Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The camel domestication issue is just one of very many pointers to the notion that the books of the Torah were written in a much later period than that traditionally posited for their production and the conflict between the texts and archaeology which also point great temporal problems for the accuracy of the Torah.

But let's just think about the contextualization of the pentateuch. Consider "Ur of the Chaldees", Abraham's reputed hometown. The Chaldeans did not enter southern Mesopotamia until early in the first millennium BCE—far too late for the time attributed to Abraham.

The apparently bronze-age Abraham had dealings with the Philistines, as though the Philistines were in Palestine centuries before their arrival around the reign of Ramses III who stopped the progress of the "Sea Peoples" (of whom the Philistines were a part) and drove them back into the Levant where they then settled, leaving a notable archeological impact.

In the table of nations in Gen 10, has a Cushite group called Sabteca (10:7). This was in fact the name of a Nubian king (Shebitku/Shabataqo) from the 25th dynasty, circa 700 BCE. There is also quite a few mistakes in linkage. Canaan was not a Hamitic group (10:6). Nimrod and the Assyrians (10:8, 11) have nothing to do with Cush. The Philistines were not connected in lineage to Egypt (10:14). The Hittites ("Heth" 10:15) were Indo-European and certainly not Canaanite. Someone got their data rather confused there.

Accuracy is not a strong point of the Torah... at least in regard to Genesis. Of course the strained epic rewrite of the expulsion of the Hyksos into the Levant does not point to accuracy either.

spin wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2017 12:49 pm What does "authenticity of the Torah" mean? The relevant books may be forgeries? They weren't written by Hebrews? They aren't the genuine articles?

Perhaps the O.P. intended not "authenticity" but "accuracy" of the Torah.

You're right. In this particular case, I meant the accuracy of the Torah. But it is also true that the Torah is not authentic. The priests perverted another literary work, turning it into their sacred book.

The original version of the Torah.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=822

The camel domestication issue is just one of very many pointers to the notion that the books of the Torah were written in a much later period than that traditionally posited for their production and the conflict between the texts and archaeology which also point great temporal problems for the accuracy of the Torah.

Quite right. The Torah was written after returning from captivity. Or rather, the Torah was not written. It appeared as a result of distortion of the primary literary work. The primary story had a different story and another morality.
--------------------------------------------------
Ironically, the editors had to leave evidence against themselves. The priests claimed that they did not distort the primary text, but corrected errors in it. Errors allegedly made once copyists and folk storytellers.
Priests composed their text in a cunning way, so that their corrections were similar to correcting such errors.

Avi Faust's Israel'e Ethnogenesis and Richard Elliott Friedman's The Exodus argue against dealing with the nascent Jews as a homogenous group and in favor of a small group bringing the cult of ywh up from the south, while the yhw-Shasu connection certainly suggests a nomadic connection.

fwiw I assume a relatively late date for Genesis (for reasons outlined on other threads; I won't rehash).

But this recent discovery hasn't been mentioned yet? I suppose one implication is that dromedary domestication in the Sinai area should be at least 1-2,000 yrs prior to the conventional date of "1200 BC" (traditional assumption, cited in this Haaretz article), but I noted the following uncited Wiki claim:

It was probably first domesticated in the Arabian Peninsula about 4,000 years ago...

Sept 2021:
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAG ... 1.10210585