Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Saramago · 06-02-2011, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

How do you get two creation stories? Gen 2 is a straightforward account of specific events that took place on the sixth day. The only issue you raised was 2:19, and here we have a statement of fact and there is no time element implied (i.e., nothing in the verse suggests that it is saying that God formed the animals in the garden).

Since you make contradictions plural, what else did you have in mind? I saw nothing in your earlier post on any other contradiction.

See these posts from the first page of this thread, which you started:

Post #2

Post #3

Post #4

Post #5

Post #14

schriverja · 06-02-2011, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by schriverja

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.

I don't see that as a problem. All of the laws and interactions between God and Moses involve no redactions (at least, I can't think of any).

So, 99 % is easily attributed to Moses with no problems. Do you see an issue here?

<snip>

How is 99% easily attributed to Moses with no problems? Did you actually read the link I posted? It shows the dates for the sources as:

Quote:

4. Julius Wellhausen

Julius Wellhausen is largely credited with the refinement of the classic statement of the New Documentary hypothesis. He published his major work on it, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, in 1885 (Eng. trans.). In his work he built on the work of earlier scholars such as: de Wette, Reuss, Graf, and Kuenen.

Wellhausen proposed four major sources for the Pentateuch as follows:

Yahwish (J) source c.850 BCE
Elohist (E) source c.750 BCE
J and E were combined by a redactor sometime after E into Rje.
Deuteronomy (D) source 621 BCE
Priestly (P) source c. 500 BCE
Finally D and P were combined with Rje sometime in the 5th century BCE.

Each of which dates, according to Wellhausen, long after Moses came and went... It is important to note that the dates are dates of redaction, but dates of original authorship. Christine Hayes, of Yale, goes into depth on this topic the 4th or so lecture of the Yale Hebrew Scriptures course available here if you are interested in the background.

edit to add: Don't you find it odd that there is absolutely no first person narrative regarding Moses (please point it out if I've missed it)? No where does Moses identify himself as the author... Why do you suppose that is?

davidstarlingm · 06-02-2011, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

I ran across a paper that some Hebrew scholar had done explaining why 2:19 could not have been translated as "had formed." I think the Hebrew text only states this fact, "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens," and the text does not tell us when this happened nor does it imply that this forming of the animals took place in the garden versus the earlier days as Genesis 1 explains.

The way I understand it, the Hebrew verb has no tense information at all; it is neither past, present, past perfect, or past participial. So one cannot definitively translate it "had formed" because that simply isn't the tense conveyed. However, since English verbs all carry tense, there is no way to directly translate it.

In other words: yes, "had formed" is wrong, and "formed" is wrong. But if you don't think "formed" is wronger than "had formed", you're wrongest of all.

Note: I'm using the non-specific "you" there; this wasn't directed at anybody.

Toto · 06-02-2011, 10:57 PM

Chinese has no tense, but my understanding is that Biblical Hebrew does have some indicators of tense. It distinguishes between completed actions and incomplete, but lacks a future tense. Modern Hebrew has added a future tense.

But there are people here who know a lot more about Hebrew than I do.

davidstarlingm · 06-02-2011, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Chinese has no tense, but my understanding is that Biblical Hebrew does have some indicators of tense. It distinguishes between completed actions and incomplete, but lacks a future tense. Modern Hebrew has added a future tense.

But there are people here who know a lot more about Hebrew than I do.

Oh, Hebrew definitely has tense. I was just saying that I've heard this particular instantiation of the verb for "form" does not carry tense.

Lunawalk · 06-03-2011, 03:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

How do we know Philo was telling the truth. How he just not making this up to explain mosic authorship of that passage.

Philo restates that which we read here:

Deuteronomy
5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.
6 And [God] buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knows his sepulchre unto this day.

Where the verse says, "...according to the word of the LORD...," Philo explains this as, "[Moses] prophesieth," as Moses would have had to tell what the Lord had said (i.e., prophesied) for this to have been written. Philo then repeats the information given in the verses.

Wait where iin the text it says Moses prophesied of his death? It just says

1 Moses died in Moab
2 He was buried in Moab
3 nobody knows where he buried until this day
It does not Moses prophesied or God told his death and burial before his death in the text.
And the praise until this day implies a later authorship
Most likely they invented thr tradiation of Moses going to heaven to explain the last passages of Deuteronomy.

Lunawalk · 06-03-2011, 04:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Did Moses write an account of his own death?

No reason to do so. My guess is that Joshua completed the account of Moses' life regarding his death.

in this the post above you explaining what Philo;s explanation of Moses predicting the manner of his death. Now your saying Joshua completed the account of his death. So you werejust explaning where Philo got his information but Believe Joshua completed the account, Am I correct?

I don't think Moses or Joshua wrote the torah because in the time of Abraham Moses and Joshua the city of Laish was not called Dan camells in that period of time.
Finaly iif the torah was writeen according to God'a word, why shoud it matter if Moses write or not?

rhutchin · 06-03-2011, 04:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

No reason to do so. My guess is that Joshua completed the account of Moses' life regarding his death.

in this the post above you explaining what Philo;s explanation of Moses predicting the manner of his death. Now your saying Joshua completed the account of his death. So you werejust explaning where Philo got his information but Believe Joshua completed the account, Am I correct?

Philo got his information from the Biblical text. He just paraphrased what the Biblical text says.

Joshua was a possible candidate for physically completing the book of Deuteronomy and adding the information about the death of Moses.

Moses was told the details of his death by God and what God was going to do with his body and Moses told Joshua what God had said enabling Joshua to have that information included in Deuteronomy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

I don't think Moses or Joshua wrote the torah because in the time of Abraham Moses and Joshua the city of Laish was not called Dan camells in that period of time.

Fine, but that is not a good argument for your position.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Finally if the torah was written according to God's word, why should it matter if Moses write or not?

It shouldn't. Given the nature of the Torah, it is obvious that only Moses could be the source of much of the information contained in it. Somehow, Moses had to pass on that information to whomever would physically write the Torah.

rhutchin · 06-03-2011, 05:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Philo restates that which we read here:

Deuteronomy
5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.
6 And [God] buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knows his sepulchre unto this day.

Where the verse says, "...according to the word of the LORD...," Philo explains this as, "[Moses] prophesieth," as Moses would have had to tell what the Lord had said (i.e., prophesied) for this to have been written. Philo then repeats the information given in the verses.

Wait where iin the text it says Moses prophesied of his death? It just says

1 Moses died in Moab
2 He was buried in Moab
3 nobody knows where he buried until this day
It does not Moses prophesied or God told his death and burial before his death in the text.
And the praise until this day implies a later authorship
Most likely they invented thr tradiation of Moses going to heaven to explain the last passages of Deuteronomy.

The text uses the phrase, "according to the word of the LORD." This word of the Lord - the details of Moses' death - was given to Moses by God. When Moses revealed to others the things that God had told, then Moses is said to have "prophesied" (or declared that which God had said).

schriverja · 06-03-2011, 05:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

in this the post above you explaining what Philo;s explanation of Moses predicting the manner of his death. Now your saying Joshua completed the account of his death. So you werejust explaning where Philo got his information but Believe Joshua completed the account, Am I correct?

Philo got his information from the Biblical text. He just paraphrased what the Biblical text says.

Joshua was a possible candidate for physically completing the book of Deuteronomy and adding the information about the death of Moses.

Moses was told the details of his death by God and what God was going to do with his body and Moses told Joshua what God had said enabling Joshua to have that information included in Deuteronomy.

Fine, but that is not a good argument for your position.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunawalk

Finally if the torah was written according to God's word, why should it matter if Moses write or not?

It shouldn't. Given the nature of the Torah, it is obvious that only Moses could be the source of much of the information contained in it. Somehow, Moses had to pass on that information to whomever would physically write the Torah.

Why is it obvious that Moses had to be the source? It certainly isn't obvious to me, there is no "I, Moses, am writing this" (or any first person narrative). It could have been written by anyone up to about the 6 century BCE...

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06-02-2011, 10:57 PM	#74
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Chinese has no tense, but my understanding is that Biblical Hebrew does have some indicators of tense. It distinguishes between completed actions and incomplete, but lacks a future tense. Modern Hebrew has added a future tense. But there are people here who know a lot more about Hebrew than I do.

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