Dean Anderson

Do you have any numbers to back this up?

Because I think that the majority of people today (of all faiths) think that the Torah contains inaccurate history (inerrantism and literalism are minority views even within Christianity and Judaism) - and only a small minority of people have even heard of the DH.

If your minority theology requires "inspired by" to be equated with "the absolute and true word of" despite all the evidence to the contrary, then it is a problem for your theology - not a problem for the (consilient) evidence.

The majority of Christians and Jews have no problem with the Torah being both "inaccurate" and "inspired by God".

Stephen T-B

"If the Torah is inaccurate, how can it be inspired by God?" (afdave)
How indeed!

Plus - if the Torah is inspired by an all-powerful, all-wise god, why did this god have it recorded in an obscure language which requires all other peoples, apart from his Chosen People - a rather insignificant tribe in the Middle East - to have it translated for them by more-or-less competent translators. So what the rest of the world's population gets when reading the Torah is what flawed, sinful gentiles think the Word of God might be - or even, what it ought to be.
And how dare these gentiles, getting the Word of God second hand, presume to instruct the Jews about the identity of the Messiah whose coming and identity the Jewish God described to the Jewish people with some clarity in their own language!

Faid

So, what was your point in posting this? To tell us that, despite its revisions, The DH remains "our primary point of reference, and it alone provides the most dependable perspective from which to approach this most difficult of areas in the study of the Old Testament"?

I give up- How?

Dave Hawkins

So Dean ... We're 42 pages into this thing and I have not yet heard you give any evidence for why you think the Pentateuch originated as oral traditions.

I've heard you say that none of the presuppositions of the original DH advocates matters, which I believe I have shown to be nonsense ... But whether it's nonsense or not, it has nothing to do with the really important question.

Which happens to be the title of this thread.

Now I think I have held up my end of the bargain by giving some evidence that the Pentateuch was composed of written records (I could give much more)

But I don't think you have addressed the oral tradition question at all.

So let me ask ... Why do you think it was oral tradition originally? How long did each document exist in oral form before it was written down? Do you think that Moses and Joshua and others were made up like Jupiter and Saturn and Poseidon and all those characters? If so, what evidence do you have for this?

Also ... Does Friedman echo Nicholson in his assessment that DH advocates are playing defense? It would appear so from Meyer's piece. I'm getting the feeling that Friedman's book itself is an attempt at such a defense in the face of increasing attacks. Can you comment on this?

Dean ... It seems that the DH is in many respects like the ToE (Macro part) ... A theory which sounded good at first, but proved later to be completely devoid of evidential support.

Why cling to dying theories, Dean?

Dean Anderson

That's probably because I've repeatedly pointed out to you that I am not making that claim, and neither is the DH...

Pappy Jack

Oh, dear me. Dave, the more I read of your posts, the more I become convinced that you really do not know what the word 'evidence' actually means.

Dave Hawkins

Faid ... I posted the Nicholson piece to show that the DH is under severe attack.

You should take notice.

Chris Weimer

While there may be some question on the traditional Documentary Hypothesis, Mosaic authorship isn't even being considered.

Dean Anderson

And if you read the summary posted by Coleslaw above, you will see that what Nicholson is actually saying is:

1) The original DH proposed by Wellhausen "remains the securest basis for understanding the Pentateuch"

2) However, it "needs revision and development in detail" and is "in sharp decline--some would say in a state of advanced rigor mortis"

3) Having said that, a revised and developed version of it "should remain our primary point of reference, and it alone provides the most dependable perspective from which to approach this most difficult of areas in the study of the Old Testament."

In other words, the original version of the DH made by Wellhausen is in need of revision and development due to ongoing scholarship, and is in decline - but the modern DH (which is what Friedman advocates and what I have been arguing for) is still the best way of explaining the structure of the Torah.

There is something very simple here, that you seem to be getting confused about - so follow what I am about to say very closely.

Some people use the term "Documentary Hypothesis" to refer specifically to the particular version of it that Wellhausen proposed. Others use the term "Documentary Hypothesis" more generally to include the modern versions which take into account the latest linguistic and archaeological research.

What you appear to have done a couple of times now is search for anything you can find that appears to criticise the DH, and latch on to it. In each case, it turned out to be something criticising the specific Wellhausen DH and supporting the modern DH.

So far, absolutely nothing you have posted on this thread has been a criticism of the modern DH. All your arguments have been either ad-hominems against Wellhausen himself or have been misplaced Arguments from Authority based on what people have said about the specific Wellhausen DH being outdated and having been replaced by the modern DH. You do not seem to have realised that such quotes are actually in support of the modern DH that we are discussing on this thread (and, of course, directly opposed to your Tablet Theory).

VoxRat

Another candidate for "creationist tactics" -

The Big Lie

Repeat it often enough, and people will start to think there must be something to it.

Care to point to anything supporting the notion that "Macro-evolution" has no evidential support?

No. Didn't think so.