>>1746
>linguistics
You are aware of the pre-existent, massive amount of cultural cross-pollenization through the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and the Doric & Anatolian Semites? The Greek alphabet is even derived from a proto-Semitic source. That's not even counting the unified Aryan/Noahidic origins of these peoples.
>Greeks copied Hebrews...Where credit?
See above. Also, consider that Plato often used 2nd and 3rd hand sources. A link is easily dropped or malformed. Look at all the corruptions in the bestiaries and ridiculous lifespans. Also,
>that assumes that we have all the writings of Plato, which we obviously do not.
>similarities
See above. The stuff, Gmirkin names as similarities show up in most creation myths.
>Let me emphasize again that the majority of the creation myth is taken from Hellenistic culture, mostly Plato. The Mesopotamian elements are in fact there, but they play a minor role.
What do you have to support your claim outside of...common theological, mythological, and philosophical concepts that show up in indo-euro creation myths.
You pick one line that kinda supports your argument and you've completely ignored:
>All references to the stories of Genesis or Exodus in the rest of the Hebrew Bible, such as the numerous allusions in Second Isaiah to creation, to the flood story, to the patriarchs, to the exodus and sea crossing, to the wilderness journey, are disqualified as unreliable for dating the Pentateuch and are therefore not even considered.
>Gmirkin identifies the culprit in the misdating of the Pentateuch as Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis, with its early dating of the J source to the ninth century BCE, which creates grave difficulties in accounting for parallels to the late version of the Babylonian flood story and the Erra Epic in the primeval history. Only when these esoteric Babylonian texts were rendered into Greek could bilingual Jews have access to such traditions for the creation their own literary works.
>The author appears to have very detailed knowledge of his Hellenistic sources...but...appalling ...ignorance of what has actually happened in Pentateuchal studies since Wellhausen.
>Thus many of his arguments against the dating of Genesis and Exodus simply attack a straw man that has little bearing on Pentateuchal studies today....the author engages in the most detailed source-critical analysis of the Greek texts but dismisses the use of source criticism for the Pentateuch without discussion. In place of any critical analysis of biblical texts, there is only the random selection of parallels in support of his argument.
Let's pull out some more:
>Gmirkin places great stress on the ‘striking similarities’ between the Pentateuch and his Greek sources, but quickly discounts the major differences between them. Thus, if some features in the biblical text have known similarities with Babylonian traditions that are not found in the extant portions of Berossus, he asserts that they were probably in the longer original text of Berossus, because for him Berossus is the only way in which Babylonian influence could have reached the Pentateuchal authors in Alexandria. In the case of Manetho, the radical differences between his account of the expulsion of the Hyksos and the biblical exodus from Egypt are explained as a polemical response to counter ‘the slanderous version of Jewish origins found in Manetho’, even though he also argues that Manetho knew nothing about any such Jewish traditions and made no mention of them! This kind of special pleading dominates the whole book!
>The parallels discussed by Gmirkin are found in only a very small portion of the Pentateuch and the rest of it is largely ignored, including the close correspondence between the casuistic laws in Exodus 21–2 and the Hammurabi Code, which was certainly not in Berossus.
>The only explicit mention of a Jewish tradition in any early Greek source has to do with Moses leading the expelled Israelites out of Egypt, conquering the land of Judaea and founding Jerusalem. However, the biblical story of the conquest under Joshua and the capture of Jerusalem under David lie completely outside of the Pentateuch!
>Some scholars have been advocating a Hellenistic dating for much of the Hebrew Bible, including the Pentateuch. If this book is an example of how this position is to be defended, then it cannot hope to gain much support. There is no serious engagement with biblical scholarship in the area of literary criticism or in the textual criticism of the Septuagint, which results in so many obvious mistakes in these areas. Likewise, Gmirkin’s treatment of the history of pre-Hellenistic times, especially the Hyksos, is very weak. Consequently, it is also hard to take seriously the apparent erudition in those parts that reflect the author’s expertise. The book can be used only with great caution.
>This kind of special pleading dominates the whole book.