Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Dear Walter,

There is a very simple answer to almost all of your arguments here: 
they are simply arguments from silence.

I notice that in your quote Redford speaks of a "post-Exilic editor". 
So is it really true that "he concluded... that Genesis was written in 
the Post-Exilic period"? Apparently not; he is not supporting your 
position that "Genesis is a Post-Exilic creation". I find Redford's 
position, limited post-exilic editing, much more plausible than yours 
- although I wonder why the editing could not rather be in late 
pre-exilic times.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
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Subject: "Post-Exilic"  Genesis (long)
Author:  <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com> at Internet
Date:    21/01/2000 20:42

<snip>

Redford is an Egyptologist, he concluded on the basis of his research that 
Genesis was written in the Post-Exilic period:

"The Egypt that shows through in the Table of Nations is the Egypt of 
Psammetichos I and his descendants, the 26th Dynasty. To contend that the 
Hebrews must have been familiar with Egypt from high antiquity is to belabor 
a truism. But the post-Exilic editor was publishing for his contemporaries; 
and the Egypt he felt obliged to explain for them was the Nilotic power of 
his own time." (p.408)

My research, quite independent of Redford's, and following a different line 
of inquiry (Madai's descent from Japheth) arrived at the same conclusion, 
Genesis is a Post-Exilic creation.

<snip>