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[neilgodfrey]

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[Peter Kirby]

This post is partially quoted here per forum protocol:

That's your prediction. Not mine. Please read sources and the actual argument to which I refer -- the scholarly evidence that has been advanced to support the Persian era date.

[StephenGoranson]

If my memory serves me well, the Shemaryahu Talmon that I knew did not think "ALL OT books" were Hellenistic era.

[andrewcriddle]

You seem IIUC to be requiring a lot of things to happen very quickly. After the beginning of the Hellenistic period a new understanding of the origins of Israel arises. Two or more groups develop this understanding in related but independent extended narratives. These extended narratives are later put together to form our Pentateuch. Shortly afterwards a version of this Pentateuch is translated into Greek. We are still in the early Hellenistic period. IMO things don't happen like that.

Andrew Criddle

On the contrary, within around five or so decades (which is what I assume you mean by "very quickly" ), a host of peoples throughout the areas that had come under Macedonian conquest developed new histories and historical identities for themselves by creating new myths of origins. See

• Scheer, Tanya S. “The Past in a Hellenistic Present: Myth and Local Tradition.” In A Companion to the Hellenistic World: 20, edited by Andrew Erskine, 216–31. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

I have attempted to present this point with demonstrations from more recent times about "how quickly" such historical identities can be invented. Those kinds of inventions were happening almost like part of a new cultural wave back in the Hellenistic times.

New mythical origins were created by various cities -- "very quickly". These myths were invented to place their peoples in to new relationships with other peoples as well as to enhance their own dignity and status as was befitting in the intellectual climate of the time. They were polytheistic myths so how could an intellectual elite who embraced monotheism (or probably, rather, monolatry) compete? Greek and local myths were adapted and tied to local traditions in the same way other peoples were adapting and creating anew their new polytheistic myths. The stories and themes of both kinds -- the polytheistic and the "monotheistic" were the same: stress on genealogical origins back to heroic figures and pasts, explaining new relationships among groups of people within and without one's own group.

Much of what the Judeans and Samarians were doing is what others were doing at the same time.

By contrast, what had happened in Persian times was for the Persian ruler to authorize local religious traditions that had been drawn up by the locals and publishing those codifications in the local native language as well as the official language of the Persian empire, Aramaic. If the Pentateuch was a Persian era creation, by comparison with how Persians supported other local religious cults, we would expect to see the Pentateuch translated not into Greek but into Aramaic. Further, we would expect to see evidence that the laws and origin stories in the Pentateuch had had a long tradition behind them. But Elephantine alone tells us that that was not the case.

On the contrary, the Pentateuch's myths are a Yahwistic counterpart to the Zeus-based myths of origins that were being invented in the Hellenistic era.

I've read Tanya Scheer's interesting essay, thanks for drawing it to my attention. I don't think it is a good parallel. Firstly it is describing changes that had occurred by the late 3rd century BCE i.e. over a hundred years after the beginning of the Hellenistic period. Secondly and much more importantly the essay is about the development of overt explicit links between local traditions and Greek myths. The whole point is the explicitness of the connection this is not a surreptitious adoption of Greek ideas.

Just to clarify; although I regard the Persian creation of the Pentateuch as more mainstream than its Hellenistic creation I do not think either is probably true. IMO the sources underlying the Pentateuch are pre-Persian in origin although the Pentateuch as a combined work is probably Persian. (I do not regard the absence of evidence of Pentateuchal material in the Elephantine papyri as strong evidence that the Pentateuchal material did not then exist.)

Andrew Criddle

[AdamKvanta]

I do not regard the absence of evidence of Pentateuchal material in the Elephantine papyri as strong evidence that the Pentateuchal material did not then exist.

I agree with that. Even Hecataeus of Abdera allegedly wrote that many of the traditional customs of the Jews were altered during the rule of the Persians (Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 40.3):

But under the empires which rose up in later ages, especially during the rule of the Persians, and in the time of the Macedonians, who overthrew the Persians, through intermingling with foreign nations, many of the traditional customs among the Jews were altered . . . This is what Hecataeus of (?) Abdera has related about the Jews.
http://attalus.org/translate/diodorus40 ... %20empires

[AdamKvanta]

I think one could speculate that the Pentateuch was written so early but there is no evidence for its existence at that time. It would indeed be a most remarkable document if it were from that era -- so totally unlike any other contemporary literature or theological concepts.

I haven't checked all the arguments for the texts similar to the Pentateuch but I found some arguments for the book of Joshua. It is from the YouTube video Exodus Rediscovered: Conquest (from 37:20 to 42:00) by InspiringPhilosophy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCstm5DYnb4&t=2240s (timestamped)

I rewrite some arguments here:

Richard S. Hess (2016). The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction (p. 183):

The closest comparison with the book of Joshua arguably lies with the eighteen-century-BC grant of the city of Alalakh and its environs from Abbael, king of Aleppo, to Yarim-Lim who assisted him in his battles.

K. A. Kitchen (2006). On the Reliability of the Old Testament (p. 170):

Most striking is the example of the campaign annals of Thutmosis III of Egypt and his years 22-42 (ca. 1458-1438). As others have noted, the pharaoh there gives a very full account of his initial victory at Megiddo, by contrast with the far more summary and stylized reports of the ensuing sixteen subsequent campaigns. Just like Joshua against up to seven Kings in south Canaan and four-plus up north (final total of thirty-one, Josh 12:9-24), the pharaoh faced a hostile alliance: the rulers of Qadesh and Megiddo, plus 330 allied kinglets.

K. A. Kitchen (2006). On the Reliability of the Old Testament (p. 170-173): There are also some similarities between the book of Joshua and the Amarna letters EA 185 and EA 186.

This was how military reports were customarily written, and these structures and others are the common coin of the second millennium already, long before Neo-Assyrian times.

K. Lawson Younger, Jr (1990). Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing (p. 265):

While there are differences, (e.g. the characteristics of the deities in the individual cultures), the Hebrew conquest account of Canaan and Joshua 9-12 is, by and large, typical of any ancient Near Eastern account.

Ziony Zevit. The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (p. 114):

When the composition and rhetoric of the Joshua narratives in chapters 9-12 are compared to the conventions of writing about the conquests in Egyptian, Hittite, Akkadian, Moabite, and Aramaic texts, they are revealed to be very similar.

[neilgodfrey]

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[StephenGoranson]

One aspect that imo this thread has not yet adequately addressed is the long-term diachronic changes in the Hebrew language evidenced in TaNaK.

[neilgodfrey]

This is just a courtesy post to inform anyone who has replied to my posts in this "Academic Discussion" space that I am currently posting my comments along with responses by Stephen Goranson, Peter Kirby, Andrew Criddle and my rejoinders on my vridar.org blog. Of course I will be posting the original remarks of Goranson, Kirby and Criddle along with my replies.

[Peter Kirby]

So when can I be left alone?