by badboy 4 Replies latest watchtower bible
In the back of the NWT,1981 edition, its says that Job was written 1473 B.C.E on the Plains of Moab by Moses.
How was it possible for Moses to write the book of Job on the Plains of Moab when the Exodus happened about 1446 B.C.E. during Tuthmosis 111 or his son's reign?
(The Israelites were still in Egypt in 1473!)
(The Israelites had been c.480 years in the Holy Land when Solomon become King c.960)
Dang! I thought this was a place my daughter could find a job! Anyone need a good receptionist?
carmel, feeling the house getting smaller
Remember Moses is supposed to have run away for 40 years and returned to Eygpt when he was 80!
1446BCE - 40 years gives 1486 BCE.
yea, this always got me too. heres the explanation from SI:
After he had reached maturity, Moses spent 40 years in Midian, not far from Uz, where he could obtain the detailed information recorded in Job. Later, when he passed near Job's homeland during Israel's 40-year wilderness journey, Moses could learn of and record the concluding details of the book.its so implausible as to boggle the mind! if you dont find it implausible enough that job and his companions would have a heated debate by giving long speeches in poetic hebrew verse, try to imagine someone conveying all this information to moses word-for-word and then rely on the finished product as the original inspired word of god. its enough to make a literary analyst weep in pain.
mox
also, it amazes me that in anonymous books like job, esther, ruth etc. not only are there no details as to the authors identity, there are no indications that the books even had authors, or of how they obtained information at all, a sure sign of fictional literature.
imagine reading a document which you believe to be a factual and historical account, say an old newspaper, and theres a cutaway scene in heaven. really imagine this. like say something like "The death of the famous Mother Theresa was mourned by religious leaders around the globe. The Pope, Dalai Lama, the Almighty God, and the Archbishop of Canterbury all expressed their condolences." Now after checking to see if this is a real newspaper and not the Onion, wouldnt you be slightly curious as to exactly how the writer thinks he got information about what god said? Even if you knew and trusted the writer for some reason, you would still be curious as to their sources. wouldnt an intelligent writer foresee this?
but the author of job didnt think his writers would be curious as to the cutaway scenes in heaven in chapters 1 & 2 at all, and therefore provides no details about how he came upon this supernatural eyewitness testimony, because he didnt intend any of it to be taken as factual. Oh, its fantastic literature, a fascinating vehicle to explore the age-old theological quandary 'Why do bad things happen to good people?' in the culture of the time. But im sure that if you were to tell its author that thousands of years later, millions of people think it all actually really happened, he would be amused and flattered but then ask:
"but what about the cutaway scenes in heaven in the first act? werent those a dead giveaway?"
and youd say, "well these people think that all really happened to."
"but how did they think i got that information. i just kept cutting away and cutting back without a single word of explanation," he'd wonder.
"yeah, well you know, they dont really say much about that. i guess they think god told you somehow."
and then he'd say, "hang on. who are you and how did you get here again?" he's not that dumb.
mox
He say you BWADE WUNNAH
