Raphael, The Prophet Isaiah, 1511-12 Fresco, Sant'Agostino, Rome
Dan Rabinowitz published in interesting post on the Seforim blog. He brings down a passage by Don Yitzhak Abravanel and writes:
“Don Yitzhak Abravanel goes so far as to argue that even a great prophet can have a poor grasp of grammar and literary style. He unfavorably contrasts Yirmiyahu with Yeshayahu and other prophets, arguing that the clear poetic and literary superiority of the latter is due to Yeshayahu’s aristocratic education and the other prophets’ greater age and experience of society prior to the onset of their prophetic careers, whereas Yirmihahu was merely a priest, and but a youth at the onset.”
Abravanel says that Isaiah was brought up in a royal court while Jeremiah was a mere Cohen and basically didn’t know how to spell properly. This statement naturally not only rubs the wrong way the divine authorship of the books but takes for granted the authorship or at the very least the transcription. Don Abravanel was subsequently taken to task but the succession of grammarians including Ya’akov Ben Haim Ibn Adoniyahu, Rav Zalman Hanau, Malbim. See the actual quotes in the post.
In the second part of the post there is a discussion about likely apostasies of the famous Jewish grammarians. Note that these grammarians lived long before they invented Java or C++. So grammatical manipulation and comparative linguistics was the only geekery available at the time. Naturally there would be high percentage of these brainiacs who would find the stifling confines of the dogmatic morons back home unbearable. The mentioned grammarians who possibly or certainly converted to Christianity are Ya’akov Ben Haim Ibn Adoniyahu, Eliyahu Levita AKA Bahur, Christian David Ginsburg. Interestingly Ibn Adoniyahu worked for Daniel Bomberg and assisted him in the original iconic printing of Bible and Talmud. This caused a protestation by the Jews that an apostate was employed for this sacred task.
To conclude, a leaning towards Christianity by the grammarians would only increase their adoration of the prophets in general and especially Isaiah and Jeremiah. I am not sure about the grammarians in the various stages of shmad but I am certain that the geeks and the Minister Abravanel had no any idea about how Isaiah or Jeremiah were actually recorded.
Further Reading:
The Isaiah Berlin Lecture by Adin Steinsaltz
The Difference between a Jester and a Prophet
The Case for the Negative Freedom in Isaiah Berlin v. the Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
To say that Abravanel compares Yermiyahu to Yeshayahu unfavorably is a simplification, to put it mildly. He extols Yermiyahu as a prophet and places him above all other prophets and close to Moishe Rabeinu. It is only his narrative and style of delivery that is inferior to other prophets. I understood his explanation of youth as to be a formative experience. Because of a very early onset of prophesy Yermiyahu had retained this childish way of expressing himself including this almost willful disregard to orthography and grammar.
as to the authorship of books, how this view of Yermiyahu's delivery fits with pedantically written Eicha, an author of which was allegedly Yermiyahu?
Shouldn't this nuanced explanation be evident for the succession of protesters published there? They should have known?
PS I Don't believe any authorship attributions including Eicha.
believe or not, there should be some logic (or necessity) to attributing authorship. and it is really sticking out when such irreconcilably different styles are attributed to the same author.
btw, speaking of necessity to attribute. could there be a more potent way to preserve the controversial Kohelet, which was under enormous attack and the rabbis were pressured to exclude form the canon, other than attribute it to Shlomo?
I have to give Dan a credit, he blogs under his name and provides interesting clippings. But he and Mississippi Fred are archivist, they specialize in footnotes that verify there is not one original thought in the post all safely said by someone else. The dreaded quotation machines, in other words. Conversely there is job to be done for the comparative linguistic analysis of this books, the multiple authorship even inside a single sefer will come out rather quickly.
Another question is that a verbal delivery and writing are two very different skills. So who were the prophets did they go downtown and just let it rip or did they sit in a small room writing? We think of these prophets as speakers who would go in a trans and trans is not a good state for writing things down or being careful with the grammar. So the grammar might have nothing to do with the upbringing but has lots to do with the transcribers. It is possible that Eicha was written by Jeremiah but not his book or visa versa. It is also possible that Jeremiah never written a single sentence.
very true. but this is not just about grammar and careful righting (QRI writing) style. the comparison with Isaiah cannot be just to contrast the proper use of plural form by Isaiah with the incorrect one by Jeremiah. it is as much about very sophisticated poetry and simple and unburdened style of Jeremiah.