Walter Bührer investigates the methodological presuppositions for a relative-dating of Old Testament texts. With Gen 1-3 a test case he works with one of the most important texts in classical pentateuchal scholarship. Recent European scholarship tends more and more to post-date the non-priestly Eden narrative through comparison with priestly, deuteronomic-deuteronomistic and late wisdom texts. Bührer, however, argues for a pre-priestly date of Gen 2-3 due to the lack of clear textual references to priestly texts. Furthermore, an influence of Gen 2-3 through deuteronomic-deuteronomistic and late wisdom texts cannot be proven. In fact, the often used lexical comparisons are not as conclusive as they are often claimed to be.

Autorentext
Dr. theol. Walter Bührer ist Juniorprofessor für Religion und Literatur des Alten Testaments an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum.