Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Can this be correct, and if so,
what should be made of it?
Liz

>
> heres from another list-- hjudaica or something.
>
> On pages 43-44 of the book "Eisenstein's Commentary on the Torah",
> [Author: J.D. Eisenstein, Full Title: Eisenstein's commentary on the
> Torah, a defense of the traditional Jewish viewpoint.  Edited
> by Bernard
> David Perlow and Ira Eisenstein. New York, Pardes Pub. House, 1960.]
> the author asserts that the author of the Torah (the Five
> Books of Moses)
> uses an older writing style than used in the Prophets and
> Writings. The
> primary evidence he uses is the lack of consistency with male
> and female
> forms of words. For example, the word the word "hu" in Hebrew, which
> generally means he, is used for she (which is more properly "hi") 54
> times in Genesis, 11 times in Exodus, 69 times in Leviticus,
> and 27 times
> in Numbers, and 36 times in Deuteronomy (197 times
> altogether). Meanwhile
> "hu" doesn't refer to she anywhere else in the Old Testament.
>
> The author asserts that the changes in writing style suggests
> that the Torah
> was written before the other books of the Old Testament. This
> would seem to
> contradict the Documentary Hypothesis, which says that much
> of then Torah
> (i.e. Deuteronomy) was written after many of the other books
> of the Old
> Testament.
>