by quietlyleaving 21 Replies latest watchtower bible
I'm quite interested in this subject at the moment. I was reading that in some cultures when the stories, myths and traditions began to be written down the stories etc underwent transformations as they were now accessible for critique and for moral judgements to be added.
I'd like to hear your thoughts Leo and anyone else who has anything to share/discuss
thanks
ql
We don't know when they were first written down.
We don't know when they were first written down. |
JWoods
I don't mind probabilities and presumptions. What is your guess/opinion?
Read Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman. He takes you through 200 years of investigation of not only who actually put these stories into writing, but when, and why.
Very, very interesting.
What is your guess/opinion?
My personal opinion is that the first written accounts are much more recent than we would like to think. Probably less than 1000 BCE.
What is your guess/opinion? My personal opinion is that the first written accounts are much more recent than we would like to think. Probably less than 1000 BCE. |
thanks J Woods. This is my feeling too that a systematic writing of oral traditions took place from round about 1000 BCE. But I think that before that there were writings but these were not particular to what we have come to see as the bible. Perhaps there were writings (on pottery for example) from an older parent language. I understand that this parent language originated from what we now know as the Steppe's of Russia.
However I'm not arguing against any divine status that may be attributed to biblical oral stories/writngs.
ql
thanks donny
Read Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman. He takes you through 200 years of investigation of not only who actually put these stories into writing, but when, and why. Very, very interesting. |
I'll check my library
quietlyleaving, here some good readings on this complex topic:
Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, Sheffield, JSOT Press 1981
Roger N. Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 53, Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press 1987
Herbert Wolf, An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch, Chicago, Moody Press 1991
Antony F. Campbell, Mark A. O'Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch. Texts, Introductions, Annotations, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1993
Ernest Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1998
thanks Behemot - I'll check those.
the origins of language are so fascinating. In passing we have had some references (in my study of Attic Greek) to Linear B and that this language was the parent of Indo European languages including Greek. I don't know if Hebrew is considered an indo European language and whether or not it is similar to linear A or B or both.
I do remember Leo saying something about Hebrew being associated with Ugaritic (sp) but I may have got this wrong
I do remember Leo saying something about Hebrew being associated with Ugaritic (sp) but I may have got this wrong
You didn't get it wrong. The Bible itself calls the Hebrew language a "language of Canaan": "In that day there will prove to be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the language of Ca'naan and swearing to Jehovah of Armies ..." (Isaiah 19:18)
According to scholars, Cananites and Hebrews are, linguistically and for their material culture, undistinguishable during early Iron Age - roughly the "Judges" period, 1200-1000 b.C.E. - (see Amihai Mazar, The Iron Age I, in Amnon Ben-Tor, The Archaeology of Ancient Israel, New Haven/London, Yale University Press/The Open University of Israel 1992, pp. 258-301; Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God. Jahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans 2002, p. 27).
Despite the huge redaction work the Bible texts have undergone, some fragments are thought by the scholars to be nearer (linguistically and conceptually) to their "canaanite" roots. Among them, Genesis 32 and 49; Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 32, 33; Judges 5; Abacuc 3, Psalms 18 and 68.
On the huge impact of the Ras Shamra (Ugarit) discoveries on OT studies you can see Mark S. Smith, Untold Stories. The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century, Peabody, Hendrickson 2001; Waine T. Pitard, Voices from the Dust: The Tablets from Ugarit and the Bible, in Mark W. Chavalas, K. Lawson Younger Jr (ed.), Mesopotamia and the Bible. Comparative Explorations, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 341, Grand Rapids, Baker 2002, pp. 251-275.
