Biblical Hebrew Forum

[a.c.smith AT juno.com (Andrew C Smith)]

Knapp wrote:

>For me then, the apparently polemical nature of the Primeval History is
>one indication that the Genesis accounts represent a late tradition. 
>Although the story images they recast are sufficiently ancient as to
>allow a writing of the Genesis material centuries earlier, the
>Babylonian focus of the polemic places them in close range of the time
>when Babylonian religion was the greatest threat: the exile.  BTW, the
>irony present in the Tower of Babel story when it is compared to the
>grandiose claims of Babylonian religion as center of the world, suggests
>that this story arises AFTER Babylon has fallen.  If so, the present
>text of Genesis must be post exilic.

While Genesis is written more in response to the Enuma Elish than to
Canaanite myths, this does not necessitate that Genesis was written
during/after the exile; the Israelites would have certainly heard of the
Enuma Elish before the exile. With the Tower of Babel, it is also
possible that it represents the desire of the Israelites to see Babylon
fall, rather than the historical record of its fall, and therefore also
could have been written earlier.

But even in Genesis was written during/after the exile, it is the "shape"
of the narrative (i.e., the last layer of editing or redacting) which
puts the anti-Babylonian spin on these events. The events themselves
would have been recorded in earlier, now lost, documents.

There can be little doubt that Genesis is written - in part - as a
response to the Enuma Elish. But the information which the last editors
of Genesis re-shaped into its present form actually must pre-date the
Enuma Elisha.

a.c.smith AT juno.com
http://www.lcms.org
http://www.lcms.com
http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/5680

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