Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <Yigal-Levin AT utc.edu>]

At 02:07 AM 9/6/2002 +0100, Peter Kirk wrote:
>Hold on, surely the actual evidence is that the Iron Age in the area in
>question started much earlier than the 8th century, perhaps the
>12th-13th century or even earlier with the invasion of the Sea Peoples.
>So even if we accept Ian H's line of argument it tells us only that
>Genesis was written no earlier than the 12th-13th century. This is not a
>very strong claim, it doesn't even rule out authorship by a 13th century
>Moses.
>

The fact that the period beginning c. 1200 BCE is called the "Iron Age" is
only a convention, left over from early 20th century (CE) concepts brought
in by British and European archaeologists. The 12th century BCE was a time
of many changes. Wide-spread use of Iron was NOT one of them (as per the
evidence we have now).



Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.