Doctor X

The difference in language is rather clear. As Friedman notes, undergraduates quickly learn to pick out the P author by his style.

--J.D.

spin

I guess when you show no attempt to understand what is being talked about, no effort to read the basic works in the field, when you don't want to talk about specific texts, when you just want to talk in vague generalities, I'm sure you can just as easily see that there is no evidence. Evidence, what's that you say?

Bye Charlie.


spin

LP675

Whoa thats a little rough! I was just about to reply...

By the way I am not quite the ignorant and unstudied crank you seem to take me for. I have read some of the 'basic works in the feild' such as Gunkel, Westernmann, Wellhausen, Von Rad, Hamilton, and wenham ( I dont think I am making any of these up, I might have mispelt them though). Perhaps these dont meet with your approval? Frankly I dont much care. I wont pretend I have read any in their entirety or even most of these works, but I have 'made an effort' to read them.

LP675

Lol! well done, you found a spelling mistake of mine! Bravo! My copy says ‘Currid’ now that I have checked, and yes it is evangelical and pretty entry level stuff.

LP675

Well I am gratified to know at least you think I am sincere (even if a misguided fool).

What I have done is give reasons I believe the whole approach is flawed, and I hope that you can see there is at least some truth in my claim that these methods are at the least subjective, and require speculation. Do you acknowledge that that they are subjective and at least to some degree speculative?

Your comment is fair that I haven’t comprehensively fended off claims of J,E,D,P for a specific passage (not even one). I heard shaggy quoted as saying “So many women, So little time”. Here it’s ‘so many threads, so little time’.

Spin-“…material that I am quite happy to discuss with you here, if you would like to go into specifics.”

Good idea. When I get a chance I will start a Thread along the lines “J,E,P,D theory in genesis 1-2” since you mentioned Genesis 1 and 2:

Spin-“The second creation does conflict with the first in its necessary ordering of events, its raw materials and its orientation.”


However I do have a few thoughts on the lines of descent from Adam. You said:

Spin- “I'm a little at loss here. The two descents from Adam are antediluvian, at least in position. The first even presupposes a continuance from the descendents of Lamech, for they gave rise to a) all those who live in tents and raise livestock, b) all those who play instruments and c) all those who work in metals.

I’m also a little at a loss here.
You seem to interpret this text as asserting:

- Every person who lives in a tent and raises livestock (i.e. leads a nomadic lifestyle and practices animal husbandry or domestication) is a physical literal descendant of Jabal,

- Every person who plays the harp or flute (and you seemed to be as general as ‘play instruments’) is a physical literal descendant of Jubal,

and

- Every person who forges tools out of bronze and iron (i.e. practices this kind of metallurgy) is a physical literal descendant of Tubal-Cain.

(usually its creationists who are thought to have unrealistic literal interpretations)

Now perhaps you do believe the text is saying this. You also have to agree that this idea (that only descendants of these three personages used these technologies) is absurd. I think it is very safe to say that even the most hardened Fundamentalist would not believe the descendants of these three personages were the only ones who engaged in these practices/ or used these technologies. And let me explain why I think it is clear that the text is not asserting that.

It seems clear to me that these descriptions of these men are of a totally different sort to the more standard formula “X was the father of Y”. The standard formula is followed by as specific person or ethnic group. e.g: Gen 4:18 “Irad was the father of Mehujael” or 1 Chron 4:2 “Shobal was the father of Jahath” or Gen 10:13 “Mizraim was the father of the Ludites”. These are straightforward genealogies, and should be understood that way.

It seems the descriptions in question are much closer in style to a figure of speech where one is described as a metaphorical father of something. I wont pretend to be able to adequately articulate what precisely the figure of speech might be more technically refered to as, but it usually is used to indicate the person is the First / Primary/ or most noted example of whatever they are said to be the father of. Here are some examples of the use of “father of” as metaphor.

-Paul says in Romans 4:11 of Abraham “he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised” . Clearly he is a ‘father of all who’ in a sense other than a literal physical sense. He was the father of every believer who has not been circumcised, because in Paul’s estimation he epitomized belief, and yet he had not been circumcised. He was in some sense their spiritual forebear. And in 4:16 “He is the father of us all.” Again clearly not in a physical sense.

- Jesus says in John 8:44 of Satan “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Clearly Jesus is not saying Satan is the literal physical father of all lies in a genealogical sense. And all lies ever spoken are not physical descendants of Satan. Satan is the father of lies because he is the first and primary example of a Liar.

A similar figure of speech would be to call someone a metaphorical ‘Son of’.

- Paul in Acts 13:10 describes Elymas as “ a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right”, and by this he meant he was ‘full of all kinds of trickery’, not that he was a physical descendant of Satan. Satan was figuratively described as his father because Elymas did the same things (deceive etc) that Satan the primary deceiver did.

There are many more examples: (Gal 4:28, Gal 4:31, Ephesians 5:8, Rom 9:8)

In the Examples I have discussed the ‘children’ were those who were in some sense like the father, (had faith, lied, etc). It seems to me Gen 4:20-22 descriptions are of the same type. The ‘descendants’ are NOT a particular people group or person. They are those people who do the same things they did (practice metallurgy, nomadic lifestyles, or played flutes etc).

I would understand the author as accrediting these people with inventing these technologies and practices. The writer is attempting to tell a history of the earth up to this point, so it makes sense he would mention who first invented the practices and technology that were central to life of the day (even if one regards it as a ‘just so’ fiction).

By my calculations (which could be incorrect), at least another 900 years (964 exactly) pass after the birth of Lamech’s sons to the time of the flood (assuming the progression of the generations of the descendants of Cain is exactly the same rate as Seth’s). This would be more than enough time for the technology to become common knowledge in the ante-deluvian society (including among those of the line of Seth, i.e. Noah and his sons).

NOTE; all of what I have said is still true even if the story is a total fiction.


Spin-“This mentioning of these groups doesn't make much sense if the writer knew that there was to be a flood and that only Noah's descendents would survive”

Well I think it makes perfect sense as the technologies and practices could well have been preserved by Noah and his sons (and in fact I would imagine this certainly was the case).


I would consider that the writers of the two genealogies were working under different presuppositions. The second clearly knowing the flood narrative for his genealogy supplies its members with ages which conveniently have them dead before, and in one case in the same year as, the flood.”

Well by now of course it should be clear that I don’t, and in fact I believe the story is perfectly coherent understood as written by one author, telling one story (fiction or non-fiction).

Spin-“I don't really know what this has achieved…” Speaking of my story about reading and transcribing Genesis.

I didn’t think this would be a compelling argument. Just something of interest I suppose, that let me say how well I thought the book was written.


Spin-:”… perhaps it shows the facility with which you smooth texts as you read, especially when texts have been read so often in the past so that the rough burrs pass unnoticed through over-familiarity.”

Actually, I should probably be ashamed to confess I wasn’t familiar with the text at all, (it seems I had been neglecting it in my Bible readings) and it was all very thrilling and quite fresh for me (Again another irrelevant personal story).


I hope you can conceed my interpretation is at least plausable.

And why be unpleasant?

LP

spin

Although I have acknowledged that I'm not a great fan of JEPD, I do acknowledge that the evidence is conclusive to the existence of multiple authorship in some form.This is not the place to be coy. You have come to talk on a secular forum and you've seen that evidence is the norm.This is because you are not reading what the original writer says.I am saying that that is what the original writer writes.I do have a respect for literalist reading of texts. People usually attempt to say what they mean. It is only more modern attempts to render the content more palatable to new fashions by fanciful interpretation that seems not to be honest and which I find unrealistic.You goddit.I don't agree. All nomadic herders came from from somewhere. All metalworkers came from somewhere, just as gypseys in Europe were seen as wandering metalworkers. All musicians, now this is not something usually found in agrarian society of the era is it?, had to come from somewhere.What's the difference between “Mizraim was the father of the Ludites” and “Jabal was the father of the nomadic people”?

I omit your thoughts on Greek traditions as having little to do with what we are talking about. Hebrew traditions were sufficiently different from Greek to make such an argument a red herring.

What I find interesting is your desire to circumvent the literal reading of what the author writes. This is always the case with xian apologists. They don't like the literal significance of texts so they must change them to mean something else. If you can live with that, well, fine. I would rather listen to the author than the apologist.I can't see any reason for you to make your plea for metaphor other than the fact that you need it to be metaphor. You cannot read the text literally as the intention of the writer. He couldn't have meant what you first read it to say, he must have meant something else -- he must have been metaphorical.(Why fiction? We are dealing with traditions. It might do you some good to read other cultures' traditions to see how they work and how they reflect on Hebrew traditions.)Grin, according to the text it is a few generations. Why do you choose to be so literalist in one point and metaphorical in another?? Nice attempt at an exit strategy. How long did it take Kissinger to get Nixon out of Vietnam?"Perfect"? I don't believe you. I think you are prevaricating (in its literal sense of not walking the straight road) in order to bolster your belief system. You don't mind that these parallel genealogies which derive from the same source both lead to the children of Lamech and you don't mind that a whole tradition in the areas of nomadism, music and metallurgy sprang up from one version of the Lamech descent within a generation of the arrival of Noah's flood. This is where of course you jump in with a dose of literalism to separate the first Lamech from the second by using the numbers in Gen 5.

Just to show you that the two genealogies are from the same source, let's look at it. First we need to realise that Enosh means "man", just as "Adam" does (naturally in a different sense). We then find

Adam Cain Enoch Irad Mehujael Methusael Lamech

Enosh Kenan Mahalalel Jared Enoch Methuselah Lamech

The major differences are i) the difference in position of Mehujael and Mahalalel, and ii) the difference in order of Enoch/Irad and Jared/Enoch. (And incidentally the only difference in spelling between Irad and Jared is an AYIN at the beginning of the former.)

Hopefully the two genealogies can be seen as derived from the same source -- with difference coming from transmission.And now of course it should be clear that I don't believe you. You don't give the impresion of being honest with yourself in your squirming to make it seem perfectly coherent to yourself.I can concede that you need it to be plausible.Don't confuse directness with unpleasantness. I write lots of letters.


spin