CX

Hmmm...don't you find the mythicist position to be a bit extreme? Also there's stong reason to believe that "Deuteronomy" was made up by Josiahs temple priests (it's believed by a plurality of scholars, I think, that deutronomy is the book referred to in the II Chron reference), but it's a far stretch from there to the entire corpus being written in toto in the post-exilic period. My understanding is that the consensus of biblical scholars, if there even is one, falls somewhere between the mythicists and the traditionalists. Both Finkelstein and Dever (though somewhat at odds over details) are more moderate in their conclusions.

pope fiction

Strong words. Cite any sources? I'm willing to bet a human carved the stone.

Have you ever stopped and thought about something before you believe in it? You are assuming every Israelie had the same norms, values and morals. Maybe the reason an Israelite made the rules was because others were committing those atrocities. Hmmm? One may have stood out and wrote those "commandments" and claimed it to be the work of "god." How do you prove/disprove that? The reality is, you can't say that god carved anything and you certainly can't say that the commandments couldn't have been written because of what some Israelies were doing contradicted them. That's just an argument that can't be supported and is very weak anyway.

PF

Infidelettante

When the priests make up things intended to keep the rabble under control and indebted to the temple it helps if it sounds like it came from the lips of God. The entirety of the OT is taken up with the struggle of Jehovah’s priests to force his chosen people to have no other gods before him which is just one more example of something he didn’t get right. :banghead:

JT

diana

Yes, actually, I do.

I was thinking about that on my way to work this morning (minutes after I dashed it off and posted it), and was doubting my own conclusions. I think I did overstep there. Thanks for calling me on it. (Someone needed to.)

The belief that Deuteronomy was the book that was "found" in the temple during Josiah's reign I drew from my copious footnotes in my bible. Usually, they make connections and claims with reason (and I usually know the reason), but this one I don't. How do they figure it was Deuteronomy?

Also, the argument that none of the Penteteuch were known to the early Hebrews rests upon (1) an argument from silence--the story of the fall and the flood, etc, don't appear (outside of their slot in Genesis) until the later writings, (2) circular reasoning--the stories resemble the myths told by their neighbors, so they obviously got the stories from them (because they're like their neighbor's stories, etc), and (3) the argument that the Hebrews of Moses' day had no writing.

The first, I think, has something to it. The second is poor reasoning. The third I'd like more information on. It looks like a good argument, but I simply don't know enough about the Hebrews to make the call. Besides...the stories could have been written down later like many fine oral traditions.

We still must wonder, though, exactly which parts Ezra "updated" and which he didn't. The fact that the books were admittedly tampered with as late as the 5th C. B.C.E. leaves the original wording and date of their contents open to question.

d

ceinwyn

More like "PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean??!!?"