The Case Against a Hellenistic Primary History
Will Wagers
hylemac at home.com
Tue Oct 2 15:51:17 EDT 2001
Dear Walter,
"WHY?" is a good question. But, the absence of "updating" proves
nothing, of course.
You say we know Moses didn't write it. Are we so sure there was a
Moses and when he lived?
Will Wagers "Reality is the best metaphor."
>Ian wrote :
>
> > Walter, you wouldn't expect specifically Greek founded
> > cities to have been knowingly included would you? --
> > for that's what many of the cities you list are.
>
>Dear Ian,
>
>In the Primary History we have several instances of places being noted as
>possessing later names, for example, Laish is explained as being later
>called Dan. Why wouldn't an author creating this composition "allegedly" in
>the Hellenistic era, NOT update site names for his reading audience with the
>current names of his era ? For example, Josephus, writing in a Hellenistic
>world, explains to his readers that Ezion-geber is now called Berenice. We
>see none of this Hellenistic "updating" in the Primary History with current
>Hellenistic names- WHY ?
>
>Authors are human, they make mistakes, these mistakes or errors provide us
>with valuable clues to date compositions by (we call these errors
>"anachronisms"). Tradition tells us Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but a
>careful reading of Genesis reveals the presence of places and sites that
>came into being only in 8th-7th centuries times, so we know he didn't write
>this. Now if the Primary History is allegedly a Hellenistic or Hasmonean
>creation, we should expect at least a few errors in regards to some sites
>being mentioned that can be dated to Hellenistic times through an authors's
>"slip", yet there are none.
>
>I have documented "one slip" in 2 Chronicles, Tadmor not being in existence
>as a city before the 1st century BCE. No such anachronistic "slip" exists in
>the Primary History- WHY?
>
>I realize that when anachronisms are identified in a text that there are two
>schools of thought to account for them. One school posits that the
>anachronism betrays that the composition is later than it claims to be. The
>
>other school of thought claims that the anachronism is only an
>interpolation, a later redaction of an ancient text.
>
>All the best, Walter
>
>Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
>Walldorf by Heidelberg
>Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany
>www.bibleorigins.net
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