Mediterranean coast on the W. The world outside these limits is ignored, for the simple reason that the writers were not aware of its existence. But even within the area thus circumscribed there are remarkable omissions, some of which defy reasonable explanation.
The nearer neighbours and kinsmen of Israel (Moabites, Ishmaelites,
Edomites, etc.) are naturally reserved for the times when they broke
off from the parent stem. It would appear, further, that as a rule
only contemporary peoples are included in the lists; extinct races and
nationalities like the Rephaim, Zuzim, etc., and possibly the Amalekites,
being deliberately passed over; while, of course, peoples that had not
yet played any important part in history are ignored. None of these
considerations, however, accounts for the apparent omission of the
Babylonians in P,—a fact which has perhaps never been thoroughly
explained (see p. 205).
From what has just been said it ought to be possible to form some
conclusion as to the age in which the lists were drawn up. For P
the terminus a quo is the 8th cent., when the Cimmerian and Scythian
hordes (2f.) first make their appearance south of the Caucasus: the
absence of the Minæans among the Arabian peoples, if it has any
significance, would point to the same period (see p. 203). A lower
limit may with less certainty be found in the circumstance that the
names (
Hebrew characters) and (Hebrew characters) (Persians and Arabs, first mentioned in Jer.
and Ezk.) do not occur. It would follow that the Priestly List is
pre-exilic, and represents, not the viewpoint of the PC (5th cent.), but
one perhaps two centuries earlier (so Gu.). Hommel's opinion
(Aufs. u. Abh. 314 ff.), that the Table contains the earliest ethnological
ideas of the Hebrews fresh from Arabia, and that its "Grundstock"
goes back to Mosaic times and even the 3rd millennium B.C., is reached
by arbitrary excisions and alterations of the names, and by unwarranted
inferences from those which are left[1] (see Je. ATLO2, 252).—The
lists of J, on the other hand, yield no definite indications of date.
The S Arabian tribes (25-30) might have been known as early as the
age of Solomon (Brown, EB, ii. 1699),—they might even have been
- ↑ It has often been pointed out that there is a remarkable agreement
between the geographical horizon of P in Gn. 10 and that of Jer.
and Ezk. Of the 34 names of nations in P's Table, 22 occur in
Ezk. and 14 in the book of Jer.; it has to be remembered, however,
that a large part of the book of Jer. is later than that prophet. Ezk.
has perhaps 6 names which might have been expected in P if they
had been known ((
Hebrew characters), (Hebrew characters), (Hebrew characters), (Hebrew characters), (Hebrew characters), (Hebrew characters)), and Jer. (book) has 5 ([(Hebrew characters)](Hebrew characters), The statistics certainly do not bear out the
assertion that P compiled his list from these two books between 538
and 526 B.C. (see Di. p. 166); they rather suggest that while the general
outlook was similar, the knowledge of the outer world was in some
directions more precise in the time of Ezk. than in the Table.]
