Dean Anderson

Actually, it appears to be the other way around - since the 7-animal-and-sacrifice version is the older 'J' source, and the 2-animal-no-sacrifice version is the more recent 'P' source.

So what seems to have happened is that in the first story, Noah puts in 2 of each unclean animal and 7 of each clean animal so that he can sacrifice the clean ones when he gets out.

When the story is rewritten later by the 'P' guy, this causes a problem because the 'P' guy holds a doctrine that only priests can perform sacrifices - and Noah is not a priest. So he simply drops any reference to the extra clean animals and the sacrifice.

RUmike

Ahh... interesting. I can't remember where I heard my understanding of it -- maybe I misheard or just remembered wrong. But thanks, Pervy.

cajela

Didn't Bishop Spong have a whole book in which he argued that she was Jesus' wife? If I remember right (a doubtful premise) - a rabbi should be married; Magdala means "the great" and she was the important Mary by being married to JC; she had a familial relation, as shown by her role in the crucifiction & resurrection stories; and ummm probably more.

Please don't beat me. I'm with TomboyMom here - ignorant but interested.

Spanky

I got one, or two!
What is/are Docectic(s)?
and
What is/are Gnostic(s)?

RUmike

A docetic is one who believed that Jesus was not at all a human being but completely 100% divine. Many consider this the first real "heresy" of the early church.

A gnostic is generally one who believed that one is saved by a special or secret knowledge.

Now, most gnostics it seems also believed that Jesus was purely divine and not a real human. So technically many who were gnostics were also docetists. Marcion (c. 140) is the best known docetic. It seems he popularized the idea, and gained a following in Rome enough to scare the hell out of the proto-orthodox church. His sect also did not completely die out for quite some time, it seems. However, Marcion believed in the saving power of Jesus' death, and not in any secret knowledge, and so he was not also a Gnostic.

Another interesting sect to mention in this is the Ebionites. They were a Jewish-Christian group which believed that Jesus was 100% human. So we have the Ebionites (100% human), the docetists and most gnostics (100% divine), and the proto-orthodox (100% human and 100% divine). As the name suggests, this eventually became orthodox. The other philosophies were branded heresies.

Loomis

Yahweh appears to have evolved from earlier stories about Baal and El (Baal’s father).

Pervy did a great job of summarizing the Documentary Hypothesis, but the “DH� has been around for hundreds of years and makes no adjustments for the recent discoveries that John Kesler mentioned – namely the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Ugaritic/Ras Shamra tablets.

For an up-to-date perspective on the origins of the Old Testament I recommend any of the books by Mark S. Smith.

Here are some excerpts from The Early History of God:
Btw, I am a skeptic and a cynic, and I wonder if TomboyMom isn’t one of the moderators in disguise.

Diogenes the Cynic

If she is then I'm not in on it.

Anat

In what way was the northern kingdom of Israel not much of a kingdom at all? I suppose you mean that it was short lived (2-3 centuries) and did not seem to give rise to a dynasty with legitimacy - no dynasty seemed to last more than 4 kings (but that was according to the Deuteronomist History which was hostile to the northern kingdom; the Assyrians claim to have received tribute from Jehu of the House of Humri, so who knows if he really was a rebel?) OTOH at least the Omride kings built palaces and an army that was the center of a local coalition. And when Israel was finally defeated by Assyria the conquers formed a military unit of Israelite chariot riders.

As for Judah, it only gained any significance after the fall of Israel, and its limited glory only lasted about 150 years.

Loomis

Well … no problem here. So don’t take it personally, I’m wrong about this sort of stuff all the time. But I think she’s a phony. Her questions are too perfect – for example I have problems with this:
Think about it.

In any case she’s asking good questions – so lets just play along.

Btw, now that you have read this post feel free to delete it.

Chris Weimer

I can assure you there's no such thing as moderators in disguise. Please return to your regular TV programming.