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  • From: "Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[2]: "Post-Exilic" Genesis (long)
  • Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 19:02:25 -0500


More argument from silence, this time of the archaeological record.
Just because no written records have survived, it does not mean that
none existed - especially if they were written on perishable
materials. To confirm that this is plausible, consider how few written
records from southern Canaan have survived from 10th-8th century. A
little bad luck and we might have found none. Yet we know that there
was literacy and a scribal school of some sort - of which very little
evidence has survived. It would take just one chance find from an
earlier period to prove that a whole scribal school existed at that
time also.

Peter Kirk


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Subject: Re: "Post-Exilic" Genesis (long)
Author: <nor AT iol.ie> at Internet
Date: 23/01/2000 23:30


In relation to the Evolution of texts and the theory of a Mosaic, or
contemporary, authorship, what are the opinions about the existence or
non-existence of a scribal school that had to have existed in order to pass
on the words of Moses, and to continue the history as the events happened. in
other words who wrote these texts? For example 'during David's reign we have
no sure evidence of either the Egyptian system or of alphabetic writing' (ABD
vi 1005) Surely in order to promulgate the texts then a literary tradition
of schools etc had to have existed and this would imply organized state
structures. There appears to be some evidence of schooling in 8th-7th
century B.C. but this would have been when a semblance of a state existed.
What about the proceeding 700 years. Who wrote recorded and added to these
stories?

It seems logical to think that literacy is tied to state which sees a
terminus a quo of at least the 8th century for the texts.

Best regards
Noel O Riordan






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