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RE: orion translation central?
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As a former political and diplomatic advisor, I am
especially sympathetic to the views of Jim West in
particular and the other minimalists in general.
What puzzled me however is the political objective of the
document that is supposedly a late creation.
Unlike the NT which gives the impression of a well thought
out public relation spin document, (please note that this
is the subjective reaction of a political animal) the
Torah in particular and the Tanakh in general seem to have
been produced by particularly inept political operatives
(if one accepts the West rationale).
If the objective was to make a claim on the land, or to get
more people to join or remain members of the group or
whatever the motives for the creation or redaction, why
create a document that contains so much unflattering and
negative stuff?
Why, for example, create an originator of a tribe (Jacob)
producing what must be the most dysfunctional family
group of all time? Would I not as a redactor or creator of
a mythical family tree, that was my own, do a better job
than produce a group of misfits like the children of
Israel?
What possible practical use are the stories of the Torah if
they were written by a pro-Israelite operative? Now if the
thesis was that it was a document of misinformation
created by an enemy of the children of Israel, it might
make some political sense. Would you join a group or have
sympathy for one whose historical claim to the land
involved the indiscriminate slaughter of its prior
inhabitants?
However naïve any member of this list might be, in his or
her political thinking, I am sure you could write a tract
which would be more likely to accomplish the goals that Jim
West thinks the OT was created for. As it stands the OT as
a political document is a complete failure in the terms
that Jim and the minimalists view it. If this is the case,
it is now their obligation to come up with another
rationale for its creation.
Ever
Mike
Mike_Sanders@photoad.com (private e-mail)
BibleMysteries@photoad.com (web site e-mail)
http://www.BibleMysteries.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim West [SMTP:jwest@Highland.Net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 1997 6:43 PM
To: orion@mscc.huji.ac.il
Subject: RE: orion translation central?
At 03:44 PM 12/10/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Perhaps Professor West would be kind enough to answer the
>following problem.
>
>Had the OT been composed in Greek at the time of the
>Hasmoneans, would there not have been a greater knowledge
>of the Persian period which has always caused the
>Talmudists great problems with their chronology. Because
>they follow the OT they lose about 165 years during the
>Persian era.
>
Any problem for the Talmud is no problem for me- for I
simply know virtually
nothing of it. It is an extremely late document(s) which
has virtually
nothing to do with life in the hasmonean or herodian eras.
It is a juristic
corpus and not very useful for historical reconstruction.
>It is interesting to note that if their chronology is used
>(as seems likely) then the time period mentioned in the
>Damascus Document ( 390 + 20 after Nebuchadnezer ) would
>suggest an Herodian rather than an Hasmonean era for its
>origin.
>
Its? Do you mean the Hebrew Bible or the talmud? If the
Hebrew Bible,
perhaps. I would have no quibble with this (though the
biblical texts from
Qumran seem to me to stem from earlier than the herodian
period).
At any rate we are moving a tad away from Orion and more
towards Ioudaios.
>Ever
>
>
>Mike
>
>Mike_Sanders@photoad.com (private e-mail)
Best,
Jim
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West
Adjunct Professor of Bible
Quartz Hill School of Theology
jwest@highland.net