Freethought & Rationalism Archive

James Brown · 06-02-2011, 01:54 PM

rhutchin has stated that the Tablet Theory is a "different subject altogether" from what Wiseman hypothesized (not sure about that one.) rhutchin has also stated that "it appears that Adam wrote in old Hebrew." He didn't explain what gave him that impression, nor why there's no appearance of old Hebrew before the 10th century BCE, nor how the language would survive the Tower of Babel incident.

davidstarlingm · 06-02-2011, 02:22 PM

I think the "straightforward reading" of Genesis 1 and 2 depends a lot on what translation you are using; different translations render it in different ways. Since I am no Hebrew scholar, I can't directly compare the various English translations to the Hebrew (beyond individual words), so translations are the best I can do. When I read this in my preferred translation, ESV, there seems to be very little conflict.

I understand that this is merely a translation. But if it makes plenty of sense when translated in this way, isn't it possible that this is the the way it was intended to be understood?

Quote:

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

The first few sentences establish that the creation of the earth and universe, with all the inhabitants thereof, was completed. The indented portion signals a departure from the sequential narrative, and transitions to a new account. That indented portion is parallel with Genesis 1:27; chapter 2 is an expansion on Genesis 1:27 and chapter 1 is an expansion on Genesis 2:4.

The underlined words, "when" and "then", place the action of man's creation within a particular timeframe.

I don't know enough Hebrew to tell you what the difference is between "bushes and small plants of the field" and Genesis 1's "vegetation, plants bearing seed according to their kind", but I suspect that is has something to do with the parenthetical statement immediately following that I denoted in bold; in other words, the reference is to any plants of the fields that would need to be cultivated. So this is not placed at any time other than the 6th day from the Genesis 1 expansion of 2:4.

Quote:

Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

This use of past perfect tense places everything in logical order, consistent with Genesis 1.

Conclusion: Genesis 1 is an expansion on Genesis 2:4, and Genesis 2 is an expansion on Genesis 1:27. Think of it as a self-referential loop: nice little literary device.

sweetpea7 · 06-02-2011, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetpea7

rutchin--when do scientists state that human beings first acquired written language?

Got me. What have you heard? Given that the Biblical accounts were among the earliest written documents, people were writing from the beginning so there has been a written language for the last 15,000 years or so.

What makes you think that people were writing from the beginning?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

Quote:

Humans (known taxonomically as Homo sapiens,[3][4] Latin for "wise man" or "knowing man")[5] are the only living species in the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing

Quote:

...In the Old World, true writing systems developed from neolithic writing in the Early Bronze Age (4th millennium BC). The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest true writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400–3200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC....

Do you notice the significant time gap from modern humans appearing on the earth until written language developed? Do you think this might cause a problem for your belief that Adam, Noah, et. al. wrote parts of the O.T.?

Lunawalk · 06-02-2011, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by schriverja

So you are saying the Moses only edited Genesis, and not the Pentateuch as a whole?

Moses put Genesis together from the histories that were in his possession written by Adam, Noah, Abraham, and others. Moses authorship of Exodus, Lev, Num and Deut reflects his personal involvement. That does not mean that Moses physically wrote those books. He probably assigned the physical writing of the documents to others, possible including Joshua.

Did Moses write an account of his own death?

GakuseiDon · 06-02-2011, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Moses put Genesis together from the histories that were in his possession written by Adam, Noah, Abraham, and others. Moses authorship of Exodus, Lev, Num and Deut reflects his personal involvement. That does not mean that Moses physically wrote those books. He probably assigned the physical writing of the documents to others, possible including Joshua.

Did Moses write an account of his own death?

According to Philo of Alexandria: yes, he did!
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/t...lo/book25.html

And some time afterwards, when he [Moses] was about to depart from hence to heaven, to take up his abode there, and leaving this mortal life to become immortal, having been summoned by the Father, who now changed him, having previously been a double being, composed of soul and body, into the nature of a single body, transforming him wholly and entirely into a most sun-like mind... For when he was now on the point of being taken away, and was standing at the very starting-place, as it were, that he might fly away and complete his journey to heaven, he was once more inspired and filled with the Holy Spirit, and while still alive, he prophesied admirably what should happen to himself after his death, relating, that is, how he had died when he was not as yet dead, and how he was buried without any one being present so as to know of his tomb, because in fact he was entombed not by mortal hands, but by immortal powers, so that he was not placed in the tomb of his forefathers, having met with particular grace which no man ever saw...

Lunawalk · 06-02-2011, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Did Moses write an account of his own death?

According to Philo of Alexandria: yes, he did!
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/t...lo/book25.html

And some time afterwards, when he [Moses] was about to depart from hence to heaven, to take up his abode there, and leaving this mortal life to become immortal, having been summoned by the Father, who now changed him, having previously been a double being, composed of soul and body, into the nature of a single body, transforming him wholly and entirely into a most sun-like mind... For when he was now on the point of being taken away, and was standing at the very starting-place, as it were, that he might fly away and complete his journey to heaven, he was once more inspired and filled with the Holy Spirit, and while still alive, he prophesied admirably what should happen to himself after his death, relating, that is, how he had died when he was not as yet dead, and how he was buried without any one being present so as to know of his tomb, because in fact he was entombed not by mortal hands, but by immortal powers, so that he was not placed in the tomb of his forefathers, having met with particular grace which no man ever saw...

How do we know Philo was telling the truth. How he just not making this up to explan mosic authorship of that passage.

schriverja · 06-02-2011, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

According to Philo of Alexandria: yes, he did!
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/t...lo/book25.html

And some time afterwards, when he [Moses] was about to depart from hence to heaven, to take up his abode there, and leaving this mortal life to become immortal, having been summoned by the Father, who now changed him, having previously been a double being, composed of soul and body, into the nature of a single body, transforming him wholly and entirely into a most sun-like mind... For when he was now on the point of being taken away, and was standing at the very starting-place, as it were, that he might fly away and complete his journey to heaven, he was once more inspired and filled with the Holy Spirit, and while still alive, he prophesied admirably what should happen to himself after his death, relating, that is, how he had died when he was not as yet dead, and how he was buried without any one being present so as to know of his tomb, because in fact he was entombed not by mortal hands, but by immortal powers, so that he was not placed in the tomb of his forefathers, having met with particular grace which no man ever saw...

How do we know Philo was telling the truth. How he just not making this up to explan mosic authorship of that passage.

We know because Mosaic authorship lends credence to the God-inspired-every-word hypothesis and makes us feel better[/truebeliever]

rhutchin · 06-02-2011, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

According to Philo of Alexandria: yes, he did!
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/t...lo/book25.html

And some time afterwards, when he [Moses] was about to depart from hence to heaven, to take up his abode there, and leaving this mortal life to become immortal, having been summoned by the Father, who now changed him, having previously been a double being, composed of soul and body, into the nature of a single body, transforming him wholly and entirely into a most sun-like mind... For when he was now on the point of being taken away, and was standing at the very starting-place, as it were, that he might fly away and complete his journey to heaven, he was once more inspired and filled with the Holy Spirit, and while still alive, he prophesied admirably what should happen to himself after his death, relating, that is, how he had died when he was not as yet dead, and how he was buried without any one being present so as to know of his tomb, because in fact he was entombed not by mortal hands, but by immortal powers, so that he was not placed in the tomb of his forefathers, having met with particular grace which no man ever saw...

How do we know Philo was telling the truth. How he just not making this up to explain mosic authorship of that passage.

Philo restates that which we read here:

Deuteronomy
5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.
6 And [God] buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knows his sepulchre unto this day.

Where the verse says, "...according to the word of the LORD...," Philo explains this as, "[Moses] prophesieth," as Moses would have had to tell what the Lord had said (i.e., prophesied) for this to have been written. Philo then repeats the information given in the verses.

rhutchin · 06-02-2011, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Moses put Genesis together from the histories that were in his possession written by Adam, Noah, Abraham, and others. Moses authorship of Exodus, Lev, Num and Deut reflects his personal involvement. That does not mean that Moses physically wrote those books. He probably assigned the physical writing of the documents to others, possible including Joshua.

Did Moses write an account of his own death?

No reason to do so. My guess is that Joshua completed the account of Moses' life regarding his death.

rhutchin · 06-02-2011, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetpea7

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Got me. What have you heard? Given that the Biblical accounts were among the earliest written documents, people were writing from the beginning so there has been a written language for the last 15,000 years or so.

What makes you think that people were writing from the beginning?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing

Quote:

...In the Old World, true writing systems developed from neolithic writing in the Early Bronze Age (4th millennium BC). The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest true writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400–3200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC....

Do you notice the significant time gap from modern humans appearing on the earth until written language developed? Do you think this might cause a problem for your belief that Adam, Noah, et. al. wrote parts of the O.T.?

Wikipedia seems to base its estimates on the earliest written documents that have actually been found. This does not mean that man could not have been writing before that time. From what we read in the Bible, there is no reason why Adam could not have written of those things that took place in the garden.

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06-02-2011, 01:54 PM	#51
James Brown Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Texas, U.S. Posts: 5,844	rhutchin has stated that the Tablet Theory is a "different subject altogether" from what Wiseman hypothesized (not sure about that one.) rhutchin has also stated that "it appears that Adam wrote in old Hebrew." He didn't explain what gave him that impression, nor why there's no appearance of old Hebrew before the 10th century BCE, nor how the language would survive the Tower of Babel incident.

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