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Old 09-22-2007, 04:18 AM   #1
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Default Book of Genesis: Written Record? Or Oral Tradition?

I have elsewhere claimed that the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP Theory/Oral Tradition) is receiving increasing skepticism by scholars and I have claimed that the assumptions which underpin the DH have all been refuted.

I believe that the Book of Genesis is a compilation of written records and have written about various Genesis Tablet Theories HERE , HERE and HERE (Footnote 44)

Wikipedia has an article on the Wiseman Hypothesis (Tablet Theory of Genesis) here ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiseman_hypothesis ... in which they refer to my blog article and other sources.

Dean Anderson wants to debate me on this and wants to do it formally. I said I'd love to at some point, but before I do that, I would want the time to assemble original sources which is very time consuming.

So ... for the moment, I say let's just have discussion and see what we can learn. Josh McDowell wrote an excellent critique of the Documentary Hypothesis way back in 1975 and he states that there are 4 basic assumptions upon which the DH is built:

From McDowell, Josh, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol. 2, Here's Life Publishers, 1975. Table of Contents ...

DOCUMENTARY PRESUPPOSITIONS
1) Priority of source analysis over archaeology
2) Natural view of Israel's religion and history
3) No writing in Israel at Moses' time
4) Legendary view of the patriarchal narratives

As I have time, I will quote from McDowell and his sources to explain what each of these mean and how they have been discredited. I have already written on #3 AND #4 above, so I begin with #3. Here's what I wrote over at RD.net ...
Quote:
"Ancient Israel was certainly not without God-given bases for the ordering of human life; only they were not fixed in writing." (Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Translated by Black and Menzies. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1885, p.393)

"Of the legendary character of the pre-Mosaic narrators, the time of which they treat is a sufficient proof. It was a time prior to all knowledge of writing, a time separated by an interval of more than four hundred years, of which there is absolutely no history, from the nearest period of which Israel had some dim historical recollection, a time when in civilised countries writing was only beginning to be used for the most important matters of State ... And even when writing had come into use, in the time, that is, between Moses and
David, it would be but sparingly used, and much that happened to the people must still have been handed down simply as legend." (Hermann Schultz, Old Testament Theology, Translated from the fourth edition by H.A. Patterson, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1898, p.25, 26) (Both quotes from McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol. 2, pp. 68-69)
Here we have Wellhausen himself revealing a belief that the Israelites did not have writing in Moses' day and another prominent scholar of the day who goes even further and says "it was a time prior to all knowledge of writing" !! He wouldn't have written that if he had been writing a mere 30 years later, thanks to all the discoveries of archaeology which showed that writing was well known in Moses' day and at least a thousand years before Moses.

So, Dean, do you need further proof that Documentary Hypothesis Presuppostion #3 has been discredited?
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Old 09-22-2007, 04:26 AM   #2
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Can anyone cite a single cuneiform tablet written in Hebrew?

Thank you.

















No? I thought not. NEXT!


spin
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Old 09-22-2007, 04:43 AM   #3
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Dave, you are trying to overturn 3 centuries of biblical scholarship, armed only with ignorance on the topic and Josh McDowell (same thing).

Why do you bother? Most people who care enough to have read some of the relevant literature know why the DH is a well-substiated theory with loads of evidence to support it.

Ray
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Old 09-22-2007, 04:58 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by afdave View Post
I have elsewhere claimed that the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP Theory/Oral Tradition) is receiving increasing skepticism by scholars and I have claimed that the assumptions which underpin the DH have all been refuted.

I believe that the Book of Genesis is a compilation of written records and have written about various Genesis Tablet Theories HERE , HERE and HERE (Footnote 44)

Wikipedia has an article on the Wiseman Hypothesis (Tablet Theory of Genesis) here ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiseman_hypothesis ... in which they refer to my blog article and other sources.

Dean Anderson wants to debate me on this and wants to do it formally. I said I'd love to at some point, but before I do that, I would want the time to assemble original sources which is very time consuming.



So, Dean, do you need further proof that Documentary Hypothesis Presuppostion #3 has been discredited?
Quote:
From Wikipedia
Disadvantages
Critics have claimed that not all of the colophons appear where one would expect were the hypothesis correct. Also, while it apparently takes into account various evidences from within the text as well as from archaeology, the Wiseman hypothesis requires that a written record was preserved and handed down not only for the thousands of years from Adam until Moses, but also from Moses until the modern era.

Supporters respond that, given the long lifespans recorded in Genesis, the early transmission of the text need only have required a few hand-offs, e.g., from Adam to Seth, Seth to Noah's family, Noah's son Shem to Abraham's family, and from Joseph through an intermediary to Moses. Finally, critics claim the accounts of Genesis, particularly in chapters 1-11, when taken literally do not line up with scientific and historical research into the ancient past. Some of these criticisms apply equally to the more common view among Christians that Moses authored Genesis, or that Genesis 1-11 should be taken literally.
Do any of your "orginal source" documents include evidence that these pre- Mosiac writtings existed or eveidence that the compiled / redacted Mosiac writtings existed and were in fact handed down through the generations? I mean other than spinning biblical text?

ETA It is a cheap shot but could you post Wiseman's credentials evil:
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Old 09-22-2007, 04:59 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray Moscow View Post
Dave, you are trying to overturn 3 centuries of biblical scholarship, armed only with ignorance on the topic and Josh McDowell (same thing).

Why do you bother? Most people who care enough to have read some of the relevant literature know why the DH is a well-substiated theory with loads of evidence to support it.

Ray
You mean 3 centuries of wishful thinking now discredited by the findings of archaeology. You must not be very familiar with the findings of archaeology?

Hebrew cuneiform tablets? No one is saying anything about Hebrew cuneiform tablets. We are talking about the founder of the Hebrew nation (Moses) compiling earlier written records (some of them likely from tablets) into what is now known as the Book of Genesis.
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Old 09-22-2007, 05:23 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JEST2ASK View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by afdave View Post
I have elsewhere claimed that the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP Theory/Oral Tradition) is receiving increasing skepticism by scholars and I have claimed that the assumptions which underpin the DH have all been refuted.

I believe that the Book of Genesis is a compilation of written records and have written about various Genesis Tablet Theories HERE , HERE and HERE (Footnote 44)

Wikipedia has an article on the Wiseman Hypothesis (Tablet Theory of Genesis) here ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiseman_hypothesis ... in which they refer to my blog article and other sources.

Dean Anderson wants to debate me on this and wants to do it formally. I said I'd love to at some point, but before I do that, I would want the time to assemble original sources which is very time consuming.



So, Dean, do you need further proof that Documentary Hypothesis Presuppostion #3 has been discredited?
Quote:
From Wikipedia
Disadvantages
Critics have claimed that not all of the colophons appear where one would expect were the hypothesis correct. Also, while it apparently takes into account various evidences from within the text as well as from archaeology, the Wiseman hypothesis requires that a written record was preserved and handed down not only for the thousands of years from Adam until Moses, but also from Moses until the modern era.

Supporters respond that, given the long lifespans recorded in Genesis, the early transmission of the text need only have required a few hand-offs, e.g., from Adam to Seth, Seth to Noah's family, Noah's son Shem to Abraham's family, and from Joseph through an intermediary to Moses. Finally, critics claim the accounts of Genesis, particularly in chapters 1-11, when taken literally do not line up with scientific and historical research into the ancient past. Some of these criticisms apply equally to the more common view among Christians that Moses authored Genesis, or that Genesis 1-11 should be taken literally.
Do any of your "orginal source" documents include evidence that these pre- Mosiac writtings existed or eveidence that the compiled / redacted Mosiac writtings existed and were in fact handed down through the generations? I mean other than spinning biblical text?

ETA It is a cheap shot but could you post Wiseman's credentials evil:
Yes, they do. It takes a while to type it in though. I will try to get some of this typed in early next week.

The elder Wiseman was an Air Commodore in the British Army. His son, Donald J. Wiseman, was a Professor of Assyriology at the University of London.
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Old 09-22-2007, 05:29 AM   #7
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Oh, you mean the findings of archaeology that disprove the Genesis account of history and pre-history pretty much in their entirety?
Seriously, dave, it *doesn't matter* whether the documentary hypothesis is true or not. Genesis is false to fact regardless.

no nugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott
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Old 09-22-2007, 05:42 AM   #8
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Just one thing for the moment the British ARMY does not have Air Commodores.
That would be the RAF (Royal Air Force) as completely separate military arm.
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Old 09-22-2007, 06:23 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by afdave View Post
Hebrew cuneiform tablets? No one is saying anything about Hebrew cuneiform tablets. We are talking about the founder of the Hebrew nation (Moses) compiling earlier written records (some of them likely from tablets) into what is now known as the Book of Genesis.
Perhaps you're proposing that Moses was tri-lingual. You know, Hebrew, Egyptian and whatever the "earlier written records" were in.

Now a little factual information about Hebrew. It is a more conservative Canaanite language than Phoenician, ie it is less changed from the core Canaanite indications gleaned from the other Canaanite languages (Moabite, Ammonite, Palmyran) than Phoenician, indicating that it was a newer language than Phoenician. (Language changes more as time passes, so fewer changes suggests shorter isolation from the others of the group.)

The earliest fragment supposed to have been written in Hebrew was the so-called "Gezer calendar" (late 10th c. BCE), a document considered by some philologists as a (southern) dialect of Phoenician. Hebrew is a younger language than Phoenician. In fact there is no sure evidence that it existed before the 10th c. BCE and even then the little evidence is equivocal. This will explain why there is no Egyptian influence in Hebrew vocabulary, despite supposedly having been in Egypt for centuries. This suggests that there was no Hebrew language for Hebrews to speak in 14th c. BCE Egypt, if they were ever there. So if they were, and there were a Moses, he is unlikely to have used Hebrew, because it probably didn't exist at the time. This would mean that someone must have translated Moses's efforts.

And I wonder, did they lug the tablets through the desert from Egypt?


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Old 09-22-2007, 06:35 AM   #10
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spin from the links that Dave provides via the Wikipedia page it appears that they believe that Moses or others perhaps copied these stone tablets onto vellum ,though considering that stone though heavier & less portable is far more durable I am at a loss as why this should be done.
What happened to these tablets which if written directly by Adam et al would have been the "Holiest of Holies"?
Were they simply discarded as just so much rubbish ?
Or like the Mormons "golden tablets " did they just disappear after they had been copied/translated?
Quote:
The tablets would have been handed down from generation to generation, and eventually copied to another medium such as papyrus or parchment.
From the Wiki link above.
It seems strange to me that the existence of ancient clay tablets NOT containing any parts of Genesis ,should be used as "evidence" that Genesis "must have been" written on such tablets .
Surely if tablets have survived so long then at least some should contain parts of the Bible.
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