Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

The problem with your argument here is that you are only speculating 
that Genesis was originally part of a greater composition in the way 
you describe. It is not usually considered part of the Deuteronomistic 
History. So your "end dates the beginning" argument (doubtful in the 
best cases - works can be added to and progressively updated) does not 
apply to Genesis.

Why do you find a closer model for Genesis in Greece rather than in 
Mesopotamia? Is Genesis really so much closer to Herodotus than to 
Gilgamesh? Of course it is different from both.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Post-exilic Genesis ?
Author:  <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com> at Internet
Date:    21/01/2000 22:50

<snip>

As pointed out earlier, the big mistake is to study Genesis in isolation 
from the greater composition of which it is apart, which ends in 560 BCE (2 
Ki.25:27). The end dates the beginning. I note that modern Classical 
scholars have concluded that the earliest histories in prose form for the 
Greeks is the middle of the 6th century BCE. This date fits nicely with 
Genesis-2 Kings as a "prose" history dated to the same middle of the 6th 
century BCE (560-550 BCE).


All the best,

Walter Reinhold warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany