Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Wagers <hylemac AT home.com>]

Dear Walter,

"WHY?" is a good question. But, the absence of "updating" proves 
nothing, of course.

You say we know Moses didn't write it.  Are we so sure there was a 
Moses and when he lived?

Will Wagers     "Reality is the best metaphor."



> Ian wrote :
>
> > Walter, you wouldn't expect specifically Greek founded
> > cities to have been knowingly included would you? --
> > for that's what many of the cities you list are.
>
> Dear Ian,
>
> In the Primary History we have several instances of places being noted as
> possessing later names, for example, Laish is explained as being later
> called Dan. Why wouldn't an author creating this composition "allegedly" in
> the Hellenistic era, NOT update site names for his reading audience with the
> current names of his era ? For example, Josephus, writing in a Hellenistic
> world, explains to his readers that Ezion-geber is now called Berenice. We
> see none of this Hellenistic "updating" in the Primary History with current
> Hellenistic names- WHY ?
>
> Authors are human, they make mistakes, these mistakes or errors provide us
> with valuable clues to date compositions by (we call these errors
> "anachronisms"). Tradition tells us Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but a
> careful reading of Genesis reveals the presence of places and sites that
> came into being only in 8th-7th centuries times, so we know he didn't write
> this. Now if the Primary History is allegedly a Hellenistic or Hasmonean
> creation, we should expect at least a few errors in regards to some sites
> being mentioned that can be dated to Hellenistic times through an authors's
> "slip", yet there are none.
>
> I have documented "one slip" in 2 Chronicles, Tadmor not being in existence
> as a city before the 1st century BCE. No such anachronistic "slip" exists in
> the Primary History- WHY?
>
> I realize that when anachronisms are identified in a text that there are two
> schools of thought to account for them. One school posits that the
> anachronism betrays that the composition is later than it claims to be. The
>
> other school of thought claims that the anachronism is only an
> interpolation, a later redaction of an ancient text.
>
> All the best, Walter
>
> Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
> Walldorf by Heidelberg
> Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany
> www.bibleorigins.net