[net.religion] Exact date for no more stoning

dyl (03/26/83)

The time for Jewish Sanhedrin to loose their authority to execute the death
penalty is fortold in Genesis and fulfilled.

	Genesis 49:10
		The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's
		staff from between his feet, until Shiloh* comes.

This happened in 11 A.D. when Jewish sovereignty is subdued by the Roman
Empire.  To cope with the situation, the Jews made efforts to eliminate
the death penalty.

* Shiloh is a name of the Messiah

smb (03/26/83)

	From: dyl@floyd.UUCP
	Newsgroups: net.religion
	Subject: Exact date for no more stoning
	Message-ID: <1353@floyd.UUCP>
	Date: Sat, 26-Mar-83 10:24:34 EST

	The time for Jewish Sanhedrin to loose their authority to execute
	the death penalty is fortold in Genesis and fulfilled.

		Genesis 49:10
			The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's
			staff from between his feet, until Shiloh* comes.

	This happened in 11 A.D. when Jewish sovereignty is subdued by the Roman
	Empire.  To cope with the situation, the Jews made efforts to eliminate
	the death penalty.

	* Shiloh is a name of the Messiah


This interpretation intrigued me enough that I went and looked up some
other translations of this verse.  What I found is an interesting lesson
on the difficulties of translation, and how one's viewpoint influences one's
rendering of this verse.

I started with the new Jewish Publication Society translation, Second
Edition, from 1967.  They give the last clause as "so that tribute shall
come to him", with the following footnote:

	'Shiloh', understood as 'shai loh', 'tribute to him', following
	Midrash [a rabbinic commentary]; cf. Isiah 18.7.  Hebrew obscure;
	literally 'until he comes to Shiloh'.

That is, they claim that at some point, there was a transcription
problem, and two words were merged into one.  The reference to Isiah is
to a parallel phrase, "tribute shall be brought to the Lord of Hosts"; I
don't have a Hebrew version handy.

The earlier Jewish Publication Society translation (1917) renders the
verse as "as long as men come to Shiloh".  In the Soncino publication,
Hertz (an Orthodox Jewish commentator) gives a lengthy commentary on the
verse.  I quote:

	Lit. 'until Shiloh come'; or 'until that which is his shall
	come'; i.e., Juday's rule shall continue till he comes to his
	own, and the obedience of all the tribes is his.  This
	translation may also mean that when the tribe of Judah has comie
	into its own, the sceptre shall be taken out of its hands.

	The explanation of this verse... is very difficult.  Some Jewish
	commentators have given it a Messianic meaning.

[Here I have to transliterate some Hebrew letters; I'll do it character
by character.  Note that in Hebrew, most vowels are represented as extra
markings on the consonants, not as separate letters, and these markings
are often left off -- thereby adding to the difficulty of translation.]

	I. It is a strange circumstance that the older Jewish Versions and
	commentators (Septuagint, Targums, Saadyah, and Rashi) read this
	word [sh-y-l-h] without a 'yod', as if written 'sh-l-h', the
	archaic form for 'his'; or as if it were a poetic form for
	'peace' [sh-l-o-m].

	(a) The translation 'until that which is his shall com' is
	derived from the Septuagint.  Its meaning is, The sceptre shall
	not depart from Judah till all that is reserved for him shall
	have been fulfilled.

	(b) 'Till he come whose it (the kingdom) is' (Onkelos and
	Jerusalem Targum, Saadyah, Rashi, and other Jewish commentators).

	(c) 'Till peace cometh' (M. Firedlander).

	II. Most commentators, however, take the word 'sh-y-l-h' as the
	name of a place or person.

	(a) 'As long as men come to Shiloh' (to worship).  Shiloh was
	the location of the sanctuary in the days of the Prophet Samuel,
	before Jerusalem became the centre of Jewish worship.  As the
	outstanding superiority of the tribe of Judah only began after
	the Temple was built at Jerusalem, this interpretation is
	unsatisfactory.

	(b) 'Till he of Shiloh cometh, and the obedience of the peoples
	be turned to him.'  Mendelssohn and Zunz see in the verse a
	prediction of the event described in I Kings XI, 29 f.  Ahijah,
	the Prophet of Shiloh, foretold to Jeroboam that a part of the
	Kingdom would be taken from Solomon and transferred to him; that
	the ten tribes of Israel (here called 'peoples', see Gen. XLVII, 4)
	would break away from the House of David, and submit to his
	rule.  This ingenious explanation fails to satisfy for various
	reasons.  'He of Shiloh' [would be rendered diferently in
	Hebrew]; the tribes were not turned to the Prophet of Shiloh but
	to Jeroboam; and the utterance would have been quite
	unintelligible to Judah.

	(c) 'Till Shiloh come.'  This is the rendering of the Authorised
	Version, and assumes that 'Shiloh' is a personal name or a
	Messianic title.  Although this assumption finds support in
	Rabbinic literature, it is there only a homiletic comment
	without official and binding authority.  Despite the fact that
	nowhere in Scripture is that term applied to the Messiah,
	Christiana theologians assume that Shiloh is a name of the
	Founder of Christianity.....  It is noteworthy that this
	translation only dates from the year 1534 and is found for the
	first time in the German Bible of Sebastian Munster.  Although
	it is retained in the text of the Revised Version, it is now
	rejected by all those who have a scholarly acquaintance with the
	subject.  Even a loyal Bishop of the Church of England, the late
	Dean of Westminster, wrote, 'The improbability of this later
	interpretation is so great that it may be dismissed from
	consideration.

So what are we left with?  Clearly, the meaning cited by floyd!dyl has a
fair amount of support.  But it is equally clear that many other
meanings are possible -- they depend on your viewpoint and on the amount
of archaeological and scholarly research you are willing to accept.
Verses like this are one reason I can't accept the claims of those who
feel the Bible is inerrant.  Even if the original Hebrew and Greek is,
the meaning to us today can't be.


			--Steve

P.S.  Does anyone have any later commentaries on this verse?  Hertz's
was first published in 1936.