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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ark of the Covenant
  • Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 22:46:56 -0500

Dear Marianne,

> Ancient Jewish and Christian writers, such as Ecclesiasticus,
Josephus, Philo, and Origen were essentially in full agreement that
the Pentateuch was written solely by Moses. The Mishnah and the
Talmud also confirm this. Tradition during the first millennium of
> Christian history agrees with this belief.

Okay--but all these people lived--and the NT was written after CE. What
means did they have of knowing if Moses wrote the Torah? Did they even have a way
of detecting the anachronisms in it? There was no Egyptology or Biblical
archaeology then. They had a tradition--but sometimes tradition can be wrong.

HH: Well, Jesus was a prophet in his claims, at the least. And Ecclesiasticus was before CE. But I believe they held that view because it has been faithfully passed down through the centuries. The Pentateuch itself is clear that Moses is writing down large portions of the Law. The Book of Joshua confirms it:

Josh. 8:31 as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses - an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the LORD burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings.

As does Judges:

Judg. 3:4 They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the LORD's commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses.

HH: And it continues:

1Kings 2:3 and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go,

2Kings 23:25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did - with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

1Chr. 22:13 Then you will have success if you are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the LORD gave Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged.

2Chr. 23:18 ¶ Then Jehoiada placed the oversight of the temple of the LORD in the hands of the priests, who were Levites, to whom David had made assignments in the temple, to present the burnt offerings of the LORD as written in the Law of Moses, with rejoicing and singing, as David had ordered.

Ezra 6:18 And they installed the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their groups for the service of God at Jerusalem, according to what is written in the Book of Moses.

Neh. 8:1 all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel.

Psa. 90:0 ¶ A prayer of Moses the man of God.

Dan. 9:11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you. ¶ "Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you.

Mal. 4:4 ¶ "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

HH: It would be nice to see a quote from Genesis attributed to Moses, but I can't remember seeing that in the Tanakh. The stress is on the need for the people to obey, and there does not seem to be such an historical quote.

> HH: It is important in showing the character of Joseph. I appreciated
the rest that you wrote but cannot respond to it. R. K. Harrison
found no other real parallels between the "Tale of Two Brothers" and
the Joseph story apart from this one incident of the attempted
seduction. By the dating of Eugene H. Merrill in his book Kingdom of
Priests (Baker, 1987, p. 31), the birthdate of Joseph was 1916 B.C.
By that dating he would have been contemporaneous with Sinuhe, if the
latter existed. Harrison says that Sinuhe supposedly comes from the
time of c. 1900 B.C.

I don't know how anybody pinpoints the birthdate of Joseph as 1916. I would
certainly like to see the rationale. The dating of Sinuhe is correct.

HH: He uses the work of people like Edmund Thiele to get a definite date for 1 Kings 6:1, goes back to the Exodus date from that, counts the number of years in Egypt given in Exod 12:40 and the age of Joseph when he went there, so it is easy. But, of course, such constructions are only as accurate as Thiele's work on the chronology of the kings, and Merrill would openly admit that. The date is an approximation based on the best available data.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard







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