as for the old testament, its authentic antiquity is constantly professed; it was moses himself who wrote the first five books (even supposedly describing his own death at the end of deuteronomy), with the rest of the prophets adding to it. of course, this is entirely disputed by scholarly consensus, even concluding that the hebrew exodus from egypt was an event which never occured. as i have already demonstrated, previously existing myths such as the deluge, are later added to the contents of the scriptures, proving that it is not original or "revealed". this is barring any "scienific" privileges this book is supposed to possess, as a divine work.
conservative scholars such as yonatan adler and russell gmirkin make shocking claims as to the historicity of the texts. adler dates the historical canon of jewish torah back to the second century BC, at most. he says then, that judaism as a religion is no older than 200 BC (t. "the origins of judaism", chapter 7). adler however makes distinction beween judean "yawehism" and "judaism" in particular. elephantine papyri from the 5th century BC show that self-identified judeans worshipped a deity named YHWH, the only issue being the evidence of polytheism, and a lack of comprehensive jewish rite in this community (with moses also having no mention). he concludes by seeing the adoption of mosaic law as something influenced by greek prescriptive legislation and ultimately by the maccabean revolt, within the hasmonean uprising of 167 BC. only after this period, claims adler, do we see the adoption of torah as instruction. only after this do we get synagogues, etc.
so then, did judaism begin in 167 BC? perhaps, but what of the books of moses (the pentateuch) themselves? we may now move over to russell gmirkin, both in his books "berossus and genesis, manetho and exodus" (2006) and "plato and the creation of the hebrew bible" (2017), where he affirmatively states that the pentateuch was written in 270 BC by about 70 greek-jewish elders, and of which, was heavily inspired by plato, particularly "nomoi" (350 BC). we have already seen the influence of greek philosophy and playwriting in the book of john (i.e. dennis macdonald), so this should not be entirely surprising. if we are to take this seriously then, we have the literary history of the bible: the old testament begins in 270 BC, and the new testament ends around 150 AD, with the bible itself being compiled in 325 AD. so then, these are some thoug
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