Tubby Lardmore

More than once I have heard the claim on Christian broadcasts that Adam and Eve had "perfect DNA" that was not subject to problems from incest and only gradually over the first few generations did sin (!) cause DNA to pick up imperfections, allowing for genetic birth defects.

sotto voce

If the meaning of an allegory is inconsistent with theology, yes. One can then say that there is material error. But there has never, afaik, been even an attempt to demonstrate that there is inconsistency of the theology of Gen 1-11 with that of the rest of the Bible. There have been misinterpretations of the story myths, but then that goes for everything in the Bible. In the view of conservative scholarship, the theology of early Genesis is completely consistent with the rest of the Bible, and indeed forms an organic, rational and theological 'narrative' with it.

Quite so. As we know, there are people, particularly in the USA, who with apparently incredible stubbornness ignore or shout down anything else but literal interpretation. One may, perhaps a trifle uncharitably, note that these people are often rather well fed, or at least, well-heeled. They are imv unwilling to explore allegorical meaning, because it involves the possibility of them having to alter their life-styles! In any case, for the scholar, they can be disregarded, as indeed they are in Europe, for the most part. They may occupy most of a whole category of piped TV programs, but they are about as significant as email spam.

semiopen

It is necessary to consider the Nephilim sluts -

The bible doesn't deal with the incest issue. The Jewish commentaries on this are feeble. We learn that there is a problem because they bring it up, but it hardly takes a genius to notice this.

For sure, the original author(s) of the story were smart to cut it off where they did.

sotto voce

Aaaargh! Not the pinnacle of scholarship! No!

'Now it came about that men began to multiply over the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them. These sons of God saw that gals were beautiful, whooh, and they took them as wives, just as they chose.

So then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man indefinitely, because in his waywardness he is corrupt. He has just a hundred and twenty more years* remaining." Arrogant men were on the earth in those days— and also afterwards— when these sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the tyrants of old, men of reputation. The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.' Genesis 6:1-6

*'a hundred and twenty more years' signifies a complete term (12 x 100), and corresponds to the time of the end before the Second Coming of Christ in judgment. The ark of Noah, that saves him and his family, represents Christ, in whom the elect are said to be.

Sheshbazzar

Nothing more than a part of a mythical 'national history', originally a simple 'just so' origins story to be recited around the communal campfire, a well known one that was latter taken up by the Priestly writers and incorporated into a complex religious mythology.
Adam, Eve, Abel, and Cain were less real historical figures than Romulus and Remus.

outhouse

correct, A product of the 5th and 6th century under monotheistic redaction.


all after hundreds of years of compilations, editions, redactions, interpolations ect ect ect.


the work is so fragmented, it cannot be explained easily or without some severe boredom

James Brown

One trick of apologists is to examine the number of years between the time an event took place and the time the event was chronicled. Another variation is to look at the number of years between the original document and our oldest copy. The apologist then leads one to conclude that the narrower the gap, the more reliable the original.

For example:
So then, I wonder why these apologists never apply the same scrutiny to Genesis? How much of a gap exists between when it was "authored by Moses" and our oldest copies we have today?

Net2004

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...bible-bet.html



quote:




The fact is that there are no manuscripts of the Bible prior to 250 BCE, and so McCall’s claim is empirically supported.

That is to say, the absence of biblical texts before 250 BCE is fully consistent with the claim that there weren’t any.




he Hebrews were writing on virtually every medium that their neighbors used. Their neighbors also used pots, stone, wood, and papyrus. In fact, the Hebrews probably borrowed their writing practices from their neighbors.

Second, there is no evidence presented that the Hebrews had an animosity against writing specifically in cuneiform or on clay tablets. This is pure assumption.

Third, and as Tov notes, any ancient Jewish animosity attested is toward papyrus (Tov, Textual Criticism, p. 193).

Fourth, the style of writing that was preferred for the Torah is called “Assyrian” (Ashshurith) in B. Sanhedrin 21b, and so that refutes the idea that all Jews rejected styles that were “foreign.” “Assyrian” probably refers to the block style of Hebrew/Aramaic letters, but note that they are seen as borrowed from foreigners.

Fifth, practices were too varied, and had so many exceptions, that it is difficult to speak as generally as does Mr. Mazzaferro about scribal practices.




This all depends on how you count the time. If you think that Moses wrote Genesis around 1500 BCE, but there is no trace of it until around 100 BCE, then that is about 1400 years of the “disappearance” of Genesis from our archaeological record.





This is a very naïve view of scribal practices. First, you provide no evidence that “copyists exercised great care to transmit the text accurately” soon after the originals were written. For example, where is the evidence of such scribal practices around 1200 BCE?

Second, you used evidence from the Masoretic Text (ca. 1000 CE) and generalize it to pre-Christian scribal practices. Yet, you direct McCall to ensure that he distinguishes the different types of textual traditions of the Hebrew Bible.

Third, the vast amount of variants empirically refutes any claim that the scribes were as careful as you claim.

Fourth, you ignore that many rules meant to ensure accuracy often were counterproductive.

For example, in his study of rabbinic scribal practices, Jason Kalman focuses on how B. Gittin 6b directs that when more than 2 or 3 three words were quoted from Scripture, then incised lines must be applied to that document before writing those scriptural words.

That directive sometimes meant that scribes deleted words from a biblical text, jumbled a biblical text, or “cheated” to avoid the cost of incising their document.

Kalman remarks, “The rules designed to protect the correct transmission of sacred texts may very well have been the impetus for their corruption and add momentously to the difficulty of trying to describe the text of the Bible the rabbis used.”

See Jason Kalman, “Writing Between the Lines: Rabbinic Epistolography and the Transmission of the Text of the Hebrew Bible in Antiquity,” Maarav 17, no. 1 (2010):57-88, quote on p. 88.

Finally, your claim is contradicted by the Bible itself. Note the comments of Jeremiah 8:8 (RSV):

"How can you say, `We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us'? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie."

Biblical authors knew that scribes were perfectly capable of falsifying or corrupting scripture.

outhouse

No credible scholar thinks moses wrote a word, most know, he never existed.


apologist cannot use, reason, logic or reality for that matter

outhouse

if you really want to learn history bud, you should stop reading internet blogger sites like that, they carry no credibility and wilfully spread misinformation


they were not falsifying or corrupt anything with adam ans eve, its a legend that evolved into its current form over hundreds of years.


judaism evolved for over a thousand years away from its Canaanite origins, and teh scriptures evolved with them