tomasz

Does anyone have an link to an apologetic explanation of the apparent plagiarism between these two? Thanks.

spin

Why on earth plagiarism? This is a modern semi-legal term regarding single authorship and the violation of that author's claim on the material.

We know little about the writing of either Kings or Isaiah, forms of them may even have been written by the same establishment and they were at least maintained by the same people. Material didn't have the single authorship notion behind it in those days. It would seem that there was more one of community ownership. There are psalms and pieces of psalms repeated elsewhere in the collection and in numerous other places passages are found either the same, or based on the same material. Material gets reworked or amplified. This is all par for the course with the literature.

This is not a matter of apologetics, but of inappropriately retrojecting modern ideas onto the past.


spin

tomasz

OK, I guess plagiarism could be a bit harsh, but since the term was first used in the form plagiarius (plagiarist) in the first century, I wouldn't consider it exactly "modern". But given the culture maybe it wasn't considered a big deal.

So, you'd just chalk it up to carelessness?

spin

Oh, but look what the ancient word actually meant. See for example the Vulgate, 1 Tim 1:10.

I don't know what you mean here. Why carelessness? How about utility? Those who compiled these works found it useful to use the pasage where they did.


spin

DrJim

It was not an uncommon practice to produce new works by selectivly quoting or rewriting or otherwise appropriating earlier written texts. Notice how much of Sam-Kings reappears in Chronicles, for example. Either the Chronicler quoted Sam-Kings, or employed at least a very early version of Sam-Kings, or a third, common source is behind both versions of Judah's monarchic history. What is most interesting is the way the Chronicler would quote his source and then somehow end up with a very different conclusion to some episodes than Kings has. For example, Kings has Manasseh as the arch villain, and includes a long diatribe against him. Chronicles also has an almost verbatim character assasination of him, but it is not as long as that in Kings. It then goes off to explain how God punished him by having the Assyrians haul him off to prison where he repented, was sent home, and clean up Jerusalem of its heterodox ways. There is shared text but a lot of unique features in both Kings and Chronicles.

A number of Psalms repeat passages from each other too. Such examples can be multiplied.
It is not "plagiarism" it was an accepted way of producing books in that culture. To appropriate another modern phrase, it seems as if everything was in the "public domain". Perhaps some people got mad about it, but hey, maybe the scrolls then were what the internet is today: a battle ground for property rights vs. open access and appropriation.


Jim

gregor2

And yet, ultra-conservatives will assert Jeremiah or Isaiah wrote the books without acknowledging the direct borrowing.

spin

Butchoo gotta take that up widda ultra-cons. You can't blame the writers of Jeremiah or Isaiah.


spin