Davem
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I can see what you mean with the 'Shylock' point - but if we did construct such a Shylock, would he be recognisable as the figure we know - even to Shakespeare? I think the attempt would be futile, as what we would end up with would really tell us nothing in regard to the play.
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That was more or less my point- in essence, I was agreeing with you about the futility of attempting to create a canonical Silm, but not quite understanding your analogy. Perhaps my own 'Shylock' analogy would have been more clear if I had ammended it to say that it would be similar to Tolkien's situation
if Shakespeare had worked on The Merchant for several years, and had written several different drafts (which, to my knowledge, he did not). I simply did not see taking the works of two different authors and combining them to create a canon view on a subject such as Judaism as analogous to attempting to recreate a canonical Silm.