Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

Ken Litwak wrote:

* I realize many list members may assign Deuteronomy to the Exile or
post-exilic period.  Apart from any other considerations, however,
Deuteronomy so clearly matches 2 mill BC Hittite suzerain vassal treaty
format and is so different from first mill Assyrian treaties that I
find  it inconceivable that this text arose in the first millennium.
Scholars who have argued for he opposite views  it seems to me, do so,
not by dealing with the data, but by making ideological claims.  That
is, tey've already dismissed a 2nd millenium Israel, or the existence of

Moses (a questionable act from an historiograpical poitn of view), so
Deuteronomy of course can't be from the 2nd mill BC.

I've read a number of studies on the subject, some by Weinfeld, some by
McCarthy, some by Hillers who, as far as I remember, do not deny early
authorship of parts of the Pentateuch, and Weinfeld and Hillers, I am
sure, and perhaps Mc Carthy -I'm not sure - relate the form of the
blessing-curse formulae in Deut. to the later Neo-Assyrian vassal
treaties, and not those of the earlier 14th cent. BCE Hittite vassal
treaties.
In the ANE, the later the vassal treaty, the shorter the blessing
formulae and the longer the curse formulae. Cf., for the Pentateuch, Ex.
20: 5-6 (E) -blessing and curse approximately equal; Deut. 28 (D) - 14
verses of blessing, 54 verses of curses; Lev. 28 (P) - 13 verses of
blessing, 28 or 32 curse verses, depending on how you count them. From
all this one could argue for a relatively early date for the Decalogue,
a late date for D, and an intermediate date for P, or at least the
Holiness Code.
Sincerely,
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel.

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