Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT Highland.Net>]

At 10:51 PM 1/23/99 +0000, you wrote:

>Do I understand rightly that, at the earliest, Joshua 1-6 dates to the 2nd
>century BCE? In that case, I presume that later historical books, such as 
>Kings, might be, say, 2-3rd century AD, and demonstrably late books, such 
>as Ecclesiastes and Malachi would be medieval?
>
>Mark Joseph

The point is that the language of the OT is extremely uniform- and points to
a compositional date around the Maccabean/Hasmonean eras.  If you were, for
instance, to suppose that Josh stems from the 13th century and Daniel from
the third, you have a thousand year spread where the language remains
incredibly uniform.  Apply that same thousand year spread to English and
make even the smallest attempt to say that the language has remained
essentially unchanged--- and you have the heart of the problem.

The Hebrew Bible, further, contains a relatively uniform theology.  Again,
suppose that the theology of the Church is the same now as it was a thousand
years ago and the problem is reiterated.

The Hebrew Bible was evidently composed quite late.  Else I invite you to
explain the constancy of the language throughout the whole.  (without
recourse to the notion that it was dictated by God like that).

Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
Quartz Hill School of Theology

jwest AT highland.net
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest