Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George Athas" <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

> >I'm also interested in studies of the phrase `ad
> > hayyom hazzeh as a possible dating tool in other passages,
> > particularly those mentioning place names (i.e. "it's called x to this
> > very day").  If we take the phrase at face value, it seems to me that
> > the durations of such laws and place names might give us, at
> > least, latest possible dates for some of the texts before us.
> >
>
> R. Isaac Abravanel in his introduction to Joshua mentions such verses as
> proof that the story was written _much_later_ than the events.  Otherwise,
> what is so special that it (whatever it is in each verse) remains "till
> this day"?

Yet, compare Josh 6:25 which states that Rahab the whore lived in Israel `ad 
hayyom
hazzeh. Does this mean that Joshua was written within a generation of 
Jericho's
destruction (if we can at all talk of that)? Or are we saying that an oral 
tradition goes
back to that generation?

Best regards,
George Athas
 Dept of Semitic Studies,
 University of Sydney
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