ksen

I had a poster ask me on another what evidence I had that the account of Adam and Eve was in the original text of Genesis.

I have no idea where to begin to look because I have never thought to question that the story of Adam and Eve wasn't part of original text of Genesis.

I do have one seminary level course on textual criticism under my belt but as they say that just means I know enough to be dangerous.

I have never seen this particular item questioned before.

Any help here?

ksen

Bump.

Hello?

I want to tell this guy that the question is a ridiculous one but I'd like to have some concrete reason to tell him so other than just because I think so.

Doug Shaver

I just now saw this thread, and I have to leave for class in just a few minutes, so I can't give you an adequate response right now. I'll put something together after i get back home. I'm no biblical scholar, but I have a pretty decent layman's knowledge about such things.

ksen

Ok, thanks for the help. :notworthy:

Doug Shaver

Not knowing which seminary you attended, I don't know how familiar you are with the documentary hypothesis, but among biblical scholars it is the prevailing theory of the origin of the Pentateuch and some of the other OT books. So far as I am aware, it is doubted in significant numbers only by inerrantists. If you need a refresher on the DH, you can find whole bunches of Web sites about it by googling "documentary hypothesis."

According to the DH, in one sense there never was an "original text" of Genesis, because what we have now is a compilation and interweaving of stories from at least four sources. It seems likely to me that the stories from each of those sources existed in some written form before Genesis was compiled, but I'm not sure what the scholarly consensus is on that point. In any case, when Genesis as we know it was first put together, the Adam and Eve stories (DH proponents believe there were at least two of them) were almost certainly included. I have never heard of any serious scholar (or anyone else, for that matter, until I saw your post) who thinks they represent any late additions. If anyone is claiming that they do, they are the ones who need to produce the evidence, because they are challenging a consensus of experts.

On the other hand, if you are taking the position that Moses wrote Genesis, then I can't help you with that argument.

BALDUCCI

I agree with Doug's key point...Genesis wasnt a text but an assembly. Who knows how many assemblies there were before the one we have today was selected. It is quite possible that some didnt include the creation myth. I dont know of archaeological evidence..ie whether there are fragments that did not include the creation myth in places where it should have existed. But that is quite possible. Given that Genesis was a collection, I am not sure whether it matters whether such or so material was included or not at any particular time during the period in which the assembly ocurred

ksen

Excellent.

While my position is that Moses wrote Genesis I wasn't attempting to push that view. I was only trying to find out what the general consensus was about the Adam and Eve story within the world of text critics.

I know that the poster would not accept the Moses as author of Genesis argument so I wanted to find something from sources he may accept. However after talking further with him he is maintaining the position that it is impossible to know what parts are original to any of the text since the originals are no longer extant.

Personally that strikes me as a foolish opinion but I have no solid academic reason to tell him why that is a foolish position to take. I mean if it is impossible to ever know what was in the originals than what is the point of textual criticism?

FULL DISCLOSURE: I received a degree from the Pensacola Theological Seminary and the position of the seminary is decidedly against the documentary hypothesis.

FatherMithras

Since the texts themselves show clear signs of compilation, you can only textually criticize the compilation, and what the people who wove it together tried to achieve in doing so.

Neat I suppose. This does, however, make your theological credentials suspect, as would a biologist who doesn´t follow along the lines of evolutionary theory.

Doug Shaver

Even if his authorship could be established by some good evidence that was independent of any religion's dogma, the oldest surviving manuscripts of Genesis are from somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 centuries after Moses' purported lifetime. You would then have the challenge of establishing the improbability of there being any significant alterations to the document in all that time.

Strictly speaking, I might agree with him, but it would depend on what he means by "know." I don't accept the position that in order to know something, we must rule out any possibility of being mistaken about it. From my parents' testimony and from having seen a copy of my birth certificate, I would say that I know what city I was born in. I would not say, though, that it was impossible for me to have been born elsewhere, but given the evidence I have, the probability is so neglibile that I can justifiably ignore it.

By my own criteria, I would agree that if we don't have the original, then we do not know to what extent extant copies might deviate from the original, and I would say that about all ancient manuscripts, without exception. But lacking knowledge, we can still have a reasonable belief. I believe a great many things that I do not claim to know, and I think those beliefs are well justified.

Among those beliefs that I consider reasonable are a few presumptions. Life is too short for me to analyze my every last belief to see if I can defend it with a rigorous argument. I take it for granted that they are probably true without giving them much thought -- but only until such time as I am confronted with a good reason to give them some serious thought, at which time all bets are off. In the case of ancient manuscripts, for example, I think it appropriate to assume that extant copies have nothing that was not in the originals if there is no clear reason to suspect otherwise. But I think it must be treated as a very tentative assumption, which is to say it should be easily abandoned in particular cases. It would not take much to convince me that at least one, if not both, of the Adam and Eve stories were late additions to Genesis. But it would take something. The mere fact that something could be true is not a good reason to think it is true.

If it has to be infallible to count as knowledge, then any quest for knowledge is a waste of time, because we humans cannot know anything infallibly. Even if we think we have an infallible source, we cannot prove that we infallibly know that the source is infallible.

Nevertheless, there is much that we can reasonably believe. We don't need perfect certainty, which is a good thing considering we can't have it. But we can get close. About some things, we can be certain enough to justify saying we know them. About many other things, we can be certain enough to justify believing them. The trick in all cases is to maintain a willingness to change our minds whenever we are faced with good enough reasons to change them.

gregor

ksen
I would be interested in learning how your seminary explained Moses writing about his own death and burial as reflected in Deu.