the J author (was: Babel)

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:25 PM -0500 11/7/02, Herbert Stahlke wrote:
>I wonder how Bloom would respond to the work of Richard Davies (In Search of
>Ancient Israel) and others of what has come to be called the Minimalist
>School.  This group holds that there is no evidence, archeological or
>documentary, outside the Hebrew Bible for a Davidic kingdom or for most of
>the historical claims of the HB. Rather than a documentary hypothesis going
>back perhaps 8 to 10 centuries before the Hasmonean Dynasty.  The
>Minimalists claim that in the post-Babylonian period schools of Judaism
>produced the HB.  Different schools may have sharee some of the ideologies
>of the authors assumed under the documentary hypothesis, but the schools
>don't line up closely with JEDP.  The Minimalists claim that the HB was
>written between about 400 and 100 and did not report but rather created a
>history out of which a nation could form.  It's pretty obvious what some of
>the controversy over the Minimalist Hypothesis is about.  It's safe to say
>that the field of biblical scholarship is deeply divided over Minimalist
>claims.  However, the Minimalists pretty much moot the question of J's
>gender since there would likely have been no J.
>
>Herb Stahlke
>
I'm just guessing here, but I think some of that history might be
what Bloom and others would attribute to P (for 'priest').  As for
the rest, yes, there's a lot of resistance to Bloom (and
translator/co-author David Rosenberg)'s claim about the J writer.
But it's quite fascinating stuff, whether or not you get convinced.

L