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The evidence is clear and specific concerning the history of the text The Pentateuch was compiled after 600 BCE form earlier, Phoenician/Canaanite/Ugarit, Babylonian and Sumerian texts, The mythology reflects the evolved mythology of the writings of the more ancient cultures. The Canaanite/Ugarit cuneiform libraries found in Northern Canaan and older Babylonian and Sumerian sources represent the source of much of the foundation of the Pentateuch.
There is no known independent texts, even scrapes of Hebrew text of the Pentateuch before 600 BCE
en.wikipedia.org
The
composition of the Torah (or
Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible—
Genesis,
Exodus,
Leviticus,
Numbers, and
Deuteronomy) was a process that involved multiple authors over an extended period of time.
[1] While
Jewish tradition holds that all five books were originally written by Moses sometime in the 2nd millennium BCE, leading scholars have rejected
Mosaic authorship since the 17th century.
[2]
The precise process by which the
Torah was composed, the number of authors involved, and the date of each author remain hotly contested among scholars.
[3] Some scholars, such as
Rolf Rendtorff, espouse a fragmentary hypothesis, in which the Pentateuch is seen as a compilation of short, independent narratives, which were gradually brought together into larger units in two editorial phases: the
Deuteronomic and the
Priestly phases.
[4][5][6] By contrast, scholars such as
John Van Seters advocate a
supplementary hypothesis, which posits that the Torah is the result of two major additions—
Yahwist and Priestly—to an existing corpus of work.
[7] Other scholars, such as
Richard Elliott Friedman or Joel S. Baden, support a revised version of the
documentary hypothesis, holding that the Torah was composed by using four different sources—Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly and Deuteronomist—that were combined into one in the Persian period.
[8][9][10]
Scholars frequently use these newer hypotheses in combination with each other, making it difficult to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another.
[11] The general trend in recent scholarship is to recognize the final form of the Torah as a literary and ideological unity, based on earlier sources, was likely completed during the
Persian period (539-333 BCE).
[12][13][14]
Date of composition
Classical
source criticism seeks to determine the date of a text by establishing an upper limit (
terminus ante quem) and a lower limit (
terminus post quem) on the basis of external attestation of the text's existence, as well as the internal features of the text itself.
[15] On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed
Torah as a product of the time of the Persian
Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE),
[12][13] although some would place its composition in the
Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).
[16]
External evidence
The absence of archaeological evidence for
the Exodus narrative, and the evidence pointing to anachronisms in the patriarchal narratives of
Abraham,
Isaac, and
Jacob,
[17] have convinced the vast majority of scholars that the Torah does not give an accurate account of the origins of Israel.
[18][19] This implies that the Torah could not have been written by Moses during the second millennium BCE, as Jewish tradition teaches.
Manuscripts and non-biblical references
Concrete archaeological evidence bearing on the dating of the Torah is found in early manuscript fragments, such as those found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls. The earliest extant manuscript fragments of the Pentateuch date to the late third or early second centuries BCE.
[20][21] In addition, early non-biblical sources, such as the
Letter of Aristeas, indicate that the Torah was first translated into Greek in
Alexandria under the reign of
Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BCE). These lines of evidence indicate that the Torah must have been composed in its final form no later than c. 250 BCE, before its
translation into Greek.
[22][23]
There is one external reference to the Torah which, depending on its attribution, may push the
terminus ante quem for the composition of the Torah down to about 315 BCE. In Book 40 of
Diodorus Siculus's
Library, an ancient encyclopedia compiled from a variety of quotations from older documents, there is a passage that refers to a written Jewish law passed down from Moses.
[24] Scholars have traditionally attributed the passage to the late 4th-century Greek historian
Hecataeus of Abdera, which, if correct, would imply that the Torah must have been composed in some form before 315 BCE. However, the attribution of this passage to Hecataeus has been challenged recently. Russell Gmirkin has argued that the passage is in fact a quote from
Theophanes of Mytilene, a first-century BCE Roman biographer cited earlier in Book 40, who in turn used Hecataeus along with other sources