The following excerpts are from:
Bob Becking, Identity in Persian Egypt: The
Fate of the Yehudite Community of Elephantine (University Park, Pa.:
Eisenbrauns, 2020)
[Papyrus
Amherst 63] dates from the late fourth century BCE but whose traditions go back
earlier to a multiethnic community situated in the “fortress of palms” (or, as
I alternately read it, “oasis in the desert”) in the seventh century BCE. (xii)
This
papyrus was found in Egypt, though its specific provenance is unknown, and the
Demotic text can be dated to the late fourth century BCE. The contents,
however, reflect a syncretistic form of religion from an earlier age. (p. 148)
it can
safely be assumed that the text stems from a period between the end of the
reign of Assurbanipal and the Persian conquest of the ancient Near East. (p.
149)
Since the
Tale of Two Brothers in Papyrus Amherst 63 is obviously dependent on the
description of the deeds and doings of Ashurbanipal in his Royal inscriptions,
a date in the seventh century of this fifth section can be assumed; see
Kottsieper, “Die literarische Aufnahme assyrischer Begebenheiten,” 283–89; van
der Toorn, Papyrus Amherst 63, 37 (Ibid., 149 n. 15)
