No, I am not. But this does not prove that there were no copies of the original documents before the 7th century BCE. Plus Moses was reciting what he knew from others, either written or verbally passed.
Sharikind.
There are clay tablets on the Epic of Gilgamesh, found in the 2nd millennium BCE as far west as -
- Hattusa, the capital of the Hittite empire (near modern Boğazkale),
- in the archive of Ugarit (now called Ras Shamra),
- in Megiddo (Tell Megiddo),
- in Amarna, the Akhenaten’s capital of Egypt between 1346 and 1332.
If the Torah, particularly the Genesis and Exodus, was so important to the ancient Israelites, why do we not find a single trace evidences that such stories existed in the middle and late Bronze Age Canaan (2nd millennium BCE)?
Ther are more evidences today of the Epic of Gilgamesh in ancient (Bronze Age) Canaan than there are with Genesis and Exodus.
The Epic discovered at Megiddo, may be in fragments with missing pieces of tablets, but they are still evidences that the ancient Canaanites were well aware of story of Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim’s Flood.
There are no stone or clay tablets, no papyri, no parchments, no scrolls or manuscripts, no writings on walls or coffins, etc that are dated to 2nd millennium Bronze Age, concerning Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses or Joshua.
Do any of the writings you give reference to have dates on them?
Dates, no, but things like stone, clay, papyri or parchments, if they survived can be dated using various dating methods.
Radiocarbon (C-14) is only just one method of dating remains and objects. Another method is
Luminescence dating, which can tell when was the last time things were exposed to direct sunlight. Luminescence dating is one of several different techniques, but my point is that if C-14 dating and Luminescence dating give precisely the similar time, then the later method would verify the accuracy of C-14.
Often these writing materials are found with other objects, like pots, jugs, coins, bronze knives or other tools, statuette, etc, that can be dated.
My point is that archeologists would not only date the texts of material, but where they were found (eg royal archive, temple archive, tomb, scribe school, private home, etc) and objects that may be found with the texts.
Texts are often written anonymously, but when they do have of authors or even the names of copyist scribes, we can probably trace when they were from.
For instance, clay tablets of another epic, called the Epic of Atrahasis.
Atrahasis is Old Babylonian (early 2nd millennium BCE) name for the hero of the deluge, that predated Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The only name older than Atrahasis is the 3rd millennium Ziusudra, the name used in Sumerian legend.
Anyway, the epic has the scribe’s name as Ipiq-Aya, but what is important is that he stated that he copied the Epic of Atrahasis during the reign of Ammi-Saduqa (1646–1626 BCE).
“Epic of Atrahasis” said:
For the tree tablets,
Hand of Ipiq-Aya, junior scribe.
Month Ayyar […],
Year Ammi-saduqa was king.
Just a reminder that Ipiq-Aya was only a scribe, not the original author of this epic, so the original work is older than Ipiq’s copy.
Ammi-Saduqa was ruler of Babylonia from the Amorite dynasty of Babylon. His great grandfather was none other than Hammurabi (c 1810 - c 1750 BCE), who legislated set of laws, known today as the Codes of Hammurabi.
You don’t often find names of scribes, or even of authors during this millennium, but his association with a specific king does narrowed down a specific time and date.
(Source:
Stephanie Daly, Epic of Atrahasis, page 35,
Myths From Mesopotamia, Oxford World’s Classics, 1991.)
