That is not an adequate answer, unless you can provide a more recent rebutal based on the evidence that demonstrates my source is fundamentally flawed.
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The time of Judeo-Christian writings
- Thread starter Ted Evans
- Start date
That is not an adequate answer, unless you can provide a more recent rebutal based on the evidence that demonstrates my source is fundamentally flawed.
I have not seen your response to my post Deidre, should I take your answer as a "no"?
You asked me if I would discuss this and I replied yes.
Interesting conclusion from a source cited:
From: Current thought about the Documentary Hypothesis | Richard Elliott Friedman
"Tigay discusses why it is called the Documentary Hypothesis in his introduction, referring to its hypothetical methodology (p. 2). Really, it is long past time for us to stop referring to it as a hypothesis. The state of the evidence is such that it is now—at the very least—a theory, and a well established one at that. To my mind, in the absence of any proper refutation of its strongest evidence, it is fact."
From: Current thought about the Documentary Hypothesis | Richard Elliott Friedman
"Tigay discusses why it is called the Documentary Hypothesis in his introduction, referring to its hypothetical methodology (p. 2). Really, it is long past time for us to stop referring to it as a hypothesis. The state of the evidence is such that it is now—at the very least—a theory, and a well established one at that. To my mind, in the absence of any proper refutation of its strongest evidence, it is fact."
@Ted Evans
@shunyadragon
@Curious George
An interview with Richard Elliot providing a good overview on the evidence for multiple source origin of the pentateuch.
The Editorial Team Behind the Bible
The largest main sources are the J and E texts, called that because among the many differences between them, each one has a different idea about when the name of God, Yahweh, became known to humankind. One of them has the idea that the name "Yahweh" was known from earliest times, and is called J because of the German spelling Jahwe (German scholars played a prominent role in working J out).The other source understands that the name of God was not revealed until very late, at the time of Moses, so God until that time is referred to as God, which in Hebrew is Elohim. That's why it's called E.Those two sources come from a very early period of Israelite history. We know this for a variety of reasons, especially since they use a very early level of Hebrew than the other parts of the five books....
They are that far apart from some of the later parts of the Torah. Every now and then we hear some biblical scholar suggest that those texts are late, but that's like if you and I were talking now and I started saying "forsooth!" and "whither?" and pulled out a bodkin.
There are some really interesting doublets between the two-for example, in both, Abraham tells a foreign king his wife Sarah is his sister. Then the deception comes out, and the king sends Abraham away with compensation for the insult done to him. Sometimes they duplicate, but with differences. Sometimes they're completely different. E has the sacrifice of Isaac and the Golden Calf, but J doesn't. But J has the story of the three visitors to Abraham, which E doesn't.When they're all put together, they read as a continuous story, which means this editor cut parts of J and parts of E but created something that would work as a continuous story for everyone. It was the second most brilliant editing job in the Torah.But imagine now you're a priest in Jerusalem, and you trace your ancestry to Aaron, the first high priest. And here's this proto-Bible going around saying your ancestor made the Golden Calf, and the main man was Moses.So a third source, a third version of the stories, was composed at this point by a priest to...Support that priesthood?Right. It duplicates a lot of the stories, but tells them from a different point of view. And it most certainly does not duplicate the Golden Calf story. Because it has this priestly perspective, this source is called P. It's written intentionally as an alternative to the JE version. On the JE side, it often says "And the Lord spoke unto Moses." On the P side, it says "And the Lord spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron." Sometimes it's called pious fraud, but I don't think this person was a fraud at all. He was trying to tell history as he understood it, in a way that wouldn't be hurtful to his group.
How are these sources related to the different creation stories in Genesis?J's creation story is focused very much in the earth and begins in Gen 2:4 with "the day that Yahweh made earth and skies." But P's version, which now is Gen 1, is "in the beginning God created the skies and earth." It's more like from the sky looking down. The older creation story is from the earth looking up. In the J creation story, there's no mention of the sun, the moon, the stars being created. Whereas the priestly P version begins with the creation of light, the firmament, setting the sun and moon in the sky, the seas-it's more of a universal picture.
You mentioned God standing on crag. Your book says that anthropomorphisms are one way to differentiate between the sources-some sources don't use them.
J and E have much more of that sort of thing-God is standing on the rock, God walks in the garden of Eden and makes Adam and Eve's clothes in J, God personally closes the ark in J. There are angels in J and E, but no angels in P.
Why no angels?
For P, there mustn't be any intermediaries between God and humans except priests. The word prophet never appears in P, except once where it refers figuratively to Aaron himself. No prophets, judges, no angels, talking animals, or dreams. Whereas in J and E there's the famous story of Jacob dreaming of the ladder, and Joseph interpreting the dreams of the Pharaoh and his own dreams.So there's a different feel to the priestly source. In the priestly source, the path to God is, bring a sacrifice to the priest.
Hope this clarifies some of the reasons why the pentateuch is considered as compiled from multiple sources.
@shunyadragon
@Curious George
An interview with Richard Elliot providing a good overview on the evidence for multiple source origin of the pentateuch.
The Editorial Team Behind the Bible
The largest main sources are the J and E texts, called that because among the many differences between them, each one has a different idea about when the name of God, Yahweh, became known to humankind. One of them has the idea that the name "Yahweh" was known from earliest times, and is called J because of the German spelling Jahwe (German scholars played a prominent role in working J out).The other source understands that the name of God was not revealed until very late, at the time of Moses, so God until that time is referred to as God, which in Hebrew is Elohim. That's why it's called E.Those two sources come from a very early period of Israelite history. We know this for a variety of reasons, especially since they use a very early level of Hebrew than the other parts of the five books....
They are that far apart from some of the later parts of the Torah. Every now and then we hear some biblical scholar suggest that those texts are late, but that's like if you and I were talking now and I started saying "forsooth!" and "whither?" and pulled out a bodkin.
There are some really interesting doublets between the two-for example, in both, Abraham tells a foreign king his wife Sarah is his sister. Then the deception comes out, and the king sends Abraham away with compensation for the insult done to him. Sometimes they duplicate, but with differences. Sometimes they're completely different. E has the sacrifice of Isaac and the Golden Calf, but J doesn't. But J has the story of the three visitors to Abraham, which E doesn't.When they're all put together, they read as a continuous story, which means this editor cut parts of J and parts of E but created something that would work as a continuous story for everyone. It was the second most brilliant editing job in the Torah.But imagine now you're a priest in Jerusalem, and you trace your ancestry to Aaron, the first high priest. And here's this proto-Bible going around saying your ancestor made the Golden Calf, and the main man was Moses.So a third source, a third version of the stories, was composed at this point by a priest to...Support that priesthood?Right. It duplicates a lot of the stories, but tells them from a different point of view. And it most certainly does not duplicate the Golden Calf story. Because it has this priestly perspective, this source is called P. It's written intentionally as an alternative to the JE version. On the JE side, it often says "And the Lord spoke unto Moses." On the P side, it says "And the Lord spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron." Sometimes it's called pious fraud, but I don't think this person was a fraud at all. He was trying to tell history as he understood it, in a way that wouldn't be hurtful to his group.
How are these sources related to the different creation stories in Genesis?J's creation story is focused very much in the earth and begins in Gen 2:4 with "the day that Yahweh made earth and skies." But P's version, which now is Gen 1, is "in the beginning God created the skies and earth." It's more like from the sky looking down. The older creation story is from the earth looking up. In the J creation story, there's no mention of the sun, the moon, the stars being created. Whereas the priestly P version begins with the creation of light, the firmament, setting the sun and moon in the sky, the seas-it's more of a universal picture.
You mentioned God standing on crag. Your book says that anthropomorphisms are one way to differentiate between the sources-some sources don't use them.
J and E have much more of that sort of thing-God is standing on the rock, God walks in the garden of Eden and makes Adam and Eve's clothes in J, God personally closes the ark in J. There are angels in J and E, but no angels in P.
Why no angels?
For P, there mustn't be any intermediaries between God and humans except priests. The word prophet never appears in P, except once where it refers figuratively to Aaron himself. No prophets, judges, no angels, talking animals, or dreams. Whereas in J and E there's the famous story of Jacob dreaming of the ladder, and Joseph interpreting the dreams of the Pharaoh and his own dreams.So there's a different feel to the priestly source. In the priestly source, the path to God is, bring a sacrifice to the priest.
Hope this clarifies some of the reasons why the pentateuch is considered as compiled from multiple sources.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
While there is a lot of scholarship, running into many volumes, supporting YEDP, and a lot of contrary positions, logic, archaeological evidence, etc. against YEDP, I'll cut to the chase:
Jesus Christ said Moses was the author of Exodus. Jesus Christ told no lies in the gospels.
You have failed to cite any contrary archaeological evidence. For example: There is not any archaeological evidence such as texts that date before ~600 BCE.
Appealing to logic is 'soft ground' and is always dependent on the presuppositions of a given logical argument. For this appeal to logic to be successful the presuppositions have to agreed by both sides, and this is unlikely.
Again, this fundamentally is an assertion that the authority of the text proves the authority of the text. Without any outside evidence this is a circular argument, and a classic fallacy.
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No Deidre, that is not what I asked you and with that response, I can understand why you are not interested in such a discussion.
I confess to not being very smart but I do not confess to be stupid as some seem to suggest.
I can certainly understand that answer.
You are here to preach. That's why I'm not interested.
Really, if that is true, should you not be able to ask me questions that would prove your assertion is true? Do you consider it "preaching" when I quote your words making a false accusation?
Every "fact" or answer you give, supports your beliefs. It will always be that way because you want it to be that way. I don't have a problem with preaching btw. I have a problem when someone pretends to have an honest exchange but it's really designed to preach their faith.
I do not necessarily consider this preaching. If some presents an argument like the questions proposed in this thread based of presuppositions of belief I will simply respond based on the grounds of their presuppositions, and challenge the voracity of their argument based on a limited foundation. If you dialogue with Biblical Maximalists this will almost always be the case,
Now, I would call that as "preaching", I asked two questions, neither of which was answered but received a sermon instead.
Did you even read my OP? I asked five questions, can you quote my "preaching"?
This gets into how different people view your posts and other Christians, and even possibly Jews and Muslims. Some consider if one takes a theological based positions, such as the Biblical Maximalist position, or appeals to Divine guidance as being guided by the 'Holy Spirit' as some argue, they will consider it preaching. As I stated before I do not. I just simple take on the argument as someone presents and question voracity of their argument based on a limited 'faith' based presuppositions.
The problem with the OP, is it's very assuming, and simplistic.
English Bible History: Timeline of how we got the English Bible
That provides a really good overall history of the Bible. Not history within it, but the history of the Bible. It's important to note in my opinion, because even when I was a believer, it's hard to imagine that all of those hands and ''churches'' that touched it along the way, didn't corrupt it. If it is remotely God's word, it's been corrupted by man. (my opinion) I could lean to believing that the NT happened, but it still all comes back to corruption of mankind when putting it together, and eventually giving us the version we read today.
I take your comments as your opinions, nothing more and my opinion is they are extremely flawed.
The link isn't flawed. That's an inconvenient truth.
Akivah
Well-Known Member
Actually, I'm relaying facts.
Are you claiming that the Christian OT is identical to the Hebrew Tanakh?