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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Benjamin

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • Cc: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Benjamin
  • Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 10:38:40 +0100

On 27/06/2006 08:40, Yigal Levin wrote:
...
Of course, to those who believe that the Torah was written by Moses, who was a prophet, this is no problem. God, who wanted the text to be relevant to people living in future generations, had Moses use a term that they would understand. Most of Moses' contemporaries didn't know the Land that well anyway. To those who do not use "prophecy" as part of their scholarly discourse, the ONLY probable solution is that these passages (at the very least!) were written many generations after Moses and refect the geography of the writer's day (or his concept of HIS past).

This is the position not only of those who deny prophecy in principle. Indeed if I remember correctly one traditional Jewish explanation for this mention of Dan in Abraham's time is the same as for Deuteronomy 34, that these are additions from after Moses' time. I don't deny that there is real predictive prophecy in the Tanakh. But Genesis 14:14 looks to me not like an isolated (not in a prophetic context and unnecessary) instance of prophecy, but rather as an editorial addition or correction of an obsolescent place name.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





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