Freethought & Rationalism Archive

JoyJuice · 06-30-2011, 10:19 AM

"Today, scholars generally split the text into two main strands. One is believed to have been written by a figure or group known as the "priestly" author, because of apparent connections to the temple priests in Jerusalem. The rest is "non-priestly." Scholars have meticulously gone over the text to ascertain which parts belong to which strand.

When the new software was run on the Pentateuch, it found the same division, separating the "priestly" and "non-priestly." It matched up with the traditional academic division at a rate of 90 percent — effectively recreating years of work by multiple scholars in minutes, said Moshe Koppel of Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, the computer science professor who headed the research team.

"We have thus been able to largely recapitulate several centuries of painstaking manual labor with our automated method," the Israeli team announced in a paper presented last week in Portland, Oregon, at the annual conference of the Association for Computational Linguistics. The team includes a computer science doctoral student, Navot Akiva, and a father-son duo: Nachum Dershowitz, a Tel Aviv University computer scientist, and his son, Idan Dershowitz, a Bible scholar at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The places in which the program disagreed with accepted scholarship might prove interesting leads for scholars. The first chapter of Genesis, for example, is usually thought to have been written by the "priestly" author, but the software indicated it was not.

Similarly, the book of Isaiah is largely thought to have been written by two distinct authors, with the second author taking over after Chapter 39. The software's results agreed that the book might have two authors, but suggested the second author's section actually began six chapters earlier, in Chapter 33."

YahooNews

Toto · 06-30-2011, 12:39 PM

Very interesting.

For reference, there is a post on the Documentary Hypothesis in the sticky thread.

Toto · 07-02-2011, 11:20 AM

Discussion on Vridar as to what it all means

Toto · 07-05-2011, 10:37 AM

Do computers confirm - or deny - the Torah’s divinity?

Quote:

Between pogroms, disputations, Inquisitions – and now, computers – it’s hard to be a Jew, or a believing one, at least. The latest challenge actually comes from right here in Israel – in the form of a computer program designed by a team at Bar-Ilan University led by Prof. Moshe Koppel, an expert in the field of Authorship Attribution, the analysis of texts to determine information on who the actual writer was.

...

It sounds like a sort of modern version of “biblical criticism,” which has its roots in the 17th and 18th centuries and is accepted by modern scholars as authoritative. So it would make sense that Koppel would apply the Authorship Attribution algorithms to the Tanach, especially the Torah. The result was what any scientist would expect: The software “confirmed” 90 percent of the accepted findings of biblical critics – the three authors of the first chapters of Genesis, the “priestly” and “non-priestly” authors of the middle books, etc.

...

On the other hand, it was easier to dismiss biblical criticism until last week; you could attribute the findings of Wellhausen, for example, to his nasty attitude to the Jews, which undoubtedly colored his research. But you can’t really attribute bias to a computer program – especially not one developed by a team from Bar-Ilan University, several of whom are apparently observant themselves! Belief is, of course, a personal thing, and Jewish tradition itself is aware of outward contradictions of text in the Bible. Large swaths of the Talmud are dedicated to resolving textual problems and contradictions.

And for those who accept the historical evidence of Jewish belief – the witnessing of the giving of the Torah in front of millions of people, the unlikelihood that difficult commandments like keeping Shabbat or shmitta (the sabbatical year) could be imposed without a singular historical experience (such as a divine revelation) – a computer’s confirmation, or lack of it, isn’t going to make a difference.

Toto · 07-05-2011, 11:00 AM

Israeli Software confirms historical view of the Torah

A very strange headline from the Wall Street Journal, which reports

Quote:

“We don’t attempt to answer if the Torah is a divine or human text,” he said.

semiopen · 07-05-2011, 02:48 PM

Quote:

And for those who accept the historical evidence of Jewish belief – the witnessing of the giving of the Torah in front of millions of people, the unlikelihood that difficult commandments like keeping Shabbat or shmitta (the sabbatical year) could be imposed without a singular historical experience (such as a divine revelation) – a computer’s confirmation, or lack of it, isn’t going to make a difference.

The Hasmoneans issued coins for the Shmitta year but I really doubt it went further than that, and it is hard to believe it was known during the first temple because the Babylonian Exile was a punishment for never observing it.

The Shabbat may have been known before the exile but, if so, (and it's a pretty big if) the few references suggest it was tied in some way with the festival of the New Moon.

The Jewish commandment to remember (Zakhor) seems to be based around remembering shit that never happened, and then somehow accepting it as if it did.

06-30-2011, 10:19 AM	#1
JoyJuice Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Beautiful Downtown Tacoma Posts: 370	An Israeli algorithm sheds light on the Bible "Today, scholars generally split the text into two main strands. One is believed to have been written by a figure or group known as the "priestly" author, because of apparent connections to the temple priests in Jerusalem. The rest is "non-priestly." Scholars have meticulously gone over the text to ascertain which parts belong to which strand. When the new software was run on the Pentateuch, it found the same division, separating the "priestly" and "non-priestly." It matched up with the traditional academic division at a rate of 90 percent — effectively recreating years of work by multiple scholars in minutes, said Moshe Koppel of Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, the computer science professor who headed the research team. "We have thus been able to largely recapitulate several centuries of painstaking manual labor with our automated method," the Israeli team announced in a paper presented last week in Portland, Oregon, at the annual conference of the Association for Computational Linguistics. The team includes a computer science doctoral student, Navot Akiva, and a father-son duo: Nachum Dershowitz, a Tel Aviv University computer scientist, and his son, Idan Dershowitz, a Bible scholar at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The places in which the program disagreed with accepted scholarship might prove interesting leads for scholars. The first chapter of Genesis, for example, is usually thought to have been written by the "priestly" author, but the software indicated it was not. Similarly, the book of Isaiah is largely thought to have been written by two distinct authors, with the second author taking over after Chapter 39. The software's results agreed that the book might have two authors, but suggested the second author's section actually began six chapters earlier, in Chapter 33." YahooNews

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06-30-2011, 12:39 PM	#2
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Very interesting. For reference, there is a post on the Documentary Hypothesis in the sticky thread.

07-02-2011, 11:20 AM	#3
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Discussion on Vridar as to what it all means

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