Faid

Dave's post look more and more like Santiago's.

Dave, I see you finally tried to address Dean's objection to your naming those toledoths "colophons"

And utterly failed.

You REALLY believe that the phrase "these are the generations of..." is similar to "this is the tablet of"?

What is the similarity, dave?

That both sentences contain a name (sometimes)?

That both start with "this is" or "these are"?

That makes them both colophons, somehow? Are you sure you have a firm grasp of what a colophon is? And what it says?

Give me a break.

At this point, I'm pretty sure you SEE the difference- but you are too stubborn to admit it.

Amedeo

If I understand you correctly, the issue is whether the present Book of Genesis was written down from tablets or from oral traditions... and scholars have been debating the issue. But then it is obvious that the scholars ASSUME that the extant Book of Genesis was not written down by a prophet or God-inspired writer. I notice that they [or you and friend] ASSUME that some prophet or prophets received the information, which he either wrote down or transmitted orally unto others.

Is there any evidence that the exant Book of Genesis is NOT the original NARRATION of events? (If it is the original narration, then there is no oral tradition behind it and no tablets before it.)

Is there any information or any clue as to when Genesis-1 was narrated? And when Genesis-2 was narrated? Presumably the other chapters were narrated afterwords... according to their sequence in the extant Book of Genesis.

From a textual analysis, I see that Genesis-1 was narrated when Canaan was already established, when Ugarit and Ebla had cuiform writers, and Biblical names of persons and gods were in common use there. Most importantly, while Genesis-1 presents the Elohim (one male and one female), the ministers of El are absent from the Biblical creation scene. (Micha'El, Satan'El, gabri'El, et al, will appear out of nowhere in the Bible later on, but Genesis-1 is obviously a reduced-revised Canaanite pantheon. So, the narration (and possibly the writing down of the Hebrew version of the Canaanite supreme deity) is relatively late, long after the hayday of the Ebla empire, where cuneiform was used for writing down their own language.

I see that Genesis-2 was narrated when the Tigris and the Euphrtaes had already their names, and when (judging from Adam and sons), agricultures had already been established; and, of course, the very first Biblical humans were endowed with speech and all other Homo sapiens attributes. Needless to say, writing had already been established in Sumer. So, the first Hebrew narrator of Genesis-2 (whether it was Adam or Moses or somebobody else) may have written down the creation account.

It is impossible for there to be ONE narrator/writer of Gen.-1 and Gen.-2, since the humans by the fiat of the Elohim are different from the breathed-in clay Adam and the rib-extracted Eve. There are two Gods, two different creation performances, two sequences in what is created, and, therefore, two narrators/writers. It is possible, however, that the first Hebrew narrator or prophet or writen was ONE -- who made use of TWO traditions, whether oral or written down. Why, it may be the compiler of the extant Book of Genesis that combined two different oral or written traditions.

Moses could not have been the first Hebrew to tell two tales, precisely because he imposed only one God on the Israelites. So, he was a prophet of Yahweh, who was already known as a creator. But he may also have trasmitted the creator-story of Yah, since in Genesis-2, the word "elohim" has already become a mere adjective: "Yahweh elohim" in effect means "divine Yah" or "the creative [Elohim-like] Yah."

In effect, Moses repudiates the Cananite/Arabic Elohim and opts for the divine architect/farmer. Where does Yah come from, since he does not come from the Canaanites? Ya seems to be older than His first presence in a Hebrew prophet. He was known by the Eblaites (before and apart from the Hebrews), and the Bible itself lacks the awareness that "Yahveh "is, first of all , a vocative or invocation name, and then a subject-noun (along with Yah/Yoh/Yeh), as one can figure from other languages.

You ask: Are the sources of the Book of Genesis oral or written? That would be interesting to know, but first one has to establish the origins or gushing-forths of the two accounts of creation. It seems to me they go much further back than the extant Book of Genesis, and that originally they were spoken forth rather than written down as letters or for record-keeping.

The Table of Nations could not have been narrated and/or written down until the (historically) youngest of the nations was already established and generally known in the then-world (Middle East). (In a post somewhere or elsewhere, I noted down the years of the flourishing of the listed youngest nation, which tells pretty much when the extant Book of Genesis , or part of it, was composed.)
_____________
I am an atheist and have no vested interest in any god or any specific theory.

Dean Anderson

Arkle!

I spend an evening away from the computer, and come back to four pages of posts!

It may take me a while to catch up, here - so apologies if I miss anything...

Dean Anderson

If you read what you quoted here, you will see that far from being my "most important" point, it was something that - although I acknowledged it to be true - I was prepared to waive for the sake of argument.

In other words, all through this thread I have assumed that Moses existed.

If you look at my earlier posts (and indeed my original debate challenge) you will see that the reason I have done this is to prevent off-topic diversions into Egyptology that serve only to distract from the actual issue we are discussing.

Other than in that quoted note - which was merely to explain what I am doing - I have not (in this thread) claimed that Moses did not exist. Therefore, even if you were to prove that he existed it would not damage any of the arguments I have made in this thread.

Therefore, I am going to completely ignore your stuff about David Rohl's theories as being completely off topic.

Although one thing that I will say, for the benefit of the lurkers, is that I own Rohl's books; and when I first arrived at IIDB I naively believed that Rohl's "New Chronology" was correct - indeed, some of my earliest posts and threads were about his work. I have long since changed my mind about that.

I will also point out that Dave's claim that "if Rohl is correct then the Bible is real history" is a gross misrepresentation of Rohl's work. If Rohl is correct then the Genesis accounts are re-worked Sumerian king-lists, the Eden story is based on old tribal movements around Iraq and Turkey, the Flood story was about a localised inundation of the Euphrates flood plain, and the Tower of Babel story was about religious schisms at the Inanna temple in Uruk. In other words, if Rohl is correct then the Tablet Theory is bunk; and Young Earth Creationism is bunk. On the other hand, if Rohl is correct then the DH is still valid...

No I didn't. I said that according to the Tablet Theory the remaining 80% was written by Moses.

Since you can apparently recognise the varying styles in the first half of Genesis, I fail to see why you are unable to recognise a continuation of those same styles through the rest of the Torah.

Or is it that you are unable to recognise the varying styles in Genesis either, but merely accept that they are there because that is compatible with the Tablet Theory?

Dave apparently agrees with me that there is no authorial claim, since he failed to provide any.

Spin has already given examples of these - examples that by Wiseman's own argument indicate the Torah to have been written long after the time of Moses.

You don't appear to have read what I said.

The issue is not that the end of Deuteronomy is different from the start of Joshua. The issue is that the end of Deuteronomy is similar to the rest of Deuteronomy.

It is, in fact, similar in style to (parts of) the Book of Joshua (other parts of the Book of Joshua are similar to 'J', by the way), and they were almost certainly written by the same author. But that author was the same author who wrote most of Deuteronomy.

As anyone can plainly see from the colophons that have been reproduced in this thread, they contain most (if not all of) of:

1) Information about the document itself.
2) Information about the author.
3) Information about the scribe.
4) The date of the document.

Toledoths, on the other hand, contain only:

1) The name of a person.

That Colophons are set apart from the text, and that toledoths fit perfectly into the text that follows them, is another huge indication that they are not the same thing.

He doesn't need to. I am quite aware of the facts, and the evidence for them.

However, they are rather off-topic for this thread. The DH is not affected by whether the Genesis stories are re-worked from the Sumerians/Babylonians or whether they are original to the Hebrews. Similarly, the Tablet Theory is not affected by whether Adam wrote about events that actually happened to him or whether he re-wrote stories from the Sumerians/Babylonians and put himself in those stories as the central character (although the latter scenario does appeal to my sense of humour).

I have never said that the Babylonian words entered the text during the captivity. You are arguing against a straw-man here.

Are you really trying to argue that the early parts of Genesis (which you ascribe to God, Adam and Noah) use Babylonian words because Abraham (who did not even write a tablet, according to you) came from near Babylon?

Are you saying that Moses would have copied the earlier tablets, yet left foreign words in that his people did not understand?

This contradicts your (and Wiseman's) earlier statement that Moses would have updated the text for his audience.

Yes. And that is why I don't believe a word of it.

Lucretius

Just out of curiosity (OK I admit it I was bored out of my skull ) I decided to do a quick check on one of the two people that Dave quoted from the original bit of McDowell's work against the DH.

HERMANN SCHULTZ , this gentleman while he was wrong about the existence of writing at the time he states , was in fact a leading Protestant Theologian,indeed a Professor at both Basel & Gottingen universities ,so hardly in my opinon some sort of closet atheist wishing to deny the existence of God by denigrating the Pentateuch.

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Hermann_Schultz

As I like word games I also noticed something else last night

IF you take the words C O L O PH O N and T O L E D O TH and change
the C for the T ,the O for the O , the O for the E etc. (classing PH and TH as one letter) ,they are the SAME word .
I am surprised Wiseman or Dave didn't spot that earlier as absolute PROOF they are the same thing

(I do sincerely hope you all realise that the last bit was intended to be sarcastic )

By the way Donald J Wiseman can be contacted by e-mail in fact, so no need to start looking in phone books for Australia .

Mike PSS

Classic Family Guy quote required.

Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there’s a message in my Alphabits. It says, “Oooooo.”

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.

Silent Dave

A little advice for Dave: Before responding to anything Dean says, ask yourself these questions:

1) Am I really responding to a main point that Dean is making? Or is this something I just happen to have talking points for?
2) Am I about to contradict something I said in an earlier post? Or in an earlier sentence in this post? Or in an earlier clause of this sentence?
3) If called upon by Dean to support the point I'm making with factual and relevant evidence, am I able to do so? Or would I have to respond with something merely assertive and/or non-topical to the specific point?
4) Do I really believe this myself? Or is it just a workable response?

-Jay-

But since you didn't actually post the e-mail address, Dave would say that you haven't given any evidence of Donald J Wiseman...

regards,

NinJay

Lucretius

I know
Very naughty of me not to post it here

-Jay-

oatmealia -

I (and I'm sure other interested parties) appreciate your candor in telling us about your background.

Re: The DH - when I first read Richard Friedman's books, I was struck by how the DH, as presented in them, just clicked. He didn't force the points, he just presented them, and it fell together pretty much on it's own. One of the review snippets on the back of the copy of Who Wrote The Bible (or via: amazon.co.uk) that's sitting on the desk next to me says "It has about it the resounding smack of solid truth" (Harvard Magazine). In my opinion it really does, whereas the Tablet Theory as presented here by dave seems like nothing so much as a collection of "it could have been" ideas growing from a predetermined conclusion.

regards,

NinJay