Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:
This is a straw man argument that has already been answered many times.

If this were written by Adam, who died centuries before the flood, then he
was writing to a pre-flood audience that was familiar with the names as they
existed at that time.

We find other examples in the Bible where names were reused, so what’s to
stop Noah and his sons from reusing names from pre-flood geography for the
post-flood rivers and territories that they settled in? This whole names
argument is a non-starter.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 5:06 AM, James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> Recent claims about the TLDTH formula found at Genesis 5:1 have
> implications for the date of the hypothetical document from Genesis
> 2:5-4:26. According to the theory the document was written by Adam
> and, therefore, predates the flood.
>
> Let us assume that the hypothesis of separate documents is true and
> attempt to date the document from internal evidence.
>
> Genesis 2:10-14
>
> Now there was a river issuing out of E´den to water the garden, and
> from there it began to be parted and it became, as it were, four
> heads.  The first one?s name is Pi´shon; it is the one encircling the
> entire land of Hav´i·lah, where there is gold.  And the gold of that
> land is good. There also are the bdellium gum and the onyx stone.  And
> the name of the second river is Gi´hon; it is the one encircling the
> entire land of Cush.  And the name of the third river is Hid´de·kel;
> it is the one going to the east of As·syr´i·a. And the fourth river is
> the Eu·phra´tes.
>
> Here we see a number of contextual clues which present difficulties
> for a pre-flood dating.
>
> Firstly, we see reference to a land of Cush. Relying on evidence from
> the table of nations in Genesis 10 we see that Cush had not even been
> born pre-flood and hadn't had a chance to yet go out, raise a family
> and have an entire country named after him.
>
> Secondly, we see reference to the land of Assyria. The land of
> Assyria, with it's capital of Assur had not yet been established and
> no pre-flood author would have been able to make geographical
> references to this place.
>
> The whole style is of an author with international knowledge of
> defined geographical regions with established communities that mine
> gold and onyx stone. The author assumes that this is common knowledge
> to his audience. This could only fit a context of post-flood with the
> dispersion already having happened and communities already having been
> established in the various nations. Such would be common knowledge to
> a company of nomads or travelling tradesman.
>
> James Christian
>
>