Defending the Rabbinic Tradition

Some mention the compression of the Persian period in the Rabbinic chronology as an argument for rejecting what it has to say about other periods. That was in the back of my mind when I wrote my message. I have a hypothesis on the reason for this. It draws on some findings of mine that are backed up by solid argument in refereed periodicals. The hypothesis still needs separate rigorous treatment. It could not be called a theory yet. Some of what follows will sound like mere assertion because this is not the place to go into detail. The references and the argument are mainly in my article The Transmission of the Samaritan Joshua-Judges, DS-NELL [Leiden], vol. VI no. 1, pp. 1-30.

I give the proposed solution first. There was a belief that a certain number of years had passed from the crossing of the Jordan to the inauguration of the first Temple, its destruction, the building of the second, and then the destruction of the second. The last date would probably have had eschatological significance. Adding up the figures given by the MT of the historical books gives too many centuries to be squeezed in. The figures in the canonical books would have seemed unassailable. The Persian indications of chronology for the Persian period in Ezra-Nehemiah are vague compared to the other historical books. This was where some centuries could be dropped.

The barest possible statement of some of the evidence. If you look at I Kings VI:1, you will see that not enough years are given for the period from the Exodus to the first Temple with all its events. (Deduct 40 for the years from the Exodus to the crossing of the Jordan). The figure of 480 years in the MT of this verse, which is too short anyway, is not the original. The original figure was 440 years. The greatest difficulty is the total time span of the book of Judges. As the book stands, you have to add up (a) total lengths of rule for each Judges; (b) periods in between when all was tranquil and there was no need for one; (c) periods of difficulty before the next Judge appeared; an undefined but fairly long period of anarchy after the death of Samson, the last Judge. Old Testament scholars are unanimous (in essence though not in detail) in believing that this text of Judges is secondary, and that the periods between Judges are an invention for tendentious purposes. The term “pseudo-Deuteronomistic theology” is often used. If you look at the Samaritan text of Judges, you see the structure posited theoretically long ago by OT scholars: one Judge after another in unbroken succession from Joshua onwards. In addition, the length of time needed for everything mentioned in the Samaritan equivalent of the book of Joshua is only one year. If you look at Josephus’s equivalent passages to the book of Joshua, you will find that less time would be needed than for the account in the MT.

Josephus had a text of Judges different to some extent in arrangement and implicit chronology to the MT. If you compare the three, you can argue for successive elaboration, with the Hebrew text used by Josephus part-way between the Samaritan and the MT. Some brief fragments from Qumran can be fitted into this line of development. (When I say MT, I mean MT and the Greek. The two are not identical, but two subdivisions of one recension, though the Greek shows slight traces of a structure earlier than MT).

My article has convinced not only Samaritan scholars but also the OT specialists that have seen it.

Now to answer an obvious objection. Where is the Samaritan Joshua-Judges to be found? Well, it is not the Hebrew book commonly referred to. This was written in 1891 and revised in 1907 by a well-known scholar by the name of Murjân [Arabic] or Ab-Sikkuwwa [Samaritan Aramaic]. The version of 1891 is a condensed translation of part of a well-known history in Arabic by the Priest Finaas ben Yeṣaaq [Hebrew, in the Samaritan form, not the Masoretic] or Khaḍir bin Isḥâq [Arabic], completed in 1875. The 1907 version is a full translation of the Arabic with great slabs of simplified quotation in the words of the Masoretic Text. Insertion from the MT was easy because the corresponding bits in the book by Khaḍir were Arabic translations of the MT! Thus the book alternates between normal mediaeval Samaritan Hebrew and Masoretic Hebrew, with radical differences of grammar between the two. The similarity to the MT in content and language has been spruiked as proof of antiquity. The facts have been known since the time of composition and have been in print since 1908. This has not deterred some scholars from making a name for themselves by ignoring the published arguments on the origin of the book. The technique is (a) to list relevant early publications in the bibliography while not quoting from them or deliberately misquoting; (b) simply ignoring some of the published material; and (c) ignoring the Arabic book of 1875. Actually, I know that those that have directly promoted the antiquity of the 1907 book and used it extensively don’t know of the existence of the Arabic book of 1875. The Arabic book has never been published, but manuscripts are everywhere. It is basic reading for the modern Samaritans and well-known to anyone familiar with Samaritan literature.

This is the academic equivalent of oil pollution in the ocean.

The Samaritan Joshua and Judges were obviously never canonical, but they were important. What survives is what was needed. They survive in two Arabic translations. The first is from the 11th c. in what is called the Arabic Book of Joshua, but prefaced and followed by later material. A superior text is quoted by the historian Abu ’l-Fatḥ bin Abi ’l-Ḥasan Dinfi of Damascus, writing in 1355. This author explicitly warns the reader against corrupt readings in some places. We have the preface of the translator into Arabic, in which he says he translated from an Aramaic version of a Hebrew original. The Joshua section is an epitome, with short liturgical additions at the end of each short chapter. What survives of Judges is a short introduction, a list of the Judges with a few notes on their deeds, and then the conclusion, which is specifically Samaritan, though with numerous echoes in early Rabbinic texts. The list of the Judges is corrupt in the extant Arabic Book of Joshua and must have been so at an early period, since AF warns against inferior texts and takes care to quote in full, against his usual practice. The conclusion has been theologically of great importance from antiquity to the present day. The issues are explicitly documented from the 3rd c, but the oldest allusion is Josephus’s account of the massacre of Samaritans by Pilate.

This is a lot of work still to be done.