oa Is de Hebreeuwse Bijbel een Hellenistisch boek?

1Dit artikel is grotendeels gebaseerd op mijn bijdrage aan de discussie over ‘The Hellenistic Period’ tijdens de vierde bijeenkomst van de European Seminar for Historical Methodology in Lahti, Finland, 21 juli 1999. Ik dank in het bijzonder Rainer Albertz (Münster), Hans Barstad (Oslo), Lester Grabbe (Hull) en Timo Veijola (Helsinki) voor hun opmerkingen en suggesties.

Recently, the radical school from Copenhagen has argued for a Hellenistic date of the Hebrew Bible; it can therefore no longer be used as a source for reconstructing the history and religion of Ancient Israel. This view, however, is not convincing. (1) It is based on bibliophobia. (2) It ignores the possibility that texts contain elements from earlier traditions. (3) It blurs the distinction between possible contexts for interpreting texts and the actual context in which these texts were written. (4) It ignores the Yahwistic character of the Hebrew Bible. (5) It overlooks the linguistic argument that Classical Hebrew is already attested in epigraphic texts around 600 BCE. (6) Greek-hellenistic authors writing around 300 BCE already presuppose the existence of, parts of, the Hebrew Bible. (7) The argument that the historical narrative in the Hebrew Bible is patterned after Herodotus’ Historiae is not convincing since the similarities are of too general a character.