[b-hebrew] Toladot and the Book of Terah

George Athas George.Athas at moore.edu.au
Tue May 19 20:12:34 EDT 2009


Tory wrote:

"At least in this tradition Terah does not predecease any of his ancestors. Its actually a bit more believable, credible, than the outcome of the figures preserved in the MT."

OK. But now the next step is making individuals living for centuries believable. These genealogies just do not reflect the real world in the 1-to-1 way this discussion assumes. It might reflect perceived relations and particular views of the past, but to claim that humans actually lived for centuries is really pushing it. I think we can deal with someone living for 150 years (just), but beyond that, we're getting into the realm of creative literature. Are we also going to post that dogs lived longer, too?

I don't want to dredge up the discussions we've had in the past about what 'year' means in this context, but if anyone does some comparative research, they'll see that there is a common practice in the ancient Near East to make your ancestors live unbelievably long lives. In Mesopotamia, we have records of kings reigning for thousands of years. This is just a literary device to portray a golden pristine age, and no actual chronological details can be plausibly gleaned from them.

Add to this the fact that Genesis shows evidence (esp. Gen 10) of an Iron II context (at the earliest), and this entire line of reasoning is quite questionable.


Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au



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