Dave Hawkins

I have no problem with theories evolving over time. They should. I am hoping that the various Tablet Theories do. But there are times when theories are so out of touch with known realities (and we find it is primarily ones that had no external evidential basis in the first place) that they don't need modification or surgery ... they need to be buried.

Dave Hawkins

Oh come now. He was most certainly not doing anything that could possibly be construed as "refining" anything. This is preposterous. How can you describe going from Geocentric to Heliocentric as a simple "refinement" ??!! That's not refinement. That's not even major surgery. That's "shoot the rabid dog with fleas" and get a new dog.

deadman_932

I have a copy of Copernicus here, Dave. the only relevant aspect of De Revolutionibus is that Copernicus concentrates on his own work, and barely grazes Ptolemy in passing. By the way, you should note that the heliocentric model didn't even catch on THEN...it wasn't really until Galileo hit the scene that it became overwhelmingly evident.

"

All of this is irrelevant, however...what is of importance is the most modern version of a theory and how it is demonstrated and presented. All you are attempting (AGAIN) is to divert and avoid.

Sorry, Dave, try again.

-Jay-

The key detail here that I didn't mention is that the Copernican model represented reality better in the sense that it introduced heliocentrism. Copernicus was still hung up on the idea of circular/spherical motion, which doesn't represent planetary motion around the sun very well at all. BUT, and this is an important "BUT", it removed the presupposition of a fixed-Earth and/or Earth-centered solar system. Subsequent evolutions of cosmological theory didn't have to contend with explaining things in terms of a fixed Earth. You're misusing my statement to contradict Dean, when he and I are talking about two different aspects of the issue. I've edited my original post to clarify that. Dave, I'd appreciate if you'd reword your rebuttal to Dean to reflect the final state of my comments. If you're gonna quote me, please quote the money version.

Dave - be careful with your use of the terms "assumption" and "presupposition". They're not synonyms. Dean is absolutely correct in disregarding Ptolemy's assumptions. Dean is not speaking to Ptolemy's presuppositions.

As many times as the difference in those terms has been pointed out to you, it's puzzling why you keep coming back to them.

regards,

NinJay

-Jay-

The issue is that Copernicus was branching off from the then-current Ptolemaic model, not Ptolemy's original. Hairsplitting over the fact that I chose to use the word "refine" rather than "trying to replace" or "seeking to improve" or "trying to come up with something new so he could impress the chicks" is a diversion. You've been arguing that the original formulation of a theory is somehow special, and I'm trying to point out that it's not.

Stay on point, Dave.

regards,

NinJay

Dean Anderson

I've already corrected you repeatedly on this. The DH does not say that the sources were oral.

No we do not. We know that the Sumerians and Babylonians were had a rich and well educated culture. We do not "know thanks to the findings of archaeology" that Abraham even existed - never mind living in that culture.

You are assuming your conclusions again.

It's a good job that the DH makes no such claim, then.

You are confusing "assert" with "show" again. I have already demonstrated in detail - a demonstration that you have singularly ignored - why none of your asserted "presuppositions" are actually presuppostions.

But the larger chiasm is not destroyed by splitting the text - the same chiasm is contained in both the J and P sources - that's my whole point.

As for why the combined version contains the chiasm? That's obvious. If you take two passages each of which has the same chiastic structure and interleave them so each statement from one is followed by the equivalent statement from the other then you can't help ending up with the result having the same chiastic structure as the individuals.

However, going the other way - a single chiastic text being arbitrarily split by other criteria would not give the same results. One would expect each portion to contain mangled parts of the chiasm, not a whole version of it.

That is why the presence of the chiasm in both the fragments as well as in the redacted version is excellent evidence for the DH, not against it.

They are both examples of exactly the same circular reasoning - that you find an example of this reasoning preposterous should be an indication of its invalidity.

Circular reasoning does not magically become valid when it applies to something you agree with. It is invalid regardless of whether the subject of the circular reasoning is "obvious" or "preposterous".

No. They just didn't have access to the linguistic analysis techniques that we have (don't forget that in Caesar's time linguistics and literacy were so basic that shifting the letters of a piece of text a couple of spaces forward was considered military strength cryptography).

They also didn't have our archaeological knowledge.

Like what? Give some specific examples to support this assertion. What specific details are there that would be known by a 15th Century BCE writer but would not be known by a later writer?

The logical inference is that the author of the book is talking about Moses in the third person - so is not Moses. Just as if I say "Fred typed up his notes and posted them on an internet forum" people don't immediately assume that I am Fred and that this particular post is the notes.

1) For the most part, they attribute specific teachings or words (that are in the Torah) to Moses. They do not state that the Torah itself was written by Moses. Even if they are true, the Torah could be a later compilation which merely includes the teachings of Moses - it does not necessarily have to have been written by his hand.

2) This views of those other authors merely reflects their traditional (and theological) viewpoint - the viewpoint you mentioned in point 1. It is not an independent argument.

So? No-one has claimed that the Deuteronomic Law is not similar to these. Indeed, it is likely that these law codes were an inspiration for the Deuteronomy author (and large sections of the Deuteronomic Law appear to be taken from older extant documents anyway - extant to the author of Deuteronomy, that is; not extant to us).

That would be the apologist Albright whose attempts to shoehorn archaeological finds into fitting the Biblical texts are now thoroughly overturned by modern archaeology, yes?

Since the evidence you have presented is lighter and less substantial than even the lightest of feathers, it is a weight far outweighed by the arguments for the DH.

Pappy Jack

That part of this is true (the development of Middle/Near Eastern civilisations) does not mean that your assumption 'that Abraham lived' is also true. From Wiki:

Dave Hawkins

I AM staying on point. It is preposterous to describe what Copernicus did as anything less than introduce a totally new theory. He took Ptolemy's basic premise of geocentrism and flatly denied it. Threw it out the window. Then he built an entirely new structure on his own new, heliocentric premise.

Dave Hawkins

Really? My sources do. If your sources don't say that the sources were oral, then what DOES it say? Where did the info come from that the writers of JED & P used? If you say earlier written sources, I will ask "Where did THOSE sources get their info" etc. So you are going to have to take a position all the way back to some point in time. And I would like to know what that point in time is and what form the account took at that time.

Dave Hawkins

So what do I have to produce to convince you that Abraham was a real person? A video interview? His signature on some documents? Or what? Do you think Josephus was a real person? How about Plato? Confucius? If so why? And why not use some of the same criteria for Abraham? Really Dean ... have you really thought through your position here?