Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

Dear Steve,

I have recently written a series of brief papers titled "Dating the
Pentateuch," most of which have been posted to the b-hebrew electronic
discussion list. I am not using the Hebrew language however to date the
Pentateuch, but instead the findings of Archaeology. More specifically, a
number of towns and cities are mentioned throughout the biblical narratives;
some of these places have been identified and archaeolgically explored,
their dates of origin and occupation having been determined.

In a nutshell, my research has indicated that Moses could not have written
the Torah/Pentateuch, as we have it today, in the 15th century BCE, because
numerous places did not come into existence until after the 12th-7th
centuries BCE. For instance, Heshbon, the capital of Sihon the Amorite of
Transjordan, has been excavated and found to have been non-existant before
1200 BCE, thus the narratives about his opposing Israel's crossing of his
territory to get to Canaan, reveal this part of the story is fiction before
1200 BCE (Conservatives preferring an Exodus in 1440 BCE, Humanists opting
for 1250 BCE).

If interested, you should go to the following b-hebrew archive and using its
search feature key in "Dating the Pentaeuch" (not using quotation marks) for
a series of threads by myself and others.  I can also send you copies of
papers on this subject if interested via e-mail.

The b-hebrew archive:

http://franklin.oit.unc.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=b-hebrew&text_mode=0


All the best,

Walter

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany