The Septuagint is the original -- Second Draft
Posted on: November 11, 2008 - 3:37am
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The Septuagint is the original -- Second Draft
All is not well in bibleland
http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/bibleland.html
In consideration of the replies I have received to my first draft I have completely revised the original to put the reasons for the conclusions first instead of leading with the conclusion. This is also a draft. I haven't even given it a spell check. So be warned.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
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I did not ask for wild guesses. I asked for dates of creation with supporting evidence. I have given Josephus' citation of a forgery as the only evidence the the Septuagint is a translation of the twenty two holy books of his god. If you know of something else please produce it.
If you produce nothing else you are relying upon religious tradition not evidence.
So you are basing your position upon the write up of a journalism major. Pardon if I don't take that seriously. I have seen dozens of these journalism major reports where they clearly are in the tabloid school on bible matters. I just gave an example of the five lines on pottery. The researcher in the only quote from him calls it "proto-canaanite" while the journalism major calls it Hebrew. I have several examples of this saved if you need more.
There is nothing in that link quoting any researcher. It is all journalism major crap.
It is in a variation of Phoenician not hebrew. All the references clearly refer to attributes of the Sun, aka Ra. There is nothing else like it in the OT. And as Egypt ruled bibleland for some 7-800 years the influence is to be expected.
I have not concluded that. I have followed the real arkie finds in bibleland not the journalism major or Biblical Archaeological Review (BAR, a newsstand magazine) sources. The problem is there is no money for any digs in bibleland without advertising a bible connection. The real arkies are the ones who have made the identification as outposts of other cultures including Finkelstein and Silverman.
The fact remains the local culture of bibleland did not rise above dirt farmers and goatherds and there were several civilizations which built outposts in these lands.
Arkies have come a long way. It is now possible to have generalities of cultural development and compare regions to them. Every independent civilization that has been found has arisen from some local source of wealth. Bibleland has no local source of wealth. It has no mineral wealth. It is too arid for lush crops to create a surplus population for an army. No indigenous civilization of interest could develop there.
Yet we know of the temple of Astarte in Jerusalem until the Roman urban renewal project in the 2nd c. AD. So this book collection is not about the religion of the region. It is only about one of the religions and maybe the only one that was written down.
So this book does NOT represent the religion of the region as it does not mention the worship of Astarte OR Astarte was a separate religion. If you like the NT, devils went into a herd of pigs so at least the women ate pork OR there was at least one other religion in the region.
Whatever came before is clearly not represented by the Septuagint stories nor the hebrew version which first appears after the Septuagint. Knowing that as late as the 2nd c. AD there was a temple to Astarte in Jerusalem means there was no morphing at all. The only thing the Septuagint/OT represents is a gross misrepresentation of the Judeans at the time it was written no matter when it was written.
As long as you admit it is no more than a belief what is your point in disgreeing with me? All you have is your belief in religious tradition.
I have already addressed this one several times. The only citation of interest is "proto-canaanite" which the journalism majors call hebrew. The only connection with David if "from the time of" a mythical person. If you have missed the absurdity take this paragraph.
"While the inscription has yet to be deciphered, initial interpretation indicates the text was part of a letter and contains the roots of the words "judge", "slave" and "king". This may indicate that this is a legal text that could provide insights into Hebrew law, society and beliefs. Archaeologists say that it was clearly written as a deliberate message by a trained scribe."
Why "MAY IT" indicate a legal text? It contains the "ROOTS" of the words. What does proto-canaanite have to do with "hebrew law" when there were never any hebrews? And then the absurdity of saying "trained scribes" had nothing to write on but broken pottery from the trash heap. It anything it is for littly Yonnie to practice on in scribe school. Did you ever notice it is only the scribes in bibleland who were so poor they had to write on stuff dug out of the trash? What are we to make of that?
I never cease to be amazed at how otherwise intelligent people can read material like this and take it seriously. On its face it is not to be taken seriously any more than UFO abductions.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Sorry, I read what you wrote and it said "As you have not even guessed as to when these books were created... " and responded with the requested guess.
Using Josephus is using a source that has been possibly altered by Christian believers. Since you do, does that mean you accept the rest including the part where he says Christ was the messiah? If not, you are doing the same thing I am, picking and choosing based on other criteria. You also know better than calling these writings books, as they weren't at the time. His opinion as to what was considered holy is his opinion alone and is not necessarily reflective of the other diverse groups in the area. Unless you think everything he wrote has merit.
As you say it is but pulp media. However, here's more on the researcher who did the digital analysis. None is from a pulp media outlet. Adobe article on USC projects.
USC News 1-07. USC Video about Zuckerman.
Since you discredit everything apparently from the pulp media, how do you even know what the weather might be. Look out the window?
I missed the researchers link you did not provide to prove these claims. What was it? Who is it that decided it was Phoenician variation and who made the claims it refers to Ra?
Then perhaps you need to change what you have posted on your web site to indicate what you now are claiming.
Change "Every major population center" to "Every outpost". If not, the words major population center may be misinterpreted to mean something other than 4 huts with a guard tower.
I actually agree with their findings and your assessment of their work.
Finkelstein and Silverman come to different conclusions than this. Where do you get your basis for ignoring their work on the subject while accepting other parts?
No one disagrees here that Astarte was worshiped. No one disagrees that the OT only represents a singular religion from the time. It does however have traces of the others spread throughout used to morph the beliefs. The OT represents only one of the belief systems to the extent it survived time, that's all it is. It has clearly been altered and misrepresents the history of the area as one would expect from propaganda.
In both theories, there is difficulty in proving beyond a doubt what occurred. The problem with what you claim is disregarding all connections to the area and one tracking the idea the Greek came 1st as a pack of lies. It is clear propaganda alright but as to its inception date we may likely never agree.
Your problem seems to be you read more into what someone tells you than they mean. Where did I say anything about this proves dipshit about David? I know what the pulp media hype says but I didn't take a position on that only there was a pottery shard with possible ancient hebrew script on it. You conclude such script is "proto-canaanite" and you don't provide a source for that claim either.
In my case, I'm always amazed how people misconstrue and misinterpret. Stop calling people believers just because they mention artifacts and population centers in connection with 1st millennium BCE Palestine.
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
This is usually the place where I facetiously apologize for not realizing English is not my correspondant's first language and is thus was able to misconstrue such a common English construction. Consider it done and personalized for your particular response.
Without indulging your feigned ignorance of common English usage I point out you have no evidence to support any date or time of its creation.
And without any evidenciary basis for any date prior to the Septuagint you are wasting your time replying to me.
Anything can be altered but without Josephus there is no assertion there is anything older than the Septuagint. There is only some early Christians starting to assume there was something older for no known reason. OTOH one can take the Septuagint as a translation but one which is centuries older than the first claims of a different translation of some "hebrew" version and thus Greek preserves the original meaning rather than the later corrupted hebrew.
You should be familiar with what is attributed to Josephus before you write about it. It does not say messiah. Even if it did it does not matter regarding the messiah issue what he wrote. Anyone can be an idiot. Some people even thought Brian was the messiah. The (very likely forged) mention only matters to those who are desperate for evidence Jesus was a real person who was known in his time. That is a different issue.
Feel free to look up the original word he used.
If the opinion of a PRIEST of the Yahweh cult counts for nothing then nothing said by anyone from those times counts for anything. Frankly is claim that the "hebrews" were lepers and were evicted from Egypt does raise more than a few questions. As I have suggested, he was likely either a fraud or the only thing he really wrote was about the war and everything else is a forgery. However no one is satisifed with any blanket premise regarding Josephus. If you have a preference you might simply give it.
Are your eyes working? An alphabet is an alphabet and it is Phoenician. The DSS fragment is clearly Aramaic letters. Of course you may decide Adobe Inc and an unknown author have the superior professional opinion simply because they write about something which may or may not have been done by the department of USC highlighted in the beginning.
Anyone who reads it without 'knowing' it is also found in the bible. Yahweh shows up in bushes and trees and looking upon it/Yahweh means death. Ra is the bountiful god who bring life to the land. There is no god name given in the scroll. Therefore we can only go by the characteristics to identify the god the prayer/benediction is to.
If you really want to get get into this there are seven different gods named by their titles in the OT which are today piously taken mean the same god even though the titles are found elsewhere to refer to different gods.
A couple days ago I caught a quote by Finkelstein to the effect biblical archaeologists do not rely excessively upon the bible -- they rely solely upon the bible.
If you just go on to the rest of my statement about archaeologists saying it you would have saved this nonsense post.
In which case you agree there is nothing in bibleland that rises above dirt farmers and goatherds at least until after the Greek influence. How do you propose they created and preserved the OT FOR A LENGTH OF TIME you refuse to identify?
Should you actually look into what they have written you will find at least Finkelstein specializes in the time of the break of the New Kingdom rule of the region and merely "accepts" the claims about what came later while disclaiming it is not his field of expertise. In other words it is a cop out.
To repeat, the people of the region were not monotheists into the 2nd c. AD. with two temples in the region, one in Jerusalem. So what is seen in the region is a typical polytheist religion with the Yahweh cult inexplicably primitive and deviant unless we assume it was invented and knowingly a perverse creation.
The first explicit declaration of monotheism is found in the Koran. Of course you are free to disagree but without evidence of an earlier explicit declaration it is mere negation.
Anything which claims magical intervention is a pack of lies.
By defintion a theory is an explanation of facts. My theory explains the facts as they are known. Yours, should you ever in fact define what you are talking about, has no facts which your (undefined) opinion explains. Therefore you do not have a theory. You have an opinion based upon nothing but religious tradition. When you have facts you can recite and you can present a theory which explains those facts get back to me. Until then lose the pretension you have a theory. You have nothing more than a cut down religious tradition.
May I then inquire as to your intent in referencing something that has no bearing at all upon this subject?
At least gain some familiarity with the material you are talking about. You brought it up. If you had read up on it you would know that only researcher's opinion given calls it proto-canaanite. I haven't seen a image of it so I have no personal opinion. I presume I will find it to be Phoenician.
As your entire disagreement does not have any basis in facts and as you have no theory because you have no facts to explain you are presenting a reduced version of religious tradition. As you are presenting religious tradition you are a believer. It is quite as simple as that.
As you have only religious tradition in a castrated form in that you have no facts upon which to establish a time of creation and you stubbornly refuse to do so you are defending absolutely nothing.
You are engaging in mere negation of my explanation (theory) of the known facts. If that is all you intend to do it is a total waste of my time to respond to you.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
We were warned you were a troll however because you seemed sincere in your opposition to Jewish fantasy beliefs and the resultant religions I had hope you either had proof of your claims or a really good theory to present. You have demonstrated you have neither.
Nor do you.
I agree, this wastes my time.
I see your point but there's still the DSS in multiple languages to explain.
Excuse my poor presentation. I know what is attributed, "he was the Christ". The connotation means to most this meant he was the messiah.
As I doubt this section is accurate, I don't see how one can look up what "he said" only what there is.
As he has many discrepancies even regarding the war one should not readily accept his writing as accurate.
So it is your analysis that concluded it speaks of Ra.
I'm aware of the multiple gods and even mentioned some of these verses in previous posts.
You think? He doesn't mean himself as he has said so previously.
You distort what Finkelstein says. See pp 158-59 and pp 240-46 among others in Bible Unearthed. He says Judah was the way you describe but not so the Northern kingdom. If you mean Judah, I agree. If you mean all of the land, I don't.
See pp 246-49 for when I think the religion started, not when the OT was substantially written. I also think parts were created by Ezra later as I previously stated.
I imagine they preserved it on papyrus in some early form which is gone to time.
See above. You should reread their books.
And I called it propaganda. All religions are propaganda this is no different.
Your claims go far beyond the supposed writing of the OT in Greek which is the cause of most of my disagreement with your theory. Since you choose to ignore the facts of archeology from Assyria, Babylon, Syria, Egypt, and others in relation to specifically the Northern Kingdom I agree this will go no where. I was clear that these references did not mention religious beliefs yet you persist that they must. I don't see how concluding an ancient kingdom existed supports a religious belief at all. Does the mention of Egypt and Assyria invoke legitamacy in any work of fiction? No.
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
Don't let it bother you. I am accustomed to believers trying to find ways to discredit me without having to defend their position. I am also accustomed to believers in the 20th c. Zionist creation of a Jewish "people" independent of the religion being all atheist Jews have to cling to and defend as a "people from time immemorial" as in the fraud book of a similar name.
A theory does in fact explain facts. As to the OT there is a fact that the Greek is the first to appear in history. There is a fact there is no evidence of anything prior to it. There is a fact that the first claim of an older version is a forgery. There is also the fact that there is no mention of a different content of a "hebrew" OT until the mid 2nd c. AD. My statement is so obvious it does not have to be called a theory although it does explain the facts. The Septuagint is the original.
What more do you expect as evidence? The facts are as I have recited and there are no facts contrary to them.
And as I am accustomed to everything BUT actual evidence of that a "hebrew" version existed earlier is never presented. There is only argumentation that it could have existed earlier. There are countless claims of the existence of the religion recognizable as Judaism despite the well known fact of a temple to Astarte in Jerusalem until Rome rebuilt the city.
I present the well known fact of when it appeared in history. I need produce nothing more than well known fact. It is an unevidenced hypothesis that there was something earlier in another language.
Then stop already. If my position is as obviously foolish as you say no one needs you to point it out.
The DSS with parts of the OT are not as old as the Septuagint. Therefore the Septuagint remains the oldest version in evidence.
Christ means only anointed. ALL religions in the Roman empire practiced anointing. Because of this the only rational translation, due to the lack of articles in the language is "he was AN anointed person." So were the emperors. So were big donors to temples. It was no big thing.
Messiah meant only military ruler. Two men in the last revolt fought for the High Priest to anoint them the messiah.
The issue with the interpolation (added words as forgery) into Josephus is the passage related to "if it is lawful to call him a man" which implies other than human. You really should google it and give it a read.
You really should look it up.
Matters of war are one thing. But in matters of the religion in which he was a priest one expects no errors on the basics and no higher authority but a senior priest. He says his religion has only 22 sacred books. He says his people were driven out of Egypt because they were leprous. Is it any surprise the only parts he is quoted on are those which provided the script for Disney's Prince of Egypt?
It is mine among many and not original to me. It is the way one identifies ancient gods when the name is not used. It is also nearly the same as prayers to Ra found in Egypt. Aknaten's Amun-Ra amalgam has similar prayers. It is not a secret the Psalms are mostly Egyptian.
Therefore one needs identify who pronounced a find to mean such and such and determined if he was/is a biblical archaeologist or a real archaeologist. Nothing identified based upon the bible is credible and must rejected until there is a credible basis for the identification or description. That shitcans everything from the 19th c. for openers. That shitcans everything from Dever. In fact as believers finance almost everything dug in bibleland it is all suspect.
Because of that believers have next to nothing left to go on as there is next to nothing left to discover in bibleland as percentagewise it is the most dug place in the world.
BTW: I finally found some Mormon books arguing for the Americas as the Nephite nation. I expect to find the same arguments as bible believers use. I'll post when I get into them.
This is where I should insist you and spin come to an agreement before I respond as you are arguing against his belief in a great and powerful Judah.
For me it is simply another example of multiple mutially exclusive arguments by believers trying to salvage their beliefs.
Save Ezra is connected with the mythical time in Babylon and the mythical return from the mythical captivity is the excuse for this mythical Ezra creating something.
Again the believers have been retreating from Moses wrote the Torah for decades. Now they have settled on the Ezra crap because they have yet to come to terms with the whole Babylon and return and Ezra thing being a myth. I do not speculate on what will be their next attempt to hold the line after they have to retreat from Ezra. It will certainly be something equally silly but they will all line up behind it and quote each other as authoritative on the matter as they have been doing with every retreat and are now doing with Ezra.
Imagination is not a substitute for fact absent copious material in stone.
It remains lies and people pretending to pick out the non-lies from the lies are deluding themselves. What is the reason to think liars might tell any truth? But that is what you are doing in calling it propaganda which by definition is something which warps the truth. Your chosen name assumes there is truth. But it is an assumption only without a basis in fact.
My claims are only ANSWERS to the usual objections I receive to the recitation of the only facts in evidence, that the Septuagint is the original. Biblical archaeologists have made claims about finds in other places and I am told to go read their claims as non-bible related evidence. Why do you think that is reasonable?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
If you had people other than yourself that would at least acknowledge your position, it would go a long way to lending said position credibility.
A lot of people come here saying "I'm right because I say so."
References to your research that others could look at would be nice.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
We have the dead sea scrolls. The C14 dating for the Samuel text points to the 3rd c. BCE. What are your earliest Greek texts?
You have no original text. You have, as always, nothing.
Your extended argument from silence doesn't deal with any facts. The earliest texts we have are Hebrew. You've only got hot air.
Well, at least this much is true. We are also accustomed to everything but evidence from you.
We have a nice C14 dated Samuel text in Hebrew. Present a better offering.
What Greek text do you know of that is earlier than texts such as Samuel from Qumran?
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Googling on copenhagen school and minimalist in relation to the OT should results in dozens of well known and long established material contrary to the traditional. religious interpretation of the OT and the reguard defense being conducted by the traditionalists.
I am surprised so few people know about what has been around for decades.
However I did come up with these ideas independently before hearing of the Copenhagen school but I don't care if no one believes it.
That for which there is no physical evidence does not mean the traditional belief is automatically correct. It doesn't take much comparison between the NT and Christian tradition to see what kind of nonsense tradition is.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Googling on copenhagen school and minimalist in relation to the OT should results in dozens of well known and long established material contrary to the traditional. religious interpretation of the OT and the reguard defense being conducted by the traditionalists.
I am surprised so few people know about what has been around for decades.
However I did come up with these ideas independently before hearing of the Copenhagen school but I don't care if no one believes it.
That for which there is no physical evidence does not mean the traditional belief is automatically correct. It doesn't take much comparison between the NT and Christian tradition to see what kind of nonsense tradition is.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Where did you get that date? There are three separate clusters of dates when scrolls were stored in the region, early 1st c. BC, late 1st c. BC and mid-late 1st c. AD. I have never come across a date that old. The dates have a standard deviation of +/- 45 years when that old. Ignoring that finding a single scroll two centuries older than the next oldest is more than a bit remarkable. There is no known connection between the scrolls and the Essenes or Qumran nor between the Essenes and Qumran. Any imagined connection is the power of modern myth.
So I have to ask you for an actual report on the C14 dating of that particular scroll.
That aside the generic answer is the religion was created between the times of Alexander and Pompey. When is a good question although most see 3rd c. BC Greek in this collection. So there is still no problem with that date for one book against 40 books which does not contain Samuel. Canonical and apocryphal matters are a religious discussion.
WE have only what was originally claimed. We have nothing contradicting it being the original. We cannot date the creation of the Iliad. We only know when it is first mentioned in history. Anything dating it earlier than that, such as a poet sailing with Agamemnon, is nothing more than speculation. Admittedly there are people with an almost a religious fervor who find everything points to Homer having been with the siege and wrote of events as they occurred or shortly afterwards.
Excuse me but you only claimed a single book of Samuel which is not older and you failed to mention that language used in that book given that it is not part of the Septuagint.
You mean like the evidence of your C14 claim for Samuel?
And that means what? I use the New English Translation of the Septuagint, NETS, from Oxford Univ. Press, 2007. I do not find a Samuel in it.
Answered above mostly by repetition of previous posts as to dating the Septuagint.
I am not making an issue of Samuel being in it or not as the idea of canonical had not been invented at that time. The translators notes of the NETS are different for each book and all assume the Septuagint is a translation of older Hebrew even where the notes in fact describe a Judean who has mastered Greek and is enthralled by the classical Greek style in 3 Makkabees which he used to write the book. (There are four books of Maccabe in the Septuagint.) However in 1 Makkabees the translator see positive evidence of a translation of an original "hebrew" style. 2 Makkabees is seen as separate creation drawing upon but independent of judean source material. 4 Makkabees is viewed as an original creation in Greek by a native speaker of Greek.
I got this translation off the web but don't have the URL. Try googling it if interested.
Needless to say there are different translators for each book and they see different things in what one would reasonably expect to be a single set of narratives on the subject. You might take a look at it as it will largely reinforce your beliefs.
I forget the letters and names as it is late but for Genesis there are folks who see different traditions P for priestly tradition is one of them. I am sure you remember the rest. The built in bias is calling them traditions. Why assume they are more than just writers? Consider narratives of the founding of the US written by a straight historian, a Jeffersonian, a Libertarian and a born again neocon. Now mix them all together. One can find four different authors but not four different traditions. But call them traditions and it implies without evidence what is written is more than the view point of individuals of varying degrees of graspings of reality.
I have referred to that as a sloppy editting job but now I realize the job of editor had not been invented at that time and would not be invented until nearly two thousand years later. With reference to founding the US an editor would commission separate articles from each viewpoint and spell out that viewpoint in a preface.
You have never approached this subject without the assumption that there was a "hebrew" original so you have no idea how much that biases your conclusion. All you have are arguments to a conclusion without the least grey area in your mind. Yet simply reading the prefacetory remarks on the translations of each book of the Septuagint quickly dispells the idea that some person or group sat down and translated existing material.
That in itself is telling as I have a correspondent who claims to read Greek and to have read the Septuagint in Greek and he claimed it was uniform. He is at odds with the translators involved in this project. I do not assume uniformity is any kind of prover rather only note neither the Greek nor the Hebrew has uniformity.
Way back when I did assume the "hebrew" was the original. My problem was I could find no evidence of a culture which could have created and preserved it. The more I learned about bibleland civilizations the less possible it was. One would expect the opposite, the more one learns the more likely. Over the years one would expect wall inscriptions in stone in bibleland supporting this to be found over the years. Instead we find a region so impoverished that what little writing there was, was done on pieces of pottery dug out of the trash.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Where did you get that date? There are three separate clusters of dates when scrolls were stored in the region, early 1st c. BC, late 1st c. BC and mid-late 1st c. AD. I have never come across a date that old. The dates have a standard deviation of +/- 45 years when that old. Ignoring that finding a single scroll two centuries older than the next oldest is more than a bit remarkable. There is no known connection between the scrolls and the Essenes or Qumran nor between the Essenes and Qumran. Any imagined connection is the power of modern myth.
So I have to ask you for an actual report on the C14 dating of that particular scroll.
That aside the generic answer is the religion was created between the times of Alexander and Pompey. When is a good question although most see 3rd c. BC Greek in this collection. So there is still no problem with that date for one book against 40 books which does not contain Samuel. Canonical and apocryphal matters are a religious discussion.
WE have only what was originally claimed. We have nothing contradicting it being the original. We cannot date the creation of the Iliad. We only know when it is first mentioned in history. Anything dating it earlier than that, such as a poet sailing with Agamemnon, is nothing more than speculation. Admittedly there are people with an almost a religious fervor who find everything points to Homer having been with the siege and wrote of events as they occurred or shortly afterwards.
Excuse me but you only claimed a single book of Samuel which is not older and you failed to mention that language used in that book given that it is not part of the Septuagint.
You mean like the evidence of your C14 claim for Samuel?
And that means what? I use the New English Translation of the Septuagint, NETS, from Oxford Univ. Press, 2007. I do not find a Samuel in it.
Answered above mostly by repetition of previous posts as to dating the Septuagint.
I am not making an issue of Samuel being in it or not as the idea of canonical had not been invented at that time. The translators notes of the NETS are different for each book and all assume the Septuagint is a translation of older Hebrew even where the notes in fact describe a Judean who has mastered Greek and is enthralled by the classical Greek style in 3 Makkabees which he used to write the book. (There are four books of Maccabe in the Septuagint.) However in 1 Makkabees the translator see positive evidence of a translation of an original "hebrew" style. 2 Makkabees is seen as separate creation drawing upon but independent of judean source material. 4 Makkabees is viewed as an original creation in Greek by a native speaker of Greek.
I got this translation off the web but don't have the URL. Try googling it if interested.
Needless to say there are different translators for each book and they see different things in what one would reasonably expect to be a single set of narratives on the subject. You might take a look at it as it will largely reinforce your beliefs.
I forget the letters and names as it is late but for Genesis there are folks who see different traditions P for priestly tradition is one of them. I am sure you remember the rest. The built in bias is calling them traditions. Why assume they are more than just writers? Consider narratives of the founding of the US written by a straight historian, a Jeffersonian, a Libertarian and a born again neocon. Now mix them all together. One can find four different authors but not four different traditions. But call them traditions and it implies without evidence what is written is more than the view point of individuals of varying degrees of graspings of reality.
I have referred to that as a sloppy editting job but now I realize the job of editor had not been invented at that time and would not be invented until nearly two thousand years later. With reference to founding the US an editor would commission separate articles from each viewpoint and spell out that viewpoint in a preface.
You have never approached this subject without the assumption that there was a "hebrew" original so you have no idea how much that biases your conclusion. All you have are arguments to a conclusion without the least grey area in your mind. Yet simply reading the prefacetory remarks on the translations of each book of the Septuagint quickly dispells the idea that some person or group sat down and translated existing material.
That in itself is telling as I have a correspondent who claims to read Greek and to have read the Septuagint in Greek and he claimed it was uniform. He is at odds with the translators involved in this project. I do not assume uniformity is any kind of prover rather only note neither the Greek nor the Hebrew has uniformity.
Way back when I did assume the "hebrew" was the original. My problem was I could find no evidence of a culture which could have created and preserved it. The more I learned about bibleland civilizations the less possible it was. One would expect the opposite, the more one learns the more likely. Over the years one would expect wall inscriptions in stone in bibleland supporting this to be found over the years. Instead we find a region so impoverished that what little writing there was, was done on pieces of pottery dug out of the trash.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Where did you get that date? There are three separate clusters of dates when scrolls were stored in the region, early 1st c. BC, late 1st c. BC and mid-late 1st c. AD. I have never come across a date that old. The dates have a standard deviation of +/- 45 years when that old. Ignoring that finding a single scroll two centuries older than the next oldest is more than a bit remarkable. There is no known connection between the scrolls and the Essenes or Qumran nor between the Essenes and Qumran. Any imagined connection is the power of modern myth.
So I have to ask you for an actual report on the C14 dating of that particular scroll.
That aside the generic answer is the religion was created between the times of Alexander and Pompey. When is a good question although most see 3rd c. BC Greek in this collection. So there is still no problem with that date for one book against 40 books which does not contain Samuel. Canonical and apocryphal matters are a religious discussion.
WE have only what was originally claimed. We have nothing contradicting it being the original. We cannot date the creation of the Iliad. We only know when it is first mentioned in history. Anything dating it earlier than that, such as a poet sailing with Agamemnon, is nothing more than speculation. Admittedly there are people with an almost a religious fervor who find everything points to Homer having been with the siege and wrote of events as they occurred or shortly afterwards.
Excuse me but you only claimed a single book of Samuel which is not older and you failed to mention that language used in that book given that it is not part of the Septuagint.
You mean like the evidence of your C14 claim for Samuel?
And that means what? I use the New English Translation of the Septuagint, NETS, from Oxford Univ. Press, 2007. I do not find a Samuel in it.
Answered above mostly by repetition of previous posts as to dating the Septuagint.
I am not making an issue of Samuel being in it or not as the idea of canonical had not been invented at that time. The translators notes of the NETS are different for each book and all assume the Septuagint is a translation of older Hebrew even where the notes in fact describe a Judean who has mastered Greek and is enthralled by the classical Greek style in 3 Makkabees which he used to write the book. (There are four books of Maccabe in the Septuagint.) However in 1 Makkabees the translator see positive evidence of a translation of an original "hebrew" style. 2 Makkabees is seen as separate creation drawing upon but independent of judean source material. 4 Makkabees is viewed as an original creation in Greek by a native speaker of Greek.
I got this translation off the web but don't have the URL. Try googling it if interested.
Needless to say there are different translators for each book and they see different things in what one would reasonably expect to be a single set of narratives on the subject. You might take a look at it as it will largely reinforce your beliefs.
I forget the letters and names as it is late but for Genesis there are folks who see different traditions P for priestly tradition is one of them. I am sure you remember the rest. The built in bias is calling them traditions. Why assume they are more than just writers? Consider narratives of the founding of the US written by a straight historian, a Jeffersonian, a Libertarian and a born again neocon. Now mix them all together. One can find four different authors but not four different traditions. But call them traditions and it implies without evidence what is written is more than the view point of individuals of varying degrees of graspings of reality.
I have referred to that as a sloppy editting job but now I realize the job of editor had not been invented at that time and would not be invented until nearly two thousand years later. With reference to founding the US an editor would commission separate articles from each viewpoint and spell out that viewpoint in a preface.
You have never approached this subject without the assumption that there was a "hebrew" original so you have no idea how much that biases your conclusion. All you have are arguments to a conclusion without the least grey area in your mind. Yet simply reading the prefacetory remarks on the translations of each book of the Septuagint quickly dispells the idea that some person or group sat down and translated existing material.
That in itself is telling as I have a correspondent who claims to read Greek and to have read the Septuagint in Greek and he claimed it was uniform. He is at odds with the translators involved in this project. I do not assume uniformity is any kind of prover rather only note neither the Greek nor the Hebrew has uniformity.
Way back when I did assume the "hebrew" was the original. My problem was I could find no evidence of a culture which could have created and preserved it. The more I learned about bibleland civilizations the less possible it was. One would expect the opposite, the more one learns the more likely. Over the years one would expect wall inscriptions in stone in bibleland supporting this to be found over the years. Instead we find a region so impoverished that what little writing there was, was done on pieces of pottery dug out of the trash.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
First a correction: The oldest wasn't the Samuel text I referred to it was the Testament of Qahat dated 2sig 385-349BCE or 317-208BCE. It was one of the Zurich tested samples. See Radiocarbon 34 (1992) 843-849.
This doesn't help you. You have no Greek texts earlier. You do have a Hebrew text which is early. 1QIsa dates to 201-93 BCE and you've still got no Greek text earlier. 4QSamC dates to 197-105BCE. Tucson tested what was thought to be a Hebrew land deed 4Q345 from Qumran, but certainly not: it dates to 339-327 or 202-112BCE. Hebrew was being written early enough and there are biblical exemplars early enough. You'll probably want all the books C14 dated early before you get the idea that you've been talking rot.
So, no Greek text. Your conjecture is baseless.
Stop being ridiculous. I would have cited a text as LXX if it were. In fact there are a few tiny LXX torah fragments, all of with are 1st c. BCE.
Still no evidence from you.
Umm, there are two books of Samuel, ie 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. They come between Ruth and 1 Kings. However, In some editions, 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings together have been called 1, 2, 3 & 4 Kings.
Answered above mostly by repetition of previous posts as to dating the Septuagint.
Stop. You cannot respond because you don't know the fact that you have no LXX texts to back up your ludicrous claim.
3 & 4 Maccabees were written in Egypt so it's not strange that they were written in Greek. 2 Maccabees claims it was an epitome of a larger text written by one Jason of Cyrene. And 1 Maccabees was a propaganda work written at the end of the 2nd c. BCE.
So far there seems to be little more than meanderings in your net version of the LXX.
I started with the linguistics of the situation. Something you cannot do. I went on to show that representatives of the Hebrew text are older than any Greek versions. What more do you need? You simply have no evidence for your outlandish claim. Usually no evidence means that you are talking rot.
I've never made this last claim. Stop making things up. Josephus even claims that he translated Hebrew historical works into Greek for his Antiquities, ie he didn't have them available, though he possessed wonderful access to relevant texts.
!!! Sorry, but that's all too naive for words.
To get back to the topic:
1. The linguistic evidence points to a Hebrew original, rather than a Greek for the Hebrew bible.
2. The oldest copies of biblical works are in Hebrew.
These two points being the case and you have no evidence to change the situaiton, please desist with this continued rubbish about Greek first until you find some real evidence.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke