How Old Is the Hebrew Bible: A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study by Ronald Hendel

Author:Ronald Hendel [Hendel, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300234886
Amazon: 0300234880
Barnesnoble: 0300234880
Goodreads: 39644430
Published: 2019-01-18T22:37:41+00:00

Consilience and Cultural History 113

These examples of traces of Neo-Assyrian cultural history in J and D

also corroborate the general views of Julius Wellhausen regarding these two Pentateuchal sources. In the introduction to his Prolegomena, he presents his position on the ages of these sources: “The assumptions I make will find an ever-recurring justification in the course of the investigation; the two principal are, that the work of the Jehovist, so far as the nucleus of it is concerned, belongs to the course of the Assyrian period, and that of Deuteronomy belongs to its close. ”79 It is currently not fashionable to agree with Wellhausen, but the consilience between different domains of inference and evidence—some unknown in his time—here support his position.80

The consilience of linguistic and historical evidence shows that writers were producing biblical literature in CBH during the Neo-Assyrian period.

As we have shown in chapter 5, the inscriptional evidence provides another layer of consilience. The greatest density of ancient Hebrew inscriptions is in the eighth to seventh centuries BCE, including monumental inscriptions from Jerusalem and Samaria.81 A relatively high degree of literacy was arguably the norm among educated Israelites and Judeans.82 These and other historical traces confirm that the Neo-Assyrian period (ca. 880 to 612 BCE) was the golden age of CBH.

Babylonians in Jerusalem and Ezekiel in Tel Aviv

The Neo-Babylonian and early Persian period (late seventh to early fifth centuries BCE) is the historical context of TBH. As the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel are touchstones for TBH, we consider representative cases where details of Neo-Babylonian culture are present in the texts.

These include the names of Neo-Babylonian officials in Jer 39, and the traces of Neo-Babylonian science and scholarship in Ezek 1.

In 586 BCE the Babylonian army of Nebuchadnezzar II conquered Jerusalem. According to Jer 39:3, after breaching the city walls, the Babylonian high command set up headquarters at one of the gates of Jerusalem.

According to the reading tradition of MT, these Babylonian officials were

־לָכְו גָמ־ב ַר רֶצֶא־רַשׂ לַג ְרֵנ סי ִרָס־ב ַר םיִכְס־רַשׂ וּבְנ־רַגְּמַס רֶצֶא־רַשׂ לַג ְרֵנ

לֶבָבּ ךְֶלֶמ י ֵרָשׂ תי ִרֵאְשׁ

Nergal-sar-e á¹£ er, Samgar-nebo, Sar-sechim, the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer, the Rab-mag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.

S

(Jer 39:3)

NL113

114 Consilience and Cultural History Four officials are named here, two with official titles. We now know that the list is garbled, because the Hebrew reading tradition lost the correct division of the names and titles. As we have already seen, the terms רַגְּמַס, סי ִרָס־ב ַר, and גָמ־ב ַר are loanwords for titles of Neo-Babylonian officials.83 The reading tradition linked רַגְּמַס with the beginning of the following name and created a new (imaginary) name. The publication of two Neo- Babylonian texts allows us to correct the MT and to identify two of the officials.84 By

correcting the division of names and titles, we recover three (not four) Babylonian officials, each with a title:

גָמ־ב ַר רֶצֶא־רַשׂ לַג ְרֵנ סי ִרָס־ב ַר םיִכְס־רַשׂ וּבְנ רַגְּמַס רֶצֶא־רַשׂ לַג ְרֵנ

Nergal-sar-ezer, the Samgar, Nebo-sar-sechim, the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer, the Rab-mag

The first of

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