Shalom George I just find it interesting that except for Nehemia, the only two places in the Tanach where the word "pardes" occurs, is in two poetic books ascribed to Solomon. Normally, the use of the same unusual words would at least be considered as evidence (not proof) for them having the same author.
> On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 12:26 PM, George Athas > <[email protected]>wrote: > > With פרדס, it's in all likelihood a word that entered the Hebrew vocabulary > in the Persian Era (or at a stretch just slightly earlier). It usually > appears in > poetic contexts. It's unlikely that a scribe would update a poetic text with > new vocabulary, since poetry generally uses fancy vocabulary anyway. It's more > likely that a scribe would update a narrative or legal text with a new word. While I agree with you that it is unlikely to be a late scribal addition to the text, I am not sure that there is any real evidence for it being a loan word from Persian rather than from Median. And the Medes were a power long before the Persian Empire. If Solomon had trading relations with Sheba (Southern Arabia?) and Ophir and his kingdom reached to the Euphrates in the North, while having trading relations with both Hittites, Egyptians and Aram, it is not so unlikely that he might have had contact with the Medes, if only indirectly. I think it is premature to conclude that Pardes came from Persian rather than Median and that it is the result of the influence of the old Persian empire rather than reaching Israel via normal trade relations (possibly via a third language like Akkadian or Aramaic). If it was found in more of the post-exilic books, I would feel more comfortable with such a conclusion. Regards Chavoux Luyt _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
