Questioning the Hellenistic Date for the Hebrew Bible — continuing

I am continuing here with my responses to criticisms raised on the earlywritings forum. The next objection raised was:

I can’t help feeling that proponents of a Hellenistic origin of the Old Testament must postulate conditions in the early Hellenistic period for which (at least IMO) we have no direct evidence and which (at least IMO) are prima-facie improbable, but which are necessary in order for the Old Testament to be produced at that time.

My response:

I think the reverse is actually the case. The Hellenistic era hypothesis is grounded in the normative approach to evidence that we expect to find among historians of any other field.

1. No independent evidence for….

There is no independent evidence, archaeological or literary, for the existence of the biblical literature prior to the Hellenistic period. There is no “postulate” there — it’s the reality, as we know. (Of course that fact alone does not disprove the existence of biblical literature prior to the Hellenistic era, but nor is it a fact that should be ignored.)

2. Evidence exists for….

The independent evidence prior to the Hellenistic era (including the Persian era) that we do have actually witnesses against knowledge of any of the biblical literature (e.g. Elephantine). I suggest that the circularity enters when one begins with the assumption that there was some Pentateuchal type literature and that the persons who left us the pre-hellenistic evidence probably had it in mind — only did not see fit to inscribe it in the data that has come down to us. Or the surviving evidence was written by a person (Herodotus) who unfortunately wrote a few years too soon before the Pentateuchal cult developments were under way in Palestine.

To interrupt my reply for a moment…. I have been posting some of that evidence in the past few days. Here is another quotation from Reinhard Kratz that elaborates on the above point. It begins by pointing out that the idea of “biblical Judaism” simply must be seen as an anomaly in the light of existing evidence:

Contemporary scholarship often considers the Judean colony at Elephantine an exception that proves the rule. Some contend this religious diversity first emerged in Egypt, where military service brought Jews into close connection with Arameans who venerated the god Bethel (cf. Jer. 48:13) as well as the Queen of Heaven, also attested in pre-exilic Judah (cf. Jer. 7:18; 44:15ff.). Others, by contrast, assert the Judeans of Elephantine preserved and transmitted an older, pre-exilic form of syncretistic Yahwism imported from northern Palestine, where—as the Hebrew Bible contends—Israelite Yhwh devotion alloyed with elements of Canaanite and Aramean religion. Yet a different explanation seems far more reasonable to me: rather than Elephantine and the Judeans of Egypt, it was the Hebrew Bible and biblical Judaism that were the exception to the rule, even into the Persian period. Accordingly, the situation at Elephantine would typify Judaism of the Persian epoch, a standard manifestation not only in the Israelite–Samarian region but also in Judah itself.

Despite drawing that conclusion from the data/facts available, Kratz still finds a place for “biblical Judaism” — surely a speculative notion given the absence of evidence, and an unlikely one at that given that we have no way from the available evidence to see how such an anomaly could have arisen:

Biblical Judaism, then, would stand as one specific faction’s ideal. By no means presupposed by all Judeans or Yhwh-devotees during the post-state period, this ideal would have developed slowly and alongside other forms in pre-exilic and post-exilic times, achieving general acceptance only in the Hellenistic-Roman era. Accordingly, the situation at Elephantine would typify Judaism of the Persian epoch, a standard manifestation not only in the Israelite–Samarian region but also in Judah itself. Biblical Judaism, then, would stand as one specific faction’s ideal. By no means presupposed by all Judeans or Yhwh-devotees during the post-state period, this ideal would have developed slowly and alongside other forms in pre-exilic and post-exilic times, achieving general acceptance only in the Hellenistic-Roman era.

Kratz returns to underscoring the evidence that stands against his speculation:

Objections to this interpretation of the evidence might consider the archives of Elephantine, largely documents from daily life, incomparable to the biblical literature in terms of genre, which could then prohibit any broader conclusions on Judaism at the time. However, the conceptions and norms of biblical literature — had they won validity in the first place — would have certainly found reflection in one way or another in the realm of everyday life and therefore in the practical texts of everyday life, especially in the sphere of religion and cultic practice. As already shown above, they reflect no such norms and concepts. Moreover, not only practical but also literary texts have surfaced among the papyri from Elephantine. Though only two in number, these literary texts fully compete with biblical literature in terms of genre and literary quality. Concerning personal conduct and its compatibility with the demands of biblical literature, common divine veneration provides an unambiguous instance. In Egypt, as in Palestine, Yahu/Yhwh was undoubtedly the highest god, i.e., the “God of Heaven.” Nevertheless, the documents from Elephantine clearly show that other divine beings and even deities received veneration alongside Yahu himself. Communication with the deities of other peoples developed easily and informally as well. (Kratz 143)

Gard Granerød likewise continues to maintain the existence of the religion, or at least a “dimension” of the Judean religion, despite the evidence:

Again, what was Judaean religion in the Persian period like? Indeed, its centre was the god YHWH/YHW/YHH. However, the Judaean religion had many facets, that is, it had many dimensions, above all because it was directed towards multiple places. Thus, from a religio-historical point of view, poly-Yahwism continued to be a characteristic of Judaean religion even in the Persian period. (Granerød 339)

Ernst Knauf, however, is surely right to draw conclusions that the evidence alone will justify:

Not only is there no indication in Elephantine Judaism of the existence of a “Bible,” there is, on the contrary, clear evidence of the non-existence of a Bible. When the Torah existed as such, it also makes itself felt: since about 375 the coinage of Yehud/Jerusalem is aniconic, the prohibition of images is in force. The coins of Samaria remain iconic, for even the Torah is not yet as clearly monotheistic as its reception history suggests. As a compromise, the Torah unites the implicit monotheism of the P tradition (there is only one God, but he has different names with and different relationships to humanity at large, the Abrahamic peoples, and Israel) with the programmatic henotheism of the D tradition (the emphatic demand to worship Yhwh alone makes sense only in a context in which the worship of other gods is a real possibility). But with this a whole new chapter of Israel’s religious history begins. The further fate of the pre-biblical Jews of Elephantine is unknown to us; their story ends here.  (Knauf 187 – translation)

Resuming my initial reply on the earlywritings forum….

3. The conventional eras and the “hermeneutic circle”

The conventional model of the Documentary Hypothesis has been demonstrated to be based on invalid reasoning. This error came about as a result of the bias of assuming from the outset that there was some historical core behind the OT narratives and then seeking to place strands of the OT in a diachronic order that matched that presumed historical core. (e.g. Wellhausen placed the P source last because it represented a “legalistic” response to a more “spiritual” religion of an earlier time, mirroring the general Christian assumption at the time that “good Judaism” degenerated over time into “Pharisaic legalism”.) Indeed there are many arguments based on testing biblical literature with pre-hellenistic scripts and language and so forth, but these all arise from the above fallacy, I suggest.

4. Evidence also exists for….

Our earliest independent evidence (both archaeological and literary) for the existence of any of the biblical literature is in the Hellenistic era. The scrolls found in the caves of Qumran.

5. Conclusion:

It is prima facie reasonable to begin our investigation into conditions in the Hellenistic era to see if they can explain the appearance of the biblical literature (not only its physical existence but its genres, languages, ideas, narratives, laws, etc.) and how these conditions compare with those extant in earlier times. — Always balancing those inquiries into earlier times against #2 and #3 above.

I followed up the above reply with an extract from a article that compares the methodological errors of Pentateuchal study with something similar that once occurred in Classics:

Concerning Pentateuch research, Eckart Otto has recently posed the question: “What went wrong in the last two hundred years . . .?” . . . . It is of greatest importance when somebody who belongs to the most important Pentateuch researchers asks such a fundamental question. . …

Something similar has happened to the scholarship of Roman Law. After decades of hunting interpolations of the classical Roman Law in the Corpus Iuris Civilis, about 30 years ago the legal historians became aware that there was something wrong in the foundations or, to be more precise, in the methods and assumptions. . . .

Nowadays everybody asks themselves how such brilliant scholars could have fallen into the trap of arbitrariness and uncontrolled subjectivity in this field of research.

In my opinion, a similar turning point has come for Pentateuch research now.

Armgardt, Matthias. “Why a Paradigm Change in Pentateuch Research Is Necessary – The Perspective of Legal History“, in: Matthias Armgardt, Benjamin Kilchör, Markus Zehnder (Eds.), Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, 2019, P.79.

Granerød, Gard, and Granerod. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine. Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter, 2016.

Knauf, Ernst Axel. “Elephantine Und Das Vor-Biblische Judentum.” In Religion Und Religionskontakte Im Zeitalter Der Achämeniden, edited by Reinhard G. Kratz, 179–88. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus, 2002.

Kratz, Reinhard G. Historical and Biblical Israel: The History, Tradition, and Archives of Israel and Judah. Translated by Paul Michael Kurtz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

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