Hannes,
I'd say keep going. You're doing fine so far with contributions. I suspect that the sort of passages we are looking for to shed light on this matter are not easy to track down simply by checking a concordance.
Aunt Connie,
Not sure I fully understood your reply. To sleep better though, I'll just assume everything is OK.
If it's any help regarding sources: I probably first came across the descriptions of the three parties several years ago when I slogged through "The Jewish War" in a Penguin paperback. Then, when for one reason or another, I went looking for what I read, I searched in vain in "Antiquities of the Jews". A lot of paraphrase of OT stories with some asides, but nothing as telling that I can recall. "Against Apion" had a description of how canonical systems of books are made - at least among the author's kindred. Reading the text, one would think that the conventions were long standing- but I believe the conventions were in the lifetime of the author Josephus at a place called Jamnia (sp?).
"We have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another; bout onely 22 books, which contain the records of all past times, and which are rightly believed in. And of these, five belong to Moses, which contain the laws and the tradition of the origin of mankind till his death for a period of nearly three thousand years. From the death of Moses until the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets who wrote down the things that were done in their times in 13 books. The remaining books contain hymns to God and precept Artaxerxes to our times all things have indeed been written down bur are not esteemed worthy of a like authority because the exact successionof the prophets was wanting..."
And now I take you to Daniel 9:1.
"It was the first year of Darius, son of Artexerxes, a Mede by race who assumed the throne of Chaldea..."
The author of Daniel has discredited himself in the eyes of Jospephus as a prophet - as can be seen in the structure of the TaNaKh. Never mind that there is plenty other evidence of 2nd century writing under Greek suppression and tutelage. If you want an explanation for who Darius the Mede was, look to Thucydides who claims that the Greeks defeated the Medes at Marathon in 486 BC. Who was the king? Darius I of Persia, inventor of the satrapy. But the Darius to whom Daniel (II) refers in chapter 9 comes even later. Chapter 14 tries to rectify the history. Included in the Septuagint, it has been recently dropped in King James versions.
I no longer wonder why.
So, anyway, Psalms, Proverbs, Ruth, Lamentations, Job, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Chronicles, Ezra/Nehamiah, Song of Songs and Daniel are all relegated to "Writings".
Note that Josephus did not attribute Job to Moses, not that I am saying that he should. Researching the angle that Job was a Camel merchant or rancher, I did look at some articles about camel caravans. One on line archeological report indicated that camel bones at at least one stopping point on the route between Egypt and Mesopotamia in Judean vicinity had hardly any camel remains until the 6th century. Wikipedia reports indicate that the camel caravan trade picked up with the Assyrians building forts across Arabia. They were domesticated further and in Arabia east centuries earlier, but were exploited in the East Med region in Neo-Babylonian times.
... So are the ideas of Job introduced into Bible from 7th century peoples of the Assyrian empire? What clues I have had from examining Greek writings thus far have been serendipitous. The problem of Job's origin seems like a tougher nut to crack. It's not a history, not a collection of sayings or songs and not a collection of rants or prophecies.
AC, you also indicated that a wider net should be cast when speaking about beliefs of life after death - or what happens after the end of life. I did not mean to say that Josephus had covered all the bases. And, I confess, that it sounds plausible that reincarnation beliefs that developed further east could have been brought back by Greeks or made their way west more directly with trade. If your Hellenic or Roman studies shed some light on this matter, please tell.
As a kid I remember reading one of Robert Heinlein's books about space travelers gifted with longevity, Methuselah's Children. Amid a quick getaway from earth headed for the stars ( all right...), I remember one of the onboard doctors lamenting that he had not brought along a carp or two to observe for several decades or centuries, because ( circa 1943) he wasn't sure that they died natural deaths. Have we had enough time of our own ( or data) now to settle this one? Or should this be cited as an argument in favor of a hybrid type of return?
Kepler
