Since I am not a subscriber to Blue Cord, I am only now discovering your response to my response to Hauser’s article.

If you had contacted me prior to your writing your comments, or if you had, as a matter of simple courtesy, sent me a copy after you had written them, I would have been happy to explain how I had come to hold each of the opinions that I expressed.

I think that if you were to read S. David Sperling’s “The Original Torah, The Political Intent of the Bible’s Writers,” you would understand why I suspect (and suspect is about all any of can do about almost anything that appears in either the Hebrew Bible or in the New Testament) that some form of the Decalogue dates only to the time of King Saul.

I think that if you were to consider who the most likely client would have been for writing of the Book of Jashar (considering its purpose and examining what else may have been in it by looking at Emil Kautzsch’s “An Outline of the Literature of the Old Testament”, you would might agree that it dates to the time of David. Or, might not.

If you consider Abiathar’s age at the time with which II Samuel 8:17 deals, you would see that it would have been long after David had composed his elegy. Seraiah is a contemporary of Abiathar’s son. At the time David composed his elegy, Abiathar was a young man, the only survivor of the massacre at Nob. Of the four to six hundred malcontents whom David had attracted, Abiathar would have been the most likely (as a priest) to have the ability to write. But, as always, we can only suspect. Unfortunately, nothing can be known.

In “David’s Secret Demons”, Baruch Halpern credits the late Stefan Heym for his intuition concerning the timing of the origin of the Throne Succession Narrative (aka Original Book of Samuel). It’s a question of motive. And I’d be happy to discuss it in detail.

If you know of anything that has to do with the origin of the Hebrew Bible that is, as you say, “universally accepted,” I do hope that you’ll let me know what it is.

You may be interested to know that it is not universally accepted that Genesis 1-11 was the work of two writers, P and J. Two professors from UC Berkeley, Isaac M. Kikawada and Arthur Quinn, argued very persuasively in ” Before Abraham Was,” (Abingdon Press, 1985) that Genesis 1-11 was the work of a single writer . . . I think most serious scholars would find it a book well worth reading.

I notice that you’re now located in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I’d like to meet you to chat the next time I’m back in Massachusetts. I get back to the Boston area once in awhile to visit the Athenaeum since I’m one of its 1,049 Proprietors.

If you ever have the opportunity to visit San Francisco, I do hope you’ll look me up.