ericmurphy

Why are you confused, Dave? How many times does Dean have to state that the existence of Moses is irrelevant to the DH? He said it wasn't; there's no ambiguity there. So where's the confusion?

No you haven't. You've supplied speculations that such tablets were carried on the ark by Noah. You've provided zero evidence that such tablets ever actually existed.
Dave, the evidence that the J, D, E, and P documents existed is contained within the Bible. They are what the Bible is composed of, if the DH is correct.

The bible contains no evidence for the existence of your tablets, because if you split the pentateuch where you think the tablets split it, none of the inconsistencies resolve.

No we can't, Dave. In fact, your tablet theory can't even do it with the Bible. Find one other piece of literature that has the kind of inconsistencies the Bible has in the first place (2 = 14!?), and split it up in a way the DH does and make the inconsistencies go away.

Give it a try. Try it with, say, "Pilgrims' Progress," for a start.

spin

What I find interesting about this whole thread is that the DH is a conservative christian construct (tm). It shows how off the map the inerrantist is. The more radical christians are looking at Genesis being written in the hellenistic period and the pentateuch not being unified even in Qumran times.


spin

Dave Hawkins

I'm not debating them. I'm debating you.
So you want me to judge if the DH is true without any consideration of the existence or non-existence of Moses, even though you yourself said ... Er ... OK. I guess I can try.


If the existence of Moses doesn't matter for your theory, why should it matter for my theory? (I think it does, but why do YOU think it does?)This post ... http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...38#post4811038 ... has several references to such antediluvian patriarchal writings.Really? Can you prove this? Albright is nor exactly a slouch.OK. WHEN does the DH say it was written. And by whom?

Dave Hawkins

It's actually a LIBERAL Christian construct.

Cege

Dave, your scanned pages from Faber's "Respecting the Sacred Books" do not in any way establish Noah carrying written records onto an ark as described in Genesis. Faber talks about legends from religions and civilizations other than the Israelites but does not attempt, he says himself, to conclude that they are proof of Noah carrying anything written through the Flood.

Reference to Faber really fizzled.

Cege

Dean's post should be self-explanatory in answer to your question, but here goes: The Tablet theory rests on a certain Moses character in the bible having written, edited, and compiled the first 5 books of the bible. If Moses is merely fictional, as many believe, then there can be no Tablet theory because there is no Moses to have written, edited, and compiled the pentatuch.

The DH theory does not have to make a judgement on whether Moses was real or fictional. The DH theory merely recognizes that various people wrote parts of the first five books of the bible. It doesn't matter whether the characters in those books were real people or not. The DH examines the writing styles, etc and not what parts of what was written might be factual or fictional.

Lucretius

That's the thing Dave you can't do that to just any literature and get consilience or a readable text.
UNLESS the literature is a compilation and only then if it is compiled in a certain way.
And that is precisely the way in which the Pentateuch was compiled, so we can for the purposes of the DH do precisely that.
It appears you know as little about stylistic /linguistic analysis as you do about scientific subjects

ericmurphy

Dave, what part of "The DH is not dependent on whether Moses actually existed or not" is unclear to you? Can show us how the DH would fail if Moses were an actual historical figure? Would his existence prevent the Torah from being a compilation of different narratives as split by the DH?


Because your tablet theory asserts that Moses compiled the pentateuch. That's an assertion of your theory, Dave. If Moses didn't exist, he could hardly have compiled anything, could he?

ericmurphy

Dave, to right-wing authoritarians such as yourself, everything looks liberal.

spin

It's a matter of perspective. If you know nothing about scholarship then you'll use a term like "liberal", but I was dealing with scholarly analysis and the major choice there is conservative and radical. That's why "liberal" is left right out. It has nothing to do with scholarship. (But then neither does inerrantism. I was merely stating where inerrantism was on -- or better, off -- the scale.)


spin