The Pentateuch, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion article

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MrMacSon
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The Pentateuch, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion article

Post by MrMacSon »

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by Thomas B. Dozeman, June 2018 http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.10 ... t=p9gcL7AX

eg. from one of the last sections, 'Review of Literature' -

The review has sought to demonstrate the dynamic and incomplete character of the research on the Pentateuch. Debate over its formation, genre, and the best designation for the anonymous author(s) is far from settled. Interpreters continue to argue both for sources and for a process of supplementation to account for the formation of the Pentateuch. Yet, there is also a trend toward progressively later dating of the Pentateuch, which will undoubtedly have implications for interpreting Israelite religion and the formation of the Canon .... The later dating of the Pentateuch suggests further that the creative period for the emergence of the Yahwism represented in Torah is the Exilic and post-Exilic periods, not the monarchical period, which is prompting scholars to explore more carefully the formation of the Pentateuch in the Persian period and even the Hellenistic period.
semiopen
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Re: The Pentateuch, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion article

Post by semiopen »

That's been the way things have been going for quite awhile.

My simple rule is that the latest possible date for stuff is probably the right one; easy to stay on the winning side of debates. Conservative scholars take the opposite approach - really hasn't worked out well for them for the past half century or so.

I've mentioned before that an interesting debate is dating the Holiness_code
Most critical scholars and religious commentaries regard the Holiness Code as bearing strong resemblance, in several places, to the writing of Ezekiel. Ezekiel dwells repeatedly on offences which the Holiness code condemns, and spends little time concerned with those outside it (e.g. Leviticus 18:8–17 in comparison with Ezekiel 22:10–11), and several extensive lists of such parallels exist. There is also a great similarity between Ezekiel's writing and the hortatory elements, particularly the conclusion, of the Holiness Code. These strong similarities have led many critical scholars to question whether Ezekiel was the author of the code, or at least the collector, and it remains an open question whether the Holiness Code influenced Ezekiel, or Ezekiel influenced the Holiness Code.
Have to admit this is too deep for me. Conservatives say it is a done deal that the Holiness Code is earlier than Ezekiel (suggesting a possible monarchical origin), one of the few positions left where they don't look like morons. Parts of Ezekiel are Babylonian and part is Persian.
nili
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Re: The Pentateuch, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion article

Post by nili »

semiopen wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 5:09 am That's been the way things have been going for quite awhile.

My simple rule is that the latest possible date for stuff is probably the right one; easy to stay on the winning side of debates. Conservative scholars take the opposite approach - really hasn't worked out well for them for the past half century or so.

I've mentioned before that an interesting debate is dating the Holiness_code
Most critical scholars and religious commentaries regard the Holiness Code as bearing strong resemblance, in several places, to the writing of Ezekiel. Ezekiel dwells repeatedly on offences which the Holiness code condemns, and spends little time concerned with those outside it (e.g. Leviticus 18:8–17 in comparison with Ezekiel 22:10–11), and several extensive lists of such parallels exist. There is also a great similarity between Ezekiel's writing and the hortatory elements, particularly the conclusion, of the Holiness Code. These strong similarities have led many critical scholars to question whether Ezekiel was the author of the code, or at least the collector, and it remains an open question whether the Holiness Code influenced Ezekiel, or Ezekiel influenced the Holiness Code.
Have to admit this is too deep for me. Conservatives say it is a done deal that the Holiness Code is earlier than Ezekiel (suggesting a possible monarchical origin), one of the few positions left where they don't look like morons. Parts of Ezekiel are Babylonian and part is Persian.
For what it's worth, Richard Elliott Friedman writes in The Bible with Sources Revealed:
The third main source is known as P because one of its central concerns is the priesthood. In critical scholarship, there are two main views of when it was composed. One view is that P was the latest of the sources, composed in the sixth or fifth century BCE. The other view is that P was composed not long after J and E were combined -- specifically, that it was produced by the Jerusalem priesthood as an alternative to the history told in JE. Linguistic evidence now supports the latter view and virtually rules out the late date for P.
semiopen
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Re: The Pentateuch, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion article

Post by semiopen »

I think the current majority view is that J was composed pretty close to P and significant parts may have even been after, E is more or less brain dead.

One of the issues of getting old is that whatever you've done in life is diminished, unless you're somebody like Newton. Friedman's major contribution is that he popularized the notion that the Pentateuch wasn't written by Moses. That's a lot more significant than anything I've accomplished, but time goes on.
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