Okay I want to get to my bigger point about how I think Greek stuff is good, and how they developed very good stuff in line with Mormonism. But first I want to do a few more posts on OT historicity because I think it’s interesting.
One of the biggest issues related when the Pentateuch was written (there are other issues too that I’ll discuss in later posts) is the large trove of papyri found at the Egyptian isle of Elephantine in the Nile. A group of “Judeans” (what they called themselves, Adler, 202) had settled there in some time c. 600 BC and left a huge trove of correspondence dating from the years 495-399 BC. Much of the correspondence is back to family and leaders in Judea for news and for advice on how to properly practice their religion. Lots of the letters are dated adding to the value of the find.
As we know, the dryness of Egypt preserved documents like nowhere else, so we have so much more papyri there than anywhere else. The mass papyri find at Elephantine is like no other in Judean history of this era.
We know they were Judeans and had correspondence with Judean leaders including the high priest. And yet, their religion is VERY different than the Pentateuch. So much so that scholars dubbed them some kind of aberration from true Jewish practice: Wikipedia calls them “a polytheistic sect of Jews.” But as Wright points out, Judean “authorities surprisingly never condemned the community’s worship of Anat-Yahu or their labors on the Sabbath. This is therefore not a case of diasporic community backsliding from ‘orthodoxy’ and embracing a syncretistic form of ‘paganism,’ as some scholars claim” (211). Furthermore, as the Wikipedia page says, “The Elephantine papyri pre-date all extant manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible.”
The following are quotes from Wright and Adler on the significance of the Elephantine papyri.
Wright: “Habits, laws, and religious behaviors of the Elephantine community differ starkly from biblical teachings … they work on the Sabbath; the priests are engaged in intermarriage with outsiders; there is a temple to Yhwh (or “Yahu’); the community makes regular contributions to this deity in addition to a number of other deities (Anat-Bethel and Ashim-Bethel); and Yhwh/Yahu appears to have a wife (her names is Anat-Yahu.).”
“The biblical writings were not available on this island in the Nile. In fact, no one there seems even to know of their existence, nor do the leaders in Jerusalem ever refer to them!”
Those at Elephantine “clearly ascribed much honor to Jerusalem and Samaria, and they viewed the population of their homeland as ‘brothers/kin.’” (210).
They “never appealed to the Torah’s authority” (212).
“They were not cognizant of a body of authoritative ‘scripture’” (213).
Adler: “In summary, the Torah seems to have been unknown to the Judeans of Elephantine. The well-documented ritual and cultic practices of the Judeans at Elephantine appear to have been quite different from what the Pentateuch would have allowed, apologetic attempts to interpret this data in line with Pentateuchal norms notwithstanding. Importantly, there is little reason to think that the ritual and cultic practices followed by the Judeans at Elephantine differed in any substantial way from those followed by the average Judeans one would have encountered elsewhere within the Persian realm” (205).
Adler goes more in depth about the general lack of knowledge of the Torah all the way until c. 140 BC, and I’ll cover that in my next post. But Elephantine struck me as particularly significant.
Two papyri mention “Passover” and another seems to refer to a ritual that seems Passover related. That documents is kind of interesting and discussed by both Adler and Wright, and I can discuss that in a future post if people are interested. Otherwise, I’ll move onto Adler’s main thesis.
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