When was genesis compiled?

IP_SEC

The book is probably a compilation of folk stories, several different Hebrew traditions, and adaptations of the legends of neighboring societies. No?

Around what year was genesis probably compiled?

After the Babylonian exile with the rest of the Pentateuch. No one knows the year, roughly the date is usually placed in the late sixth century or early fifth century BC. The Copenhagen school places these books even later into the Hellenistic period (third or second century BC), but that is far too late imho. Meanwhile, some of the material in the Pentateuch may be much older....such as the seventh century BC, with some of the poetic parts being even older (such as the Song of the Sea, the Blessing of Jacob, etc.).

hooberus

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/moses.asp

IP_SEC

Thanks Leo,

Thanks for the links hoob I'll read it later.

BTW is your name an alt spelling for hubris?

peacefulpete

Even you Hooberus have to find it funny to resort to the results of a 1982 computer program written by a Jewish school.

Leolaia

I have seen many critiques of the DH by conservative writers, but this one is the most fluffy I have seen. Surely hooberus can do better.

PP....The same approach by the same researcher concluded that Isaiah was written by multiple authors:

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,904297,00.html

Do you think the author of that webpage will accept these results as readily as the results concerning Genesis?

peacefulpete

I was tempted to buy a back issue of the magazine just so as to review the conclusions. Another literalist site claimed the 82% of similarity found by the computer analysis was between E and J. Jewish Biblical Criticism Unearthed - One People, Two Worlds Not surprising.

Leolaia

Well, that's interesting. All this time I thought it was based on comparing J with P or with the Joseph novella.

Forscher

I think that one expert who's opinion is appropriate to the subject at hand is Robert Wilson Ph.D., D.D.. Dr. Wilson was one of the preemminent scholars of the early twentieth century and an ardent foe of "higher Criticism", the basis for what Leolaia asserts as fact. He was uniquely positioned to dispute the speculations of the higher critics because he was an expert of all the ancient languages which bear on the subject of when the Bible books were composed. He also had access to the great body of writtings archeologists discovered during the 19th and early 20th centuries in Egyptian, Urgharitic, Aramaic&Syriac, and more. Dr. Wilson refuted a long time ago many of the same arguments still used by modern higher critics. The following essay by Wilson, with an interductory foreword by Phillip Howard, outlines many valid reasons to question question Leo's assertions.
Is The Higher Criticism Scholarly?
This appendix contains parts of an address given by Dr. Wilson on what he considered the standard for being an expert and his appraoch to investigation.
Index
This was one man that whose crtiques of higher criticism can't just be written-off. He knew the source material better than many modern experts.
Forscher

When was genesis compiled?

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