To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: Gilgamesh and Genesis
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 19:50:43 +0100
On 21 January 2000, Dave Washburn (dwashbur AT nyx.net) wrote:
> I have yet to see anything that definitively nails down the date of
> the Pentateuch, early or late.
Well, I would say that I solved this old problem (at least for the final
form of the text) in my recent article Discontinuity, Congruence and the
Making of the Hebrew Bible, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 13
(1999) 24-77: certainly after the composition of Herodotus Histories (i.e.
about 440 BCE), from which the general structure of Primary History (Gen 2
Kings) has clearly been derived (nine books divided in three groups: 1, 2-6
and 7-9 with a Great Campaign as main action, congruence of the genealogy of
the main family and their contacts with the starting point of the Great
Campaign, and much more) and probably before the Passover Letter from
Elephantine (420 BCE), i.e. the period which we usually identify with the
figure of Nehemiah. Of course earlier materials have been incorporated,
though it is quite difficult to go back behind the well-composed final text.
The article is probably difficult and its conclusions are unwelcome to many,
but I have not yet discovered any fault in its arguments.