Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Niels Peter Lemche <npl AT teol.ku.dk>]

> Walter Mattfeld wrote:
> 
> > In reply to Mr. Washburn's most recent comments challenging my position
> that
> > Genesis is a fifth century BCE creation I have assembled a list of what
> I
> > consider to be "historical markers" indicating Genesis was not written
> by
> > Moses in the 15th century BCE as he maintains:
> >
> > Please note that all these "markers" are not of the 2nd millenium BCE,
> they
> > are of the 1st millenium BCE:
> >
> > Cities:
> >
> > Calah, of no importance till the 9th century when it becomes a capital
> of
> > Assyria.
> > Nineveh, becomes a capital 705-612  BCE and thereupon achieves "world
> > renoun".
> >
> > Nations (Peoples):
> >
> > Gomer (Assyrian Gimirraa) appear for the first time on the historical
> scene
> > in Assyrian records of the 8th-7th centuries BCE, terrorizing Anatolia,
> > Ararat, Media and Assyria.
> >
> > Media takes on no importance till the 9th,8th and 7th centuries BCE when
> she
> > struggles against Assyria.
> >
> > Magog, has been suggested by some scholars to be Assyrian mat-Guggu (the
> > land of Gog, alluding to Gyges of Lydia), if they are correct, this is a
> 7th
> > century BCE marker.
> >
> > Meshech, Assyrian Mushki, makes its first appearance historically in
> > Assyrian annals of Tiglath-Pileser I (ca. 1100 BCE)
> 
> Um, how do I say this?   You're not serious with this are you?  The fact
> that a city
> is not otherwise known from extant texts proves that another text which
> mentions it
> must be later than the text which first mentioned it or something like
> that?   I am
> incredulous.  That's like going into something relatively recent like
> California
> history and saying that no one could have mentioned Sacramento before it
> was
> important, so any letter or book which does so, regardless of its reputed
> date, must
> be later.  Just because, so far as other extant texts are concerned, some
> city was not
> of note is completely irrelevant to whether it was known or not and to
> whether or not
> the author (that is, the one who wrote our version of the tradition) knew
> of it or
> thought it was of note.  I live in Milpitas, CA.  To date, that's a
> relatively
> insignificant California city.  That doesn't mean that if it gets famous
> one day that
> my email mentioning it must have been wrongly dated to today, simply
> because no one
> else on the list probably knows of this city.   Let's try logic:
> 
> Premise A: The Bible mentions a city that no other known, extant text
> knows of which
> dates from the 2nd millennium BC.
> Premise B: (the unspoken premise, I won't bother with the Greek term for
> this kind of
> argument) No biblical author could possibly know about a city before it's
> attested in
> texts from another source.
> Conclusion:  Therefore, the biblical texts mentioning this city must be
> dated to the
> 1st millennium.
> I would hope that even without having taken Logic 101 everyone on the list
> can see how
> illogical (in the formal sense) this argument is.
> 
> Ken Litwak
> 
        [Niels Peter Lemche]  It is not that Litwak is wrong, neither is he
right. What Matfeld tries to do is to create a kind of
historical-geographical scenario that in together points towards a later
date that, say 1000 BCE. Individual entries in the scenario might be
so-to-speak an e silentio argument, but in together they creates this kind
of scenario that is something else and forces upon the scholar the issue:
Did he start with the right question, assuming the Bible to be historically
correct on this and going back to this early period?

        NPL