In response to the post that I copied here, one consistent critic of Russell Gmirkin’s thesis in particular (and of the Hellenistic era hypothesis for the creation of the Hebrew Bible more generally) posted the following response:
I had referred to the Elephantine remains here, pointing out that some scholars have suggested the Documentary Hypothesis (that assumes a long pre-Hellenistic history for much of the Hebrew Bible) would never have gained any traction if the the Elephantine papyrii had been discovered earlier.
My response:
That is logically correct. But the Elephantine remains, in the absence of remains pointing in the opposite direction, do “indicate” (as per the Opening Post) the absence of any knowledge or regard for the Pentateuch. They certainly do not support the conventional dating.
Nor are the Elephantine remains entirely irrelevant to the question:
. . . the Elephantine community stood in contact with Jerusalem. Although Elephantine was located on the traditional southern border of Egypt, it was not an isolated outpost on the fringe of the world. The Nile was navigable all the way from the Nile delta to Elephantine. A journey from Elephantine to Jerusalem might take approximately one month. In comparison, according to the Bible it took Ezra around four months to travel from Babylon to Jerusalem. In terms of travel time, the Judaeans in Elephantine were much closer to Jerusalem than was the priest-scribe who is often accorded great importance in the (re-)formation of Judaean religion in the Persian period. Whereas this may indicate potential contact and demonstrate that the historical-geographical conditions for travelling between Elephantine and Jerusalem were more favourable than those between Babylon and Jerusalem, it is also evidenced by documents from Elephantine that there was actually a two-way contact between Jerusalem and Judah (and Samaria). Not only did the Judaeans in Elephantine know the names of the tenuring governors of Judah and Samaria (in this case, even the names of the sons of the governor) and the high priest in Jerusalem (cf. A4.7 par.), they also wrote letters to them and even got a reply (although the Judaeans in Elephantine regret that the Jerusalem high priest and his colleagues did not respond to their initial letter).
Fourth, the Elephantine documents are contemporary sources and probably even more representative of the lived and practiced Yahwism of the Persian period than are the biblical texts. . . .
Granerød, Gard. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. pp. 4ff
What Wellhausen wrote in 1921 about Elephantine continues to be the view of those who hold to conventional pre-Persian dates for the various literary sources that were melded to compose the Pentateuch.
Just a few years after the discoveries of the documents of the Jedaniah communal archive, Julius Wellhausen characterised the community as a “merkwürdiger Überrest des vorgesetzlichen Hebraismus.” In his view, the community located at the border between Egypt and Nubia adhered to its “altes Wesen.” Wellhausen regarded the Judaeans in Elephantine to be standing “noch auf der vorgesetzlichen Stufe,” in contrast to the elite of postexilic Judah. In his view, the Judaean community at Elephantine represented a “fossiler Überrest des unreformierten Judentums.”
Granerød, Gard. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. p. 18
Do you have a comment on the circularity of the conventional dating of works like E, J, the Deuteronomist?
by neilgodfrey » Mon Feb 19, 2024 7:00 am
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The above should suffice. But on the off-chance that my interlocutor is reading these posts I had better be sure to be absolutely fair and include his every word that he wrote in response to my arguments. The remainder of this post is included for that reason alone, though the extract from P.R. Davies might be of more general interest.
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To which I replied:
The Hellenistic provenance can be argued without reference to the Elephantine finds. It is the absence of evidence not only at Elephantine but elsewhere, especially in the region of Canaan, that does make the Hellenistic argument (on other grounds) possible, however.
The argument for a Hellenistic provenance stands quite independently of Elephantine. The Elephantine finds were introduced as supporting evidence.
I would be interested to know if you have a comment about the critical grounds for criticism of the conventional dating of the earliest sources for the OT — the circularity of the argument and lack of independent supporting evidence. Example, the logic of the argument for Deuteronomy being composed in the time of Josiah? or the logic of the argument for other material being composed in the Babylonian captivity or even in the time of the Persian empire?
and in hope of getting into some nitty gritty of exactly how Elephantine finds could be relevant, I asked:
Would you be interested in discussing the Elephantine finds and their specific relevance to the knowledge of “some Torah books” in the Persian era in another thread if I open it up?
by neilgodfrey » Mon Feb 19, 2024 7:00 am and 7:07 am
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Alas, there was to be no further attempt to explain how the Elephantine evidence had any relevance to the Hellenistic date of what became the biblical writings. Instead, SG appeared not to have followed the demonstration of how circular reasoning lay at the root of conventional dating of the Hebrew Bible and insisted that the claim of circularity was nothing more than a presumption, an assertion.
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I hoped a little more detail might dispel the notion that Davies merely asserted circularity instead of demonstrating how it happens in actuality. This was, after all, a newly constructed “Academic Discussion forum” with clear rules for exchanges so I still held hope that SG would respond in a scholarly manner.
I know what the proposed sources for the Torah books are. The problem I am trying to note is that the conventional dating of sources such as J, E, D, P is circular and therefore invalid.
The point about circularity is not a mere assertion or presumption. It is demonstrated in the links I posted in the OP.
Here is what Davies wrote in 1992, and I think it deserves a response:
So far, historical research by biblical scholars has taken a different and circular route, whose stages can be represented more or less as follows:
1. The biblical writers, when writing about the past, were obviously informed about it and often concerned to report it accurately to their readers. A concern with the truth of the past can be assumed. Therefore, where the literary history is plausible, or where it encounters no insuperable objections, it should be accorded the status of historical fact. The argument is occasionally expressed that the readers of these stories would be sufficiently knowledgeable (by tradition?) of their past to discourage wholesale invention.
2. Much of the literature is itself assigned to quite specific settings within that story (e.g. the prophetic books, dated to the reigns of kings of Israel and Judah).13If the biblical literature is gene rally correct in its historical portrait, then these datings may also be relied upon.
3. Even where the various parts of the biblical literature do not date themselves within the history of its ʻIsraelʼ we are given a precise enough account in general to enable plausible connections can be made, such as Deuteronomy with the time of Josiah, or (as formerly) the Yahwist with the time of David or Solomon, Psalms with a Jerusalem cult. Thus, where a plausible context in the literary history can be found for a biblical writing, that setting may be posited, and as a result there will be mutual confirmation, by the literature of the setting, and by the setting of the literature. For example, the Yahwistʼs setting in the court of Solomon tells us about the character of that monarchy and the character of that monarchy explains the writing of this story.
4. Where the writer (ʻredactorʼ) of the biblical literature is recognized as having been removed in time from the events he14 describes or persons whose words he reports (e.g. when an account of the history of ʻIsraelʼ stretches over a long period of time), he must be presumed to rely on sources or traditions close to the events. Hence even when the literary source is late, its contents will nearly always have their point of origin in the time of which they speak. The likelihood of a writer inventing something should generally be discounted in favour of a tradition, since traditions allow us a vague connection with ʻhistoryʼ (which does not have to be exact) and can themselves be accorded some value as historical statements of the ʻfaithʼ of ʻIsraelʼ (and this will serve the theologian almost as well as history).
Each of these assertions can be encountered, in one form or another in the secondary literature. But it is the underlying logic which requires attention rather than these (dubious) assertions themselves. That logic is circular. The assumption that the literary construct is an historical one is made to confirm itself. Historical criticism (socalled) of the inferred sources and traditions seeks to locate these in that literary-cum-historical construct. The placement of sources and traditions in this way is then used to embellish the literary account itself. This circular process places the composition of the literature within the period of which the literature itself speaks. This is precisely how the period to which the biblical literature refers becomes also the time of composition, the ʻbiblical periodʼ, and the biblical literature, taken as a whole, becomes a contemporary witness to its own construct, reinforcing the initial assumption of a real historical matrix and giving impetus to an entire pseudo-scholarly exercise in fitting the literature into a sequence of contexts which it has itself furnished! If either the historicity of the biblical construct or the actual date of composition of its literature were verified independently of each other, the circle could be broken. But since the methodological need for this procedure is overlooked, the circularity has continued to characterize an entire discipline—and render it invalid.
The panoply of historical-critical tools and methods used by biblical scholars relies for the most part on this basic circularity.
Davies, Philip R. In Search of “Ancient Israel.” Sheffield Academic Press, 1992. pp 35-37
So you can see it is not a mere assertion of presumption. It is demonstrated.
by neilgodfrey » Mon Feb 19, 2024 8:36 am
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Alas, SG appeared to be impervious to registering any possibility that conventional wisdom might have an insecure foundation and curiosly claimed that the extract from Davies (above) was a “caricature”!
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I had mixed feelings about that response. At least he recognized that the reasoning being described was invalid. But how did he fail to understand that it is in reality how the conventional dating argument has been made?
But still, with new rules in a new forum, surely participants would soon find their feet…..