Tyler Durden

I am currently debating the inherent polytheism in the OT on another board. But my expertise in this field is woefully shallow, which is why i turn to the experts here for aid.

I had written the following...... only to be contested that the author of Deuteronomy couldn't possibly be a polytheist who thought his God to be a junior. The fact that the Septuagint/Dead Sea Scrolls differed from the Masoretic Text (the former has "the sons of God" while the latter has "children of Israel") and that plenty of scholars believed that a divine assembly of heavenly dieties was already existent in Hebrew theology is completely lost upon the apologist.

Chorus: No wonder!

My questions are simple: what are the sources i can rely on to bolster my case, if it is correct, and augment it?

JoyJuice

I have seen this before from many sites, this is from the one below:

http://www.phoenicia.org/ugarbibl.html

capnkirk

Here is one quick link you can check out while I search for something more comprehensive. http://www.infidels.org/library/maga...1/1poly94.html

P.S. The author of Deuteronomy was Jeremiah, who wrote in the 8th century BCE. Source: Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman

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spin

I doubt that the translation is correct, for two reasons:

1) bny appears to be the plural of bn (son), and

2) ilt is feminine

besides the syntax doesn't support the translation, which appears to be

". . . the name of the sons of yw, the goddess . . ."

Well, the biblical Jeremiah is supposed to have been around at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, ie early 6th c. BCE. And the proposition that Jeremiah wrote Deuteronomy to me is slightly improbable despite the fact that Friedman put it in a book.


spin

Tyler Durden

Alkekh, CapnKirk many thanks. As for the author of Deuteronomy, how does Friedman arrive at that assertion/conclusion that Jeremiah is the actual author? What is the scholarly consensus on that matter?

Here is an update of what i wrote, elsewhere: ...against boredom the very Gods fight in vain....

capnkirk

Actually what Friedman claims is that the same person who was the Deuteronomist also wrote Jeremiah, and wrote the former in the time of King Josiah in (my mistake) the 7th century (BCE). Anyway, my point was that the biblical references being quoted dated to a much later period.

If Finkelstein's (The Bible Unearthed) presentation of the archaeological record for the region is correct (and I believe that it is essentially so), Baal worship was widespread in the Levant from the Middle Bronze age up through the end of the First Temple Period. He did however, stop short of confirming that there were engravings naming/showing Asherah as YHWH's consort, as others (some of the Ugarit sources) have claimed.

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Kosh

He he.

I am YHWH's dark family secret.

capnkirk

I think that he is right...but for the wrong reasons. In the light of Friedman and Finkelstein's analyses (literary and archaeological, respectively), the Deuteronomist was writing a "history" specifically to counter the Baal-YHWH-Asherah worship that had been dominant in the northern ten tribes of Israel (pre 722 BCE). According to Finkelstein, the Omride Dynasty was THE power in the north (see Ahab and Jezebel) in the period claimed for Solomon by the J and D authors, and the Baal worship depicted in King Ahab's story should be considered the rule rather than the exception in the north. Many of those northerners were in Jeremiah's time, refugees in Judah and practicing their religion in HIS homeland. If you look at the religious reforms of Hezekiah, the reversal of his son, then the new attempt by Josiah to outlaw all sacrifice except at the Jerusalem Temple in the light of the continuing battle to segregate the worship of YHWH from the rest of the Baal polytheon, you will have a pretty solid handle on the central dynamic of the period.

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Marduk

“Actually what Friedman claims is that the same person who was the Deuteronomist also wrote Jeremiah, “

Baruch (sp?) was named as the Deuteronomist when I saw the “Who wrote the Bible� show on TV

capnkirk

(Note: 'Deuteronomy' in this context is understood to mean one continuous document that has since been separated into seven books: Deuteronomy thru 1 Kings.) Friedman's book is a "literary criticism"; that is, it analyzes writing styles, vocabularies, anachronisms, and the like to separate one author's work from another's and to place them in time relative to each other. There is wide consensus that the (purportedly 'ancient') scroll "found" in the Temple (ca. 622 BCE) and brought to King Josiah was Deuteronomy. There are several reasons for this, but the most prominent one was that the document clearly defines (rewrites) all of Hebrew history since Moses as leading up to the greatness of Josiah.

As to the identification of the Deuteronomist being the same author who wrote Jeremiah, here are a few examples of comparative language common to both (I will only list the pairs of verses to be compared here) that might be helpful:

• Deut 28:1 vs. Jer 17:24
• Deut 10:16 vs. Jer 4:4
• Deut 4:19; 17:3 vs. Jer 8:2; 19:13
• Deut 4:20 vs. Jer 11:4
• Deut 4:29; 10:12; 11:13; 13:4 vs. Jer 32:41

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