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Russell E. GMIRKiN, Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 433; Copenhagen International Series 15; London/New York: Clark, 2006). Pp. xii + 332. $135.
This is a strange book: on the one hand, it is a very learned work, but on the other hand, one does not learn much from it. To be sure, one learns many things (an entire chapter introduced me to Hecataeus of Abdera), but the one thing the book teaches-that the Pentateuch was written around 270 B.C.E.-is indefensible and uninteresting.
The late dating of the Pentateuch is based on an argumentum a silentio. The author scours the literary landscape and finds that the first convincing references to the Pentateuch occur in the third century B.C.E. On this reasoning one could conclude that Amos and Hosea never prophesied (or prophesied first in the exilic period) because no mention is made of them in the Deuteronomic History. One cannot plausibly apply modem criteria of authorship and cross-references...