Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

As Rodney Duke has taken this question as a general one, so perhaps 
may I. I would suggest that one criterion which we must take seriously 
is what the texts say about themselves. If we read at the start of a 
text "The teaching of Aristotle..." or "I, Thucydides, have written 
for you...", then we take as a first hypothesis that these books were 
written by Aristotle and Thucydides, and only reject this if we find 
good reason to do so. This good reason must also account for why 
someone might at some other time have written a book in the name of 
Aristotle or Thucydides, and how the book became accepted as genuine. 
I think we need to apply the same criteria to Biblical books, at least 
to those whose author or time of writing is specified or implied 
within them. If anyone proposes a later date for a named book, they 
also have to account for how it became accepted as genuine - to my 
mind this is a serious problem especially with 2nd century BC datings 
of major Biblical books e.g. Genesis.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Historiography and the Scriptures of Israel
Author:  kdlitwak AT concentric.net at internet
Date:    14/02/1999 18:48

<snip>

Do you have any suggestiojns for criteria for establishing the likely 
dates of compositions oa any texts?  No evidence that you cited in 
your post has anything to do with establishing when Aristotle's 
Rhetorica or Thucydides War was written.

<snip>