the c. 273-272 Torah-creation hypothesis

[neilgodfrey]

What is the explanation for a copy of this Alexandrian invention in the Judean desert about 25 years after it was first composed. Just trying to put this all together. 'The Teacher of Righteousness' should be identified with Onias III and 'the Wicked priest' Menelaus. So what's that? Beginning of the second century? A century or so after the texts were invented in Alexandria? So in that century you have (a) a Samaritan cultus at Gerizim (b) Jewish sacrifice at Jerusalem and (c) a sectarian movement that moved into the desert with a near autograph copy of an Alexandrian Torah. Is there even a generation of peace where ecumenism existed in the Levant or where they at each others throats from the get go?

I have been assuming you are well informed on C-14 dating. But for what it's worth it is worth noting the following:

From page 70 of The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Davies, Brooke, Callaway:

While Cross’s typology is excellent, it does not automatically yield chronology. The margin in dating needs to be at least 25 years in each direction (the lifetime of a scribe). Recent Carbon-14 (AMS) datings, claimed to support Cross’s datings, actually do not support the precision he claims, though this method of dating is not sufficiently close to determine the matter.

And from page 74 of the same:

Recent Carbon-14 testing (more precisely referred to as Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) of the parchment of a selection of Dead Sea Scrolls has been interpreted as confirming accepted palaeographical datings. This is largely true in broad terms. But AMS cannot date these materials within a 50-year range, much less in terms of quarter centuries and thirds of centuries, or even to a specific year such as ‘c. 50 bce’, as is sometimes done on the basis of palaeography. The practitioners of C-14 (AMS) science speak of a range based on probability. For example, with a 68 per cent probability a specific parchment can typically be dated to within about a century. If the probability is raised to 95 per cent the range exceeds a century. Moreover, there remains a possibility of a rare ‘rogue’ result, such as in cases where the material has been contaminated. Again, it must be remembered that C-14 (AMS) dates the material, not the text. In most cases we can assume that the scroll was inscribed soon after the animals that provided the skin were killed. But that may not always be so. Finally, of the thousands of Qumran fragments, only a relatively small number of samples have been analyzed in different laboratories. Though Carbon-14 analysis has certainly been refined in recent years, it is unlikely ever to be able to give us dates as precise as we would like for any scrolls as ancient as these. It can certainly confirm (barring the occasional erratic result) the verdict of palaeography in general, though not the very precise palaeographical dates sometimes cited.

No-one can say that a scroll can be dated 250 to ca 248 BCE. Such precision is impossible -- even with the "about" qualifier.

The above leaves open the possibility that the Exod-Lev skin you are referring to was prepared within a generation of the Alexandria translation and written on in the next.

But what if it could be established that a significant amount of material had a very high probability of being written within just a few years of the traditional LXX translation? Here are my own thoughts, not those of Russell Gmirkin:

It would mean that RG's explanatory model of where and when the creation and Greek translations of the Pentateuch occurred would potentially (not necessarily) be open to revision. What would not be touched at all by such a find would be the hypothesis itself: the evidence presented for the Greek influence on the content and style of the Pentateuch. The evidence presented there is very strong. In my own view, it would mean that the story of the scribes being invited to Alexandria ca 273 bce and that event being the occasion of the creation of the biblical works would be open to revision. I have less confidence in that event as the explanatory model for the hypothesis of Greek influence than Gmirkin appears to have. But at present it does seem to be the most likely explanation and C-14 dating of one DSS item does not impinge on that in the slightest -- for the reasons quoted above.

[Secret Alias]

So I am a moron because I don't accept the most recent possible date for the fragment?

[neilgodfrey]

So I am a moron because I don't accept the most recent possible date for the fragment?

No Stephan, that's not what I said and you are back to your old ad hom ways again - of imputing to me a certain attitude towards others that you too often display here. You really have a thing going in liking to call people insulting names, don't you. (Something about "manliness", I think you said.)

I said you are not conforming to the standard scholarly ways by insisting that our methods of dating allow one to specify a particular 25 year range.

I really did assume, sorry, that you would have been interested enough to learn the basics about C-14 dating long ago and am surprised that what I copied from a scholarly work seems to be news to you.

I am reminded of a NT scholar who, on being presented with a possible range of dates for a particular manuscript insisted that because one extreme end was a theoretical possibility he was right to declare that that one extreme end was "a fact". It was not. Some biblical scholars are like that. It was no more a "fact" than any other year in a 100 year range could be declared as "a fact".

People can't just decide to accept one end of a spectrum as "a fact" because it suits their theory. What C-14 does is give probabilities of a range period of dates. That "range of possibilities" is "the fact" -- not a particular year one likes to have. No scholar (except for an odd eccentric NT scholar, perhaps) would say that C-14 enables us to specify a particular year -- and not even a particular 25 year range.

At the very most, one can assign a 25 year range either side of a particular point -- that is, at best, a probability of a 50 year range, but the probability for that would not be as strong as assigning a particular 100 year range.

All of that is simply the basics of responsible interpretation of C-14 dating.

And as you read in the quoted passage, what is dated is the skin, not the ink.

But let's get to the point.

You evidently don't like Russell Gmirkin's hypothesis. The way to debunk his hypothesis is to examine the evidence he has presented to support it and to demonstrate why he is wrong in his interpretation and use of that evidence.

Simply standing back on the sidelines and tossing out a "what about" type rejoinder doesn't work. If a DSS mss was reliably dated to 280 bce then that would open up the question of G's model presented to explain his hypothesis. It would not falsify his hypothesis of Greek influence in the origin of the Pentateuch.

[neilgodfrey]

It should go without saying, of course, that with respect to RG's thesis, there is nothing improbable about the idea that copies of Hebrew and Greek Pentateuchal writings would be copied and spread widely within a generation of their creation. My responses up till now have attempted to zero in on what I have understood to be the implications of extremist and unscholarly interpretation of certain data.

[John2]

I'm trying to familiarize myself with Gmirkin's books but am limited by what little I can see of them on Google Books, so I'm curious if they address two questions that have come to mind.


1. Why and how was the Torah written in two scripts (Paleo-Hebrew and Aramaic) instead of one?

2. Why are there apparent doublets in the Torah (two creation stories, two flood stories, etc.)?

[neilgodfrey]

I'm trying to familiarize myself with Gmirkin's books but am limited by what little I can see of them on Google Books, so I'm curious if they address two questions that have come to mind.


1. Why and how was the Torah written in two scripts (Paleo-Hebrew and Aramaic) instead of one?

2. Why are there apparent doublets in the Torah (two creation stories, two flood stories, etc.)?

Gmirkin's thesis is that the Pentateuch was written first in Hebrew script but that original has been lost. Early copies of it that we have point to variations in the text -- the ideas set down in the original were not uniformly accepted. (Even within the Pentateuch there are very distinct divergences about the nature of God according to early Genesis stories on the one hand and the God of the Exodus on the other. Philip Davies -- who argued for a Persian era date -- posited rival schools of scribes engaged in theological debates through redactions and alternative accounts.)

As for the two creation stories, Gmikin's view is that the original authors of Genesis 1-3 were inspired primarily by Plato's works and they followed his duplicates. I am currently writing about Gmirkin's new book on Genesis 1-11 and will cover those creation accounts in a day or two. Discussion of the Flood will be a little later.

Till then, at least for the creation stories, Gen 1-2:3 is written in a different genre from chapters 2:4 to 3. The first account follows the scientific cum theological narrative of Plato, while the next part introduces a mythical tale with one of the subordinate gods of the creator the decisive character.

As for the Flood doublets, Gmirkin argues that the biblical authors were drawing on Berossus's account of Mesopotamian flood stories, and that Berorssus appears to have in turn drawn on multiple accounts (northern and southern Mesopotamia). I discussed Gmirkin's view of the Flood origin in an older post The Genesis Creation Story and its Third Century Hellenistic Source? (Will address some of the added themes from Plato in a future blog post.)

[neilgodfrey]

But the question remains: Why would Hellenistic era Jews write so much about Persia, and be so flattering to the Persians?

An answer proposed by the French scholar Bernard Barc is that certain Jewish parties were attempting to rebut the Hellenistic associations of the Torah/Pentateuch.

The story of Ezra being set in Persian times was one way of denying the Hellenistic-philosophical associations of the Law that the translators of the Septuagint so clearly demonstrated. Ezra, Barc argues, and the Letter of Aristeas were written in opposition to each other: the former against Hellenism and the latter in praise of Greek philosophical learning said to be epitomized in the Pentateuch (LXX).

When I get back to blogging I do hope to write more about Barc's thesis.

[Russell Gmirkin]

I'm trying to familiarize myself with Gmirkin's books but am limited by what little I can see of them on Google Books, so I'm curious if they address two questions that have come to mind.


1. Why and how was the Torah written in two scripts (Paleo-Hebrew and Aramaic) instead of one?

2. Why are there apparent doublets in the Torah (two creation stories, two flood stories, etc.)?

Thanks for asking.

For the first question, Plato's Laws said that every effort must be made to make the national constitution, laws and traditions appear ancient and divine. The Torah was likely copied in Paleo-Hebrew in copies at Qumran to make it seem ancient and authoritative. Paleo-Hebrew was also used on coins long into the Hellenistic and Roman eras for similar aesthetic considerations. One sees hieroglyphics still in use in Egypt and cuneiform used by Babylonian scholars into the CE era for similar prestige purposes.

For the second question, in my most recent book I argue that there is only one creation story in two parts, both based on Plato's Timaeus, which has a very similar division. But I also consider the Pentateuch to be of corporate authorship, with contemporary J, E, D, P, H and other authors. See my article “Can the Documentary Hypothesis be Rehabilitated? A New Model of the Collaborative Composition of the Pentateuch”, Journal of Higher Criticism 15/3 (fall 2020): 4-48, which can be viewed at
https://www.academia.edu/45052192/Can_t ... Pentateuch

[rgprice]

I'm currently reading "Adam as Israel" (Neil's suggestion), and it makes some interesting observations. Apparently there are several recent scholars, Christians among them, who conclude that Genesis 1-4 all goes together and were possibly even written by the same person, or that the writer of 2-4 had read Gen 1-2:3. Genesis 2-4 is seen as having knowledge of Gen 1. And of course many scholars, including the author of the book, conclude that Gen 1-11 is an introduction to the rest of the Torah. I tend to agree with this. So I think that the writer of Gen 1-11 had read Exodus-Numbers. I think its also possible that Gen 12-50 is an intro to Exodus-Numbers as well, so it would be like Exodus-Numbers was written first, then someone wrote Gen 12:50. Then someone wrote Gen 1-11 and Deuteronomy. Or maybe part of Deuteronomy was written with Exodus-Numbers, but the end was written along with Genesis 1-11. So I don't think its all 100% contemporary as you propose, but still pretty close.

[Russell Gmirkin]

I'm currently reading "Adam as Israel" (Neil's suggestion), and it makes some interesting observations. Apparently there are several recent scholars, Christians among them, who conclude that Genesis 1-4 all goes together and were possibly even written by the same person, or that the writer of 2-4 had read Gen 1-2:3. Genesis 2-4 is seen as having knowledge of Gen 1. And of course many scholars, including the author of the book, conclude that Gen 1-11 is an introduction to the rest of the Torah. I tend to agree with this. So I think that the writer of Gen 1-11 had read Exodus-Numbers. I think its also possible that Gen 12-50 is an intro to Exodus-Numbers as well, so it would be like Exodus-Numbers was written first, then someone wrote Gen 12:50. Then someone wrote Gen 1-11 and Deuteronomy. Or maybe part of Deuteronomy was written with Exodus-Numbers, but the end was written along with Genesis 1-11. So I don't think its all 100% contemporary as you propose, but still pretty close.

The fact that something is structurally designed as an introduction to another part doesn't really imply a chronological order in writing, in my opinion. I have a couple books where I'm working on the introduction and other chapters simultaneously, but knowing how they coordinate. At any rate, I don't see it all as 100% contemporary on a micro scale. In a coordinated literary project by multiple authors spread out over a period of time--weeks? months? a year?--inevitably some parts will be completed first and shown to fellow-authors. For instance, Deuteronomy appears to draw on P, while the Holiness Code H in Leviticus draws on both P and D. Further, there is Deuteronomistic editing in Genesis and possibly later books. There are lots of small-scale interrelationships. Just my take--you may have a different model of how the parts came together.