OT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 30
I read a chapter about #HebrewBible #TextualCriticism in the 19th C, and now I better understand the background between the separation of textual criticism starting where literary criticism ends, which I see in the work e.g. of Tov, but I still think the division is artificial and misleading.
Show threadOT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 23

But one element may be Karl Heinrich Graf's 1855 argument that Judges & Samuel do not presume a central sanctuary, and *therefore* the exodus Tabernacle "is a literary fiction that transposes Solomon's temple into the wilderness. This fiction, together with other similar texts in Exodus-Numbers, stemmed from the time of the exile." (Römer 2013:422)

It's quite a logical jump from "there was no central sanctuary in Judges" to "the tabernacle was modeled on the Temple."

2/2
#HebrewBible

OT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 23

RE: https://mstdn.social/@OT_TC_Amateur/116241749051121359

There's some info on De Wette's spread in Thomas Römer, “‘Higher Criticism’: The Historical and Literary-Critical Approach with Special Reference to the Pentateuch,” in Magne Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, III/1 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 393-423.

The story is a little hard to follow because it seems that everyone knew everyone and they were often competing.

1/?
#HebrewBible

OT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 22

I've always previously interpreted "Sefer Yashar" as "the upright/good book," but I'm wondering if instead we should derive Yashar from the verb "to sing," something like "the book which is sung" (perhaps revocalized as sefer yushar?).

#HebrewBible

OT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 22
Random observation:
The name of the Persian king Artahshasta (Artaxerxes) is spelled
ארתחששתא
in Ezra 4 and 6 (five times) but spelled
ארתחשסתא
in Ezra 7-8 (five times). If sin and samekh were pronounced the same at that point, I would expect interchanging, not perfect division.
#HebrewBible #Ezra
Show threadOT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 21
How can we get a real (necessarily messy) understanding of the history of #HebrewBible scholarship?
6/6
Show threadOT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 21

So if I complain that #HebrewBible scholars have a narrow view of their field's history, they are in good company!

But my goodness reading about nineteenth-century German biblical scholarship makes it sound like very little has changed in two hundred years or more. The debates are the same.

Positions that were initially proposed based on the erudite but unsubstantiated intuitions of learned scholars sometimes fall out of favor, and then get revived later.
3/?

Show threadOT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 20
Baden's J includes only Ex. 24:1-2, 9-11; 33:1-3, 12-23; 34:2-3, part of 4. But 24:9-11 has Moses going up the mountain with people (partway), and 33:1-34:3 is continuous dialogue between Moses and God, and 34:4 says Moses went up the mountain. But when did he go down? We're told told.
#HebrewBible #DocumentaryHypothesis
Show threadOT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 20

Baden says that J reading straight from Ex. 1:12->2:11 makes Moses "a common Israelite," but his reconstruction of J doesn't say that. We're not told who Moses's parents were! Maybe J's Moses wasn't an Israelite at all, for all we know from Baden's J!

3/3
#HebrewBible #DocumentaryHypothesis

Show threadOT Textual Criticism AmateurMar 20

Aha, I see that Prof. Baden addressed the issue, only in an endnote. (I hate endnotes!) He says that introducing Moses with וַיְהִ֣י׀ בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵ֗ם וַיִּגְדַּ֤ל מֹשֶׁה֙ וַיֵּצֵ֣א אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו ("And it happened in those days and Moses grew up") is like "That was the period in which Abraham Lincoln came of age." But is it?

I'm not aware of any other introduction in ancient Hebrew literature (even famous figures like David, Solomon, Abraham, Noah,

1/?
#HebrewBible #DocumentaryHypothesis