Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>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.

This seems to be hard to fathom, but the HB/OT knows nothing 
about the arrival of the Philistines in the twelfth century. 
Had the Hebrews already been in Southern Levant at that time 
they had to know about their arrival. The texts simply show 
them as being there when the Israelites, as they spread into 
the area, became aquainted with them. This means that the 
stories of Abraham and Abimelek and Isaac and Abimelek post-
date the arrival of the Philistines, but post-date them by 
far, so that there is no awareness that there were no 
Philistines at the time of attributed to Abraham or Isaac. 
The Philistines, who were definitely from Greek or Luwian 
background, were even placed within Ham, as though they were 
semi-autochthonous. There is no hope of Moses having written 
down such stories. (This is where people start running to 
gormless manipulation of chronology with its absurd 
conclusions.)

And what is an 8th century Nubian pharaoh doing as a son of 
Cush in a text you want Moses to have written?


Ian