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Old Testament anachronisms

TimCallahan

Philosopher
T
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Supposedly, the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) were all written by Moses. A number of anachronisms in the text, however, tell us that Moses, who, were he a real, historical person, lived either ca. 1450 or ca. 1200, could not have written the Torah. For starters, let's consider where Abraham came from. According to Gen. 11:31, it was originally from "Ur of the Chaldeans." The problem here is that Ur, a city built by the Sumerians and later occupied by the Akkadians, wasn't in Chaldean hands until ca. 800 BCE, well after the time Moses was supposed to have lived. Therefore, he wouldn't have referred to it as "Ur of the Chaldeans." Thus, whoever wrote that verse lived ca. 800 BCE or later.
 
If a person's really invested in believing the truth of the Bible, there are a few ways to explain this. One is that the historians don't know what they're talking about, and (1.) Moses totally lived in the 800's BC, or (2.) The Chaldeans totally aquired Ur in the 1200's or 1400's BC. Another way is to say Moses mystically foresaw Ur falling into Chaldean hands, which is actually evidence in favor of Moses being a prophet, so nice try, but you just accidentally proved that Moses possessed supernatural knowledge.

If a person's not really invested in believing the truth of the Bible, another way is to say these books were not written by Moses.
 
I know you're not serious, but just reading something that stupid fosters an urge to slap you really really hard Dog Breakfast

:D
 
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Deuteronomy 34:5

Moses said:
So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.

And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.

And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
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Unnatural it is, when people write of their own death.
 
TimCallahan said:
Supposedly, the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) were all written by Moses. A number of anachronisms in the text, however, tell us that Moses, who, were he a real, historical person, lived either ca. 1450 or ca. 1200, could not have written the Torah. For starters, let's consider where Abraham came from. According to Gen. 11:31, it was originally from "Ur of the Chaldeans." The problem here is that Ur, a city built by the Sumerians and later occupied by the Akkadians, wasn't in Chaldean hands until ca. 800 BCE, well after the time Moses was supposed to have lived. Therefore, he wouldn't have referred to it as "Ur of the Chaldeans." Thus, whoever wrote that verse lived ca. 800 BCE or later.
Click to expand...

However to play devils advocate would it be that big a stretch that when the old testament was being codified, they would use (for them) modern identifiers to create context for the readers.
 
TimCallahan said:
Supposedly, the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) were all written by Moses. A number of anachronisms in the text, however, tell us that Moses, who, were he a real, historical person, lived either ca. 1450 or ca. 1200, could not have written the Torah. For starters, let's consider where Abraham came from. According to Gen. 11:31, it was originally from "Ur of the Chaldeans." The problem here is that Ur, a city built by the Sumerians and later occupied by the Akkadians, wasn't in Chaldean hands until ca. 800 BCE, well after the time Moses was supposed to have lived. Therefore, he wouldn't have referred to it as "Ur of the Chaldeans." Thus, whoever wrote that verse lived ca. 800 BCE or later.
Click to expand...

Is there a good link to see which characters in the OT are "believed" to have actually existed or not?
 
MG1962 said:
However to play devils advocate would it be that big a stretch that when the old testament was being codified, they would use (for them) modern identifiers to create context for the readers.
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Modern, yes. Futuristic, no.
 
I think they explain it as Joshua having written the ending to "There and Back Again" and then its sequel, "The Downfall of the Land of Canaan and the Return of the Hebrews" after Moses, Aaron, and Gandalf set sail for Valinor from atop Mount Nebo.
 
DrDave said:
Is there a good link to see which characters in the OT are "believed" to have actually existed or not?
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I don't know about any links. However, there is book, edited by James Pritchard, titled Ancient Near Eastern Texts, usually abbreviated ANET, that contains what are considered the standard translations of preserved texts from the ancient Near East (Egypt, the Levant, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and Persia). A number of these mention kings of Israel and Judah, such as Omri, Ahab, Ahaz (contemporary of Tiglath-peliser III, referred to as Jehoahaz) and Hezekiah, among others. You might be able to find a link to ANET. You might also want to look up the Tel Dan inscription, which mentions a, "king of the House of David," indicating that David was historical.

There is no independent attestation for any of the patriarchs or for either Moses or Joshua. There is also no independent attestation for any of the Judges. There is also no independent attestation for either Elijah or Elisha. The same is true of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the 12 minor prophets, but there's no reason to believe they did not exist - with the exception of Jonah.
 
MG1962 said:
However to play devils advocate would it be that big a stretch that when the old testament was being codified, they would use (for them) modern identifiers to create context for the readers.
Click to expand...

Of course, if that's the case, there could be all sorts of tampering with the original text, making it impossible to date the material.
 
TimCallahan said:
I don't know about any links. However, there is book, edited by James Pritchard, titled Ancient Near Eastern Texts, usually abbreviated ANET, that contains what are considered the standard translations of preserved texts from the ancient Near East (Egypt, the Levant, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and Persia). A number of these mention kings of Israel and Judah, such as Omri, Ahab, Ahaz (contemporary of Tiglath-peliser III, referred to as Jehoahaz) and Hezekiah, among others. You might be able to find a link to ANET. You might also want to look up the Tel Dan inscription, which mentions a, "king of the House of David," indicating that David was historical.

There is no independent attestation for any of the patriarchs or for either Moses or Joshua. There is also no independent attestation for any of the Judges. There is also no independent attestation for either Elijah or Elisha. The same is true of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the 12 minor prophets, but there's no reason to believe they did not exist - with the exception of Jonah.
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Daniel was made up.
 
aggle-rithm said:
Daniel was made up.
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Sorry, I forgot about Daniel. I was going with those prophets included in the Masoretic Text, the official Jewish Bible, which excludes Daniel from their division of the Nevi'im (Prophets). In the Jewish Bible, Daniel, an apocalyptic work, is part of the Kethuvim or "Writiings," the third division of their Bible, a sort of catch all collection of wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes), poetry (Psalms, Song of Songs, Lamentations), stories (Ruth, Esther, Job), post-exilic histories (1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah) and a single apocalyptic work, Daniel.

Apocalyptic literature is frequently pseudepigraphic, i.e. "falsely inscribed," meaning falsely attributed to an ancient patriarch. Examples of such pseudepigraphic literature include the following: the Book of Enoch, the Testament of Abraham, the Testament of the Twelve [tribal] Patriarchs and the Assumption of Moses. Daniel's character was based on an ancient Canaanite sage named Dan'el, father of Aqat, found in the Ugaritic Epic of Aqat.
 
Here's another anachronism. Suppose we find in an American document, supposedly written in the 1600s, the following statement:

"The Iroquois had a bicameral legislature long before there was ever a U.S. Congress."

Despite vehement protests on the part of those defending the document as genuinely from the 1600s, the mention of the U.S. Congress shows that it could only date back to the late 1700s, after the adoption of the Constitution.

Now consider Gen. 36:31:

These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.

This couldn't have been written until there had been at least one king over the Israelites. If we take Saul as a genuinely historical character, he would have reigned over the Israelites ca. 1020 - 1000 BCE, at least two centuries after the latest time Moses could have lived. The earliest Israelite Monarch for whom we have corroborating separate attestation is Omri, whose reign began ca. 875 BCE.
 
TimCallahan said:
The earliest Israelite Monarch for whom we have corroborating separate attestation is Omri, whose reign began ca. 875 BCE.
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IIRC, it was a brief mention by the Assyrians or some such that said something like, "And then we made Omri eat his own hat."
 
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