shirley knott

Despite the fact that you brought out this very issue, with the opposite understanding, and used THAT as confirmation of the correctness of the approach of the Table Twaddle.
Nothing could better show your complete intellectual dishonesty and corruption than this little episode.
Keep up the good work, dave, you are driving people away from YEC-ism and Christianity on a daily basis, for which, I, for one, thank you.

no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott

Faid

Well, no. The other way around, actually.

You see, the Table theory WAS canon for centuries (or, at least, a form of it was). And created huge inconsistencies, as Dean and others have shown.

The DH hypothesis disputed the very premises of the earlier theories (such as a single author for the Pentateuch), and proposed a fundamentally NEW interpretation of the text.

And, again as Dean showed, did a much better job explaining and comforming to the evidence..

Sorry dave. DEAN is the heliocentricist here.

Stephen T-B

"...rather than objectively looking for a theory that explains the evidence of the texts in the Pentateuch, you're casting around for an explanation that at best confirms your presuppositions and at worst doesn't disconfirm them." (NinJay ).
Surprise, surprise!
afdave being a Creationist, he would - that being what Creationists do.
They start out with the "facts" as provided by the Bible (in this case, the existence of Moses) and then construct a scenario which is consistent with them.
The DH makes no reference to Moses, and has nothing to say about the sources from which the texts are drawn - and this is what makes it so unsatisfactory for Creationists. Not only do they require the reality of Moses to be established, but they require accounts without complexities and which are complete.
afdave demonstrates this perfectly: the Biblical account is not complex and it is complete, and ascribing it to Moses is not complex and is complete, as well.
Case closed.

Pappy Jack

Because there is no logical connection between what you have shown and what Wellhausen says.

Wellhausen says, in effect, that there is no written history of the Israelites before date N.

You say that you can in fact show that writing existed before date N.

But you cannot conclude from these two statements that there must therefore have been a written history of the Israelites before date N.

Please try and understand the fallacy that underlies such an argument.

-Jay-

That the larger one exists as it stands is a testimony to the skill of the editor. That the smaller ones emerge when the sources are separated out testifies to the validity of the source split.

regards,

NinJay

Amaleq13

Dave,

Please stop wasting everyone's time attacking an outdated version of the DH. It simply makes no sense to do so. Any flaws that have, in your view, been retained, should be addressed within the context of the theory as it currently exists. Any flaws that have not been retained are quite clearly irrelevant.

Get it? Addressing the older version of a theory is either redundant or irrelevant. It is never, ever helpful for anything except writing a review of the history of a theory. It is not necessary to know when a flaw was introduced to recognize that it is a flaw.

Focus on the theory as it exists and save the history lesson for another time.

Your approach makes as much sense as a building inspector complaining about how a building was originally built instead of focusing on the existing flaws. While it might be marginally interesting to note that an existing flaw was established in the original construction, it is actually irrelevant to recognizing that a flaw continues to exist.

I just wish I had offered this observation several pages ago. :banghead:

-Jay-

It would be more correct to ask whether historians 2000 years from now might assert that Bilbo and his compatriots were real.

You're totally ignoring the point that scholars, even as recently as 150 years ago, lacked the capabilities that modern scholars have to aggregate and analyze text, assess the dates of old things, determine linguistic connections, and evaluate ancient cultures. You're also totally ignoring the fact that until the last couple of hundred years, any scholar that suggested that Moses didn't exist was facing a loss of reputation, or worse. You've trivialized the power of the Church to suppress contrary information and opinion, but it was no small threat to those facing it.

You also play very fast and loose with the implications of being "real" . Moses could, for the sake of argument, have been real, in the sense that there might have been an early leader of a group of proto-Hebrews. (I'm being quite deliberately speculative here) Archaeologists might even, for the sake of argument find proof of the existence of this "Moses" character. That's a long, long way from saying that Moses did/said/wrote everything the Bible says he did.

It's worth pointing out that the scholars over the last couple of thousand years that accepted the historicity of Moses did so not because there is any empirical evidence of his existence - there isn't. They did so because of tradition, and that tradition was already very old and far removed in time from the events it addressed by the time the DH suggests that the Pentateuch was assembled.

regards,

NinJay

Faid

It's that fancy Latin phrase, innit?

-Jay-

There's a big difference, Dave. The epicycle stuff was proving to be increasingly inadequate to address the observed evidence that was accumulating as astronomers began to look farther and farther away from Earth. There was a problem - the Ptolemaic model was no longer adequately explaining observations. (Leave aside why - it's not germane).
Copernicus looked for a solution.

In the case of the DH, the observed evidence is well-explained by the DH, and consilience with other lines of data supports it.

The Tablet Theory people, as you put it, are trying to solve a problem that isn't there.

regards,

NinJay

-Jay-

Dave is doing exactly what he's expected to do. Nothing more, nothing less.

regards,

NinJay