<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 2:10 PM, Michael Makovi <<a href="mailto:mikewinddale@gmail.com">mikewinddale@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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Maybe we don't all need to study it in-depth, but certainly it seems<br>
we should have a basic knowledge of more or less what was going on<br>
then. We don't all need a crystal-clear picture, but certainly the<br>
kind of knowledge one can get from a Hertz chumash plus visits to the<br>
history museum, along with a first-edition (not second-edition)<br>
Soncino Tanach or a Daat Mikra, couldn't hurt. And maybe a few of us<br>
*should* study it in-depth...because Rav Hertz and the Daat Mikra-ists<br>
did do so, I can rely on their digests.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br>
Mikha'el Makovi<br>
_______________________________________________<br></div></div></blockquote></div><br>Tangentailly I learn very little Nach for the same reason. W/O a context of what was being talked about and w/o understanding contemporary idioms [bittuyim] the meforshim imho are sometimes making the difficult to comprehend impossible to comprehend.<br>
<br>If we could really understand the Nevi'im in the same way their contemporaries could it would be quite different. And if I could really understand the imagery in Koheles it would make a lot more sense.<br><br>Humash - although older - is much more alive because it has been kept in the foreground for much longer. there are still issues that are tough to understand. But When my daughter mentioned that s'or and dvash were considered Egyptian Delicacies, that which stumped the Sefer Hachinuch came alive for me. Espeically in light of the Rambam on Bassar beChalav. <br>
<br>Even the chronologies in Shof'tim are subject to re-interpretation. For example, we all know that Huldah and Yirmeyahu were contemporaries; but there is a PRESUMPTION that Shof'tim never over-lapped on the time line. But who can say for sure that the last few years of Shofeit X were not the first few year of Shofeit Y? Just because the SIMPLE read is that they were linear does not necessarily mean there was ZERO overlap. IOW, we are projecting how the chronology WAS based upon the way WE would write it. But in Nach, maybe overlaps were not accounted for stylistically.<br>
<br>Remember the numerous Persian Kings squeezed in by Hazal to fit a span of 52 years? That could be a prime example not of SHORTLIVED rules but OVERLAPPING rulers. Remember Midian had 5 kings at one time in P. Pinchas and several kings at the same time in Shof'tim. <br>
<br>-- <br>Kol Tuv / Best Regards,<br>RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com<br>see: <a href="http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/">http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/</a>