Ed

The ancient hebrew theocracy was held to a higher standard externally in that heresy meant death, adultery could mean death and etc. For Christians heresy, adultery, and etc could just mean excommunication until you repent and then you are forgiven. But Christians are held to higher standard internally in that even your thoughts can be sinful, ie hatred, lust and etc. But actually some of this was even hinted at in the OT.

Doctor X

New fallacy: cui bono!

See response on the authorship of the passages above. Ignoring it does not make it go away.


Which means you conceed the YHWH demanded the sacrifices. The text is quite clear about "passing through the fire."

Ipse dixit and wrong. The DH results from the observations of the texts. It has nothing to do about assumptions on the supernatural.

No, linguistically they follow the style of the text and the authors. Try again.

I gather I can conclude that no supported alternative to the DH will offered. Should one wish to understand the DH, Friedman's introduction is quite clear.

Also: this gives a great overview of the polytheism. I particularly like the recognition:

Doublets and triplets of stories with characteristic linquistics and names do, indeed, point to multiauthorship--particularly when the doublets contradict one another.

Failed to appreciate the significance of the quote then and now. Try again.

See Friedman for a concise discussion as previously noted.

It is depicted stereotypically in the OT stories. It also follows the Moabite inscription where Mesha does to Omri's Isael a ban under the direction of Chemosh. Ludemann's book referenced above is a good overview. The purpose of animal sacrifice is very different than the "consecration for destruction" of people ordered by YHWH in the passages listed above.



They are rather standard references. You are free to consult them and rebut them.

Is actually not surprising since the practice did "die out" or stop. They have, however, found a very long-in-use "Tophet" in Carthage used up to the first century. The details are in Levenson.

Poetic ipse dixit and, again, wrong. Jeremiah's passage is not prophecy as demonstrated by reading it as quoted above.

The evidence has been given along with references. You wish to rebut it, rebut the evidence and the references rather than make statement contradicted by both without contrary evidence.

Not the use of "were." Try again.

Anyone who feels that a child deserves the extreme and extensive suffering has lost the right to claim the title of "gentleman." Apology can lead one to worship evil, apparently. Unfortunate.

Unfortunately, per Exod 22:28-29, "yes."

You have offered none but misreads of the texts. Try again. Below is a good example of such misreads:

Irrelevant to the requirements for the herem. YHWH personally demands the destruction and punishes those who fail to do it. Period. Read the cited passages. "Clean animals for sacrifice" is irrelevant.

Unjustifiable homicide, for I do not share the delusion that infants "deserve it" because they are "sinners" even if they disturb my sleep on airplanes.

--J.D.

Doctor X

To reiterate:

. . . for YHWH your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate. . . . now that read familiar. Curious. . . .

I am sure the interested can look up the other passages I listed previously.

For some odd reason, YHWH is not terribly concerned with "humans not being among clean animals for sacrifice."

Quod erat demonstratum ad nauseum. . . .

--J.D.

Jack the Bodiless

Therefore the Holocaust was justified too.

You see where this leads, Ed?

Ed

That still does not prove it is the majority view. You are going to have to do better than that.

Quote:

Ed: Later they disobeyed God and did do human sacrifice. dx: Quote from Ezekiel above contradicts this claim. Quod erat demonstrandum times three. . . .

No, keep ignoring verses 16-21 and screaming "Na na na na, I am going to ignore the truth, I am going to ignore the truth.."

Quote:

Ed: There is no evidence that such a thing as the D material exists. Read "The World of the OT" by the great archaeologist and biblical scholar C. H. Gordon where he shows the major flaws in the documentary hypothesis. dx: I have read CH Gordon and, unfortunately, he does not overturn the Documentary Hypothesis at all. He supports the polytheism of early Hebrew religion, actually, in his apologet The Bible and the Ancient Near East.

Polytheism is irrelevant. In the above book Gordon drew upon parallels in ancient near eastern literature to show the complete inadequacy of using the divine names in the Pentateuch as a criterion for documentary analysis. Also see "A Scientific Investigation of the OT" by Robert Dick Wilson. And the writings of the great Jewish scholar J.H. Hertz.

Quote:

dx: Again, making wild claims of "proof" without actually offering any actual evidence fails in a debate.

If you wish to "will away" the Documentary Hypothesis, you need to offer evidence. Start with Friedman. [/quote]

See above.

Quote:

dx: The threefold denial of the origin of the practice in YHWH's will . . . suggests that the prophet doth protest too much. . . . If the practitioners of child sacrifice, unlike Jeremiah, thought that YHWH did indeed ordain the rite, then we may have here some indirect evidence that the literal reading of Exod 22:28b . . . was not absurd in ancient Israel, . . . It appears, instead, that Jeremiah's attacks on child sacrifice are aimed not only at the practice itself, but also at the tradition that YHWH desires it. Ed: Psychology from a distance of 2500 years is suspect. dx: Non sequitur which does not address the problem with Jeremiah.

Fraid so, it shows that the problem is probably anti-semitism on Friedman's part.

Quote:

Ed: No, herem is not equivalent to ritualistic child sacrifice. Herem is the meteing out of justice on rebels against God. dx: Ipse dixit and incorrect. By definition and text, "the ban is not revenge, but a ritual."

While it did have a spiritual aspect to, there is no evidence that it was part of the sacrificial system of rituals in the Tabernacle. Its primary purpose was to remove them from teh Promised Land but also their time of grace was up because of their sin.

Quote:

dx: Nevertheless . . . it has to be pointed out that the devotion to destruction did not arise out of personal hatred or vengence. Rather, it was a kind of sacrificial ritual in which the population of the conquered cities were often exterminated, even with their animals. Furthermore indestructable objects of gold or silver could not be kept as plunder by just anyone. Rather, they were regarded as gifts for the God of Israel. Moreover, the Hebrew word for "ban" (hrm) bleongs in the semantic field of the holy, hallowed, which in fact justifies the translation "consecration to destruction." . . . In other words, the ritual of the ban was virtually the negation of an ethic or simple plunding and exploitation. It was a ritual sanctification in which the captured persons, animals, and objects were dedicated to Yahweh. . . . The ban was a tabu which no one might transgress--not even a king like Saul. When he nevertheless did so, he was immediately stripped of his kingly dignity and rejected.

Notice even your quote says it was a "kind" of sacrificial ritual. It was not one of THE sacrificial rituals of the tabernacle and later the temple. I dont deny there is a facet of giving them as gifts to God because that has always been the biblical teaching that we give our good works to God as gifts to him.

Quote:

Dx: : Should the individual avail himself to an honest and responsible reading of the posts, texts, and scholarship he may get further than he does with his reliance on self-inflicted cranial trauma. --J.D.

Should the good doctor avail himself to an honest and responsible reading of the posts, texts, and scholarship he may get further than he does with his reliance on self-inflicted cranial trauma.

Doctor X

Now the individual wishes to argue for popularity? Nevertheless, he has been given the references, he may look up the extensive membership of the Society for Biblical Literature, and he may stew in his fallacies.

On the contrary the verse was discussed in the original post. That the individual does not like what it says remains his error. I would recommend, however, he does remove the fingers from his eyes and cease the screaming.

Gordon does not address the DH in that book. Furthermore, it is not just a matter of "divine names," but doublets, contradictions between the doublets, specific writing styles, et cetera, which the individual would know about if he READ the references rather than just denied they exist.

Now with this:

Charging a scholar . . . a celebrated and respected JEWISH scholar . . . with anti-semitism demonstrates the level that this individual must sink to maintain his delusions. Is that it? Does it come to that? That the individual has no sense of decency?

No gentleman would make such an ignorant and cowardly baseless charge. Since I only deal with gentleman, I feel no further need to recognize the blatherings of this individual further. I will note with his feeble attempt at argumentum ad hominem the observation of Dr. Johnson:

--J.D.

Ed

Yes it does:
Deu 18:9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
Deu 18:10 There shall not be found among you [any one] that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, [or] that useth divination, [or] an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,

Quote:

jtb: Here is what I said IMMEDIATELY AFTER the section you quoted: "Human sacrifice to OTHER GODS is wrong, but the Caananite habit of sacrificing the firstborn child (if it's done to YHWH) is a contradiction. Sacrificing captives to YHWH is a good thing to do: no contradiction there... Therefore I will repeat my claim: Note that, despite the Biblical contradictions on this issue, there is NO verse which says that human sacrifice itself is wrong: that is a lie concocted by apologists. They concoct it by doing what YOU have done: taking verses out of context, pretending that verses which condemn certain types of human sacrifice actually condemn ALL human sacrifice, and ignoring all verses which endorse human sacrifice.

Nope, see above and also my posts to Dr X. Actually YOU are the one taking verses out of context.

Quote:

jtb: The Bible says you're wrong. I strongly urge you to READ it someday. Until you do, you will continue to make blunders like this... Ed: Fraid not, read Genesis 6:5, 8:21, Psalm 51:5, Romans 3:11 and I could go on and on. jtb: What OTHER AUTHORS claim is irrelevant to THIS issue. The Bible SPECIFICALLY states exactly why the Amalekites were killed, and it is NOT the reason you gave.

No, they are relevant because Christians believe the entire Bible is a unified whole, so scripture is interpreted with scripture. There are overarching reasons for some things God does and one of those things that have overarching reasons for happening is death.

Quote:

Ed: No, the enemies of Israel and God were not ritually sacrificed, they were killed on the spot for their opposition to the representatives of the King of the Universe and their own sins against Him. jtb: Baloney. Read Numbers 31, in which 32 virgins are ritually sacrificed.

No, when humans were "given to the Lord" they were either made servants in the Temple or for women they became the wives for the priests. See I Samuel 1 about how Samuel was given to the Lord. That is what the phrase meant.

Doctor X

Jack_the_Bodiless:

Since he has not bothered to read scholarship or the biblical texts, you expect him to read your post properly?

Responding only with spitting baseless accussations of anti-semitism at Jewish scholars, you expect him to debate?

Able to dismiss attrocities such as the Holocaust, you expect him to undertand morals?

--J.D.

Jack the Bodiless

Doctor X:

...Not really, no. I have "debated" Ed many times in the past.

But, when dealing with the bogus claims of muddle-headed apologists, it's often not immediately clear whether the apologist is deliberately lying or is honestly misinformed: many basically honest Christians believe lies concocted by a relatively small number of "primary liars", believing these people to be "good Christians".

It has been demonstrated that Ed is either incredibly obtuse, or is a pathological liar.

Ed:
These verses say that CHILD SACRIFICE BY FIRE is wrong.

There is NO Biblical verse which claims that HUMAN SACRIFICE IN GENERAL is wrong.

In particular, there is NO Biblical verse which says that SACRIFICE OF ADULT CAPTIVES is wrong.

Now, this has been pointed out to you SEVERAL times on this thread alone.

...So, do you have a genuine comprehension problem, or are you deliberately lying?
This is clearly not true.
You are deliberately and deceitfully refusing to apply this "overarching justification" to other examples such as the Holocaust or serial killers. And you are deliberately and deceitfully seeking to deflect attention from the STATED reason, because you know that the STATED reason is indefensible.
Correction: that is what you prefer to believe the phrase meant. This interpretation is highly implausible, given that the virgins share the same fate as the rest of the stuff: they become a "heave offering".

Doctor X

Jack_the_Bodiless:

Indeed, this is why he skimmed over the Ezek 20:25-26 because in it YHWH states that he ordered the sacrifices . . . to . . . er . . . scare people.

If you believe that "anti-semite" Friedman, Deuteronomy is part of the Deuteronomistic History which dates juussst about at the Exile. Part of the fun of the OT is seeing how the passages reflect the religious and political arguments. Deuteronomy is believed to be the book "found" by the gang in the Temple that justifies Josiah's reforms. So it is understandable that it would forbid practice that previous texts required or alluded to.

You are also absolutely correct about what "give to YHWH" or "devote to YHWH" means. It is all part of the herem--the sacrifice to the deity.

--J.D.