Hello, 

On pages 43-44 of the book "Eisenstein's Commentary on the Torah", the
author asserts that the author of the Torah (the Five Books of Moses)
uses an older writing style than used in the Prophets and Writings.
The primary evidence he uses is the lack of consistency with male and
female forms of words. For example, the word the word "hu" in Hebrew,
which generally means he, is used for she (which is more properly
"hi") 54 times in Genesis, 11 times in Exodus, 69 times in Leviticus,
and 27 times in Numbers, and 36 times in Deuteronomy (197 times
altogether). Meanwhile "hu" doesn't refer to she anywhere else in the
Old Testament.

The author asserts that the changes in writing style suggests that the
Torah was written before the other books of the Old Testament. This
would seem to contradict the Documentary Hypothesis, which says that
much of then Torah (i.e. Deuteronomy) was written after many of the
other books of the Old Testament.

I'd be curious to know if anyone is familiar with "hu"/"hi" argument
and can  explain whether Eisenstein's evidence is accurate and if so,
specifically how it's nevertheless consistent with the generally
accepted view that parts of the Torah were written later than many of
the other books in the Old Testament.

Thanks.

Dear Avin-ga,

I'm not sure if the following would qualify as a full answer, but
either way you don't have to pay, since I am not yet an official
Google Answers Researcher.

I posted your query verbatim at H-Judaic, an email discussion list for
Judaic studies scholars.  The respondents all assume that the Hu/Hi
phenomenon is indeed the case, but that the claim of early authorship
is not the best explanation.  I arranged the following five H-Judaic
theories according to relevance (in my humble opinion).

All The Best,
Ravuri-ga
---------------------------------
For those who are interested see the book Hebrew Grammar (Oxford, my
edition is from 1957, p. 107) by  the great Hebraist Wilhelm Gesenius.
 Among other things, he says: "...Levy's explanation of this strange
practice of the Masoretes is evidently right, viz. that originally
[the letters] Hé-Aleph was written for both forms [hw' 'he' and hy'
'she'] and was almost everywhere, irrespective of gender, expanded
into hw'. ..."
---------------------------------
What [the late Ancient Near East expert], Cyrus Gordon, taught me is
that early Biblical Hebrew had an epicene personal pronoun like that
in Egyptian, and this is reflected in the consonantal spelling of hu
and hi in the Pentateuch.
---------------------------------
Even-Shoshan's concordance confirms the contention that the hu/hi
interchange appears only in the Chumash, not in the rest of  Tanakh.

An alternative explanation might be that at a later date the Chumash
was considered more holy than the rest of the Bible and therefore
scribes left its archaisms intact, while revising those that appeared
in other Biblical books.
---------------------------------
See Sifre, Devarim 356, from which it is clear that this was a
polemical issue. It seems reasonable that this polemic, probably
already several generations old at the time, was at least one of the
reasons the text was not amended.
---------------------------------
       The original post on this thread, I believe, stated that, while
"hi" (feminine gender) is sometimes used in referring to men, "hu"
(masculine gender) is never used in referring to women.  Technically
true, but there is at least one instance where women (in plural)
receive a masculine reference.  When the daughters of Tzelofhad bring
their petition to Moses and Moses, in turn, refers it to G*d, G*d's
reply is, "The daughters of Tzelofhad have a just claim.  Absolutely
give ("give" is repeated -- "naton titen," an emphatic form) them
(lahem, the masculine form) a hereditary portion of land along with
their father's brothers."
       The instances where the "wrong" gender is used are few, and
each of them can be used as a vehicle for examining masculine/feminine
stereotypes.  The "gender switching" is not random.  It may have begun
as "scribal error" and been perpetuated by the sanctity and therefore
unchangeability of the Torah text, but we can use the errors to teach
a lesson.
       Hmmm.  Perhaps that's a good subject for a series of divrei
Torah.
---------------------------------

Dear Avin-ga,

Here are two more answers from H-Judaic.  The first one sounds like
the information you wanted.

All The Best,
Ravuri-ga
---------------------------------
Gary Rendsburg, in ³A New Look at Pentateuchal HW¹,² Biblica 63
(1982), pp. 351-369, argues in favor of the claim [by Eisenstein].
---------------------------------
I checked Sandra Landis Gogel's study of epigraphic Hebrew to see what
early Hebrew spellings are actually attested.  There are three
instances of h' for the 3msg subject pronoun and the 3fsg subject
pronoun is unattested. But since internal matres lectiones are not
generally indicated in early Hebrew spellings, the 3fsg subject
pronoun would also have been written h'.
---------------------------------

I wasn't expecting an answer for my price and I certainly wasn't
expecting a free one. Thanks a lot! I'll check out the sources.