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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] 6-Month "Year"
  • Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:25:21 EDT


Shoshanna:
You raise an interesting issue. You see the entire Torah as being very old.
Many secular scholars see the entire Torah as having been composed very
late.
My own view differs dramatically from each of those views. I myself see the
Patriarchal narratives as being much older than the rest of the Bible. In
particular, I see the Patriarchal narratives as having been composed many
centuries before the composition of what is now Genesis 1: 1 – 11: 25.
So I myself look at the Patriarchal narratives largely independently from
the rest of the Bible. I see the Patriarchal narratives as coming straight
out
of the mid-14th century BCE, whereas most of the rest of the Bible is 700 or
more years later than that.
One consequence of my view is that I do not rely much on the first 10
chapters of Genesis in analyzing the last 40 chapters of Genesis.
I am not trying to change your point of view. I am just explaining why the
question of whether the author of the Patriarchal narratives used a 6-month “
year” may be an independent issue that has little or nothing to do with how
the first 10 chapters of Genesis view such questions.
In fact, I have found that my attempts to assert the very old nature of the
Patriarchal narratives are generally rejected out of hand by secular
scholars, on a false basis. They point to aspects of the first 10 chapters
of
Genesis that they view as being late and mythological. In my opinion, that
has
nothing to do, one way or the other, with how old and historically accurate
the
Patriarchal narratives may be.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois



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