Steven Avery

Api, the 69 explanation was applied to the non-component-count Exodus reference. Not to Genesis, where you agree that the count is fine and exact, including Jacob, as you showed. Seventy equaling the component sub-units, given and implied.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus ...Here the author puts back the four exceptional cases: the sons of Joseph, Joseph himself, and Jacob, to once again get 70 and not 69 ... This is clearly inconsistent with Exod 1:5, And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls; and Joseph was in Egypt already. since Jacob did not come from his own loins. Incidentally, this is why the identification of Yocheved as the 70th descendant is clever, if completely unwarranted by the text. She is accounted as a descendant of Jacob (the daughter of Levi). And while I've no inclination to seriously defend this proposal, clearly praxeus' argument that she was born in Egypt (see Num 26:59) has no strength if Yocheved was in utero when the clan crossed into Egypt.

Which I also mentioned, Api. The other problem it has is then Jacob himself has to be excluded from the count of the House of Jacob. I will agree that it is an interesting discussion and do not reject it as an alternative understanding. More below.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus The author of Exod 1:5 ... failed to make the necessary exception for Jacob himself when he quoted the number 70. I suppose one could try to argue that 70 in Gen 46 is accurate (recall that Gen 46:8 explicitly includes Jacob in the group "which came to Egypt"), while 70 "having issued from Jacob's thigh" in Exod 1 is an approximation..

Finally you understand. Very good.

Now you should also see the additional difficulty in the Yocheved alternative. That it requires one to say that "all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten." does NOT include Jacob.

And the simple truth is that Moses in Exodus was under no requirement to reduce the 70 to 69 simply because Jacob was not from his own loins. He was still a part of the group being referred, the group as a whole was counted as 70, Jacob can be added as an inclusive element (let the Hebrew idiom experts mash that one out, as they could mash out whether "house of Jacob" can exclude Jacob - above). And all this is even easier when you realize that 70 can be the way to refer to 69 .. when you are not doing a specific count .. as in Exodus 1.

You finally understand.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Here are the idiom thoughts, in brief, sort of .

Let us say that the Alan goes to Great Adventure with the scouts, as scout-master. 35 people go, Alan and 7 children and grandchildren, and the rest unrelated people from the scouts. Now, if "out of the loins.." is an idiom for the family itself then it would be fine to say that 8 of the 35 were from the loins of Alan, meaning Alan and his family. If the idea of the phrase is to make a distinction with those unrelated. If the usage in Hebrew however is always literal, never allowed to include the person himself, then the phrase could only mean the seven. One way to determine - you would expect to see places with phrases like "out of the loins .. and also Alan ". And you might look for an alternate phrase that literally means physical descendants, plus the person, and no one else. (All this is one issue raised by JPH. I bypassed it above but really it deserves a proper explanation and consideration.)

What would the Hebrew experts say ?
I dunno and they may not have a definitive answer.
One good place to look for informed response sans agenda would
be the b-hebrew forum. If they found the question interesting .

A similar question in reverse comes up with the "House of Jacob".
Can it actually exclude Jacob himself ?

Now since I don't see any difficulty with Exodus 1:5 none of this
is the highest priority .. however for completeness these are the
idiom aspects of the question that have been left standing a bit
in the thread.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Just to rewrite this more fully.

Now you should also see the additional difficulty in the Yocheved alternative. That it requires one to say that -

"all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt,
were threescore and ten."

- does not include Jacob. This seems to simply exchange a language
question (either idiom or rounding) for another (different idiom) in a
way that essentially takes away the rounding issue, which is proper
and easy to see in Exodus. (We can add that Exodus would be building
on the existing understanding from Genesis to the previous points.)

Plus I do not see that the idiom question of trying to not include Jacob
in the House of Jacob as easier than the "out of the loins of.." discussed
above. In fact, au contraire, an inclusive usage seems easier.

Perhaps I am missing something, if so please share away. However
I see no advantage to the conjecture that Yocheved is in the
womb during the journey. And I see that it creates a significant
problem by creating an internal difficulty within the Genesis account.

And, as Api pointed out, there is no directly indication in the text
of the pregnancy being at that time.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Apikorus

Well, there you have it. Praxeus thinks 70 means 'exactly 70' in Genesis 46, but rather means 'about 70' in Exodus 1. This sort of analysis is, sadly, quite common with apologists. Similarities in language, etc. are not so important as is finding any excuse to rescue the text from minor (but very real) contradictions. This laughable hermeneutic makes as hash out of everything -- the only method behind it is to confirm the presumed inerrancy of the text. But of course one can do this with any text -- the Qur'an, the Homeric epics, etc. But then the bible is no longer special, since it is one of many divine and inerrant texts.

Praxeus you seem to be a bit disingenuous here. Most recently you say that the "rounding" solution (in which the Bible is only approximately correct) applies to the text in Exod 1, and not Gen 46 (where, as I showed, it seems clear in context that Jacob is among the 70): But your first mention of the rounding, invoking Rashi, was in the context of Gen 46:It seems to me you have switched texts in midstream.


At one point you thought that the answer might lie with Simeon:Do you still believe this, or were you convinced by my discussion of why this is highly unlikely? If you weren't convinced, can you explain why not?

The advantage is that one doesn't have to say the Bible is only 'approximately correct' in Exod 1:5, as you do. And certainly it creates no problems for Gen 46, since Yocheved might not have been born by the time of the events in Gen 46 but was born by the time of Exod 1:5. The rabbis were a lot smarter than you! (Of course, I don't find this solution acceptable from a modern lit-crit perspective.)

And will you address the "bonus contradiction" in the opening post?

Gamera

Given that they are different authors writing at different times to different audiences with different purposes, why do you find that so implausible. I would think that it is implausible to assume that the pastiche that are the Hebrew scriptures has one single purpose and hence is limited to particular idioms.

By the way, I don't agree with praxeus on this since I don't think it matters that there are contradictions between such diverse texts. I personally don't get if one author got the numbers "right" (whatever that means) while another got it 'wrong" (whatever that means), since the texts at issue are narratives that involve a meaning distinct from details like this.

But having said that, I don't find his argument any more implausible than yours.

Steven Avery

Hi Gamera,

And this point is covered a bit more indirectly in a rabbinical-oriented article from which I will post extracts and url later. The idea that Moshe in a talk sans numerical details should actually be expected to reduce the known and respected and special '70' to 69 (to exclude Jacob, who was in fact part of the group that came) - in a quest for a type of super-technical modernistic unrounded accuracy - is very difficult from a language, idiom, cultural and numerical perspective. It is a type of negative-apologetic super-stretch.

And it is hard to find this concern raised anywhere in the literature yet Api made it the lynchpin of his attempt to find error in the Hebrew Bible.

And note also that in fact the accusation against the Exodus verse was being made without any effort to support the implied super-literal straitjacket acceptable usage of the idiomatic phrase, which would be the sine qua non for any possible merit in the accusation attempt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera By the way, I don't agree with praxeus on this since I don't think it matters that there are contradictions between such diverse texts. I personally don't get if one author got the numbers "right" (whatever that means) while another got it 'wrong" (whatever that means), since the texts at issue are narratives that involve a meaning distinct from details like this.

One of my goals in a discussion like this is simply to show how facile are many of the attempts to find error in the Bible. And how fascinating it is to delve deeper. And how necessary it is to work with the Received Texts in both the Tanach and NT. Whether others move to a position of more tangible and higher inerrancy is their individual decision, however I am trying to make it a more informed choice .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera But having said that, I don't find his argument any more implausible than yours.

Which I appreciate. Api tried hard to keep the tone of 'error' going but after a while it became clear he was on very thin ice, interestingly both against the NT and against the Hebrew Bible. This has long been one of the major anti-mish attempts against the NT and has a lineage going back to at least the 15th century in the literature (Faith Strengthened - Chizzuk Emunah).

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

Hi Api,

Your first paragraph attempt to rehabilitate the accusation I will pass over. It has been dealt with in fullness and nothing new is added except the very awkward and clumsy desperation of "laughable hermeneutic" against a solid and fascinating discussion.

However the next point is worthwhile.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus Most recently you say that the "rounding" solution .. applies to the text in Exod 1, and not Gen 46 (where, as I showed, it seems clear in context that Jacob is among the 70): But your first mention of the rounding, invoking Rashi, was in the context of Gen 46:It seems to me you have switched texts in midstream.

Yes, I was wondering if you would notice.

Originally I was noting the idea -
"One simple possibility is Rashi's"
then on further examination I saw it applied to Exodus but would be a poor fit with Genesis (it would not be appropriate and there is no need). So I did switch applications to where it was appropriate.

I agree with the Rashi idea in principle (note that I gave an example where his limitation of 1 would not apply but perhaps Rashi was implied or defacto limiting his point to lower numbers, eg. below 100). This is just our common understanding of mathematical precision, in synch with the modern view.

Please note that the solution to your problem is not really limited to rounding. We have three overlapping and complimentary ideas.

1) A non-computational number could be rounded "69-->70"
2) The idiom itself may not ipso facto disallow usage of progenitor inclusion.
3) The seventy is the simple and clear and expected number in the context of the Moshe speech. Any idea that Moshe would be required to switch to 69 has multiple hurdles to overcome.

There is simply little sense in trying to attack Exodus 1:5 on the basis that Moses should have said 69 if that fits one super-literalistic understanding of the idiom. Such a usage by Moses would be awkward and clumsy and unexpected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus At one point you thought that the answer might lie with Simeon:.

This was mentioned on the b-hebrew forum.
You did a fine job of showing the difficulties so it lost relevance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus The advantage is that one doesn't have to say the Bible is only 'approximately correct' in Exod 1:5, as you do. And certainly it creates no problems for Gen 46, since Yocheved might not have been born by the time of the events in Gen 46 but was born by the time of Exod 1:5.

And then why is Jacob omitted from the group called the House of Jacob ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus The rabbis were a lot smarter than you!

Who am I to argue about the intelligence of the rabbinic sages ?
They were generally sharp cookies in terms of mental skills.

However note that Ibn Ezra tore into the Rashi idea pretty hard,
with Rashbam agreeing with Ibn Ezra.
So which rabbis were the smarter ones ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus And will you address the "bonus contradiction" in the opening post?

Time and energy and priorities permitting.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Gamera

Don't get me wrong, praxeus, I appreciate how you show the complexity of these matters and the glibness of some of the detractors.

Apikorus

Gamera, the apologist's hermeneutic imposes a severe constraint on the reader, namely the conviction that the biblical text is divine and perfect. Now in your postmodern "one reading is every bit as valid as another" world, perhaps this is all fine. One can read Moby Dick and insist it is really a divinely crafted allegory of modern Chinese finance. But when we have material evidence from Qumran of pre-Christian Hebrew biblical scrolls which agree with the LXX over the MT, in which the count of Jacob's clan is 75, and we have evidence from the NT that its authors knew and used (and sometimes adapted/copied) the Greek text of the HB, then the figure of 75 in Acts 7:14 can be understood in a more refined way. You and praxeus are welcome to insist that it is due to a different definition of "kin" and invent daughters-in-law to your hearts' content. And because Tacitus and Herodotus and Thucydides all had their own biases, there's no real difference between their works and the gospels anyway. It's all the same stuff -- the only relevant differences are those that the individual modern reader brings to the texts, and there is no preferred literary frame of reference.

Thank heavens we have postmodern scholars to rescue us from the irrelevancies of archaeology, palaeography, and historical and text criticism. I had even been foolish enough to think that we could somewhat distinguish an historical core to e.g. the Books of Kings -- Mesha stele, Rassam prism inscription, black obelisk of Shalmaneser, that sort of stuff -- from fables in the Elijah/Elisha cycles, Hezekiah's sundial, etc. My error was in thinking that a close reading of the text, familiarity with the archaeological and anthropological data, some knowledge of the transmission history and models of composition history of the Hebrew Bible, a wider background in ancient near eastern literature and its various forms, fluency in biblical Hebrew, plus some broad if shallow familiarity with the rabbinic literature might be of some use in this enterprise. Alas, I now appreciate that this education has merely instilled in me a set of biases.

Gamera

Tell us what postmodern research you have read on historiography and we'll talk about. I'm sorry to say that, based on your post, you don't appear to have read any and are attacking a paper dragon of your own creation. Ignorance of an area of study is never a virtue, but if you are ignorant of area (and we all are) it is a virtue to keep that to yourself.