Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Aspirin99 · 07-16-2007, 07:23 AM

What is the earliest evidence for the existence of the Pentateuch or at least Genesis?

Toto · 07-16-2007, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Tradition claims the Pentateuch, which includes Genesis, was written by Moses ca. 1446 BCE (cf. 1 Kings 6:1 for the date of the Exodus, favored by some Conservative Scholars). The archaeological evidence suggests otherwise, the text appears to be no earlier than the 6th-5th centuries BCE, as the rest of this article will attempt to demonstrate.

Dating_the_Bible

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The authorship of the Hebrew Bible is an open topic of research, and who and how many people contributed to the text is a vital and lively area of investigation to this date. Therefore, assigning solid dates to any of the texts is difficult. Since the dating of the authorship of these books depends on the particulars of the deconstruction of the texts, the range of dates assigned to the first five books is rather broad, ranging from the 10th to the 6th centuries BC.

. . . The oldest known materially preserved fragment of a Torah text is a good luck charm, inscribed with Num 6:24–27, and dated to approximately 600 BC (Dever, p. 180).

Clivedurdle · 07-16-2007, 12:15 PM

I would seriously go with the King who "found" one of the books as recorded in the Bible! About 700 BCE. In identical fashion to was it Stephen and Eleanor who found Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury in the 1100's. Kings have always found it very important to create histories about themselves and show how their gods chose them.

Little error with Arthur - the inscription on the grave is in 12th century fonts!

Dreadnought · 07-16-2007, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aspirin99

What is the earliest evidence for the existence of the Pentateuch or at least Genesis?

You appear to be assuming that the books were written in the order they appear. That assumption is a bit rash.

According to Richard Friedman ("Who wrote the bible") the writings that became the Pentateuch were began sometime between 922 and 722 and finished around 500 by someone editing the writings, adding some material and sticking it together. Please note that this is a hypothesis based on the evidence and not an established fact. What is obvious is that the books weren't written one at a time by one author. For instance there are two creation stories that don't match and lots of other contradictions so it's certainly a patchwork of some sort.

Cheerful Charlie · 07-16-2007, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aspirin99

What is the earliest evidence for the existence of the Pentateuch or at least Genesis?

The oldest actual manuscripts are dead sea scrolls dating to 300 BCE.

CC

Amedeo · 07-17-2007, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aspirin99

What is the earliest evidence for the existence of the Pentateuch or at least Genesis?

I will deal with the earliest date when Genesis-2 was composed (that is, told by somebody and eventually written down by somebody else).

There are two steps to the computation, from the internal evidence of the Bible:

(1)

Genesis-2 was told AFTER 4 rivers of Mesopotamia had been named, and after Cush and Asshur had been founded. (This topography is spelled out in the text of Genesis-2.)

Concerning Cush or Kush:

http://cc.usu.edu/~fath6/TableofNations.htm

Quote:

....The reason for all this confusion about the location of "Cush" and the identity of the "Cushites" is that the people were long extinct by the time the Table of Nations was written in the seventh century BCE, and the word "Cush" (or more correctly, Kwsh, in Hebrew) was not a Hebrew word but a loan word from a nonSemitic language, so it had no Hebrew meaning that might have hinted at the lands and people to which it referred. Through their rediscovery in the last century by archaeologists, we now are relatively confident that the term actually referred to the Kassites, who originally occupied the lands of modern Khazi-stan east of the lower Tigris. This was also the "land of Cush" in Genesis 2, described as being along the River Gihon (the contemporary Karun River which flows east from the lower Tigris. The Kassites are a rather enigmatic group. You'll find very little on them in historical records. They entered Mesopotamia during the Babylonian period as early as 1750 BC, and were a nomadic, pastoral people who covered a large territory east of the Babylonian empire. They didn't conquer the Babylonians, but when Babylon collapsed, they just sort of took over the city in 1595 BC, built their own city (Kish) just a bit north of Babylon, and ruled for about 450 years. They did a lot of work restoring the old Sumerian cities to their former glory. After they were superceded by the Neo-Babylonians, they more or less became lost to history, until they were rediscovered by archaeologists in the last century. This explains why by the time of Christ, the Rabbis no longer knew what land was being referred to in Genesis as "Kuwsh", and fumbled around, trying to figure out who to pin the name on, and settled on Nubia ("Cush" or "Ethiopia"). Thus, the original identity of the "Cushites" was lost before the Hellenic period. The scholars of the day made their best guess, based on known geography of the day, and they settled on the land of Ethiopia, called Nubia today. But they erred. Who were the Kassites? They were speakers of an Indo-European language who were racially "white", who migrated into the area during the great waves of migration from western Turkey into Mesopotamia and western India. They conquered the Babylonians and set up their own capital just north of Babylon, a city called Kish. Like the Semites, they were a Caucasian people, but they spoke an Indo-European language not a Semitic one.

As for Assur:

(Wikipedia)

Quote:

Assur also spelled Ashur, from Assyrian Aššur, was one of the capitals of ancient Assyria. The remains of the city are situated on the western bank of river Tigris, north of the confluence with the tributary Little Zab river, in modern day Iraq

Assur is also the name of the chief deity of the city. He was considered the highest god in the Assyrian pantheon and the protector of the Assyrian state. In the Mesopotamian mythology he was the equivalent of Babylonian Marduk.

The site of Assur is a United Nations World Heritage Site, but was placed on the list of World Heritage Sites in danger in 2003, in part to the conflict in that area, and in part due to a proposed dam, that would flood part of the site.

Exploration of the site of Assur began in 1898 by German archaeologists. Excavations began in 1900 by Friedrich Delitzsch, and were continued in 1903-1913. More than 16,000 tablets with cuneiform texts were discovered. Many of the objects found made their way to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

So, as a first Step: Genesis-2 could not have been narrated before 1750 B.C.

(2)

Both Cush and Assur appear in the Table of nations, that is, the nations allegedly founded by the sons of Noah. So, the story of Adam and Eve, told in Genesis-2, was actually narrated after the nations had been founded.

According to the evangelist Matthew, there were 14 generations of humans between Adam and Abraham (who lived a few generations after the founding of the nations. If a generation is about 40 years, then 14 generations amount to 560 years -- a rather short time considering the great longevity attributed to Biblical persons. Anyway, if we subtract 560 years from the historical beginnings of Cush, we are in the year 1190 B.C. This would be a year when the Nations had been founded and Abraham was living.

Whatever the remote origins of the story of Adam and Eve, the story presently in the Bible would be one of the stories narrated to the people of Israel, which was founded by Abraham; it was transmitted orally and eventually put down in writing in the 7th century B.C. (In previous calculations of mine, I considered Assur and overlooked Cush. So, I ended up with the the date of about 1700 B.C. for Abraham.)

The traditional Bible chronology is done by using the genealogies and longevities therein. So people have a day for the time of creation and Adam and Eve, and for all the major figures in the course time. But the internal chronology does not correspopnd to real history. To start with: the Adam family was skilled in farming and shepherding -- which are late neolithic activities in the real history of man. The Nations listed in the Bible's Tables existed long before the appearence of the Hebrews and Israelites. In conclusion, there is no evidence as to when the Bible stories were composed and told, except that they could not have begun to be told before the days of Assur and Cush. Perhaps, if the longevities in the Bible were adjusted to realistic numbers, it may turn out that the lineage form Jesus to Adam is actually 1680 years, as Matthew supposes. (1680 is shortly AFTER 1750, the historical beginning of the Cush mentioned in Genesis-2)

Aspirin99 · 07-30-2007, 12:27 PM

Thanks, very interesting. Sorry for the late reply. I got side tracked.

I have a follow up question. In the NT, lack of 2nd and 3rd century manuscripts is often placated by stating that the ideas and words of the Gospels were quoted by Church Fathers, etc. How far back can Masoretic texts be located by rabbinical (or the like) quotation?

07-16-2007, 07:23 AM	#1
Aspirin99 Regular Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: TalkingTimeline.com Posts: 151	What's the Earliest Date for Existence of Pentateuch? What is the earliest evidence for the existence of the Pentateuch or at least Genesis?

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07-16-2007, 12:15 PM	#3
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	I would seriously go with the King who "found" one of the books as recorded in the Bible! About 700 BCE. In identical fashion to was it Stephen and Eleanor who found Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury in the 1100's. Kings have always found it very important to create histories about themselves and show how their gods chose them. Little error with Arthur - the inscription on the grave is in 12th century fonts!

07-30-2007, 12:27 PM	#7
Aspirin99 Regular Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: TalkingTimeline.com Posts: 151	Thanks, very interesting. Sorry for the late reply. I got side tracked. I have a follow up question. In the NT, lack of 2nd and 3rd century manuscripts is often placated by stating that the ideas and words of the Gospels were quoted by Church Fathers, etc. How far back can Masoretic texts be located by rabbinical (or the like) quotation?

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