Dating the Pentateuch

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spin
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Re: Hadrian and the Christians

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stephan happy huller wrote:With respect to the use of Egyptian source material, I don't see why Manetho is required.
He isn't "required". He's the source Josephus cites for the narrative.
stephan happy huller wrote:The account Manetho used could have been factual or at least developed from knowledge of an actual historical event which the Israelites either knew through their own version of those events or - perhaps more likely - came into contact during the early Persian period. I don't see why Manetho is necessarily the source of the information if the information is older than him.
Manetho's narrative is certainly later than the early Persian period. At least some of his source material is much earlier. He has garbled knowledge of the expulsion of the "Hyksos" (and note the wonderful etymology in all its cleverness and error!). What's interesting is that Osarseph (just found the Greek has an eta)/Moses is said to have been a "native" of Heliopolis, the home of the Jewish Oniad temple in Egypt (shades of Isa 19:18f).

We need a social context for Manetho's bad-mouthing report of Osarseph's lepers. When were the Jews a significant present in Egypt?

I think there are quite a few indications that elements of the pentateuch are extremely late. This has an impact on trying to date the Samaritan-Jewish parting of the ways, which I think is partly due to the loss of the Oniads and their ties with Gerizim and then the Hasmonean hegemony and their forced "conversions".
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Re: Hadrian and the Christians

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I still don't understand why Manetho's sources should be dated to the Ptolemaic period. Why is it any different from Josephus citing his sources or Eusebius his in Preparation for the Gospel? What about Chaeremon? Is he dependent on Manetho or do they both go back to a common group of sources, some of which date back to a period before the Persian period? Why should the Jews be any different than Chaeremon? What about Hecataeus? It's been over a decade since I looked at this material but doesn't Hecataeus testify to the existence of Jews near the time of Alexander? Doesn't the archaeological evidence at Gerizim testify to the existence of a cultus there in the Persian period?
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Re: Hadrian and the Christians

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From Magen's 22 year archaeological work at Gerizim:
Today we can state with certainty that the first phase of the temple on Mount Gerizim was erected in the middle of the fifth century BCE by Sanballat the Horonite, a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, who lived more than one hundred years before the Sanballat that is mentioned by Josephus. Sanballat from the time of Nehemiah was probably a resident of Hawara (Horon), located at the foot of Mount Gerizim, and was a descendant of the last Israelites who remained in Samaria after the destruction of the city by the Assyrians. http://www.antiquities.org.il/article_I ... ubj_id=286
I don't see how you date the split between Jews and Samaritans to the Hellenistic period.
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Re: Dating the pentateuch

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spin wrote:
stephan happy huller wrote:the Pentateuch is IMO is firmly dated to the Persian period.
The Enochic issue of sin is certainly after the Persian period, so the story of the fall drags Genesis with it.
Interpreting the Eden narrative in terms of sin and "fall" is a very Christian and stretched approach to the text.
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Re: Hadrian and the Christians

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stephan happy huller wrote:From Magen's 22 year archaeological work at Gerizim:
Today we can state with certainty that the first phase of the temple on Mount Gerizim was erected in the middle of the fifth century BCE by Sanballat the Horonite, a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, who lived more than one hundred years before the Sanballat that is mentioned by Josephus. Sanballat from the time of Nehemiah was probably a resident of Hawara (Horon), located at the foot of Mount Gerizim, and was a descendant of the last Israelites who remained in Samaria after the destruction of the city by the Assyrians. http://www.antiquities.org.il/article_I ... ubj_id=286
I don't see how you date the split between Jews and Samaritans to the Hellenistic period.
I've already cited 2 Macc 6:1-2, as well as the blood relationship between the two temples. (Manasseh, brother of the high priest in Jerusalem went to Gerizim at the time of Philip of Macedon's death. AJ 11.302-4)
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Re: Dating the Pentateuch

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This is what you said earlier:
As to Gerizim, you must remember that the temple there was still seen as important to the Jews at the time of 2 Maccabees 6:1-2. (This was written before 1 Macc and is therefore not a Hasmonean tract.) The temples were interlocked through marriage, so dating the definitive split between them will be quite difficult.
But when you couple that with this fragment http://www.upsite.co.il/uploaded/files/ ... 24342e.pdf tentatively dated to 175 CE you have the beginnings of a strong argument from the primacy of Gerizim. This doesn't prove anything with respect to the dating of the Pentateuch I admit. However since the Pentateuch originally stated that Gerizim alone was the proper place to worship Yahweh and you point to a text which apparently venerated Gerizim and Jerusalem, there must have been a period before 2 Maccabees - perhaps long before 2 Maccabees - which separated the 'only worship at Gerizim' (cf. the Book of Joshua) and then Jerusalem and Gerizim and then finally to a Jerusalem only for Jews and fuck Gerizim (John Hyrcanus 120 BCE?).

Doesn't the primacy of the Gerizim only argument make it likely that the beginning of the Gerizim altar coincided with the beginning of the Pentateuch. What were they doing at Gerizim in the Persian period? And the signs of Persian influence in the depiction of Eden in Genesis coupled with the very ancient tradition of Eden as the top of Gerizim (even a missing mountain top that flew upwards into heaven and will come down at the end of times like Revelation's Jerusalem).

Image

From a Samaritan perspective an image of Gerizim with the four rivers flowing down and Paradise (pardes) planted on top with the goat of Abraham entangled (so interpreted by a Samaritan)
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Re: Dating the Pentateuch

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I couldn't find this thread for a while. It had migrated.
stephan happy huller wrote:This is what you said earlier:
As to Gerizim, you must remember that the temple there was still seen as important to the Jews at the time of 2 Maccabees 6:1-2. (This was written before 1 Macc and is therefore not a Hasmonean tract.) The temples were interlocked through marriage, so dating the definitive split between them will be quite difficult.
But when you couple that with this fragment http://www.upsite.co.il/uploaded/files/ ... 24342e.pdf tentatively dated to 175 CE you have the beginnings of a strong argument from the primacy of Gerizim.
We aren't talking about the primacy of Gerizim, but the split and when the pentateuch was stabilized. These are tied together in dealing with your assumptions about when things could have happened.
stephan happy huller wrote:This doesn't prove anything with respect to the dating of the Pentateuch I admit. However since the Pentateuch originally stated that Gerizim alone was the proper place to worship Yahweh and you point to a text which apparently venerated Gerizim and Jerusalem, there must have been a period before 2 Maccabees - perhaps long before 2 Maccabees - which separated the 'only worship at Gerizim' (cf. the Book of Joshua) and then Jerusalem and Gerizim and then finally to a Jerusalem only for Jews and fuck Gerizim (John Hyrcanus 120 BCE?).
You could be right. But I don't know how one could know at this juncture.
stephan happy huller wrote:Doesn't the primacy of the Gerizim only argument make it likely that the beginning of the Gerizim altar coincided with the beginning of the Pentateuch.
Umm, assuming you are correct for the moment, why?
stephan happy huller wrote:What were they doing at Gerizim in the Persian period?
Self-mutilation?
stephan happy huller wrote:And the signs of Persian influence in the depiction of Eden in Genesis coupled with the very ancient tradition of Eden as the top of Gerizim (even a missing mountain top that flew upwards into heaven and will come down at the end of times like Revelation's Jerusalem).
Does the mention of Assyrians in Manetho's account of Osarseph reflect an origin of the account back in Assyrian times?
stephan happy huller wrote:Image

From a Samaritan perspective an image of Gerizim with the four rivers flowing down and Paradise (pardes) planted on top with the goat of Abraham entangled (so interpreted by a Samaritan)
You're confusing me with what I see as unexplainable tangents.
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Re: Dating the Pentateuch

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Does the mention of Assyrians in Manetho's account of Osarseph reflect an origin of the account back in Assyrian times?
I wasn't aware there was a reference to Assyrians in Manetho. I remember only being interested in the material because of the mention of Osarseph and the circumstances at the time of the Hyskos. As I said it's been ten years since I've looked at this stuff. I don't care one way or the other when the Pentateuch was written. I just assume that the split between Samaritans and Jews took place in the Persian period or at the latest the time immediately following Alexander's appearance.

What about Persian words in the Pentateuch like eshdat lamo (= fire law)? What about the shape of gan Eden (= pardes LXX) four rivers like a Persian pardes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_gardens

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Re: Dating the Pentateuch

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stephan happy huller wrote:
Does the mention of Assyrians in Manetho's account of Osarseph reflect an origin of the account back in Assyrian times?
I wasn't aware there was a reference to Assyrians in Manetho. I remember only being interested in the material because of the mention of Osarseph and the circumstances at the time of the Hyskos. As I said it's been ten years since I've looked at this stuff. I don't care one way or the other when the Pentateuch was written. I just assume that the split between Samaritans and Jews took place in the Persian period or at the latest the time immediately following Alexander's appearance.
I think it was a lot later, as indicated for example by the repute given to Gerizim in 2 Macc 6:1-2.
stephan happy huller wrote:What about Persian words in the Pentateuch like eshdat lamo (= fire law)? What about the shape of gan Eden (= pardes LXX) four rivers like a Persian pardes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_gardens
Perhaps, because Revelation 2:7 was also written in the Persian period... or else you might be able to appreciate that you seem to be converting a terminus a quo to a terminus ad quem.
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Re: Dating the Pentateuch

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So what is your assumption about eshdat lamo? Not Persian. What then?

And sorry to be so daft but how does this help prove that the split between Jews and Samaritans only happened in the Hellenistic period?
Not long after, the king despatched one of the senators at Antioch, with orders he should compel the Jewish people, custom of their fathers and law of their God to forsake. 2 The temple at Jerusalem must be profaned, and dedicated now to Jupiter Olympius; as for the temple on Garizim, the Samaritans were to call it, as well they might,[1] after Jupiter the god of strangers. 3 What a storm of troubles broke then upon the commonwealth, most grievous to be borne! 4 All riot and revelry the temple became, once the Gentiles had it; here was dallying with harlots, and women making their way into the sacred precincts, and bringing in of things abominable; 5 with forbidden meats, to the law’s injury, the very altar groaned. 6 Sabbath none would observe, nor keep holiday his fathers kept; even the name of Jew was disclaimed. 7 Instead, they went to sacrifice on the king’s birthday, though it were ruefully and under duress; and when the feast of Liber came round, make procession they must in Liber’s honour, garlanded with ivy each one.
I am not getting it.
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