Dating the Pentateuch

[spin]

So what is your assumption about eshdat lamo? Not Persian. What then?

There was a reason I talked about you supplying a terminus a quo, which you want to be a terminus ad quem. You can certainly say it wasn't written before the Persian period, but you can't say it wasn't written later.

I don't know if it is Persian. What's the exact reference. (I do try to supply references for everything I introduce.)

And sorry to be so daft but how does this help prove that the split between Jews and Samaritans only happened in the Hellenistic period?

Not long after, the king despatched one of the senators at Antioch, with orders he should compel the Jewish people, custom of their fathers and law of their God to forsake. 2 The temple at Jerusalem must be profaned, and dedicated now to Jupiter Olympius; as for the temple on Garizim, the Samaritans were to call it, as well they might,[1] after Jupiter the god of strangers. 3 What a storm of troubles broke then upon the commonwealth, most grievous to be borne! 4 All riot and revelry the temple became, once the Gentiles had it; here was dallying with harlots, and women making their way into the sacred precincts, and bringing in of things abominable; 5 with forbidden meats, to the law’s injury, the very altar groaned. 6 Sabbath none would observe, nor keep holiday his fathers kept; even the name of Jew was disclaimed. 7 Instead, they went to sacrifice on the king’s birthday, though it were ruefully and under duress; and when the feast of Liber came round, make procession they must in Liber’s honour, garlanded with ivy each one.

I am not getting it.

Don't use this translation. It's biased. There is no mention of Samaritans in v.2, only οι τον τοπον ("those of the place"), meaning that "Jewish people" in v.1 applies to the context of both temples.

NRSV
Not long after this, the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their ancestors and no longer to live by the laws of God; also to pollute the temple in Jerusalem and to call it the temple of Olympian Zeus, and to call the one in Gerizim the temple of Zeus-the-Friend-of-Strangers, as did the people who lived in that place.

[stephan happy huller]

When do you date this text? I notice this in 1:9 "And we now recommend you too to keep the feast of Shelters in the month of Chislev, in the year one hundred and eighty-eight.' Doesn't that mean that the text was written in 129 BCE. Yet we know from other sources that the altar on Gerizim was destroyed c. 120 BCE. I am not sure that this is a very reliable text. You can't squeeze the history of the Jewish-Samaritan relations from one strange text. Some people call the Samaritans Kuthim because of a hostile Jewish tradition.

Not long after this, the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their ancestors and no longer to live by the laws of God; also to pollute the temple in Jerusalem and to call it the temple of Olympian Zeus, and to call the one in Gerizim the temple of Zeus-the-Friend-of-Strangers, as did the people who lived in that place.

So if I understand you correctly this proves that the Jews and the Samaritans hadn't split yet because the same Athenian senator compelled both Jews and Samaritans to give up their law? How does the Pentateuch being written in Egypt in the Hellenistic period fit this thesis? Does 2 Maccabees help argue that thesis or merely argument that because the same senator convinced Jews and Samaritans to give up their law the split hadn't happened yet?

[spin]

When do you date this text? I notice this in 1:9 "And we now recommend you too to keep the feast of Shelters in the month of Chislev, in the year one hundred and eighty-eight.' Doesn't that mean that the text was written in 129 BCE. Yet we know from other sources that the altar on Gerizim was destroyed c. 120 BCE. I am not sure that this is a very reliable text.

If you actually read the text you'd know what's going on. Jesus, stop being half-assed about this. The text has a couple of commendatory letters at the beginning that represent a later time than the writing of the text, which is actually an epitome of an earlier text, as chapter 2 indicates.

You can't squeeze the history of the Jewish-Samaritan relations from one strange text. Some people call the Samaritans Kuthim because of a hostile Jewish tradition.

Jeez, you are way off topic now.

Not long after this, the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their ancestors and no longer to live by the laws of God; also to pollute the temple in Jerusalem and to call it the temple of Olympian Zeus, and to call the one in Gerizim the temple of Zeus-the-Friend-of-Strangers, as did the people who lived in that place.

So if I understand you correctly this proves that the Jews and the Samaritans hadn't split yet because the same Athenian senator compelled both Jews and Samaritans to give up their law?

Now you seem to be thinking like aa5874 and proving things. I do note the way you also insinuate the term "Samaritans" here and assume your conclusion. As I pointed out to you your cited translation was shit. It's no wonder you are confused. Please read what is said and cut back on the intrusive assumptions.

How does the Pentateuch being written in Egypt in the Hellenistic period fit this thesis?

Pentateuch written in Egypt?? I didn't say anything like that. I indicated that the story of the Hyksos expulsion rewritten to be about the Jews suggests a rather late date for the writing of the exodus tradition.

Does 2 Maccabees help argue that thesis or merely argument that because the same senator convinced Jews and Samaritans to give up their law the split hadn't happened yet?

2 Macc helps you get over your unfounded assumptions as to when the split happened. But if you are going to insist on inserting "Samaritans" into 2 Macc when it is not there you are going to balls up your understanding of the text and get nowhere. Go back and read the text for what it says. Do you need the Greek? There is no mention of Samaritans for you to make a separation of the "jewishness" of the temple on Gerizim form that of Jerusalem.

[spin]

And where is eshdat lamo? You've mentioned it twice and twice forgotten to supply a source, even though I've already asked you for one.

[stephan happy huller]

Deuteronomy 33:2

[stephan happy huller]

I am sorry spin I don't understand what 2 Maccabees has to do with the Samaritan split. Maybe its because I spent 5 hours in a car dealership buying a new car. I don't know.

[stephan happy huller]

Is it because he says that the Samaritans are part of 'our people' in chapter 5?

[stephan happy huller]

I better go to bed because I am not getting this. The split between the Samaritans and the Jews happened in the fifth century BCE:

http://books.google.com/books?id=6NsxZR ... 22&f=false

This isn't at all controversial. I don't see how any statement you might come up with in a dubious Jewish text is going to overpower the evidence from recent archaeology.

[spin]

I don't understand why you have mentioned eshdat lamo. Is it an effort at dating Deuteronomy? At best, you have a terminus a quo, as I've already stated. Let me give you a better terminus a quo: Deut 28:68

• "The LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, by a route that I promised you would never see again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer."

Slaves in ships from Palestine to Egypt! This is the 3rd century BCE when Jewish slaves were supplied to Egypt. We can read in the Zenon Archive of Zenon escorting such slaves by ship. There is no earlier time for such an event. It is rather explicit. This reference in Deuteronomy is no earlier than the middle of the 3rd century BCE.

I better go to bed because I am not getting this. The split between the Samaritans and the Jews happened in the fifth century BCE:

http://books.google.com/books?id=6NsxZR ... 22&f=false

This isn't at all controversial. I don't see how any statement you might come up with in a dubious Jewish text is going to overpower the evidence from recent archaeology.

To be clear, when I talk of a split, I refer to the definitive end of cordial relations between two states reflected in two temples that had close links and in the same cultural context a partially shared literary heritage. From what I can see that happened during the second century BCE between the time of the departure of the Oniads and John Hyrcanus's Josian destruction of Gerizim. That the relationship was still good between them early in the second century is illustrated by 2 Macc 6:1-2, a reference you haven't dealt with in any rational way.

I don't understand why you pay no attention to your assumptions of dating for both the Pentateuch and the split between Gerizim and Jerusalem, when you are so willing to investigate christianity's origins with flair. It seems, umm... conservative. And anything with Albertz's name attached to it will be conservative.

[stephan happy huller]

Whether or not it is conservative the facts are the facts. There was an altar at Gerizim from the Persian period. Fact. The Pentateuch in its original form understood that God himself decreed that Israel was to establish a covenant at Gerizim. Fact. This doesn't mean that the original recension of the Pentateuch dates from the Persian period in itself. It's possible at least theoretically that the Gerizim altar was associated with another worship using another text or another paradigm of worship. However you still have to imagine then that the Gerizim first and Gerizim only paradigm at the heart of the Pentateuch was written at the time Alexander set foot in the region.

If you accept that there was a period where Jews and Samaritans accepted Gerizim then then a period where the Jews broke away later in the Hellenistic period. Still I have a hard time figuring out a paradigm that allows for the 'Gerizim only' paradigm among Jews. Are you suggesting that the Pentateuch allowed for a second place of worship? Why isn't Jerusalem mentioned in the Pentateuch?

Moreover, I am familiar with the argument that Deuteronomy was written in the Hellenistic period. That's a separate difficulty because the rabbinic tradition accepts the idea (or at least acknowledges the idea) that Moses might have written the text of Deuteronomy himself without divine assistance. In other words, that it could be conceived as a 'secondary' text added to the first four books. I don't know where such a concession leaves us with respect to four books written in the Persian period and then a fifth book added to the four in the Hellenistic period.

The Samaritans still had to embrace this new book and the new book still has Persian language (dat = law) and reinforced Gerizim as the god decreed sacred altar. Very early Hellenistic period? Who was this second Ezra who wrote this add on which was accepted by both Samaritans and Jews? This is still doesn't allow for Exodus to be written from Manetho. What about the tradition that Ezra wrote the Pentateuch? Is that complete nonsense or did Ezra really live at a later date according to your conception?