Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Ian wrote to Lloyd:

"Do I understand correctly that despite your acceptance of some form of 
documentary hypothesis that the sources involved are fundamentally a 
reflection of the epoch they refer to rather than of the epoch they were 
written in?"

Perhaps he should allow Lloyd the option of believing both of these, 
because the epoch they refer to is, or at least is close to, the epoch 
they were written in. That need not rule out "some form of documentary 
hypothesis" as there could have been at a later stage editing, even 
collation of sources. (Some forms of this hypothesis make it sound as 
if the redactor just pasted together the sweepings of the floor of 
that Qumran cave Dave was talking about where each fragment had three 
part words on it! But maybe the redactor was actually intelligent and 
included some real historical information in his work.)

Not everyone, not even everyone who is not evangelical, agrees with 
your dating hypotheses. Lloyd was brave enough to ask people if they 
agreed with his theory. I wonder what the response would be if you 
asked the same question about e.g. your proposed post-Maccabean date 
for Genesis and its sources.

Peter Kirk