaic translations are big fields, also not necessarily suddenly started.
Robert M. Price responded "Meh..."
It is difficult to attempt dialog with such a reply.
To try to find any agreement, yes, OT took longer than NT (without accepting rmp's 5 years gospels-writing as possible).
To compare Pentateuch creation with Scientology creation is another suggestion of obliviousness.
Greek and Aramaic translations are big fields, also not necessarily suddenly started.
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Secret Alias
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Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
I think it's the influence of social media. Everything comes down to likes. "I like theory A better than theory B." Who cares whether or not you "like" something. But apparently that's what it is for these people now.
Let's look at their apparatus. Clearly the Pentateuch was originally written in Hebrew. But along comes a Greek text, the so-called "LXX" which we know through the Book of Aristeas was written at Alexandria under a certain Ptolemaic king. Everyone now knows this is a wretched historical work of fiction. But it is advantageous to connect a Greek text written at Alexandria at the time Aristeas says the LXX was written - i.e. under the second Ptolemaic king of Egypt - because there were all these philosophical treatises at the library of Alexandria. It's a "likable" theory. It would be "cool" if people like Plato and Berossos "influenced" the Pentateuch.
But Aristeas is the unwanted mother of this theory. In fact I would argue that these people do their best to distance any reality into the picture.
1. is the surviving LXX the "mother of all" Hebrew recensions of the Pentateuch?
2. if so, when was the LXX written?
Their answer to (2) is essentially "any time that Plato and Berossos were accessible in the library of Alexandria and before our earliest Qumran fragments." But that's not a serious answer. That's a childishly stupid answer. Childishly stupid answer because this is what children do when they are trying to figure out a lie.
When you think about it, in theory at least, assuming as every historical reference tells us, that the LXX was a translation of a Hebrew original text, the Jewish priesthood or Samaritan priesthood that were kidnapped by Ptolemy I could have brought with them "the original exemplar of all Pentateuch scrolls" from Jerusalem or Gerizim and then at a subsequent period in Egypt translators translated that text into Greek. Alternatively the translators could have consciously decided to create a harmonized translation of many different texts types (SP, MT, Qumran). We don't know. But if the former was true, the LXX translation wouldn't be that helpful in determining whether the original Hebrew exemplar was written in the Hellenistic period or in the Persian period.
Are there clear examples of Greek influence on the Hebrew text of the Bible? It's been argued that there are Greek words here or there. But overall the answer is no. This is not my decision but the decision of people that actually work with the Hebrew text for a living.
This is why if (1) is true establishing the date of the composition is so important. Aristeas is the only reason anyone thinks that the text was written in the third century. Aristeas explicitly says that it was written in the reign of the king who the son of the Ptolemy who brought the Jews in shackles to Egypt. Other than this one piece of evidence a date of the second century BCE is preferable for the composition.
Now if the response is that the surviving LXX isn't necessarily the same text as was created by Jewish scribes entering the library of Alexandria and copying Berossos and Plato then we are talking about a completely theoretical text. There are precedents in the scholarship of the Book of Aristeas. A number of scholars have developed theories that our surviving LXX was written in the second century and that's why Aristeas's account of the royal court appears so similar to a Ptolemaic royal court in the second century BCE and so unlike a Ptolemaic royal court from the third century BCE. As one of these scholars put it, why would Aristeas have been invented for a translation already in existence? You only lie for a translation that was just made rather than one which was already in use. So by this logic, the LXX as we now have it was written at the time of the Book of Aristeas and another presumed Greek translation existed at the time of Ptolemy II. The point is there are a whole range of opinions about the LXX.
But if these unnotable followers of Gmirkin want to pretend that there are reasons for accepting a 270 BCE date for the surviving LXX translation WITHOUT the Book of Aristeas they are living in a parallel universe. In fact, I don't even know why they keep calling the text the LXX when there would be no reasonable expectation for "Seventy" translators, collaborators whatever who "pitched in" with the composition of the LXX. That too is from Aristeas. What they are really talking about then is a wholly theoretical Greek composition by an imaginary group of Jews and Samaritans (Samaritans only because Gmirkin completely forgot there was this "other" Pentateuch observing community) who supposedly "got along" well enough to "collaborate" on this imaginary bilingual "Pentateuch" developed from material in the library of Alexandria. In other words, its a wholly fictitious community working in an "idealized" manner for a text that never actually existed anywhere but Gmirkin's imagination. I don't think there will be a lot of scholars who are willing to accept fictions like this completely divorced from reality for the sole purpose of "sticking it to the Jews."
Let's look at their apparatus. Clearly the Pentateuch was originally written in Hebrew. But along comes a Greek text, the so-called "LXX" which we know through the Book of Aristeas was written at Alexandria under a certain Ptolemaic king. Everyone now knows this is a wretched historical work of fiction. But it is advantageous to connect a Greek text written at Alexandria at the time Aristeas says the LXX was written - i.e. under the second Ptolemaic king of Egypt - because there were all these philosophical treatises at the library of Alexandria. It's a "likable" theory. It would be "cool" if people like Plato and Berossos "influenced" the Pentateuch.
But Aristeas is the unwanted mother of this theory. In fact I would argue that these people do their best to distance any reality into the picture.
1. is the surviving LXX the "mother of all" Hebrew recensions of the Pentateuch?
2. if so, when was the LXX written?
Their answer to (2) is essentially "any time that Plato and Berossos were accessible in the library of Alexandria and before our earliest Qumran fragments." But that's not a serious answer. That's a childishly stupid answer. Childishly stupid answer because this is what children do when they are trying to figure out a lie.
When you think about it, in theory at least, assuming as every historical reference tells us, that the LXX was a translation of a Hebrew original text, the Jewish priesthood or Samaritan priesthood that were kidnapped by Ptolemy I could have brought with them "the original exemplar of all Pentateuch scrolls" from Jerusalem or Gerizim and then at a subsequent period in Egypt translators translated that text into Greek. Alternatively the translators could have consciously decided to create a harmonized translation of many different texts types (SP, MT, Qumran). We don't know. But if the former was true, the LXX translation wouldn't be that helpful in determining whether the original Hebrew exemplar was written in the Hellenistic period or in the Persian period.
Are there clear examples of Greek influence on the Hebrew text of the Bible? It's been argued that there are Greek words here or there. But overall the answer is no. This is not my decision but the decision of people that actually work with the Hebrew text for a living.
This is why if (1) is true establishing the date of the composition is so important. Aristeas is the only reason anyone thinks that the text was written in the third century. Aristeas explicitly says that it was written in the reign of the king who the son of the Ptolemy who brought the Jews in shackles to Egypt. Other than this one piece of evidence a date of the second century BCE is preferable for the composition.
Now if the response is that the surviving LXX isn't necessarily the same text as was created by Jewish scribes entering the library of Alexandria and copying Berossos and Plato then we are talking about a completely theoretical text. There are precedents in the scholarship of the Book of Aristeas. A number of scholars have developed theories that our surviving LXX was written in the second century and that's why Aristeas's account of the royal court appears so similar to a Ptolemaic royal court in the second century BCE and so unlike a Ptolemaic royal court from the third century BCE. As one of these scholars put it, why would Aristeas have been invented for a translation already in existence? You only lie for a translation that was just made rather than one which was already in use. So by this logic, the LXX as we now have it was written at the time of the Book of Aristeas and another presumed Greek translation existed at the time of Ptolemy II. The point is there are a whole range of opinions about the LXX.
But if these unnotable followers of Gmirkin want to pretend that there are reasons for accepting a 270 BCE date for the surviving LXX translation WITHOUT the Book of Aristeas they are living in a parallel universe. In fact, I don't even know why they keep calling the text the LXX when there would be no reasonable expectation for "Seventy" translators, collaborators whatever who "pitched in" with the composition of the LXX. That too is from Aristeas. What they are really talking about then is a wholly theoretical Greek composition by an imaginary group of Jews and Samaritans (Samaritans only because Gmirkin completely forgot there was this "other" Pentateuch observing community) who supposedly "got along" well enough to "collaborate" on this imaginary bilingual "Pentateuch" developed from material in the library of Alexandria. In other words, its a wholly fictitious community working in an "idealized" manner for a text that never actually existed anywhere but Gmirkin's imagination. I don't think there will be a lot of scholars who are willing to accept fictions like this completely divorced from reality for the sole purpose of "sticking it to the Jews."
Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
Firstly, I'm not Robert M. Price. R.G. != Robert M.
Secondly, as has been stated repeatedly, this isn't about Gmirkin. Gmirkin is putting forward one possible model to explain the evidence. Maybe Gmirkin's model will go the way of Lamarck. Maybe Gmirkin isn't Darwin. But, like Darwin, Lamarck was putting forward a potential model to explain the data that indicated life had developed over time, it wasn't created in 6 days 6,000 years ago.
Lamarck's model ultimately did not win out, but at the time of Lamarck, even before Darwin's model had been proposed, it was already clear that life appeared to have evolved over time and that life had been around on earth for far longer than theologians acknowledged. It was already apparent that life appeared not to have been "intelligently designed" by a benevolent Creator. What was lacking was a model to explain how this data could be explained.
As of right now, I'm not concerned about the how. The only concern is that there are two bodies of work: Greek works and Jewish works. Those bodies of work appear to have many distinctive literary and conceptual relationships between them. They share close alignment in ways that no other independent bodies of work do.
These similarities have to be explained. That is all. Stop talking about the LXX or whatever, because its all irrelevant.
Are there dependencies between the Jewish scriptures and Greek literature, yes or no?
Secondly, as has been stated repeatedly, this isn't about Gmirkin. Gmirkin is putting forward one possible model to explain the evidence. Maybe Gmirkin's model will go the way of Lamarck. Maybe Gmirkin isn't Darwin. But, like Darwin, Lamarck was putting forward a potential model to explain the data that indicated life had developed over time, it wasn't created in 6 days 6,000 years ago.
Lamarck's model ultimately did not win out, but at the time of Lamarck, even before Darwin's model had been proposed, it was already clear that life appeared to have evolved over time and that life had been around on earth for far longer than theologians acknowledged. It was already apparent that life appeared not to have been "intelligently designed" by a benevolent Creator. What was lacking was a model to explain how this data could be explained.
As of right now, I'm not concerned about the how. The only concern is that there are two bodies of work: Greek works and Jewish works. Those bodies of work appear to have many distinctive literary and conceptual relationships between them. They share close alignment in ways that no other independent bodies of work do.
These similarities have to be explained. That is all. Stop talking about the LXX or whatever, because its all irrelevant.
Are there dependencies between the Jewish scriptures and Greek literature, yes or no?
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Secret Alias
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Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
What kind of a question is this. Every culture has music. Every culture has oral narratives. Most cultures have written narratives. Many of them are the same. The Greek alphabet comes from the same alphabet as the Hebrew alphabet. The god Adonis's name is related to the name of the Jewish divine name Adonai. There were cultural borrowings. There wasn't cultural apartheid going on in the Mediterranean. Zeno of Citium demonstrates that Semitic ideas of one god or divine force controlling the world was appealing to Greeks, unless you suppose also that Stoicism was another part of this Indo-European "master race" theory you advocate. That Zeno also necessarily visited the Library of Alexandria and "passed on" Greek ideas that he encountered in this "religion making factory" by the lighthouse.Are there dependencies between the Jewish scriptures and Greek literature, yes or no?
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Secret Alias
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Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
I still want an answer from the Gmirkin unnotables.
1. is the Gmirkin Pentateuch exemplar identical with the LXX translation which survives or it just some "imaginary" Greek translation that was the ancestor of all Hebrew texts which did survive but has no shackles or restraints in terms of dating as we see with Qumran texts or Samaritan copies of the Pentateuch. If so it is a wholly abstract imaginary/theoretical text that has little explanative use or power.
In answer to (1) then
1a. if Gmirkin's proposed ur-text IS NOT necessarily the original text of the Pentateuch. Isn't at least part of the advantage your theory has is that it is unfalsifiable? That if you just make up an "ur-text" let's say without any provenance, any specific readings, without any specific origin other than a make-believe theory about "the library of Alexandria" one cannot disprove a wholly imaginary text.
1b. if Gmirkin's proposed ur-text IS the same text as the surviving LXX and you accept at least some of Aristeas's claims to it having been written under Ptolemy II doesn't Aristeas's other evidence about the text being a translation of a text brought over from Jerusalem factor into the discussion?
1c. . if Gmirkin's proposed ur-text IS the same text as the surviving LXX and you DON'T ACCEPT Aristeas why isn't the fact that the Qumran fragments come from an earlier period decisive in the debate. What evidence do you actually have for an Alexandrian Pentateuch predating a Judean Hebrew text? Why exactly do you call the Greek translation made from the library "the LXX" when there is no specific mention of the number of writers without Aristeas? You should call it "Gmirkin's wholly imaginary Alexandrian Pentateuch exemplar."
1. is the Gmirkin Pentateuch exemplar identical with the LXX translation which survives or it just some "imaginary" Greek translation that was the ancestor of all Hebrew texts which did survive but has no shackles or restraints in terms of dating as we see with Qumran texts or Samaritan copies of the Pentateuch. If so it is a wholly abstract imaginary/theoretical text that has little explanative use or power.
In answer to (1) then
1a. if Gmirkin's proposed ur-text IS NOT necessarily the original text of the Pentateuch. Isn't at least part of the advantage your theory has is that it is unfalsifiable? That if you just make up an "ur-text" let's say without any provenance, any specific readings, without any specific origin other than a make-believe theory about "the library of Alexandria" one cannot disprove a wholly imaginary text.
1b. if Gmirkin's proposed ur-text IS the same text as the surviving LXX and you accept at least some of Aristeas's claims to it having been written under Ptolemy II doesn't Aristeas's other evidence about the text being a translation of a text brought over from Jerusalem factor into the discussion?
1c. . if Gmirkin's proposed ur-text IS the same text as the surviving LXX and you DON'T ACCEPT Aristeas why isn't the fact that the Qumran fragments come from an earlier period decisive in the debate. What evidence do you actually have for an Alexandrian Pentateuch predating a Judean Hebrew text? Why exactly do you call the Greek translation made from the library "the LXX" when there is no specific mention of the number of writers without Aristeas? You should call it "Gmirkin's wholly imaginary Alexandrian Pentateuch exemplar."
Last edited by Secret Alias on Mon Jul 10, 2023 12:12 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Re: Why
Does Gmirkin ever ask Why the Torah?
The creation of the Mouseion and the Great Library (300-272 BC) had its reason in obvious propaganda controls of the Ptolemaic Empire: a gift to the Jewish priests for their support, with the ancillary goal of (hopefully) unifying 'Israel' for Alexandria. The Pentateuch's composition was a significant undertaking of several years, but definitely feasible and worthy of the Ptolemys' investment. Maybe a Ptolemy's Jewish wife asked for it? Who knows, what details.
So in Alexandria, likewise if somewhat later, Judaized Orphic Hymns and Judaized Hermetica followed Judaized Platonism, etc. Nothing was "pure" -- the cosmopolitan culture was an admixture of this and that. Eventually Jewish writers pissed off the Greeks, however, by their skillful detournements and appropriations, if not cultic intrigues. For a time Judaism was a mercantilistic religion, a competitive product of Alexandrian Semite businessmen -- not some random, sleepy Palestinian folklore. How else did it spread so quickly?
Plant, product, export:
The creation of the Mouseion and the Great Library (300-272 BC) had its reason in obvious propaganda controls of the Ptolemaic Empire: a gift to the Jewish priests for their support, with the ancillary goal of (hopefully) unifying 'Israel' for Alexandria. The Pentateuch's composition was a significant undertaking of several years, but definitely feasible and worthy of the Ptolemys' investment. Maybe a Ptolemy's Jewish wife asked for it? Who knows, what details.
So in Alexandria, likewise if somewhat later, Judaized Orphic Hymns and Judaized Hermetica followed Judaized Platonism, etc. Nothing was "pure" -- the cosmopolitan culture was an admixture of this and that. Eventually Jewish writers pissed off the Greeks, however, by their skillful detournements and appropriations, if not cultic intrigues. For a time Judaism was a mercantilistic religion, a competitive product of Alexandrian Semite businessmen -- not some random, sleepy Palestinian folklore. How else did it spread so quickly?
Plant, product, export:
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StephenGoranson
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Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
Above, I wrote
Robert M. Price responded "Meh..."
My mistake!!
I should have written
Robert G. Price responded "Meh..."
Robert M. Price responded "Meh..."
My mistake!!
I should have written
Robert G. Price responded "Meh..."
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
What is it about "the 270 date is irrelevant to the Hellenistic provenance thesis" -- a point that must have been made as clearly as possible at least half a dozen times by now -- that you don't understand?Secret Alias wrote: ↑Mon Jul 10, 2023 5:04 am Still waiting for one piece of evidence which isn't dependant on the Book of Aristeas for the date of "270 BCE" for the development of the LXX.
It makes no difference to the Hellenistic provenance if the LXX was composed in the third, second of first century BCE or first or second century CE.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Why the Hellenistic era hypothesis should be taken seriously
This is outright trolling. You clearly have not bothered to even read the many comments in which it is said that Gmirkin's thesis is NOT the subject of this thread and that the Hellenistic Provenance Hypothesis stands and is argued without any reference to Gmirkin's specific thesis.
I do not resile from personally considerably supporting Gmirkin's views, but they are NOT the subject of this thread as has been pointed out easily half a dozen times by now.
Troll away -- it's evidently your meaning in life.