Prepub: Pentateuch History and Origins Collection

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George Somsel | Forum Activity | Posted: Tue, Sep 1 2009 9:37 PM

This collection contains one book that I find particularly disturbing.  It is Russell Gmirkin's Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus ...  I pilloried his view on the ANE=2 list some time back (or was it the old ANE list at the Oriental Institue?).  He proposes that these books of the Pentateuch were dependent upon the works of Berossus and Manetho making them date in the late (or is it early?) 3rd century BC.  What seems so particularly ludicrous about this date is that the LXX translation would have had to begin almost as soon as the Pentateuch was written.  In view of this, I find the book of little actual worth.  In the spirit, however, of keeping one's friends close and one's enemies even closer, I might purchase it anyway.  At least it has an advantage when purchsing the Logos edition in prepub -- the price of that book alone on Amazon is $168.00 while the entire set is on prepub for $110.   If you do happen to subscribe to the set, be forewarned what you will be getting.

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George Somsel | Forum Activity | Replied: Tue, Sep 1 2009 11:57 PM

MJ. Smith:

George Somsel:

This collection contains one book that I find particularly disturbing.

Disturbing? Come on, from the reputation of the publisher and the reviews (all negative), it appears to me that the author has not supported his primary thesis but does have interesting research that he utilizes in his unsuccessful argument. I could certainly list several books in my collection that could be described in that manner. What makes this particular volume disturbing rather than bemusing?

Correction:  One negative and one positive.  What I find disturbing is that a reputable publisher such as T & T Clark would publish a work which is so lacking in any solid foundation to begin with.  Then there is the fact that Niels Peter Lemche, a noted minimalist,  as well as a member of the forum, another noted minimalist, Tommy Thompson, seem to lend support to his nearly groundless cogitations.  While I have some sympathy with the minimalists, I think they go much too far in their assessment of the historical reality of early Israel.  I can justify some caution with regard to the historical accuracy of the writings, since such matters as the Davidic Kingdom might well be questionable in light of the tendency to overstate the greatness of a kingdom in the ancient near east, to consider them to be virtually fictitious is beyond the pale.  Gmirkin's work must be seen to be precisely what it is:  An attempt to devalue the text of the OT on the basis of sheer supposition that Israel never contributed anything original in its entire history but merely copied the works of other kingdoms.  I tendered the [tongue-in-cheek] supposition that one might some day propose that the OT texts were dependent upon Arnold Toynbee.  What was surprising was that Lemche answered as though he thought I would seriously think that such would be possible and noted the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls.