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b-hebrew - RE: Dating the Pentateuch, Exodus Enigmas

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  • From: Niels Peter Lemche <npl AT teol.ku.dk>
  • To: "'b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu'" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Dating the Pentateuch, Exodus Enigmas
  • Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 08:47:13 +0100



Dear Waalter,
You are ignoring your oft-repeated statement that certain cities,
such
as Heshbon and Dibon, were not settled until the Iron Age. So, first
of
all, why not place the Isreaelite traditions reltaing to them in the
Iron Age?
Secondly, why do the Biblical traditions about the Exodus and the
traditions about the conquest of Heshbon and Jericho have to be
those of
the same groups?
I could make a case for the Transjordan Conquest traditions being
from
the same stream tradition as the Jacob-returning-from-Aram
traditions,
and posit a settlement/conquest of Northern Transjordan by peoples
close
to the Arameans ethnically and linguistically - amd derive evidence
from
the language of the Deir Alla Inscription. This immigration/conquest
would be a another wave in the same line as the Moabites and
Ammonites
(who are descedndants of Lot, Abraham's kinsman, and also from Upper
Mesopotamia.
More later.

--
Jonathan D. Safren

Jonathan and Walter,

would you use the mentioning of Mycenae in Homer to date Homer's
poems (remember that the traditional view is 8th century, Mycenae gone for
4-500 years; 'revisionist' as some would say dates it even later. Probably
no one earlier)? Does a place need to exist 'in the flesh' in order to live
in a tradition-oral or literary? Are we, e.g. in Europe ignorant of ruined
places that attract the attention of storytellers and singers and become
famous places, inhabited by the ghosts of the past, fairies, demons of
deceased kings etc. etc.? The only necessary thing in order to mention
Heshbon in a literary piece of work is that this Heshbon must have existed
as the name of a place, whether a ruin or a still thrieving and inhabited
place. So you cannot really use this kind of material for dating except as a
terminus a quo.

NPL





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