Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ken Litwak <kdlitwak AT concentric.net>]

Niels Peter Lemche wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> >
> >
> > moshe shulman mshulman AT NOSPAMix.netcom.com    718-436-7705
> >
>         [Niels Peter Lemche]  I have already answered that question: read
> the scholarly literature from the last 200 years. Ot at least some qualified
> introduction to OT studies. It is available, and I gave an excellent title
> for people with a conservative outlook. But also for people on my line.

While this is certainly of relevance, I can find lots of different works
with lots of different conclusions regarding the dating of biblical
texts.  R.K. Harrison and O. Eissfeldt readh very different
conclusions.  It's not acceptable to dismiss one of thoe two by claiming
that one is a real scholar and the other is not.  So it is not enough to
state that the last 200 years of scholarship have answered all the
questions.  Whar's more, over time some of he fundamental conclusions
are rejected.  100 years from now, 19th century German biblical
scholarhsip , e.g., Welhausen, may seem about as reasonable as the Law
of Spontaneous Generation of matter.  

Ken Litwak