Freethought & Rationalism Archive

semiopen · 12-08-2009, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Fair enough, I have no references as I said. What of his handling the ark and wearing the ephod as spin points out?

It is clear that Samuel does things that by the developed Law could only be done by a Levite.

However, it is at least as likely that this goes back to a time when priestly functions were not limited to Levites than that it was invented in order to imply that Samuel was a Levite.

Andrew Criddle

Interesting point Andrew.

The tribal structure may have been of late invention. Probably it originally just referred to where someone lived.

This puts an interesting spin into the priestly disputes like the sons of Eli.

The Exodus scenario where the tribes are actual entities seems very dubious.

spin · 12-08-2009, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Fair enough, I have no references as I said. What of his handling the ark and wearing the ephod as spin points out?

It is clear that Samuel does things that by the developed Law could only be done by a Levite.

Ministering before god and wearing the ephod? A teensy bit of evidence for this what otherwise would seem vain speculation?

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

However, it is at least as likely that this goes back to a time when priestly functions were not limited to Levites than that it was invented in order to imply that Samuel was a Levite.

This wouldn't be another of your speculative probabilities based on internal humors, would it Andrew?

spin

PhilosopherJay · 12-08-2009, 09:43 PM

Yes, traditional views of the historicity and authorship are not only becoming tenuous, but have long been tenuous.

I think the methodology of 19th century biblical archaeology is simply outdated. I mean finding a stick from the 14th century B.C.E. and then declaring this must be the stick that Moses turned into a snake is patently silly. The problem is the whole story of the Moses Super-savior story, is one stick changing into a snake after another.

Can any one imagine archaeological evidence that would prove that Jacob and his eleven brothers changed into 400,000 Hebrew slaves in the space of two generations. Even if each brother had a hundred children (and they all lived to reproduce) their hundred children would have to have a hundred children. Still that's only 10,000 Hebrews, maybe the other 390,000 were converts to the religion?

How are we supposed to find the burning bush that spoke to Moses? Is it still burning?

Should we look at the hearts of the pharaoh mummies and see which one had a hardened heart because we all know that God hardened the Pharaoh's heart to refuse to let the Hebrews go.

How come no Egyptian histories mentions the little fact that all the first born Egyptian males died. Lets say the population was 1 million. Lets say ten people to a family. That would be 100,000 dead. I think somebody might have noticed that happening in Egypt and written about it. I think they would have started writing about it the day after it happened and would still be writing about it today. The walls of 10,000 temples would be full of it.

The story is essentially a serious of fantastic supernatural miracles, so finding evidence for any of it would require a miracle.

So what archaeological find could prove anything in the story?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Quote:

Originally Posted by wavy_wonder1

I've decided to drop out of this discussion. I don't think it's worth it, and I think there is too great a disparity between spin's apparently minimalist approach to the issue and my own. When you dismiss such great writers like Cross as an Albrightian 'ex-acolyte' and even claim that no one cites Albright himself except (as Celsus said) to 'laugh at him', I can hardly take this discussion seriously. (I concede that Albright's archaeological views are superannuated, but I did not cite him in that scope, and he's cited all the time...without being laughed at)

Fair enough, if you wanted me to put that in scholarspeak I would have said "Who cites Albright except as a point of departure in order to set forth their own arguments (while chortling mischievously in the background)?" The point is that you've a mix of positions there without a coherent whole.

Quote:

In short, I think spin's position is absurd, and I'm sure the feeling is something close to mutual. Therefore nothing is to be gained, and I'd rather not waste my time.

No, I believe the problem is that "minimalist" contentions orbit a completely different set of archaeological (not just literary) problems than you were prepared to deal with, and your straw man deconstructed, you're lost as to how to proceed. The problem is the plausibility criterion rests around situating a theory in an appropriate socio-cultural context, for which the traditional views of authorship and historicity are becoming increasingly tenuous, more remarkable for what they choose to omit than what they are able to explain.

semiopen · 12-09-2009, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

It is clear that Samuel does things that by the developed Law could only be done by a Levite.

Ministering before god and wearing the ephod? A teensy bit of evidence for this what otherwise would seem vain speculation?

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

However, it is at least as likely that this goes back to a time when priestly functions were not limited to Levites than that it was invented in order to imply that Samuel was a Levite.

This wouldn't be another of your speculative probabilities based on internal humors, would it Andrew?

spin

Why assume that Levites/priests were hereditary at this stage? When did the hereditary tradition start, during the Exodus?

Zadok_(High_Priest) does not appear to have been a Levite.

Quote:

Some scholars have speculated that as Zadok does not appear in the text of Samuel until after the conquest of Jerusalem, he was actually a Jebusite priest co-opted into the Israelite state religion. Harvard Divinity School Professor Frank Moore Cross refers to this theory as the "Jebusite Hypothesis," criticizes it extensively, but terms it the dominant view among contemporary scholars, in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Elsewhere in the Bible, the Jebusites are described in a manner that suggests that they worshipped the same God (El Elyon) as the Israelites (see, e.g., Melchizedek). Further support for this theory comes from the fact that other Jebusites or residents of pre-Israelite Jerusalem bore names invoking the principle or god Zedek (Tzedek) (see, e.g., Melchizedek and Adonizedek). Under this theory the Aaronic lineage ascribed to Zadok is a later, anachronistic interpolation.

andrewcriddle · 12-09-2009, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

It is clear that Samuel does things that by the developed Law could only be done by a Levite.

Ministering before god and wearing the ephod? A teensy bit of evidence for this what otherwise would seem vain speculation?

Samuel offers sacrifice at various points in the narrative (the first example seems to be 1 Samuel 7: 9-10.)

This would be illicit for a non-Levite under the developed Law.

Andrew Criddle

spin · 12-09-2009, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Ministering before god and wearing the ephod? A teensy bit of evidence for this what otherwise would seem vain speculation?

Samuel offers sacrifice at various points in the narrative (the first example seems to be 1 Samuel 7: 9-10.)

This would be illicit for a non-Levite under the developed Law.

To be more precise, I think, it would be illicit for a non-Kohan. The ministering before god, the ephod and the sacrifice are all priestly.

spin

spin · 12-09-2009, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Ministering before god and wearing the ephod? A teensy bit of evidence for this what otherwise would seem vain speculation?

This wouldn't be another of your speculative probabilities based on internal humors, would it Andrew?

Why assume that Levites/priests were hereditary at this stage? When did the hereditary tradition start, during the Exodus?

What stage are we talking about in the literary history of the text with relation to real time? And who preserved the texts in the 2nd temple period?

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Zadok_(High_Priest) does not appear to have been a Levite.

By being of the sons of Eleazar according to biblical tradition, he is an Aaronid. The tradition may be bunk, but then again the alternatives, based on simple speculation and conservative datings, don't appeal as much.

Quote:

Some scholars have speculated that as Zadok does not appear in the text of Samuel until after the conquest of Jerusalem, he was actually a Jebusite priest co-opted into the Israelite state religion. Harvard Divinity School Professor Frank Moore Cross refers to this theory as the "Jebusite Hypothesis," criticizes it extensively, but terms it the dominant view among contemporary scholars, in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Elsewhere in the Bible, the Jebusites are described in a manner that suggests that they worshipped the same God (El Elyon) as the Israelites (see, e.g., Melchizedek). Further support for this theory comes from the fact that other Jebusites or residents of pre-Israelite Jerusalem bore names invoking the principle or god Zedek (Tzedek) (see, e.g., Melchizedek and Adonizedek). Under this theory the Aaronic lineage ascribed to Zadok is a later, anachronistic interpolation.

Melchizedek, a name meaning "my king is righteous", suggests a time when priests were kings, ie the late Hasmonean era. That's when I'd be looking for the Melchizedek material. There is nothing to suggest royalty in the Zadokite priesthood.

Got any datable Hebrew material that uses "El Elyon" (as distinct from the simple "Elyon", which in itself is also a dating nightmare in the Hebrew context) before the beginning of 2nd c. BCE? Although it is only used 4 times in the Melchizedek story and once in a psalm (78:35), it seems to be most popular in the Genesis Apocryphon from Qumran.

spin

semiopen · 12-10-2009, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Why assume that Levites/priests were hereditary at this stage? When did the hereditary tradition start, during the Exodus?

What stage are we talking about in the literary history of the text with relation to real time? And who preserved the texts in the 2nd temple period?

By being of the sons of Eleazar according to biblical tradition, he is an Aaronid. The tradition may be bunk, but then again the alternatives, based on simple speculation and conservative datings, don't appeal as much.

Quote:

Some scholars have speculated that as Zadok does not appear in the text of Samuel until after the conquest of Jerusalem, he was actually a Jebusite priest co-opted into the Israelite state religion. Harvard Divinity School Professor Frank Moore Cross refers to this theory as the "Jebusite Hypothesis," criticizes it extensively, but terms it the dominant view among contemporary scholars, in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Elsewhere in the Bible, the Jebusites are described in a manner that suggests that they worshipped the same God (El Elyon) as the Israelites (see, e.g., Melchizedek). Further support for this theory comes from the fact that other Jebusites or residents of pre-Israelite Jerusalem bore names invoking the principle or god Zedek (Tzedek) (see, e.g., Melchizedek and Adonizedek). Under this theory the Aaronic lineage ascribed to Zadok is a later, anachronistic interpolation.

Melchizedek, a name meaning "my king is righteous", suggests a time when priests were kings, ie the late Hasmonean era. That's when I'd be looking for the Melchizedek material. There is nothing to suggest royalty in the Zadokite priesthood.

Got any datable Hebrew material that uses "El Elyon" (as distinct from the simple "Elyon", which in itself is also a dating nightmare in the Hebrew context) before the beginning of 2nd c. BCE? Although it is only used 4 times in the Melchizedek story and once in a psalm (78:35), it seems to be most popular in the Genesis Apocryphon from Qumran.

spin

Your points are good ones, but the issues are debatable.

The Levities appear to be a class rather than a tribe, I've only heard this from Andrew but it seems reasonable. The evolution of the Levites would presumably have started around the 11th century BCE. Hence the confusion in Samuel which might be as old as 9th century BCE.

There have been some opinions expressed here about the dates of Samuel/Kings. The consensus is that these books are old (preexilic) however

Zadok is odd because his lineage seems more hokey than usual. He appears when David took Jerusalem. His name is structured like the other Jebusites in the bible with the Zedek as part of his name. This theory certainly has issues, but it is also interesting. I've heard an opinion that his position arose as part of the Jebusite negotiation with David.

I just mentioned these because they fit in with the Levite/Ephraimite issue. Assuming there are legitimate YHWH temples being built pre-exile, presumably a priestly class would have developed, who else would slaughter the animals?

However, I have to admit I find the posts in this thread very interesting and agree with many of the points raised.

bacht · 12-10-2009, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

I think it likely that the idea of a hereditary priesthood is pre-exilic although I agree that the precise rules of who is and who isn't a priest develop during the exile.

My main point re the OP, is that unless one does see the post-exilic faith as changed "nearly out of recognition" then the pre-exilic beliefs almost certainly included some version of the exodus out of Egypt. This does not mean that this tradition was necessarily in any way historical, just that it was much older than the Babylonian exile.

Andrew Criddle

If Deuteronomy was created in Josiah's time one would conclude that the traditions of Moses and the Exodus were pre-exilic. Josiah himself may have been the model for the lawgiver but presumably the name of Moses was part of Judahite tradition already.

The other four books of the Pentateuch describe sacrifices and priests all around Judah and Samaria. Maybe the situation was like that in Job, with local chieftains conducting their own rituals.

Johnny Skeptic · 12-10-2009, 11:38 AM

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Juda...appen.aspx?p=1

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rabbi David Wolpe

Did the Exodus Really Happen?

Three years ago on Passover, I explained to my congregation that according to archeologists, there was no reliable evidence that the Exodus took place--and that it almost certainly did not take place the way the Bible recounts it.

Some argue that there is no evidence to back my assertion. Endlessly reiterated is the mantra "absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence." In other words, the fact that we have never found a single shred of evidence in the Sinai does not mean the Israelites were not there.

This is nominally true. We have found Sinai evidence of other people who predated the Israelites, and while it is improbable that 600,000 men crossed the desert 2,500 years ago without leaving a shard of pottery or a Hebrew carving, it is not impossible. (Together with women and children, that makes a couple of million, who could actually fill the distance between Egypt and Israel by standing in line.)

However, the archeological conclusions are not based primarily on the absence of Sinai evidence. Rather, they are based upon the study of settlement patterns in Israel itself. Surveys of ancient settlements--pottery remains and so forth--make it clear that there simply was no great influx of people around the time of the Exodus (given variously as between 1500-1200 BCE). Therefore, not the wandering, but the arrival alerts us to the fact that the biblical Exodus is not a literal depiction. In Israel at that time, there was no sudden change in the kind or the volume of pottery being made. (If people suddenly arrived after hundreds of years in Egypt, their cups and dishes would look very different from native Canaanites'.) There was no population explosion. Most archeologists conclude that the Israelites lived largely in Canaan over generations, instead of leaving and then immigrating back to Canaan.

A tradition cannot make an historical claim and then refuse to have it evaluated by history.

For well over a century linguists, archeologists, historians and Bible scholars have been looking at the Bible in a new way. They understand how much of it is a product of history; how many stories were shared with other cultures whose languages and histories we have just come to understand. We can now appreciate how the vast canvas of the Bible shows different levels of Hebrew language, as would be expected of a work that developed over time. Most people are not aware that there are different manuscripts of the Bible, which show a "transmission history"--that is, constant recopying and variation. Our earliest complete manuscripts of the Bible are only 1000 years old. Even the Talmud (completed some fifteen hundred years ago) sometimes quotes verses differently from the verses as we have them.

That God's hand is in the Bible is a pillar of belief for many, myself included. That human hands are in there as well does not detract from its sanctity, but reminds us that God and human beings are partners in this world in ways that we did not, when we first learned our Bible lessons, even imagine.

Notes:

David Wolpe is the rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Previously, he taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also served as assistant to the chancellor. He has taught at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and at Hunter College in New York. Rabbi Wolpe lectures widely at universities, synagogues, and institutes throughout the country. He was a King David scholar for the United Jewish Appeal and currently serves on the editorial board of the Conservative movement's Torah Commentary, which is in progress.

Rabbi Wolpe is a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers on subjects of Jewish and general religious interest. He writes two columns, which run in Jewish newspapers throughout the country. His own writing, as well as profiles of him and reviews of his work, have appeared in such publications as Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post. He has also made frequent television appearances on CNN and on "CBS This Morning" as a commentator on spiritual questions. He has been featured most recently in a series on A&E called "Mysteries of the Bible."

Rabbi Wolpe is the author of six books: "The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God," "In Speech and in Silence: The Jewish Quest for God," "Teaching Your Children About God," "Why Be Jewish?," "Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times," and most recently, "Floating Takes Faith: Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World."

The following comments from a registered user at that website are quite interesting:

Quote:

Originally Posted by RickLee

12/6/2004 12:09:17 PM

Maimonides strongly criticized people who insisted that the Bible had to be literally true. Nonetheless, many people still cling to the foolish notion that literal truth is a necessary belief. That is illogical for Jews, since we are not a FAITH based People whose way(s) of life are not based upon any belief. Christians, on the other hand, need literal truth because for them belief is more important than truth. If we Jews are anything, we are the People of Endless Questions. If there is a principle which should unite Jews, it is the refusal to abdicate our minds.

Unlike most conservative Christians, many Jews do not have an emotional need to have a God who inspired tidy, literal, factual writings.

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