Who told the first lie? (page 26)

MeanMrMustard

‘don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk’

This does seem like a reasonable requirement though...

Jeffro

MMM:

This does seem like a reasonable requirement though...

A baby goat rather than a child. Although…

peacefulpete

Jeffro...Here is a pretty persuasive recreation of the process behind the 'kid in mother's milk' passages.

Prohibition of Meat and Milk: Its Origins in the Text - TheTorah.com

I'll add that while I often use labels like J and P, in reality what I mean is distinct sources traditionally described as J, P, D etc. All of the sources and redactors were immersed in Babylonian. Persian and possibly/likely Greek culture.

Jeffro

peacefulpete:

All of the sources and redactors were immersed in Babylonian. Persian and possibly/likely Greek culture.

Of course. But they had varying motivations and political alliances.

Here is a pretty persuasive recreation of the process behind the 'kid in mother's milk' passages.

Thanks. Though my comment was just a cheap jab at that particular ‘commandment’. The point there was really that it is an inconsistent list of commandments that is obviously from a separate redactor.

I'll add that while I often use labels like J and P, in reality what I mean is distinct sources traditionally described as J, P, D etc

Well, yeah, what else would you mean? I don’t think anyone thinks those were the authors’ actual names or anything.

MeanMrMustard

A baby goat rather than a child. Although…

The point there was really that it is an inconsistent list of commandments

Maybe not... if you consider back in the day when you didn't have a knowledge of good and evil, well, God might decide throw in one of the old commandments for good measure. We already know (from new manuscripts) Adam probably had some goat issues.... Kinda like a "Oh and by the way, don't do this... the first guy had some trouble with it, but you should know better since the whole tree thing.... but I'll say it for good measure".

You know, its like getting a superman cape from the costume store and it says "doesn't actually make you fly" on a warning label. You just know someone did something dumb in the past...

Jeffro

MMM:

guess that's my point.

Maybe, though I didn’t mean that the one ‘goat commandment’ was inconsistent with the rest of that list. Rather, the list that includes the ‘goat commandment’ isn’t consistent with the list that is traditionally acknowledged as ‘the Ten Commandments’ (despite the fact that the story says it is the list that was put in the ark of the covenant).

But I’m not really sure that any supposed God that sanctions murder for picking up sticks on ‘the wrong day’ has any real grasp of right and wrong anyway. (And in case KOW is listening in, no this doesn’t mean I’m ‘angry at God’ any more than I’m angry at Voldemort.)

KalebOutWest

Peacefulpete:

The story has a Greek flavor, meaning nearly satirical...I can't help noticing your comments blend the 2 stories together. The P story features Torah and has none of the philosophical feel.

"Greek Macedonian" is what I believe is the more precise term my professors used and would correct me every time I would say "Greek" in reference to influences to mythology or legends employed in the Torah. While the Greeks did come forth from the Macedonians due to the rise of Alexander, the elements you may be seeing cannot be precisely untangled and have been likely been mixed in as there are due to the Great Bronze Age Collapse (for instance, this is why so many societies from before the Collapse share the Flood myth and why Moses and the Levites "come from Egypt" where it appears monotheism was invented--and why likely the names Moses, Aaron and Levite are probably Egytian and not Hebrew).

As I have often mentioned before, I do not offer my own personal views or my own personal convictions on anything. I am taking what I write from sources I teach from either at present or from over the years (if they have not be altered by the latest findings).

My comments rarely reflect the older Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis from the 1800s or its revision in the last part of the 20th century. I have told you this before, in fact on more than one occasion, that it is no longer taught in academia as a standard hypothetical model.

By the time the 21st century came about it was learned that if one were to use that methodology it was possible to determine a multitude of far more hands involved than merely J, E, P & D. At the same time the data present from the findings from Qumran could finally be analyzed to develop a far better understanding along with archeological digs over the past century that altered the hypothesis greatly, suggesting it was in need of revision or replacement altogether.

Thus my comments do not employ the older hypothetic model.

The narrative likely contains elements from various civilizations, Greek--oops, there I go again, Macedonian, Egyptian, and more than we might be able to unscramble or know about, prior to the Bronze Age Collapse. That is the problem with everything before then and why all this is mythical. It might be based on things various peoples recall through folklore, but there is no way to know because of this widespread fall of society past.

I know people offer exactly what they believe here.

I do not.

While I am of Jewish stock and once lived among Jehovah's Witnesses and formally educated and currently teach religion, I am not a practicing Jew. I am considered a Jew and and have formal membership and work among them, etc., teaching and instructing them, but I am of a completely different denomination religiously speaking.

I keep my personal convictions and opinions to myself.

KalebOutWest

Forgive the badly composed post I last submitted. I dictated it via voice while traveling.

Getting the latest news affecting the political scene and trying to do paperwork at the same time did not make this very accurate.

I usually write at a computer with an editor, but have not done so for the past 8 months.

Jeffro

peacefulpete:

I'll add that while I often use labels like J and P, in reality what I mean is distinct sources traditionally described as J, P, D etc

I should note that I refer to J, P, etc only as heuristics to refer to the different styles rather than any strict adherence to that hypothesis or claim that those represent specific single sources.

Jeffro

The narrative likely contains elements from various civilizations, Greek--oops, there I go again, Macedonian, Egyptian, and more than we might be able to unscramble or know about, prior to the Bronze Age Collapse. That is the problem with everything before then and why all this is mythical. It might be based on things various peoples recall through folklore, but there is no way to know because of this widespread fall of society past.

There are obvious and broadly accepted connections between the biblical ‘J’ stories (where ‘J’ is simply shorthand for those stories that we all know I’m referring to) and Mesopotamian stories, particularly the epic of Gilgamesh. It isn’t the case that there is no way to know that, and it isn’t remotely surprising or controversial that Jewish culture was influenced by Babylon. But of course the Jewish adaptations were also influenced by the other cultures as well, particularly the Gr… Macedonians.

Who told the first lie?

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