Lundahl (2022x) Continues to Make Bad Assumptions About the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua
Kevin R. Henke
November 21, 2022
In Henke (2022bn), I said the following:
“Lundahl (2022k) makes the following comments about point #5 in Henke (2022b) about who wrote Genesis 3 and when:
“First known audience considered it to have been written by Moses, and considered Genesis 1 to be based on a vision granted him on Sinai. They are not known to have made a parallel claim of prophecy for the parts that could be historically transmitted. This means, Genesis was finished as book after the Exodus event, and by Moses, who had access to revelation for a limited part of it and historic traditions and documents for the rest.”
“Here, Mr. Lundahl is again making groundless proclamations that have no evidential support whatsoever. So, where’s the archeological evidence that Moses ever lived? If he did happen to exist, how do we know that he wrote anything? How do we know when Moses lived, if he lived at all? Why should we trust the traditions of ancient Israelites? How can we trust the beliefs of individuals that lived about a thousand years after Moses supposedly lived and many more thousands of years after Adam supposedly lived? To be exact, the archaeological results in Finkelstein and Silberman (2001) and other 21st century sources provide good evidence on the origin of ancient Israel and the Moses story is baseless. Lundahl (2022k) needs to look at the evidence and not just blindly trust groundless Hebrew speculation and myths. Finkelstein and Silberman (2001, pp. 10-24) and many other experts also present good evidence that the Pentateuch was written by multiple authors and not all at once. Various individuals, including conservative Christians and secular archeologists (e.g., Finkelstein and Silberman 2001), have thrown out dates on when the Pentateuch or various parts of it were written. None of these dates are well verified.” [my emphasis]
In Lundahl (2022x), Mr. Lundahl responds to my bolded statement in Henke (2022bn) with another flippant comment:
“I don't think that Joshua or King David qualify as living ‘about a thousand years after Moses’ ...”
Why should we think that Moses or Joshua ever existed? What evidence do we have that King David actually wrote anything in the Bible or even had a copy of the Pentateuch? There are some scholars that argue that the Pentateuch was still being edited and composed as late as the 4th century BC or even later (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 13). That is, not much earlier than the oldest Dead Sea Scrolls. If this is true, then writers were making up stories about Moses and other Bible characters that supposedly lived a thousand years or more before them.
Reference:
Finkelstein, I. and N.A. Silberman. 2001. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts: The Free Press: New York, USA, 385pp.