Dean Anderson

Don't forget, there are also three versions of the Mesopotamian Flood story - the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian versions.

There are differences between them too.

It would be interesting to see these three stories (and the J and P stories) put in approximate date order - if we can have a good estimate of their respective dates, of course - for comparison.

Cege

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. 21And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odour,

That's not a description of meat well cooked. It's meat burnt til it's reduced to ashes.

I do not understand a fondness for the smell of burnt meat because burnt meat stinks.

Keith&Co.

THat's because you're judging odor by a mere human sense of smell. If you had omnolfactory sense, you'd understand that cooked to the point of carbon is a savory smell, and pleasing to omnolfactorent beings, esp. God.
I don't think it's the smell that's pleasing as much as the fact that by the time it's that burnt, it's truly a sacrifice to God, as no priest or other intermediary is getting a taste of God's bullock. But that's just me.

The Books says God loves the smell, not why.

Dave Hawkins

And again, you ignored the really important question ...

"What did Friedman say that caused her to insert that footnote?"

Is she just daft?

Dean?

Steviepinhead

And, dave, you are once again ignoring the fact that, given your present state of knowledge, YOU at this point have no reason to regard Meyers' brief reference to a broad swath of Friedman as anything like an authoritative summary of Friedman's position.

Which means that, lacking better evidence, you should be questioning the accuracy of Meyers' statement, rather than crowing over a quite-doubtful inconsistency between Dean's version of Friedman and Meyers'.

Are you ever going to get over riding the "authority" hobby horse and learn how to handle actual evidence?

If you continue to insist on some sort of critical shift in the mainstream away from the core of the Documentary Hypothesis, you need to (a) do a MUCH better job of, er, documenting that shift and (b) do a much better job of demonstrating how any such shift helps out your ENTIRELY DIFFERENT set of claims, before (c) claiming that someone's quote of someone else does anything like undermining Dean's contentions or bolstering yours.

Per usual, it's that "showing" part of advancing a claim that you lightly skip over, like dave-be-nimble.

Beating dead horses, carts before horses, hobby horses... What the heck is it that you have against horses, anyway?

Cege

I'm not ignoring any question and I don't think Meyers is daft.

I think Meyers referal to 31 pages of Friedman's introduction to his book as evidence that the old-fashioned idea that Moses wrote the 5 books of the law all by his lonesome is no longer taken for granted. Meyers used Friedman as an example of one scholar who has discarded the idea of a single author. Meyers pointed to Friedman as a scholar who subscribes to the DH theory and also adds revisions on the DH theory.

If there's a really important question that's being ignored, I think it's why can't you see that Meyers did not say and did not imply that Friedman acknowledges any serious challenges to the DH?

-Jay-

The first 31 pages of Friedman basically give all the exposition of the DH that Dean has provided the last few weeks. Friedman also comments that the main objections to the DH come from either the orthodox/conservative camp or the very liberal camp. There isn't anything in Friedman's introduction to suggest that he feels that the DH is a theory in jeopardy.

Meyers, however, appears to suggest just that, which seems odd. The Meyers passage is somewhat lacking in context, though. (it's the top of page 17, and the Google Book Search link Dave included doesn't have page 16, which would help the matter). Absent the extra context, it seems that Meyers either overemphasized Friedman's statements about objections from the conservative and liberal ends of the scholarly spectrum, or is perhaps using the term "documentary hypothesis" to refer to Wellhausen's formulation.

Given the lack of overall context for Meyers' use of Friedman, and the copy of Friedman here in front of me, the simplest answer may be that her editors were lax in letting 30 pages of Friedman's material get distilled down to a single sentence.

I don't think she's daft - just poorly edited.

regards,

NinJay

Coleslaw

I found page 16 searching for "Exodus, Carol Meyers" on Google books. It can be found here if I did the url correctly. You might have to scroll up and down. You can also scroll forward and read several more pages. I found page 20 quite interesting.

angelo

The LORD has strange ways. Other gods[ Baal ect.] around that time had to have sacrifices to them . The Hebrews decided that a burnt offering would be more effective. And differentiated them from other people.

-Jay-

Thanks for that, Coleslaw. Google books has some quirks that I haven't figured out yet...

Anyway, given the additional context of pg 16, it seems that she is referring more to Wellhausen's formulation of the DH, and overemphasizing Friedman's observation about objections from the very conservative and very liberal camps. (I'm inclined to suspect the overemphasis is deliberate. A very quick survey of Meyers' suggested reading list contains a number of >ahem< conservative sources...)

Given that Friedman's introduction to The Bible with Sources Revealed (or via: amazon.co.uk) ends with a statement to the effect of "if you disagree with the DH, then find a better way to explain the consilience of the data", I don't think he can properly be interpretted as questioning the validity or the strength of the DH.

To elaborate my previous comment, I still don't think she's daft, I still think she's poorly edited, and now I think she's got an agenda.

regards,

NinJay