Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dave Hawkins · 10-10-2007, 06:31 AM

Just some quick comments ...

First ... this is an EXCELLENT resource .. thanks. Suggestions: Yellow and Grey don't show up too well. Is there a page that lists the starting and ending points of each section?

For example ...

Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 P
Genesis 2:4a R
Genesis 2:4b - 4:24 J

etc. ??

Dave Hawkins · 10-10-2007, 06:48 AM

Here's a good fundy answer to the 2/7 thing which also discusses the 7/14 thing ... http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/525

Magdlyn · 10-10-2007, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

It should be clear that the breast meaning is not in the picture. It doesn't fit the context. I pointed you to Ps 82 and its meeting of gods under El. That's the image at Deir Alla as well.

I understand that the gods were thought to live on a mountain. That was established earlier. A council of mountain dwelling gods is different from one god coming to earth to enhance fertility.

Genesis 49:25 indicates "the Shaddai" (no El) specifically brings the blessings of the womb and the breasts.

Quote:

Why shouldn't a powerful god be nice to a believer?

The meaning is not powerful, it's destructive and violent, by your own admission. Who's fudging now? Destruction is the opposite of increasing. It still doesn't make sense to me in any place El Shaddai occurs. I could see if Shaddai was shown both creating and destroying like some gods can. But that never happens in the HB. It appears it was YHWH who destroyed Sodom. :huh:

Later stories of Avram (Gen 14, 15) have him worshiping YHWH (even tho supposedly, again, YHWH was not supposed to appear til Moses' time) and then Avram abruptly equating El Elyon, Melchizedek's god, with YHWH. We see YHWH now being the one promising Avram a child ("YHWH appeared to Avram, and said to him, "I am El Shaddai"). There is all kinds of fudging going on. Who knows how the redactors might've messed around with a Yod or two to make Shaddai appear to be male?

Quote:

Your problem is that you are trying to read your desires into a term that doesn't help you. "El-Shaddai" is male and Shaddai doesn't seem to have anything to do with breasts. Your position seems like wild conjecture to me. If it was someone's idea before you, blame them and beat a quick exit.

It was several someone's idea before me. (It's one of the options listed in the footnotes in the Oxford Annotated Bible along with god of the mountains and god of the Shadday [dieties].) Gods in a mountain council and a god of destruction do not fit the context where we see El Shaddai.

But thanks for the speculative conversation. It's been fun.

Quote:

Magdlyn mentioned a source he looked at which finds "mountain" behind $DYYN found in the Deir Alla inscription and that certainly is possible.

BTW, with your interest in language, I'd have expected you to notice the name Magdlyn connotes a female. Which I am. :grin: Thanks.

Dave Hawkins · 10-10-2007, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dean Anderson

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoxRat

It seems there are still weirdnesses/inconsistencies even within the teased-apart narratives, though:

So what's up with Yahweh?
ADD?
Changed his mind?
Bought the talking snake excuse and commuted the sentence?

There's no internal inconsistency there.

Yahweh gives Adam an empty threat, telling him that the fruit will kill him, in order to keep him from eating it.

The serpent tells Eve the truth - that it won't poison them but will give them wisdom and make them more god-like.

Yahweh is annoyed that Adam saw through his lies and ate the fruit anyway, because now they have become enlightened and god-like and are no longer the servile garden workers they were created to be - so he banishes them before they can truly become his equals by also eating the fruit of immortality.

There is no inconsistency in the story itself - providing you realise that the story is not about the omni-whatever Christian God but is about Yahweh the local Canaanite tribal god.

In other words, the Ancient Hebrew story itself is not contradictory. It is only the Christian re-interpretation of it that is contradictory.

By the way; like the Genesis 1 creation story, the elements of this story - "food of the gods" which the gods eat to maintain their immortality, gods lying to humans to about the food (fruit in this case) being poisonous in order to dissuade them from also eating it and keep them mortal - occur in the older Babylonian/Sumerian tale that this story is loosely derived from (or at least heavily influenced by).

I wouldn't normally pimp my blog - but it seems to be very on-topic, so here is an article I wrote going through the Genesis 2-3 story verse by verse, showing how different the original story is to the Christian re-interpretation.

My interpretation is that it was NOT an empty threat and that Adam did indeed die on that day --- how? Spiritually, which is defined as separation from God. Also, he began to die physically, i.e. his body began to deteriorate, eventually leading to his physical death.

Dave Hawkins · 10-10-2007, 06:59 AM

Dean ...

Quote:

Here's a question for Dave about the Tablet Theory that I don't think anyone has asked yet...

According to the Tablet Theory, toledoths are evidence that the Torah was originally formed from separate tablets - and each toledoth is actually a colophon indicating that we have reached the end of the tablet written by the person named in it.

So why is the toledoth in Numbers 3:1, which explicitly names Moses and Aaron, not taken to mean that Moses and Aaron wrote everything from the previous toledoth (Jacob's in Genesis 37:2) until that point, whereupon they signed off with this "colophon" and the rest of Numbers and the whole of Deuteronomy were written by someone else after them (and who compiled the Tablet of Moses along with the other tablets)?

How does the Tablet Theory explain this inconsistency - that all the toledoths except Moses's are interpreted as colophons ending the text written by the person named in them, but Moses's is ignored and he is assumed to have written everything after it as well as much of what was before it?

I have primarily read Wiseman's Tablet Theory which only covers Genesis. I hope other scholars follow Wiseman's lead and correct/expand/clarify his theory. It is not a perfect theory, but I think it's a great start, and it has support from many lines of evidence. The DH seems only to have internal textual evidence.

Dave Hawkins · 10-10-2007, 07:11 AM

Quote:

In Genesis 6:3, we hear God saying that from now on humans will be limited to a 120 year lifespan. This apparently contradicts the many extended lifespans that are spread throughout the Torah. Indeed, almost every one of the Partriarchs is listed as having lived for much longer than 120 years.

The KJV says

Quote:

3 ¶ And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

Why is not possible for this to mean "I will hold off the Flood for 120 more years"??

Magdlyn · 10-10-2007, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

My interpretation is that it was NOT an empty threat and that Adam did indeed die on that day --- how? Spiritually, which is defined as separation from God.

No. That may be how you define it (from your later theology which is influenced by Zoroastrianiasm), but that is not what the Hebrew Bible indicates.

Quote:

Gen 6:3 Then Yahweh said, "My spirit [breath] shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."

It says man will live 120 yrs and then God will withdraw his spirit from him and he will die.

Quote:

Also, he began to die physically, i.e. his body began to deteriorate, eventually leading to his physical death.

No. Yahweh said, "Gen 2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."

That very day. Yahweh lied, the snake told the truth. Yahweh does not need you to lie for him.

Keith&Co. · 10-10-2007, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Here's a good fundy answer to the 2/7 thing

Feh.
That's not a good answer. They just twist and turn to make the story seem coherent, so they can claim inerrancy. Followed by an admission that there is certainly an error in SOME translations of the Scripture (leading to the 7 or 14 argument), but as usual, 'inerrancy' seems to mean 'no more than an acceptable number of errors.'

Although, their saying the instructions for clean animals 'supplements' the instructions for EACH AND EVERY ANIMAL is a bit better, grammatically, than saying 7 in specific is a subset of 2 in general.

It's still a contradiction that different rules for clean animals are not covered by the previous instruction to take by two each and every animal.

Keith&Co. · 10-10-2007, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

My interpretation is that it was NOT an empty threat and that Adam did indeed die on that day --- how? Spiritually, which is defined as separation from God.

That isn't an interpretation. For that word to be correct, there'd have to be some sort of verbage in the Books to support it.
It's a concoction, at best.
Life, in the Books, is defined as having the Breath of life within. As long as the spirit animates the body, it's alive. Many verses show that the OT didn't consider anything alive until it breathed. And as long as they breathed, they lived. THere's no suggestion of a process of dying, of deterioration, of spiritual death vs. still kicking around on the planet.
Until the breath animated Adam, he was just interestingly piled dust.
Until the breath left Adam, he was alive.

Nothing in The Books will support any sort of long-drawn death spiral lasting hundreds of years and oodles of children.

VoxRat · 10-10-2007, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keith&Co.

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Here's a good fundy answer to the 2/7 thing

Feh.
That's not a good answer. They just twist and turn to make the story seem coherent, so they can claim inerrancy. Followed by an admission that there is certainly an error in SOME translations of the Scripture (leading to the 7 or 14 argument), but as usual, 'inerrancy' seems to mean 'no more than an acceptable number of errors.'

Although, their saying the instructions for clean animals 'supplements' the instructions for EACH AND EVERY ANIMAL is a bit better, grammatically, than saying 7 in specific is a subset of 2 in general.

It's still a contradiction that different rules for clean animals are not covered by the previous instruction to take by two each and every animal.

And that's the "obvious" answer to the problem, which our failing to see had Dave literally falling off his chair laughing in uncontrollable laughter at our blind foolishness and foolish blindness !??

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10-10-2007, 06:31 AM	#781
Dave Hawkins Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Missouri Posts: 2,375	Just some quick comments ... First ... this is an EXCELLENT resource .. thanks. Suggestions: Yellow and Grey don't show up too well. Is there a page that lists the starting and ending points of each section? For example ... Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 P Genesis 2:4a R Genesis 2:4b - 4:24 J etc. ??

10-10-2007, 06:48 AM	#782
Dave Hawkins Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Missouri Posts: 2,375	Here's a good fundy answer to the 2/7 thing which also discusses the 7/14 thing ... http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/525

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