Freethought & Rationalism Archive

schriverja · 06-02-2011, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by schriverja

So you are saying the Moses only edited Genesis, and not the Pentateuch as a whole?

Moses put Genesis together from the histories that were in his possession written by Adam, Noah, Abraham, and others. Moses authorship of Exodus, Lev, Num and Deut reflects his personal involvement. That does not mean that Moses physically wrote those books. He probably assigned the physical writing of the documents to others, possible including Joshua.

So anachronisms in any of those books would help pinpoint the dates those books were written/edited, correct?

rhutchin · 06-02-2011, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schriverja

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Moses put Genesis together from the histories that were in his possession written by Adam, Noah, Abraham, and others. Moses authorship of Exodus, Lev, Num and Deut reflects his personal involvement. That does not mean that Moses physically wrote those books. He probably assigned the physical writing of the documents to others, possible including Joshua.

So anachronisms in any of those books would help pinpoint the dates those books were written/edited, correct?

To some extent. Given that the documents were not permanent and copies were continually being produced as time passed and under the supervision of the Scribes, we might expect those Scribes to update names of cities for the benefit of the readers.

Regardless, do you have an anachronism in mind that makes a difference with regard to the content of the Pentateuch or supports a point that you want to make?

rhutchin · 06-02-2011, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetpea7

rutchin--when do scientists state that human beings first acquired written language?

Got me. What have you heard? Given that the Biblical accounts were among the earliest written documents, people were writing from the beginning so there has been a written language for the last 15,000 years or so.

Rhea · 06-02-2011, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhea

So, wait, Eve wasn't even made yet when the word came down to avoid one plant? God was relying on a just-created human to tell the other human? And this knowing that he had created Satan and knowing already what would happen and he didn't even give Eve a fighting chance to understand the danger?

Isn't this like me leaving a gun on the table and telling the 4yo to not touch it, but failing to mention it to the 3yo, and counting on the 4yo to take care of that?

Except that we are dealing with older people (mentally if not physically even if their physical age appeared much more than actual) and instead of a gun, we might make it a delicious dessert that gave no appearance of being harmful.

1. They aren't older mentally, they were just made. They were utterly naive. Eve had not even been made yet and had never ever ever heard that she should avoid anything. My 3yo had heard "NO!" quite a bit by 3yo. Eve had never once heard it. How does that make her the mental superior of my 3yo?

and
2. An interesting looking gun with shiny parts and a handle is equally appealing to a 3yo as a delicious-looking dessert is to a woman who has never had a dessert. Ask any parent who sets down their cell-phone in front of a toddler

My analogy holds. What kind of incompetent "father" would do such a thing to his "children" whom he "loves"? Especially knowing what will happen when he places that gun on the table?

schriverja · 06-02-2011, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by schriverja

So anachronisms in any of those books would help pinpoint the dates those books were written/edited, correct?

To some extent. Given that the documents were not permanent and copies were continually being produced as time passed and under the supervision of the Scribes, we might expect those Scribes to update names of cities for the benefit of the readers.

Regardless, do you have an anachronism in mind that makes a difference with regard to the content of the Pentateuch or supports a point that you want to make?

The point I was trying to make I made back in post #31. If you subscribe to Mosaic authorship, but allow for redaction, how do you determine what has been edited and what hasn't? You actually have the problem no matter who you think the primary author/editor was. As to the OP, there clearly seems to be two different creation stories between chapters 1 and 2, at the very least coming from two different sources and then spliced together, without all of the contradictions removed. (Contradictions I brought up in post #3, but you got sidetracked on my edit of that post and ignored the substance).

James Brown · 06-02-2011, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Moses put Genesis together from the histories that were in his possession written by Adam, Noah, Abraham, and others. Moses authorship of Exodus, Lev, Num and Deut reflects his personal involvement. That does not mean that Moses physically wrote those books. He probably assigned the physical writing of the documents to others, possible including Joshua.

Do you have any evidence for this millenia-long chronicle being preserved over countless generations, from Adam to Moses?

We went round and round on this on another thread. You never responded to it. I'll repeat what I said there:

Quote:

It really is comical to think of it. Adam writes down his adventures on a tablet. After Cain kills Abel, he runs home, tells Dad about what happened for posterity's sake, then runs off because he's banished. Adam wills his family scroll to Seth, who keeps track of his family legacy while at the same time keeping track of Cain's descendants--the ones that came along after Cain was banished.

One by one, the descendants of Seth keep adding tablets to the pile. They somehow know who should be the next one to carry on the role of family chronicler. Finally, there's Noah, who just so happens to be the one granted this title. Lucky for us, because of all his family cousins and whatnot, only he gets to survive the flood, and of course he wheelbarrowed the family tablets onto the Ark.

After the flood, even though Noah's three sons scatter in different directions, they all manage to check in and report who begat who. That is, until the Tower of Babel, when all of a sudden no one speaks the same language, and no one can read the tablets.

Except for Abram's family, of course. He's got the tablets--by now they make a rather impressive stack--and he hauls them from Ur back to Canaan. He logs all of his adventures, never embellishing his exploits nor downplaying his failings. Isaac inherits the tablets and he adds his part. Then Jacob manages to haul the stack of family history away with him when he was running for his life from brother Esau. Poor Jacob had nothing--he used a stone for a pillow--but by gum he hung onto those family records.

After Jacob is established and has twelve sons, eleven of them come back from the fields. Reuben inscribes for the record how the eleven brothers conspired to sell Joseph into slavery and then made it look like he was killed. Then they told Jacob that Joseph was killed. After that, they raced after the slave caravan to catch up with poor Joseph in chains, and they gave him the family tablets so that he can continue keeping log of his life as a slave and prisoner in Egypt. Joseph willingly obliges.

Then, four hundred or so years later, the Israelites haul the tower of tablets out of Egypt. Moses takes the lot and condenses them into what we call the Book of Genesis, but neglects to remark anywhere in that book any mention of this ongoing traveling chronicle of man-high tablets, passed down from generation to generation.

Hey, it's a theory.

schriverja · 06-02-2011, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesABrown

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Moses put Genesis together from the histories that were in his possession written by Adam, Noah, Abraham, and others. Moses authorship of Exodus, Lev, Num and Deut reflects his personal involvement. That does not mean that Moses physically wrote those books. He probably assigned the physical writing of the documents to others, possible including Joshua.

Do you have any evidence for this millenia-long chronicle being preserved over countless generations, from Adam to Moses?

We went round and round on this on another thread. You never responded to it. I'll repeat what I said there:

Quote:

It really is comical to think of it. Adam writes down his adventures on a tablet. After Cain kills Abel, he runs home, tells Dad about what happened for posterity's sake, then runs off because he's banished. Adam wills his family scroll to Seth, who keeps track of his family legacy while at the same time keeping track of Cain's descendants--the ones that came along after Cain was banished.

One by one, the descendants of Seth keep adding tablets to the pile. They somehow know who should be the next one to carry on the role of family chronicler. Finally, there's Noah, who just so happens to be the one granted this title. Lucky for us, because of all his family cousins and whatnot, only he gets to survive the flood, and of course he wheelbarrowed the family tablets onto the Ark.

After the flood, even though Noah's three sons scatter in different directions, they all manage to check in and report who begat who. That is, until the Tower of Babel, when all of a sudden no one speaks the same language, and no one can read the tablets.

Except for Abram's family, of course. He's got the tablets--by now they make a rather impressive stack--and he hauls them from Ur back to Canaan. He logs all of his adventures, never embellishing his exploits nor downplaying his failings. Isaac inherits the tablets and he adds his part. Then Jacob manages to haul the stack of family history away with him when he was running for his life from brother Esau. Poor Jacob had nothing--he used a stone for a pillow--but by gum he hung onto those family records.

After Jacob is established and has twelve sons, eleven of them come back from the fields. Reuben inscribes for the record how the eleven brothers conspired to sell Joseph into slavery and then made it look like he was killed. Then they told Jacob that Joseph was killed. After that, they raced after the slave caravan to catch up with poor Joseph in chains, and they gave him the family tablets so that he can continue keeping log of his life as a slave and prisoner in Egypt. Joseph willingly obliges.

Then, four hundred or so years later, the Israelites haul the tower of tablets out of Egypt. Moses takes the lot and condenses them into what we call the Book of Genesis, but neglects to remark anywhere in that book any mention of this ongoing traveling chronicle of man-high tablets, passed down from generation to generation.

Hey, it's a theory.

Apparently it's the pet theory of two dead scholars. So far as I know, no living scholars are buying it... But rhutchin is still in the fan club, thank goodness.

stephan huller · 06-02-2011, 01:09 PM

Philo says they represent two different creation narratives - Adam Kadmion and mankind. I think he's right.

James Brown · 06-02-2011, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schriverja

Apparently it's the pet theory of two dead scholars. So far as I know, no living scholars are buying it... But rhutchin is still in the fan club, thank goodness.

Curious. Which scholars?

As a theory goes, it's easy to understand why someone would cling to it. It discredits the JEPD school of thought (which itself undercuts the divine inspiration argument) while providing an explanation for how Moses could have possibly known what happened on Day Three of Creation. But overall, it raises more questions than it answers. How did Adam know what Cain and God talked about? How did Seth know what Lamech said to his wives, word for word? How did Noah know the final fate of Enoch? How did Abraham know what happened between Lot and his daughters? How did Abraham overhear the conversation between Hagar and the angel of the Lord in the desert? Why didn't any in this chain of authors write in the first person?

schriverja · 06-02-2011, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesABrown

Quote:

Originally Posted by schriverja

Apparently it's the pet theory of two dead scholars. So far as I know, no living scholars are buying it... But rhutchin is still in the fan club, thank goodness.

Curious. Which scholars?

As a theory goes, it's easy to understand why someone would cling to it. It discredits the JEPD school of thought (which itself undercuts the divine inspiration argument) while providing an explanation for how Moses could have possibly known what happened on Day Three of Creation. But overall, it raises more questions than it answers. How did Adam know what Cain and God talked about? How did Seth know what Lamech said to his wives, word for word? How did Noah know the final fate of Enoch? How did Abraham know what happened between Lot and his daughters? How did Abraham overhear the conversation between Hagar and the angel of the Lord in the desert? Why didn't any in this chain of authors write in the first person?

rhutchin said a Donald Wiseman developed it (wiki page on the hypothesis). I haven't read the book rhutchin cited earlier in the thread, but rhutchin alluded to the fact that Wiseman made a case for Adam as the original author... :huh:

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06-02-2011, 01:09 PM	#48
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Philo says they represent two different creation narratives - Adam Kadmion and mankind. I think he's right.

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