Didn't anyone watch the "Who wrote the Bible" 3 hour special on the history channel? They had several Bible scholars & Rabbis discussing this. After Solomon fired one of the 2 priests of his Kingdom one went North to Israel the other stayed in Judah. One organized the Elohim text the other the Yaweh text, they were not combined till 100 B.C.E when a group of Rabbis voted & edited the version that is closest to the one we have today, the dead sea scrolls prove that even in Jesus time there were still different versions in circulation. Most of the scholars agreed that the 'Gods'plural was a throughback to the original Sumerian texts with a pantheon of Gods. They believe a man named Baruch(?) wrote Deuteronomy, shortly after Solomons rein.

This is getting really interesting!
Do we have links to the actual hebrew writing? writings? Are there different versions of the texts? Different transliterations?

Both Ish and karlydee have way better skills here than I do, I have to thank you both for an interesting and enlightening discussion!

SingleDad:
"Do we have links to the actual hebrew writing? writings?"

Here is a link to the Hebrew text of the the OT and both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Tamud:

http://www1.snunit.k12.il/kodesh/kodesh.html

This is the only place I've been able to find either Talmud. If anyone knows of a site where they are in English, please let me know (it takes me forever to read the Hebrew right now)...

SingleDad:
"Are there different versions of the texts?"

Yes. In Greek, the Septuagint and in Hebrew, the Masoretic Text. By the way, the Septuagint (dating somewhere between 250 - 100 B.C) which is older than the Masoretic text (~1000 A.D.?) also translates "Elohim" into the singular form of God in Genesis 1:1 and other appropriate places.

Also, as mentioned, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain some of the OT as we know it and date somewhere around 250 B.C. There are some differences, but they seem to follow the Masoretic Text from what I read.

SingleDad:
"Different transliterations?"

A transliteration is the act of turning Hebrew script into our letters for ease of reading and lack of Hebrew fonts...

karlydee's transliteration was incorrect and did not form a grammatically correct sentence. Her sentence was composed of each Hebrew word striped of prefixes, articles, and a conjunction. This is what you might expect from someone using Strong's Numbers and a Hebrew lexicon or bible software such as Bibleworks. I can almost reproduce karlydee's sentence by swiping my cursor across the KJV text in my BibleWorks4.0 which is linked by Strong's Numbers to a Hebrew lexicon. Each word (transliteration and all) comes in the exact way she wrote it (including the swapped noun and verb).

Sorry, karlydee, I'm not trying to beat up on you. I just don't want anyone to be misled. Sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Anyway, to continue...

I haven't seen the show you refer to, Marduk. However, second hand information is a little sketchy. Do you remember and of the scholar's names?

The Jahwist and Elohist theory (namely the Documentary Hypothesis) has been around since the mid-1700's. It has expanded since, but like most other hypothesis about the bible it has good scholars on both sides of the issue.

I wouldn't doubt that most of the scholars on the show agreed. I don't know if these scholars were among them, but there is a group of scholars whose spoken intent is to make *their* findings and hypotheses known through the media. Take all information from the media with a grain of salt and research the matter for yourself. By the way, if they mentioned any books I would like to know of them. Thanks.

By the way, I have the Dead Sea Scrolls in English by Martinez. While I obviously don't have time to go over them in much detail so soon, I can tell you that I've been pouring over 4Q158[4QRP] and comparing it to the Masoretic Text. So far, Yahwehs seem to coincide with YHWHs and Elohims with God. I haven't been able to find Gen. 1:1 yet at all in the Dead Sea Scrolls. If you know of it, please give me the reference number.

If anyone out there knows of a book containing the entire Dead Sea Scroll collection in Hebrew, please let me know too.

Anyway, hope some of this helps.

Thanks,
Ish

Fascinating stuff!

FYI: karlydee is a guy.

SingleDad:
"FYI: karlydee is a guy."

Doh... Now I feel doubly bad.

Sorry again karlydee. I don't usually make assumptions like that.

Thanks for the info, SingleDad.

Ish

Ish, don't feel bad. Everyone here has made that mistake; I know different only because he has said so explicitly.

ISH

The scholars on the 'Who Wrote the Bible Show' that I was able to write down from the 2nd 2 hours I taped were: Richard Freidman, Prof. of Hebrew, U. of Cal. at San Diego, Rabbi David Wolpe, U. of Judaism, Dan Smith-Christopher, Loyola Marymount, Joseph Blenkinsop Prof. of Bible Studies, Notre Dame, Walter Zanger Author, John Crossan, Prof. Bible Studies Depaul U.
I believe Friedman suggested that Deuteronomy was written by Baruch at a time after Solomon when the Israelites were regressing to worshipping metal cows, he tried to get them back with the program.
The general idea was that the Jews took the old Sumerian/Babylonian stories & put a moral spin on them. e.g. In the old flood stories from 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' The God Enlil sends a flood to destroy mankind because there are too many of them and the noise from their camps is keeping him awake at night. Enlil's brother Enki (the creator of the humans and therefore sympathetic to them) warns Utimanship(?) about the oncoming flood. Enki, no doubt the 'Clinton' of his day sort of breaks his vow to the Gods about not telling the humans, he speaks out loud to a reed wall about the flood knowing full well that Utimanship is standing next to the wall, I guess it depends on what your definition of 'tell the humans' is.

Marduk, thanks very much for the info about the who you watched. I tried to find it listed in the TV guide last night, but to no avail. If you know when it might be on again, I'd love to know so I can watch it.

The scholars you listed are mostly familiar to me. I particularly enjoy listening to the opinions of Walter Zanger, David Wolpe, and John Dominic Crossan. All three of these men have been on other TV programs, my favorite of which was "Mysteries of the Bible" on A&E. I respect all three men's opinions, leaning most toward Walter Zanger. Sometimes I disagree with David Wolpe although I appreciate his sincerity and scholarship. Finally, I respect Crossan (who is a member of the Jesus Seminar) and his work, but I tend to frequently disagree with his hypotheses (and those of the Jesus Seminar). The stated purpose of the Jesus Seminar is to get *their* ideas into the mainstream media. Their books are found in regular bookstores (scholarly works are hard to find unless they are appealing to the layman) and their shows on TV (including the broadcast by Tom Brocaw <- if that's how you spell it). I'm not discounting them, just asking that you be very aware of their intentions.

Just for info, their are many other correlations between the semitic religions. Many of their stories (like the one of Utnapishtim in Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish) are similar. Many Ugaritic parallels also shed light on biblical interpretation (these can even be found on the internet with a search on Ras Shamra). All this tends to make me wonder just exactly who borrowed from whom.

Again, thanks for the info on the show!

Ish

P.S. - Just FYI, I believe there is also a book by the name "Who Wrote the Bible" which was written by Burton Mack (another member of the Jesus Seminar).

The Ras Shamra Ugaritic site I referred to:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/%7Eugarit/home.htm

This site is excellent, containing pictures of the interesting Ugaritic cuneiform writing on tablets of clay, some translations, and some transliterations (for those who understand Ugaritic).

Interesting aside: Ugaritic is *very* similar to ancient Hebrew except that it is written in an adapted cuneiform alphabet. Cuneiform was not originally alphabetic, it was mostly phonetic.

Ish