Freethought & Rationalism Archive

semiopen · 10-12-2010, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy Higgins

I'll need to consult my von Rad and Gunkel.

http://strongsnumbers.com/hebrew/5288.htm

Quote:

a boy, lad, youth, retainer
Original Word: נַ֫עַר
Transliteration: naar
Phonetic Spelling: (nah'-ar)

Servant/slave would generally be something like aved.

The two guys are supposed to be Ishmael and Eliazer. Ishmael is only 48 or so while Eiliazer is really old. Of course, this is only Talmudic conjecture. The author also uses naar with Isaac.

I would think that makes this lad more likely; figuring the author had no idea that Isaac was technically that old.

On the other hand, maybe retainer can be justified.

Jimmy Higgins · 10-12-2010, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy Higgins

I'll need to consult my von Rad and Gunkel.

http://strongsnumbers.com/hebrew/5288.htm

Quote:

a boy, lad, youth, retainer
Original Word: נַ֫עַר
Transliteration: naar
Phonetic Spelling: (nah'-ar)

Servant/slave would generally be something like aved.

The two guys are supposed to be Ishmael and Eliazer. Ishmael is only 48 or so while Eiliazer is really old. Of course, this is only Talmudic conjecture. The author also uses naar with Isaac.

I would think that makes this lad more likely; figuring the author had no idea that Isaac was technically that old.

On the other hand, maybe retainer can be justified.

I forgot about this story, the drama, the delay of it. I remember writing down that the story was probably symbolic as to the end of child sacrifice, though I placed that as a testament to Yahweh, but apparently child sacrifice when the story was written was already out or going out of vogue (according to Gunkel).

From what I've check out in von Rad and Gunkel, Gunkel and von Rad notes that 15-18 is just added onto the "original" story, sloppily so (Gunkel). Gunkel says the story has Phoenician roots, where El sacrificed his only son.

For some reason they used this story and did a remake with Abraham and Issac. Who the hell knows why. God has already made a covenant with Abraham for three times and does so again as a result of this.

buster · 10-12-2010, 08:54 PM

I think I didn't do well explaining Friedman's argument in my initial post. I'll try to give a better treatment here. It will hopefully be less confusing for the uninitiated.

First point: prior to v. 11 it is Elohim who speaks to Abraham. For vv. 11-15 - the part of the story that would have changed if originally Isaac was sacrificed - it is an angel of Yahweh who speaks.

Second point: by all rights, what was said to Abraham in v. 12 and in vv. 16-18 should be part of the same speech. We'll dwell on this for a moment.

The story goes like so:

1) God says "hey, Abraham - sacrifice Isaac"
2) God says "hey, Abraham - stop right there, don't do it" and "because you tried to sacrifice Isaac, I know you fear me"
3) Abraham sacrifices a ram, instead
4) God says "hey, Abraham - because you didn't withhold your son, you are blessed"

If 2-3 is a clumsy substitution, we would expect this kind of repetition. God twice notes what Abraham has done, and twice explains the consequences.

Third point: as mentioned earlier, Isaac now drops out of the Elohist story.

Fourth point: "in the E story of a revelation at Mount Horeb in Exodus 24, there is a chain of eighteen parallels of language with this story of Isaac, but not one of those parallels comes solely from these verses (11-15)" - The Bible with Sources Revealed, p65

I hope that is clearer for people.

Jimmy Higgins · 10-13-2010, 05:21 AM

But at what point is it even considered that Issac does die in a previous version? This story is "ripped from the headlines" of another group(s) of people... where the child does die.

The voice of god in 11-15 changes as a necessity because that would mean god changed his mind, of sorts.

buster · 10-13-2010, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy Higgins

But at what point is it even considered that Issac does die in a previous version? This story is "ripped from the headlines" of another group(s) of people... where the child does die.

I'm unable to parse what you're saying here. Are you asking if we can know for sure that Isaac was sacrificed in the original? If so, no - not with certainty. However, I think we can know that originally the story wasn't anything like what it is now, or else there doesn't seem to be a reason to insert such a large block of text. OTOH it makes perfect sense if the redactor is restructuring the narrative.

Quote:

The voice of god in 11-15 changes as a necessity because that would mean god changed his mind, of sorts.

As I see it, we are dealing with cumulative evidence. The change of God's name, and insertion of a messenger, is not the linchpin for the argument. The preponderance of evidence suggests the story has been tampered with at vv. 11-15. Any number of things may have originally stood there - but it seems most parsimonious that Abraham simply carried out the instructions of God at just the point where the story becomes mangled.

semiopen · 10-13-2010, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buster

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy Higgins

But at what point is it even considered that Issac does die in a previous version? This story is "ripped from the headlines" of another group(s) of people... where the child does die.

I'm unable to parse what you're saying here. Are you asking if we can know for sure that Isaac was sacrificed in the original? If so, no - not with certainty. However, I think we can know that originally the story wasn't anything like what it is now, or else there doesn't seem to be a reason to insert such a large block of text. OTOH it makes perfect sense if the redactor is restructuring the narrative.

Quote:

The voice of god in 11-15 changes as a necessity because that would mean god changed his mind, of sorts.

As I see it, we are dealing with cumulative evidence. The change of God's name, and insertion of a messenger, is not the linchpin for the argument. The preponderance of evidence suggests the story has been tampered with at vv. 11-15. Any number of things may have originally stood there - but it seems most parsimonious that Abraham simply carried out the instructions of God at just the point where the story becomes mangled.

FWIW, a popular Jewish interpretation is that God just told Abraham to offer Isaac on the altar as opposed to sacrificng him. Abraham just didn't interpret this properly. Pointless in MHO.

A key part of the story is the ram caught by its horns.

Horns were key parts of Hebrew altars. There are also the horns that Moses grew after seeing God, although this is argued about of course. Horns are real important though, so one might argue this lends some credence to Moses having them. Maybe that's why God hid his body, since the horns would get a lot of money on ebay.

semiopen · 10-13-2010, 08:53 AM

“GO, I BEG YOU, TAKE YOUR BELOVED SON AND SLAY HIM!”
THE BINDING OF ISAAC IN RABBINIC LITERATURE AND THOUGHT
Isaac Kalimi

Here is a reference to God not actually telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac:

Quote:

Moreover, in order to soften God’s problematic
test, the rabbis took another direction in Genesis Rabbah 56:8:
לא אמרתי לך "שחטהו" אלא "העלהו" “I did not tell you ‘slaughter him,’
rather ‘take him up’ (upon one of the mountains).” According to this
source, God never intended that Abraham sacrifice his son; Abraham
misunderstood God’s request.15

This discusses the three possibilities of what actually happened to Isaac:

Quote:

The Rabbinic sources reflect three approaches concerning what actually
happened upon the mount in the land of Moriah:
(a) Isaac Was not Hurt
The biblical text is pictorially interpreted
in Genesis Rabbah 56:7:

And He said: “Lay not your hand upon the lad”—and where was the
knife? Three tears of the angels of the service had dropped upon it and
melted it. He (= Abraham) said to him: I shall strangle him (Isaac). He
said to him: “Lay not your hand upon the lad.” He (= Abraham) said to him: let us bring forth from him a drop of blood. He said to him: “Do not
do anything ( מאומה ) to him; do not make a blemish ( מומה ) in him.”

Quote:

Despite the obvious view of Scripture and such an interpretation of it
by rabbis, there were others who pushed in extreme directions: some
say that Isaac was injured and bled, and some talk even about the death
and resurrection of Isaac. These views were expressed in different ways
in the halakhic and aggadic sources.

Quote:

(b) Isaac Was Injured and Bled
The Tannaitic-halakhic Midrash, Mekhilta deRabbi Ishmael (Parashat
Bo 7 [// Parashat Bo 11], on Exod. 12:13; 2nd century C.E.) speaks of
“the blood of the Aqedah of Isaac:”

“And when I see the blood” (Exod. 12:13)—I see the blood of the Aqedah
of Isaac, as it is said: “and Abraham called the name of that place ‘the
Lord will be seen” (Gen. 22:14), and later on it says: “And as he (= the
angel ) was about to destroy [ Jerusalem], the Lord saw, and repented of
the evil” (1 Chr. 21:15). What did He see? The blood of Isaac’s Aqedah. . . .
Does “the blood of Isaac’s Aqedah” mean Isaac’s own blood, or does it
refer to “the blood of the ram as if it was the blood of Isaac himself ?”
The Rabbinic sources are divided on this question. On one hand,
Genesis Rabbah 56:9 holds that it was not Isaac’s blood:
R. Judah in the name of R. Benaiah said: He said before Him: Lord of
all the universes, see the blood of this ram as if it were the blood of Isaac
my son, the sacrificial portions of this ram as if they were the sacrificial
portions of my son Isaac (, הוי רואה דמיו של איל זה כאילו דמו של יצחק בני
אימוריו כאילו אימוריו דיצחק ברי )—as we have learned: “See, this is instead
of that, this is an exchange for that; behold, this is a substitute for that.
See, this is (a valid) exchange . . .”

On the other hand, some rabbis hold that it was the blood of Isaac
himself. Thus the halakhic Midrash Mekhilta deRabbi Shimeon bar
Yohai, Vaerah 6:2:62

He (= Abraham) took up the knife to slaughter him (Isaac), until there
came forth from him one quarter of his blood. And Satan came and knocked
Abraham’s hand, so that the knife fell from his hand. And when he put
his hand to take it up, a heavenly voice went forth and said to him: “Lay
not your hand upon the lad” (Gen. 22:12); and if it had not done so, he
(Isaac) would have been slaughtered already.
This Midrash also interprets the verse: “Lay not your hand upon the lad”
and answers the question: “where was the knife?” However, its reply
leads to a different direction from Genesis Rabbah 56:7, mentioned
above: Abraham felt totally obligated to fulfill God’s request to sacrifice
Isaac. He even caused Isaac to bleed and would have slaughtered
him if Satan (!) and a heavenly voice had not interfered and stopped
him. Thus the rabbis strive to demonstrate the total faithfulness and
uncompromising obedience of Abraham to God.

Quote:

(c) Isaac Died and Was Resurrected
The biblical story ends with the words: “So Abraham returned ( (וישב אברהם
to his servants, and they rose up and went together to Beer-Sheva”
(Gen. 22:19a). The word וישב , in the singular, applies to the main and
dominant character of the story, Abraham, but it also refers to Isaac,
who accompanied him (Gen. 22:3, 6–8).67 However, some rabbis still
wonder about the singular form and ask: where is Isaac, did he return
with his father? This question is reinforced by the fact that Isaac was not
mentioned in the following chapter (Genesis 23), about the mourning
for and funeral of his mother.

I mentioned previously about Sarah's death being caused by the Akeida.

Quote:

After the Aqedah (Gen. 22), the first time we hear about Sarah is regarding
her death and funeral in the following chapter (Gen. 23). The rabbis
conclude that her death was caused by the Aqedah:

For Isaac returned to his mother, and she said to him: “Where have
you been, my son?” Said he to her: “My father took me and led me up
mountains and down hills etc., he built an altar and took the knife to
slaughter me etc.”
“Alas,” she said, “for the son of an unhappy mother! Had it not been
for the angel you would by now have been slaughtered!” Thereupon
she uttered six cries . . . and she died (Leviticus Rabbah 20:2; ca. 400–
500 C.E.).77

This is an excellent article.

Juststeve · 10-13-2010, 09:11 AM

semiopen:

Moses' horns are the product of another Christian mistranslation of Torah. What the text actually suggests is that after going up the mountain the second time Moses' face shown as if it was emitting rays of light. The interesting question is not whether he had horns, he didn't, its why his face shown only after his second trip.

Steve

semiopen · 10-13-2010, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juststeve

semiopen:

Moses' horns are the product of another Christian mistranslation of Torah. What the text actually suggests is that after going up the mountain the second time Moses' face shown as if it was emitting rays of light. The interesting question is not whether he had horns, he didn't, its why his face shown only after his second trip.

Steve

This is not a settled matter. The word in the Torah is Keren which means horn.

Moses_(Michelangelo)

Quote:

The Greek Septuagint [3] and Hebrew Masoretic texts[4] use words meaning "radiant", suggesting an effect like a halo, though it has been argued that the Hebrew text remains unclear as to the original sense intended. Horns were symbolic of authority in ancient Near Eastern culture, and the medieval depiction had the advantage of giving Moses a convenient attribute by which he could easily be recognized in crowded pictures.

http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/kitisa/gartner.html

Quote:

R. Mellinkoff, in her book devoted to this subject,[8] claims that neither Aquilas nor the Vulgate , which both translated keren as the horns of an animal, intended to say that Moses sprouted horns. Rather in the ancient world, and as it seems from numerous Biblical passages, horns were simply a metaphor for might, honor and splendor. It is therefore not surprising that until the 11th century no illustrations are to be found in which Moses is portrayed as having horns.

Jews are a little sensitive to the claim of having horns, so this controversy gets weird.

http://scribalterror.blogs.com/scrib...ense-of-m.html

Quote:

The Hebrew word - keren - that Saint Jerome translated into the Latin as "grew horns" means, literally, "grew horns". His supposed mistake was not knowing that the word also has an idiomatic meaning of "emitted rays of light". Modern scholars, looking [at] two possible translations for the word, think: Of course! His face began to radiate! How silly that nobody realized this sooner!

This begs from me the question: How exactly are rays of light shooting out of a man's head any more or less plausible than horns growing? I have never seen either happen. They would be equally miraculous phenomena, and I really cannot say which one a multitude of ancient Hebrews would have found more impressive. Given that, the literal translation, being literal, ought to prevail.

I gave this link in Why the jews in WH:

http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.c...oses-have.html

Quote:

Scholars are divided on the issue. Recent defenders of the horned Moses hypothesis include:

Jack Sasson (“Bovine Symbolism in the Exodus Narrative,” VT 18 [1968] 380-387) and Nicolas Wyatt (There’s Such a Divinity Doth Hedge a King: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt [London: Ashgate, 2005] 209-210). Most scholars, however, interpret the relevant passage, Exodus 34:29-35, against the background of imagery well-known from Mesopotamia, in which, as Nahum Sarna put it (Exodus [JPSTC; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991] 221), “an encompassing, awe-inspiring luminosity known as melammu was taken to be a characteristic attribute of divinity.” On this view, some of the Eternal’s divinity rubbed off on Moses’ face after his sojourn on the mountain.

Tradition is divided as well. A Jewish translator of the Hebrew Bible, Aquila, translated Deuteronomy 34:29 in terms of Moses having horns (κερατώδης). The translator of the Vulgate, Jerome, followed suit (cornutus; yes, I do know what the equivalent term means in Italian, but that’s not relevant here). As David Flusser notes in his splendid introduction to Heinz Schreckenberg and Kurt Schubert, Jewish Historiography and Iconography in Early and Medieval Christianity (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1992), xv-xvii, in Jewish tradition Moses was often thought to have been endowed with both horns and a halo.

The writer sides with the non-horns interpretation -

Quote:

The Septuagint, the Targums, and the Peshitta, however, translate in terms of luminous facial splendor. Were they right in doing so, and are the majority of scholars right in following suit? The verb in Hebrew is קרן, a denominative from קרן ‘horn,’ and yes, Greek κέρας and Latin cornu are cognates. The verb occurs in the qal stem nowhere else; it occurs once in the hiphil, and means ‘grow horns’ in that instance.

I side with the majority - though the majority, of course, is not always right. The reason: Hab 3:4, in which the parallelism suggests that קרנים refers to ‘rays’ of light. Based on that usage of the noun, I would suggest that the verb קרן in the qal stem means, in Exodus 34:29, 30, 35 ‘the skin of his face let out rays [lit., horns].’

Juststeve · 10-13-2010, 04:39 PM

Semiopen:

That his face glowed and emitted beams of light fits better with his need to wear a veil than the horns do.

You may know that understanding Biblical Hebrew requires consideration of context in translating many words. I think the veil tips the scale considerably in the direction of a glowing illuminated face.

Steve

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10-12-2010, 08:54 PM	#33
buster Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: US Posts: 11	I think I didn't do well explaining Friedman's argument in my initial post. I'll try to give a better treatment here. It will hopefully be less confusing for the uninitiated. First point: prior to v. 11 it is Elohim who speaks to Abraham. For vv. 11-15 - the part of the story that would have changed if originally Isaac was sacrificed - it is an angel of Yahweh who speaks. Second point: by all rights, what was said to Abraham in v. 12 and in vv. 16-18 should be part of the same speech. We'll dwell on this for a moment. The story goes like so: 1) God says "hey, Abraham - sacrifice Isaac" 2) God says "hey, Abraham - stop right there, don't do it" and "because you tried to sacrifice Isaac, I know you fear me" 3) Abraham sacrifices a ram, instead 4) God says "hey, Abraham - because you didn't withhold your son, you are blessed" If 2-3 is a clumsy substitution, we would expect this kind of repetition. God twice notes what Abraham has done, and twice explains the consequences. Third point: as mentioned earlier, Isaac now drops out of the Elohist story. Fourth point: "in the E story of a revelation at Mount Horeb in Exodus 24, there is a chain of eighteen parallels of language with this story of Isaac, but not one of those parallels comes solely from these verses (11-15)" - The Bible with Sources Revealed, p65 I hope that is clearer for people.

10-13-2010, 05:21 AM	#34
Jimmy Higgins Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Proud Citizen of Freedonia Posts: 42,473	But at what point is it even considered that Issac does die in a previous version? This story is "ripped from the headlines" of another group(s) of people... where the child does die. The voice of god in 11-15 changes as a necessity because that would mean god changed his mind, of sorts.

10-13-2010, 09:11 AM	#38
Juststeve Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Dallas Texas Posts: 758	semiopen: Moses' horns are the product of another Christian mistranslation of Torah. What the text actually suggests is that after going up the mountain the second time Moses' face shown as if it was emitting rays of light. The interesting question is not whether he had horns, he didn't, its why his face shown only after his second trip. Steve

10-13-2010, 04:39 PM	#40
Juststeve Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Dallas Texas Posts: 758	Semiopen: That his face glowed and emitted beams of light fits better with his need to wear a veil than the horns do. You may know that understanding Biblical Hebrew requires consideration of context in translating many words. I think the veil tips the scale considerably in the direction of a glowing illuminated face. Steve

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