Gawen

Deutero-Isaiah was the first one to have a statement on the universal one God. Here the concept of the false Gods is introduced for the first time. Declaring all the other Gods as 'false' is fundamental for monotheism. Hebrews were polytheists, Israel were polytheists. They had their own local Gods, and the implant of monotheism has resulted in a contradiction between these local Gods of a chosen people and their omnipotent God excluding all the other Gods. The pre-exilic God was a bloodthirsty, vengeful, jealous, anthropomorphic tribal God, mostly spreading fear. Post-exilic God is completely different. This God is so far away, so high up, so removed from this world that he needs go-betweens or messengers to communicate. This is not the tribal God YHWH anymore. He is the perfect universal supreme creator.

Does that sound about right?

spin

Dating of documents is always a problem in the Hebrew tradition. The only one I can securely date is Daniel because of the indications which point to specific events during the early second century BCE.

When was that which you call Deutero-Isaiah written? Hell, that's a difficult one.

We know that the Hebrew religion was henotheistic for a long time: there were many gods but only one was acceptible. "You shall have no other god than the Lord your God." When did the change to no other gods existing take place. I think it was rather late. Remember that in the eighth centry BCE there were inscriptions talking of blessing by yhwh and his asherah. These are datable archaeologically. Texts are very difficult to date, so can one say when a universal god emerged in the Hebrew tradition. Many say that it was not until contact with the Persians and Ahura Mazda that the process commenced in Jewish thought.


spin

Apikorus

Hey spin, have you ever read Klaus Baltzer on Isa 40-55? He thinks it was a liturgical drama - something performed on a stage - and dates it to ca. 400 BCE.

I think the traditional veneration of the divine name greatly alters the meaning of many passages from the Hebrew Bible. If one were to associate any creedal statement with Judaism, surely it would be the Shema from Deut 6:4. As it is typically recited, both in English and in Hebrew, "the LORD" or "adonai" is substituted for the divine name Yahweh. The result is often interpreted as the quintessential credo of monotheism:

Hear, O Israel, the LORD thy God, the LORD is one.

(The antique "thy" is also a nice touch.) Frank Moore Cross translates it as follows:

Hear O Israel, Yahweh is our god, Yahweh alone.

Big difference. This is more a statement of monolatry, telling the Israelites that their god is Yahweh, and not Kemosh (Moabite), Milcom (Ammonite), Dagon (Philistine), Melqart (Tyrian), etc.

That the reverence for the divine name was an early development is clear e.g. from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Several scrolls in the usual square Hebrew script render the divine name in the ancestral palaeo-Hebrew. It was also the case with many Greek scrolls that the divine name was rendered in Hebrew. (Which leads to a funny story about how some thought the divine name was PIPI. Reading the Hebrew yod-heh-waw-heh from left to right as if it were Greek, the closest approximation is pi-iota-pi-iota.)

spin

I'm afraid that, although I've heard the liturgy angle, I don't know Baltzer at all. As I live far from any library of worth at the moment and far from my books, what is his logic for the date of ca. 400 BCE?

I like the use of "thy" because it is a more accurate representation of the text.

As to the substitution of adonai for yhwh, most of the passages I could check in Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew bible where Masoretic text has adonai still have yhwh! (I don;t have the Hebrew for the biblical texts; I was using the "Dead Sea Scrolls Bible" footnotes, but I would guarantee that they were accurate.)

I really don't know about how one can judge the earliness of the usage though. There are a few scrolls in palaeo-Hebrew script. But no doubt earlier than the scrolls, and some texts already use dots for the divine name.

Yes, but again, dating is excruciatingly difficult with the Greek (presumably LXX) texts.

This is one of the crunch issues when dealing with biblical texts in a historical context: they are just so hard to date. Well, part of the reason for this is that they layering effect of the various redactions tends to disguise, or even disfigure, a lot of the evidence.

So, I will be interested in how one can date Deutero-Isaiah (off the top of your head).

I come down extremely late for some texts. Even parts of Isaiah I would date in the Greek era. (And the parts of the book located before Deutero-Isaiah, are rather complex.) Daniel is nice and easy. When were the pro-"Levite" and indifferent to priest book of Chronicles get written? How about when the priests were no longer of any direct significance?


spin

Apikorus

DSS of course maintain YHWH for the divine name. It is the orthography which is interesting, since it sometimes appears in palaeo-Hebrew script in an otherwise square "Jewish" script text. MT also retains YHWH as well in the kethib while the qere is adonai.

You like 2nd person singular possessive "thy" for eloheinu??

Baltzer dates deutero-Isaiah to between 450 BCE and 400 BCE. Indications: no messianic expectations of kind expressed during exile as reflected in Ezekiel, Haggai, proto-Zechariah. No interest in rebuilding of Temple, aside from reporting the event itself (44:28). All this, he says, suggests a later date than what is typically assumed (ca. 535 BCE). Furthermore, Baltzer sees parallels between DtIsa and Nehemiah: building of walls, association of other Judahite cities with Jerusalem, liberation of debtors, and link among all exiles. There's also more, concerning the status of Egypt.

I agree that Isa 1-39 is a mishmash of accreted stuff. Blenkinsopp and also Sweeney the best I've read on that.

Haran

I'd have to go with Apikorus on this.

Why do you feel that "thy" is a "more accurate representation of the text" of Deut. 6:4? Even the LXX renders it correctly as "our".

spin

I don't know if I was communicating clearly, but I was saying that where you find in the masoretic text adonai in a number of cases, it is yhwh in the scrolls. I remember somewhere in the haze that rabbinical sources say that yhwh was changed into adonai in a number of cases and the scrolls show this.

Sorry, I wasn't taking notice of the verse. It is just the tendency not to translate 2nd person singular as 2nd person singular that gets at me.

Hmmm. I have said that dating texts is a big problem. I have notes somewhere on why I date Ezekiel to not long before the scrolls era, and I'll have to find them. Nehemiah, I can remember. Josephuhs, the fellow with wonderful access to a wide variety of ancient documents only knew of a form of the Nehemiah memorandum. Comparing the two, the first chapters of Nehemiah and Josephus, very little of the latter reflects the former, as though one of them has had a rewrite. Now Josephus tends to use his sources relatively accurately, as can be seen with his full use of 1 Maccabees (this is why there is no sense in quoting him as a source for the Hasmonean period). Also Nehemiah contains two chapters about Ezra which are appended to the Greek 1 Esdras (though most of one chapter is lost off the end of the latter) and Josephus records it in situ at the end of his Ezra material, as well as containing a large fragment also found in 1 Chr. 1 Esdras I would say preserves earlier Hebrew tradition (despite translation) than Ezra. Josephus is clearly a composite work and I think because of Josephus that that composition wasn't done until after Josephus.

When was the Nehemiah Memorandum written? I think there may be a clue in Ben Sira 50:2 in which Simon son of Onias built the double walls of the temple to fortify it. This would be a reinvocation of the efforts of Nehemiah as inspiration for the building under Simon. If this is correct, then the Memorandum was written not long before 200 BCE. I may be wrong, but then again it may be correct. I think the rest of the Nehemiah material is solidly very late. In fact at the time when the Ezra and Nehemiah materials were worked together post-Josephus.

Dating texts by assumptions about dates of other texts is a very dicy deal.

If Baltzer's evidence is correct, it may date DtIsa even later.


spin

Apikorus

spin, sorry - I had been meaning to post anew asking for clarification on the yhwh/adonai thang. I had reread your statement and realized that I misinterpreted you. Very interesting, the conversion of yhwh to adonai. Why in some places and not in others, I wonder?

I recall reading Garbini on Ezra and Grabbe on Ezra-Nehemiah. Garbini is extremely skeptical on the historicity of Ezra. Grabbe points out numerous problems with Ezra but seems to accept Nehemiah memorial at close to face value.

I also agree that the antique pronouns which distinguish between 2nd person plural and singular are much preferred in translating the Hebrew text.

Have you given up on CJD and the eid business?