Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 19/08/2004 19:34, MarianneLuban AT aol.com wrote:

> ... By the same token, the Torah 
> demonstrates its late composition by its anachronisms.  That is the truth.  
> Unless you believe that Moses existed no earlier than around 500 BCE he cannot 
> have written the Torah--no more than can any other man who writes of his own 
> death and even remarks that no one can recall where he is buried. ...

Marianne, you weaken your argument by trying to disprove a straw man. 
For many centuries even highly conservative scholars have accepted that 
there are parts of the Torah which Moses did not write himself, such as 
the account of his death and some obvious anachronisms like a reference 
to the city of Dan. While different people may vary on what they accept, 
and I can't speak for Karl, this implies a general acceptance that there 
has been some kind of later redaction of the Torah. That further means 
that occasional anachronisms do not imply that the main part of the text 
was not written by Moses sometime in the second millennium. After all, 
we are talking about a text which is known to have been copied many 
times, not a stela which claims to be an original text from an earlier 
time than it actually is.

By the way, how do we know that Manetho was not taken in by the kinds of 
forged stelae which you mentioned?

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/