Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

  David Steinberg wrote: 
     
 The language, in fact tells you nothing about the 
date of composition, early or late.

    David, Why don't you test this statement on 
yourself when you read English texts written in the
 18th or 19th centuries? or in Elizabethan times?     
                                              UH

     

  David Steinberg wrote further:

   The fact that ancient names are used proves nothing.
 Look at the Iliad or the Nibelungenlied...

   ....Thus the persistence of ancient names neither
 proves or disproves the possibility of an early date
 for the poem.

    David,  Since you go far afield geographically,
 permit me to me go far afield chronologically. 
 The latest list of the ten most prpular names given
 to Jewish boys and girls in Israel ( 2010 ) was
 published recently. Interestingly, many of the names
 simply did not exist a couple of generations ago.
 This fact simply refutes your assertion.

   Returning to the subject matter of this list,
 the dimissal of the value of language as one of the
 tools for dating a text, is premature.
 Of course this tool must be used with caution but it
 is valid. Cf. the important work on this subject by
 Richard Hess and others.

   Uri Hurwitz                         Great Neck, NY