Russell Gmirkin did not argue that ALL of the books of the Jewish Bible originated in the Hellenistic era. When I began to post on the earlywritings forum that “Why the Hellenistic era for ALL “Old Testament” books should be taken seriously” I was attempting to set out why it is both possible and plausible to conclude that “all” were Hellenistic compositions. Russell and I had some differences in both hypotheses and historical methods, but I found the details of his case for the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) being of Hellenistic origin to be very strong: see the links in my post that initiated this series.
Finally a new critic emerged on the “Academic Discussion” section of the earlywritings forum. I post his criticism here:
This is a comment on Neil’s original post in this thread and the issues it raises about general historical methodology. It may not be a response to Neil’s position as developed in later posts.
In later posts Neil has referred to arguments that the author of the Pentateuch knew Plato et al. I’m going to leave this aside.
a/ I am not at all convinced for reasons discussed in earlier threads and don’t really want to rehash those arguments.
b/ Right or wrong this is a rather different argument that the earlier ones about general methodology. If we have solid evidence of links between Plato’s works and the Pentateuch then, accepting that Plato did not know the Pentateuch, there are straightforward implications for dating the Pentateuch whatever ones general methodology.
There is an argument that the Hebrew of the Pentateuch requires a preHellenistic date. I’m going to leave this aside.
It is agreed that prima-facie the Hebrew of the Pentaeuch is much earlier than say the Hebrew of Daniel Chronicles Ben Sira but Hebrew scholars dispute how conclusive this sort of evidence is and my personal opinion is pretty much worthless.
The post is about ALL Old Testament books but I’m afraid I can’t take it seriously in this form. It may be my narrow mindedness but I’m sure Nahum for example is a pre-Hellenistic work. The same goes for Deutero-Isaiah which has real implications for tradition found in the Pentateuch. I’m going to concentrate on the idea of the Pentateuch in anything remotely like its present form being a Hellenistic work.
On the one hand we have no unambiguous pre-Hellenistic evidence for the Pentateuch. (I regard Hecataeus on the Jews according to Diodorus Siculus as authentic but this is technically extremely early Hellenistic rather than pre-Hellenistic.) On the other hand things like the Elephantine papyri suggest that the Pentateuch was not central to Jewish religion in the early Persian period. This means that prima-facie we should take seriously the idea that the Pentateuch was not only redacted in the Persian or later period but effectively created then. I have serious difficulties with a Persian origin of the Penateuch but it prima-facie should be taken seriously.
The difficulty is that neither Neil or I regard the Persian period as plausibly creative in this way, hence ‘Persian or later period’ becomes Hellenistic period. I am unable to regard this as prima-facie plausible. Apart from anything else the creation of a work that has all the signs of a long process of development and combination of different sources almost immediately before our earliest external evidence for its existence is IMO just not how things happen. I have similar problems with the idea of the NT being created around the time of Marcion. This may be a prejudice on my part, but if so then so be it.
by andrewcriddle » Fri Feb 23, 2024 9:54 pm
For the full context see the link/file at the end of this post.
What do you think of that criticism?
At first I was somewhat excited to think that a lengthy argument was being given for me to engage with, but there was precious little argument, alas. Rather, there were lots of “I’ll leave that asides” and an “I can’t take that seriously”. There was no engagement with the case I had set out for the logical fallacy at the heart of the hypothesis that the Hebrew Bible was composed over many centuries from as early as the Iron Age. There was a lot of incredulity expressed. I was disappointed. (It did not seem worthy as a submission to a forum headed “Academic Discussion”. Was the moderator himself unaware of the meaning of “Academic Discussion”? But it appears since I left the forum Andrew has been made the moderator of “Academic Discussion” so I have no desire to return there.)
I have found this among a number of people who have long been so steeped in the Documentary Hypothesis that they have come to assume it is an unarguable fact. Different types of Hebrew are assumed to be evidence of a long evolving series of biblical compositions over centuries. That different forms of Hebrew, even those known to be old, were kept alive and used by different scribes in the same era seems to be too much for them to accept as a possibility despite the scholarly arguments for it.
I posted a copy of my response to Andrew Criddle’s objections at the same time here:
Responding to a Critic of the Hellenistic Era Hypothesis for the Hebrew Bible
For the original comment in its context and responses/criticisms see