In Part 4 I pointed to discussions that answered a list of criticisms against the case that the Hebrew Bible was composed prior to Hellenistic times. Those discussions were mostly from other blog posts of mine but they covered what had been repeated at various times in the earlywritings forum. For anyone interested in the details and context of Stephen Goranson’s ongoing discussion of my responses to his list of data points (that he presented as “evidence” of pre-Hellenistic biblical writings) see the copy of the page at the end of this post.
What follows here is the second part to my attempt to justify the plausibility (even greater explanatory power) of the Hellenistic provenance of all (though Russell Gmirkin would, I think, have said only “most”) the books of the Old Testaments. In my opening post (Part 1) I addressed the circularity underpinning the dominant current view of the Documentary Hypothesis. This time I branched out into the data that is better explained by the Hellenistic era thesis.
I included this in my discussion on the earlywritings forum — again, see the link below for the context.
Why the Hellenistic era …. Part 2
There is more to the Hellenistic provenance thesis than the simple fact of the circularity of the methods of dating the OT books by the past conventional scholarship — something that so far not even SG has denied. Given that SG’s reference to Langlois (when read in full) also allows at least for the possibility of a Hellenistic provenance, we have room to continue.
Archaeology reveals
1. The archaeological evidence of pre-Hellenistic Judea-Samaria has demonstrated that major moments of biblical history are fictions. The “invasion” of Canaan by an “Israelite” ethnic group never happened. The most that can be said about the “Kingdom” of David and Solomon is that it was little more than a village incapable of extending dominance over any area of note. (Jamieson-Drake saw evidence of development from a “lower-order society” to a “chiefdom” in Jerusalem, which falls far from the level of “a state”.)
Why write fiction?
2. The question must arise, then, why such stories were told? Were the stories derived from historical memories? Archaeology has suggested that is unlikely. A fundamental and inescapable fact of any literature is that it must reflect the ideas and beliefs and understandings that are part of its cultural matrix. One specific ideological feature of the narrative of David is that it shares manners, customs, assumptions that we find in the Persian kingdom. One might therefore wonder if the stories were told as part of ideological hopes for an imminent greatness, or at least as an attempt to identify with other great powers, whether of the past and/or present.
But what kind of fiction?
3. The literary structure and style of the Primary History (Genesis-2 Kings), as other scholars (not those arguing for a Hellenistic origin, by the way) have shown, is comparable to the Histories of Herodotus. The closest genre to the Primary History is found in the Greek world. Another comparable genre is the autobiographical narrative. Some scholars have attempted to explain this observation by speculating that Greek works were well known to the subjects of the Persian empire or that even the biblical books were known to the Greeks and influenced the Greeks. One needs to look for the explanation that raises fewest difficulties or questions.
Nothing uniform — why?
4. There are vastly different styles among the biblical books. One can explain this fact by positing a long period of evolution and various cultural influences over centuries. One can also explain the same fact by positing contemporary regional differences. As one scholar noted, imagine if all we had about Socrates were the writings of Plato and Xenophon. Would we have to assume that there was a vast time gap between the two accounts since they are so at odds in so many ways?
What kind of society?
5. One ought also to look at the kind of socio-cultural-economic society that would be required to produce the biblical literature. Here again the archaeological evidence can be interpreted in favour of the Hellenistic period. But this is a vast topic of its own.
The argument emerges from other hypotheses
The scholars I have had in mind while setting out the above points have, with one exception, not been advocates of the Hellenistic origin of the biblical literature. The archaeological evidence that discounts the historicity of “biblical history”, the comparisons with Greek literature and Persian royal ideologies, — all of these are found in works of scholars who never entertained a Hellenistic time setting, as far as I am aware. Philip Davies himself (with whom I began in the OP) always argued for the Persian era for the Primary History and Prophets.
But there are also problems with a Persian era setting that disappear if we move the compositions of the books to the third century.
by neilgodfrey » Tue Feb 20, 2024 11:24 am
In the next post I will set out my personal reason for strongly suspecting a Hellenistic origin of the biblical literature.
The original forum exchange:
If you enjoyed this post, please consider donating to Vridar. Thanks!
I have been closely following your posts on a Hellenistic dating for the Old Testament writings. For which, many thanks!
Also, I have found your posts summarising the work of Philip R. Davies – in this post – https://vridar.info/bibarch/arch/davies5.htm – he says:
“The archaeological data gives no clues to:
-the biblical idea of the Canaanites (non-Israelites);
-the monotheistic ideal;
-the idea of ethnic exclusivism;
-a cult obsessed with purity;
-the idea of a settlement or invasion from outside;
-the hatred of the Canaanites.
“There are no clues in historical Israel for where any of these ideas emerged from, or whose interest they would benefit. The conditions and need for such ideas are not present in historical Israel.”
To me this is a very concise summary of the questions that I personally have been curious about for many years (having been raised in an evangelical faith from which I walked away decades ago)…
How was it that these specific, and novel, themes emerged, under what conditions did they emerge, and whose interests did it benefit to establish them as religiously central to the scriptures that resulted?
I feel that the late Russell Gmirkin*, and yourself, are addressing the “under what conditions” aspect of the question pretty well (Hellenistic conditions seems a good fit), but I am still at a complete loss, despite much reading, to figure out who, specifically, benefitted from developing this ideology of extreme ethnic exclusivity, and how… and who found it congenial to attribute this ideology to a god who is not only monotheistic, but also jealously theocidal and iconoclastic.
It would be extremely ironic (and not in a good way) if the Bible-larpers busily exterminating those they see as modern day Canaanites/Amalekites, are trying to “re-enact” a history which never even happened the first time around.
* to be fair, I have not yet read any of his published books, but I have certainly read a great many of the posts that he has put online, and that many others, including your good self, have written.
Hi Scotlyn, You raise some questions that I am still in the process of exploring myself, so I do not have finalized views even for myself. But some points I am considering:
There is no unified OT approach to the Canaanites. Some narratives accept them as friendly neighbours, others as people to be exterminated. See, for example, two posts:
https://vridar.org/2024/03/09/how-patriarchs-of-the-jews-lived-in-peace-with-canaanites/
https://vridar.org/2024/03/10/four-ways-canaan-fell-to-biblical-israel/
So there were divided views among the various groups putting together the Pentateuch. The current Zionist movement, that of the late nineteenth century through to today, owes far more to inherited nationalism strains of thought from Europe than from anything in the Bible. It is on a level with, say, the imperialist British and Americans claiming to be fulfilling the biblical will to replace the “inferior” indigenous inhabitants with their superior white race and culture.
Perhaps the closest we find to this in ancient Judea is with the Hasmoneans. That is when we see the first slaughters of “pagans” in history, along with the destruction of the “wrong form” of Yahweh worship in Samaria.
The earliest archaeological evidence we have for some of the purist biblical laws being followed is found in Hasmonean times:
https://vridar.org/2022/11/17/the-late-origins-of-judaism-the-archaeological-evidence/
https://vridar.org/2023/11/01/archaeological-support-for-gmirkins-thesis-on-plato-and-the-hebrew-bible/
But the Hasmonean ideology does not appear to have maintained a total control of Jewish/Judean thought even in ancient times up to the rabbinic era. Even today, there are anti-Zionist Jews who declare Zionism to be a betrayal of “true Judaism”.
That only answers your question with more questions, sorry.
Questions leading to more questions at least gives lots of “food” for more thinking and reflecting. 🙂
Of course it is the “exclusivity” principle that developed (perhaps as you say during Hasmonean times – I’ll be interested in reading those posts) in certain strains in Judaism that was also taken up wholesale in certain strains of Christianity – and which, therefore, is the one most troubling to me in the process of usefully engaging with my own background and rearing.
This exclusivity principle was responsible, for example, for the papal discovery doctrine, by means of which the New World was theoretically pre-claimed under European (“Christian”) sovereignty and control, long before any European set foot on it… after that, all that remained was the messy and lengthy process of small groups of conquerors and settlers arriving to different places, at different times, that kept the inexorable process of claiming, pushing and shoving, and, if needs be, killing, going in the one direction.