spin

Further,

No you don't have the same situation.

34:8 tells you who the "he" is in 34:9 ie what Moses said.

34:10 gives a response of someone else introduced by another "he said" and as Moses was talking to the Lord, the following "he" should logically refer to Moses's interlocutor, the Lord.


spin

Doctor X

English translations are always English interpretations. As to "why" the NKJV made the mistake in Ex 34:28, I suppose one could check the Anchor Bible or some resource on the text. Having a really pathetic knowledge of Hebrew I cannot really comment intelligently about the specifics of textual criticism in the OT. I am unaware of major disagreement of the witnesses at this passage.

It seems, then, that the context does require Moses as the antecedent to the pronoun in Ex 34:28. Why the NKJV made the mistake, I am not sure.

--J.D.

GakuseiDon

I agree. Anyone just reading the English version of 34:28 would assume that it is Moses doing the writing, which is why we have the problem in the first place. But in the absence of a clear statement otherwise, my argument is that the broader context suggests strongly that in the final revision of the Bible, it is God doing the writing. I've given that context a few times up above.

And I would argue that it isn't a mistake, and the NKJV is based on the broader context.

I would also be interested to see why they did it that way as well.

Well, I can see I haven't convinced anyone, which is fair enough. I don't have anything more to add to my argument, so I'll bow out now and admit this time I've failed in my task!

Doc and Kosh, thanks for looking at my argument and being patient with me! I enjoy these types of debate, and I hope to have more of the same with you guys in the future.

spin

It's not a matter of assumption. The text provides linguistic indications as to how it is to be read. The text coheres. What you go on to do is make the text lack coherence.

As I thought we established, there was a clear statement indicated by the cohesive devices used in the statement of the text.

You are attempting to bring in something from outside the text to contradict what the text says.

If you accept in the flood story that you can have one report that the rains fell for forty days and forty nights and another report saying 150 days, and if you can accept that one report says that Noah brought animals onto the ark in pairs and in another certain animals were brought in seven pairs, you can accept that a wider context can provide contradictions. This was talked about in the paragraph you didn't comment on in the message of mine you responded to.


spin

GakuseiDon

Out of interest, what are the linguistic indications? The pronouns don't appear in the original Hebrew. Is it possible to tell?

I've checked Jewish sites on Exodus, and they seem to say that it is ambiguous about whether it is God or Moses doing the writing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the text coheres". Moses doing the writing contradicts Ex 34:1, Deut and the precedents set earlier in Exodus. In what way does it cohere?

I have no problem with using a wider context to provide contradictions.

GakuseiDon

Where in the Bible does it say the rains fell for 150 days? I see "the waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days", but no mention of it raining continuously throughout that period.

spin

Sorry, I fouled it up, simplifying it. See Gen 7:7, the flood continued forty days on the earth.

Now the 150 days (five months of 30 days) was from the beginning of the flood in the second month (until the seventh month). The forty days in which the flood continued was after the forty days and nights of rain.


spin

GakuseiDon

Postscript:

I was at Border's Books today, and I looked through the Bible study guides available: KJV Study Guide, NIV Study Guide, and The Oxford Bible Companion. All 3 said that the second "He" probably refers to God, with The OBC saying that the words "Ten Commandments" at the end of Ex 34:28 were probably a later addition to make the passage retrospectively compatible with Deut.

Looking at Torah study guides were more interesting. It seems that according to tradition, there was an Oral as well as Written Torah. Moses wrote the commandments as the Written Torah, and received the Oral Torah directly from God while he was on Sinai for the 40 days and nights. It seems clear that Ex 34 didn't go into the tablets. On the web, this is similar (though it doesn't explicitly say that God actually wrote on the second set, just that He said He would):
http://www.weeklyaliyot.org/weekly-aliyot/21.htm

Anyway, I know that these guides can be discarded as being "apologetics", but it seems that the consensus is that the second "he" refers to God, and that the same things were written on both sets of tablets.

spin

Well, you know what my view on consensus is if you've seen a few of the other threads I've posted on. They don't mean jack-*hit if it's not based on evidence.

Try and get someone who has to deal with the text at a real language level to explain how cohesion works in the language. Without cohesion you don't understand a text because you have no way to tie sentences together.

Your example with Ex 34 9-10 failed because you didn't understand what held the discourse together (ie the cohesion). With 34:27-28, you have the marker of repetition to help you understand how the discourse holds together: 'And the Lord said to Moses, "write these words..." And he wrote...' That's what the text says (well, actually there isn't a pronoun). Unfortunately, when someone reads the text they need signals or pointers in order to follow the discourse.

So, GakuseiDon, how can a reader following the specific text get to the hope of reading the "and he wrote" as God writing, based on that text? If you can't answer that from the specific text then you know what you can do with the commentaries.


spin

GakuseiDon

Thanks spin, I'll see if I can find anything on the net about textual cohesion in the OT. I did a google search, but couldn't find much. Can you recommend any good sites?

Editted to add: Actually, the university in my city (top one in the country!) has a Hebrew studies course, so I'll try to contact one of the professors and see what he/she says on the matter. If and when I get a reply, I'll post it here.

As I've argued previously: most definitely, yes. We have Ex 34:1, and the precedent of Moses writing down the covenant in the Book of the Covenant. I would argue that anyone reading the text would assume that it is God doing the writing on Ex 34:28. I would argue that just concentrating on Ex 34:28, and ignoring the rest of the context, is the wrong way to go. I would argue that that is why all the Bible Study Guides I listed went the way they went. But as you suggest, someone with knowledge about the linguistic structure of the language may disagree, so I think I really need to follow up with them.

If you know anyone who can show that the second "he" is almost certainly referring to Moses, I'd appreciate it if you could present their data.