Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>]

At 03:52 PM 12/29/1999 +0100, you wrote:
>Of course I would agree with the gentleman that said that it was ridiculous
>to date the text according to the date of the manuscript extant. But this
>date is a fact (of some kind), and to change the age of the text to
>something earlier demands hypotheses and analyses, that's why the burden of
>proof rest on people that argue in favour of an earlier date, and if we have
>a satisfying explanation for the text that says that it need not be older
>than, say the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, why should we move further into the
>darkness? Again it is a matter of presenting arguments that can be the

Because in this area as in others we follow analogy. We have methods of
dealign with other texts which tell us that the date of an extant fragment
is not the date of the document. You have to give a reason as to why the
dating of the Biblical text is not to be approached in the same way as the
dating of Plato and Aristotle.


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