Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Johathan,

See my comments below:

JS
>Rolf Furuli wrote::
>
>> [JSafren]>There are several indications in the Torah that it could not
>>have been
>> >written before the First Temple Period. Take, for example, Gen. 36:31:
>> >"And these are the kings who ruled over Edom before there reigned a king
>> >over Israel (or: before their reigned an Israelite King [over Edom]).
>> >This could not have been written before Saul and possibly not before
>> >David.
>> >R. Abraham ibn Ezra, writing in the 12th century, pointed out 12 verses
>> >which were of post-Mosaic origin.
>> >We also have such indications for other books of the Bible.
>>
>> [RFuruli] Being a linguist rather than a historian or archaeologist I
>>usually
>> discuss
>> language rather than history. But sometimes I feel I should say something
>> regarding historical subjects as well, particularly when hermeneutical
>> principles are at stake. I would be happy to know the 12 verses of R.
>> Abraham ibn Ezra.

RF
In this thread I have not presented or defended a particular theory about
the origin of the Torah or other books of the Tanach /although I of course
have my own opinion/. I have simply played the devil's advocate and taken
the liberty to doubt the doubt. The same thing I would have done if I were
the mentor for one making a thesis about the dating of the books.
Let me apply this to the data of Ibn Ezra as well.

According to E.R. Thiele,1983, "The Mysterious numbers of the hebrew
Kings", Rev. ed, Solomon started to reign about 970 BCE. If we add 479
years to the fourth year of Solomon (1 Kings 6:1) and keep in mind that
Moses according to the account, died at the end of the sojourn of Israel in
the desert, the Torah should have been written before (970+479-3-40=) 1406
BCE. Let us test Ibn Ezra's words on the basis of this.

JS
>
>[JSafren] Ibn Ezra lists them in his commentary on the words "on the other
>side of the
>Jordan" in Deut. 1:1. They include:
>
>1. Gen. 12:6 "and the Canaanite was then in the land".Meaning that this
>verse was
>written when the Canaanite was no longer in the land, i.e., after the
>Conquest and
>Settlement.

RF
>From )Z we can conclude that the author knew that the Canaanites would not
occupy the land from everlasting to everlasting. But the word can also
refer backwards and imply that once the Cannanites migrated to the land but
this had happened when Abraham entered the land.

>2. Gen.22:14 "as it is said today, 'On the Mt. of YHWH he/it shall be
>seen", refering
>to the Temple Mount, which wasn't called by that name until after the
>Temple had been
>built. In Moses' time, the Mt. of YHWH or the Mt. of God, was Mt. Sinai..

That Mt. Sinai was the mount of God does not outrule that another mount in
time should be his Mount. Instead of being an anachronism, Abrahams naming
of Mt Moriah as "the mount of YHWH" could be the first step in Mt. Moriah
becoming the mount of God; "as it is said today" seems to refer to a
proverbial saying, and there is no evident link with the temple. There may
also be a textual problem here (ICC, "Genesis", John Skinner)

>
>3. Deut. 1:1 "on the other side of the Jordan" - written from the point of
>view of
>someone living on the western side of the Jordan, which Moses never crossed.

In any case will the viewpoint not demand a date of the writing later than
a few years after the death of Moses. The death of Moses in chapter 34
could not have been written by Moses, and neither do this chapter pretend
to have been written by him. Allowing for the possibility that the account
is history (this is what we are discussing so we cannot exclude it), these
words can have been written by Joshua, and the third person account in 1:1
could have been written by him as well. Or Moses could in 1:1 have
anticipated the fulfillment of the entering of the promised land, a promise
that is written in the Torah.
>
>4. Deut. 3:11 "[Og's bed] is in Rabbat of the Ammonites" How did it get
>there? And
>when? Moses carefully left the Ammonites there because they were too
>strong, and
>turned to the weaker kingdoms of Og and Sihon.

RF
??

>
>5. Deut. 34:5-12, from "And Moses died" So who wrote the rest of the
>chapter? The
>ancient Rabbis had a problem with these verses.

RF
Perhaps Joshua.


I would like to stress again that I have not argued for a particular point
of view regarding the text of the Tanach, I have just been critical to the
critics. That is, I have tried to look favorable to the text and ask: Is
there anything in the text of the Torah that readily lends itself to the
conclusion that the Torah was written centuries later than is said by the
text itself. And my conclusion is negative. In my view, none of the
examples thus far presented,if they are TAKEN ALONE,  and not being seen in
the light of an already fixed viewpoint, would be good evidence against the
points from the Tanach that the Torah was written around 1400 BCE. When the
evidence for a younger dating of the Torah is so unclear, how doubtful must
then the evidence that the Torah adopted thoughts from Mesopotamian
originals be.


I found the words of Niels quite logical, and in principle quite close to
my appeal to our lack of knowledge. He wrote:

> NPL
> You are of course right in your main point--we are not talking about
> natural science in the Newtonian fashion--but you can create scenarios,
> more or less likely scenarios at that, and presumably you will end with
> one that says that your scenario is the less likely. I suppose that well
> augmented scenarios for, say a later first temple date, an exilic date and
> a second temple date can make sense, but you certainly get entangled in a
> mass of problems, if you try to get further back. 'Proof' is a strange
> word in humanities. As if detached, objective scholarship is possible and
> can be vindicated by proofs.

I have never tried systematically to compare the different scenarios to see
which is more likely and which is less likely, as this is outside the area
of my interest. But my humble exhortation has been: Let us be critical to
the criticism of the text in the same way as the critics are critical to
the text.




Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo