Dave Hawkins

POSITIVE EVIDENCE FOR SOME FORM OF TABLET THEORY OF GENESIS
I have posted the material from Faber entitled "Respecting the Sacred Books" which to me is quite convincing that there did exist written records prior to the Flood. We even have the complete text of one such book -- the Book of Enoch --which is referred to in the NT Book of Jude (14-15). Note that Faber's three volume tome, The Origin of Pagan Idolatry Ascertained from Historical Testimony and Circumstantial Evidence can be summarized as a work showing the common themes in all pagan mythology from all over the world. Faber shows that there is a compelling case for real historical truth behind all the multi-colored fabric of pagan mythology which just happens (?) to coincide nicely with the Genesis Record.

"SIGNATURES" OF THE AUTHORS
As I wrote in my blog article ... Now the Wiseman Hypothesis is not without it's difficulties, but these have been addressed by later authors.

For example, Curt Sewell offers his "Modified Tablet Theory" which addresses some of the difficulties. Read his article online here ... http://www.trueorigin.org/tablet.asp

But to summarize, it is highly significant that ...

a) it is beyond doubt that written records were in use all the way back to Adam,

b) that "signatures" at the end of family history tablets were in common use in the Ancient Near East and many such tablets have now been discovered (these were not known to Wellhausen and other DH advocates), and

c) Points 1 & 2 above practically seal the case that at least the earlier sections of Genesis must have been written originally by the person(s) named at the end of the section.

EVIDENCE FOR MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP
While the DH criticism that the Pentateuch is not the sole work of one author -- Moses -- there is much evidence that Moses WAS the editor and compiler of much of the Pentateuch. But this does not rule out the probability that someone like Joshua added some material to it, such as the account of Moses' death. McDowell has an entire chapter (ch. 10) dealing with evidence of Mosaic authorship which includes internal evidence, the witness of other Old Testament books, the traditions of the Jews and early Christian tradition, covenant-form analysis, refutation of the supposed unsophisticated nature of the Israelite religion at such an early date and many other details. He ends the chapter with a statement from Albright ... Now, before I pile on more evidence, I want to stop there and hear from Dean. I have the following questions for him ...

1) Do you disagree that Adam, Seth, Enoch and the other ante-diluvian patriarchs were real persons? Do you disagree that they probably kept written records? If you disagree with this position, why do you think this? What evidence do you offer that they are mythical and/or did not keep written family histories?

2) Do you agree that there is more evidence for the existence of written source documents resembling Wiseman's tablets than there is for the existence of any of the J E D or P documents? If not, why not?

3) Do you still not see why the 5 presuppositions that I have listed which I showed to be held by leading DH advocates (there are many more I could have cited) must have had a powerful influence on the origination of the DH? Do you still not see that the chopping up of text into small bits and pieces was in large part motivated by these presuppositions?

VoxRat

and completely ignore all of Dean's carefully presented evidence dismantling itSee? All I have to say is "contrary to..." and I get to just ignore all the evidence to the contrary!Ignoring all the evidence is fun, and easy to do! all you have to do is claim the evidence you don't like is driven by entirely ulterior motives - evil, Christian-hating, conspiratorial motives at that - and you can just... ignore it! and pretend that "looking at it", or drawing pictures of it, with some irrelevant comments about pointless distinctions, like between oral and written transmission, somehow rebuts itOne is reminded of Anne Elk's theory about dinosaurs...I.e., I got nuthin' So this morning's "scant evidence" was just a teaser?

Ray Moscow

Dave, the "Book of Enoch" (usually refering to 1 Enoch) is a pseudepigraphal dating from the 2nd century BCE. Didn't you know this?!!!!

Lucretius

Thought I would save Dave sometime in typing out his "positive proof" as he appeared to have limited time to do anything other than paste irrelevant old books before but it seems he has beaten me to it
Anyway here is my summary of the "Wiseman Hypothesis"

A Summary of the "Wiseman Tablet Hypothesis "


1) Writing has been found on clay tablets dating to around 3,000 B.C in the Middle East

TRUE
(How do we know they date to that time? ... Simple we use the verified dating techniques that YECs deride when they are used to date anything older than 4,004 B.C)

2) As the world according to the genealogies in Genesis only dates back to c.4,004 B.C then writing must have always existed.

An assertion completely unsupported by any real evidence

3)As the Book of Genesis purports to record events form Creation then as writing existed it must have been put down in writing at that time .

An assertion completely unsupported by any real evidence

4)Therefore Genesis must have been written on clay tablets

An assertion completely unsupported by any real evidence
5) As the only possible witness to Creation was God he must have written the account on clay tablets (OR dictated them to Adam who wrote on these tablets )

An assertion completely unsupported by any real evidence
6)Noah must have saved these tablets on the Ark during the Flood

2 assertions completely unsupported by any real evidence

7)Moses must have had these tablets and copied them down onto vellum

2 assertions completely unsupported by any real evidence
8)In spite of the fact that more mundane tablets and those containing other myths survived these "Holy Relics " must have been lost.

An assertion completely unsupported by any real evidence.

9)The different sections of Genesis were originally written in 11 parts by 11 different authors ,interrupted by "collophons" .

An assertion completely not only unsupported by any real evidence,but also contradicted by any actual scholarly reading of the texts we possess given that the 11 different authors each show an odd mixture of the 4 different writing styles and usages of words that are easily explained by the DH

Jack the Bodiless

No, we don't! Why do you imagine the "Book of Enoch" was written by Enoch? Good grief...
...A fictional character. So this is a pretty idiosyncratic use of "beyond doubt". But the Sumerians had writing way before the Hebrews anyhow, so this really is a monumental irrelevance.
Well, I'm not Dean, but this one made me curious...

1) There weren't any "ante-diluvian patriarchs", as there was no Deluge. I know that you will run away from any discussion of the falsehood of the Genesis Flood, so I can't imagine that you actually want a response here. So why ask the question?

VoxRat

"Beyond doubt"?
Beyond whose doubt? Most of us are pretty sure this "Adam" character is fictional.I don't know about this. I highly doubt it, given that (1) you are the only one I've ever heard it from, and (2) all your other assertions turn out to be rubbish when subjected to the least scrutiny and (3) you just finished saying it's "beyond doubt" - something that only fundamentalists accept, a group not highly regarded by most of us for their critical thinking skills. But even if we were to accept (b), at least for the sake of argument, so what?a complete non-sequitur. Right. Well, we'll ignore, for the meantime, the fact that McDowell has no credibility with anyone here, and assess this "evidence" on its own merits, if and when we ever see it. But it's going to take some doing - starting with presenting any evidence at all that this "Moses" character is anything other than a fictional one.

ericmurphy

How about "biblical scholars," Dave? The two groups overlap almost perfectly.

Jack the Bodiless

Hey, I've just realized something...
If Dave is sufficiently nuts to imagine that 1 Enoch is the actual words of Enoch, describing events that actually happened...

...Then Dave Hawkins is a Flat-Earther.

The Hebrew flat-Earth cosmology is VERY specific in 1 Enoch, far more so than in what is now the canonical OT. The flat Earth is covered by a solid Firmament, with a complex system of "gates" to let the Sun and Moon in and out of the dome. Enoch saw all this on a personal "guided tour" given by God himself.

Jude 1:14 at ErrancyWiki

Ray Moscow

I think you'll find that although we have good evidence that Bilbo wrote most of The Red Book, the final sections were finished by Frodo, with a small bit finished by Samwise Gamgee.

We now have essentially complete manuscripts of these, and in fact millions of copies are known to exist.

And so we know that although it is incontrovertible that Bilbo wrote most of this history, he was compiling written traditions that went back to the First Age and indeed to the FirstBorn of the Nordor.

How can one deny the historicity of the very person who compiled these histories? It just doesn't make sense.

Bilbo wrote it, I believe it, and that settles it!

Ray

Derec

And who is he? Trueorigin does not offer any sort of biographical sketch on him, so I am naturally curious.