Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Thomas L. Thompson" <tlt AT teol.ku.dk>]

Dear Peter,
    To avoid any misunderstanding, I feel it necessary to point out that
what you refer to as the 'conclusion' of our exchange is not shared by me at
all. Why you think a common corpus of holy books is evidence for early unity
(of Jews and Samaritans) I can not imagine. Nor have you given any reasons
for asserting that there was a 'division' or 'split' at any time: early or
late. Finally, 'pre-exilic' is not an historically univocal term.
Deportations from Palestine began as early as the 19th. cent. bce!
Deportations to Mesopotamia are known beginning already in the 8th. cent. I
do not consider Genesis as early in relationship to the rest of the
Pentateuch. Although I do see the Pentateuch tradition as relatively early
in relation to the rest of the Bible, there are many reasons not to press
this date too early (See here Van Seters for a start).
Thomas
> With TLT's permission I am forwarding the following to the list. Note 
> the conclusion, contrary to Walter Mattfeld's, that the Pentateuch 
> including Genesis is pre-exilic.
> To me, acceptance of a common corpus of holy books is good evidence of 
> some kind of early unity. Later, certainly by 1st century CE, there 
> was division. That implies to me some kind of split, at some stage. At 
> any rate, we must consider at what point the books were first accepted 
> in Judea and in Samaria, and it seems unlikely that this would have 
> happened at a time when the two groups were in fierce opposition to 
> each other. 
> 
>