Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

I have been following with great interest the debates about the dating of
the Pentateuch. I suspect part of the problem in these exchanges is that the
players have not "laid all their cards on the table" for the others to see.

I identify myself as an amateur bible scholar (originally raised as a
Protestant Fundamentalist), of a Humanistic inclination in my biblical
research. I do not accept the bible as the word of God. I thus have no
problem in dating the Pentateuch to a later period of time than that which
it lays claim to, the 15th or 14th century BCE (I prefer the 5th century
BCE).

I had noted in an earlier post that archaeology and geology have failed to
find the proof of Noah's flood that covered the tops of mountains and which
destroyed all humankind except those save on the ark.  I accordingly take
the Humanist perspective that the dialogs between God, the serpent, Adam,
Eve, Noah and Moses are all fantasy, from the mind of the narrator. If the
flood didn't happen as we assured by geologists and archaeologists, then
obviously the bible's dialogs are all fictious and not to be trusted. Why
should I accept the narrator's claims that what I am reading are Moses
words, when I know he has earlier in Genesis fed me false information about
a world encompassing flood ?

I accordingly study the bible with the attitude that "what the mind of man
has created, the mind of man can unravel." My interest is then in
determining when this work was "really created" by identifying historical
allusions within the text. Calah did not attain renoun until the 9th century
when it was made the capital of Assyria, I accordingly treat this fact as a
historical marker, some of Genesis cannot be what tradition claims, the
15/14th century BCE words of Moses (believed to have written the Pentateuch
according to Jewish and Christian traditions).  So, the flood doesn't exist,
the narratives are suspect, and what can be dated securely, Calah's rise to
world renoun, did not occur in the days of Moses. I thus seek other more
reliable facts for dating the text, I do not accept it at its word.

Some -not all- Conservatives, apparently have no problem in turning "a blind
eye" to the findings of geology and archaeology that reveal the flood is not
true. Everything in the bible must be true because it is God's word. If
anyone turns up facts suggesting parts of the Pentateuch are later than
Moses, no problem, he still wrote it, the bible says he did, what has been
found to contradict this is to be bushed off as merely some later
interpolation or redaction, although the critics cannot prove that in fact
it is such.

The world is not 6,000 years old as implied in the bible, it is millions of
years old. Dinosaurs roamed this planet and became extinct before the
appearance of man in the age of mammals.

Having said all that, nevertheless, I want all to know that I have enjoyed
the stimulating discussion and new insights, from the various posts made by
the various contributors, Conservative and Humanistic, Christian and Jewish.

All the best,

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany