outhouse

Not only that i find it ludicrous to think a primitive people's interpretation of text that wasnt even theirs to begin with has more merit, then modern scholarships. its facepalm exegesis

stephan huller

"Conviction is a greater foe of truth than is a lie"

stephan huller

But you haven't been brought into acquaintance with the exegesis of any of the ancients so the value of your statement is worthless. It's like trying to explain what chocolate tastes like to people before the discovery of the New World or the value of a newly discovered text to people who refuse to read it. If I was talking to someone who actual read SOME of the earliest interpretations IN ITS NATIVE TONGUE (= Hebrew) and then they told me - it's all worthless - perhaps there would be some value to this statement. As it stands it sounds like the fox in the story of sour grapes.

stephan huller

I hope at the very least I can expect you to have read Aesop. Perhaps you will tell me that the definition of 'sour grapes' shouldn't depend on his narrative but rather the modern misunderstanding.

stephan huller

I find this discussion more interesting than the continued exegesis of Marqe. So let's start at the beginning.

1. The account of creation at the beginning of the Pentateuch is an attempt at 'literal history'?
2. Ezra also wasn't interested in establishing a Pythagorean or Babylonian understanding of the significance of numbers when he assigned six days to creation but 'forgot' to account for the impossibility of days when there was no sun to count them. Again stupid 'primitive' people rather than an interest in the number six.
3. The story of the talking snake assumes that Ezra had no idea that snakes couldn't talk or later that speech was impossible for an ass. Again just a 'stupid primitive'
4. The interest in a square garden in Paradise was again 'factual' - i.e. that Ezra knew that Paradise once had this actual shape rather than him trying to express something mystical.
5. Abel was actually 'murdered' and the reference to God not knowing about it was another 'fact' (rather than a sign that the Lord was a lower power rather than God himself)
6. Cain being marked with a tau was an attempt at 'literal history' - i.e. that someone observed this and reported it to Ezra as a fact - rather than Ezra trying to establish the mystical value of the tau for later in the Passover narrative

Let's start there and continue from your predictable responses.

stephan huller

Another more fundamental question which puts the modern view against the ancient:

When Ezra has the divinity speak of 'us' creating are there more than one powers (i.e. Elohim, Yahweh etc) here and throughout the narrative.

stephan huller

Did Ezra really believe that Adam lived so fucking long or his trying to make a deeper point about humanity having shortened days from disobedience.

stephan huller

Did Ezra really think that Moses lived exactly one hundred twenty years or that Joshua lived exactly ten years less

stephan huller

Did Ezra really mean to say that exactly 318 of Abraham's servants fought alongside him or that this was a coded reference for his servant Eliezer

stephan huller

Was the later interpretation of Abraham's sacrifice of birds as a sign of the resurrection more 'made up bullshit'