Well, if it includes Moses death and burial, it's hardly a revelation, but for the wtbts it might still be a great knowledge breakthough - you know, insight of God an' all .
Moses did not write Pentatuch
by peacefulpete 15 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Oroborus21
Though I am a fan of Paine, Farkel, I found the Age of Reason to be less pursuasive than you. Many of the so-called Anachronisms and contradictions that Thomas Paine raises are explanable, even by JWs.
No I too have read the works of Friedman like Sirius and have found them to be much better argued.
The Document Theory which many bible scholars support is most likely the true explanation of the origins of the bible as a sacred text. However, it should be noted that just because the texts of what came to form the Pentateuch or Torah (or even the other parts of the bible) were evidently assembled many centuries later than say Moses' day, this does not mean that some of the original source texts were not authored by Moses or some of the other writiers that are traditionally assigned authorship. The narratives that we do have contain such details and are in fact written in a way that does not correspond to the notion that these are just legends or stories passed down via an oral history or that were created from scratch anew. The Document Theory postulates the existence of volumes of original source texts which are now lost to us. Even the Bible text acknowledges this.
True, it is very true that the pretty picture that the Society presents of the authorship of the Bible is extremely wrong and distorts the facts. And as the creator of this thread states, it is clear that Moses did not write every word of the Pentateuch for numerous reasons. Yet, tradition assigns him authorship of at least certain parts and modern scholars find no reason to doubt this.
These facts don't take away from their usefulness or even sacredness.
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Narkissos
One general remark: the core of Deuteronomy, which so well fits the reform of Josiah (ca. 622 BC) connected with the "discovery" (inventio) of "THE book of the Law" in 2 Kings 22--23, is actually (on both linguistical and contents grounds) the oldest part of the Torah. The later developments, from Genesis to Numbers and the introductory discourses of "Moses" to the central part of Deuteronomy, are evidently later, exilic and postexilic accretions.
One philological example is the "fixed value" or tarif of offerings (Leviticus 5:15ff; 27:2ff) artificially expressed by the Hebrew `èrkekhâ, literally "your estimation", when it clearly refers not to an ad hoc estimation by the priest, but to a traditionally determined "scale of charges". More generally, the distinction between "priests" and "levites", and the connected distinction between the "house of Aaron" and the "tribe of Levi" are clearly subsequent to Josiah's reform, limiting the non-Jerusalemite clergy to a subordinate state.
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Leolaia
Narkissos.....In your opinion, J is not older than D? What is your opinion of Driver's evidence that in both the legal and narrative material, D expands and revises JE? Driver provides a list of parallels from the "legal core" of D to JE wherein the latter represents laws revised or replaced by D (cf. like the examples I mentioned regarding sanctuaries).
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Narkissos
I don't mean many oral traditions, and perhaps some (short) written units (e.g. the Covenant Code?), are not older than D. But I'm pretty convinced that Dtr is actually the terminus a quo of the actual structuration and redaction of the Torah. Rolf Rendtorff presents a good synthesis of the evolution of theory (including the already widespread dropping of a pre-Dtr "J" and even more "E") in his 1983 (!) Introduction.
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Farkel
oroborus21,
You foolishly said:
: While your assertions about Paine might sound relevant to you, they lack any proof.
In reading Paine, I did find several factual errors. Also keep in mind that there were very few of them. Keep in mind that he wrote his thesis while imprisoned in France and likely without any Bible for reference. All in all however, he slammed the truthfulness of Bible and clearly so. I cannot wait until you present your rebuttal of Paine's arguments, because I will be along here with you to test their veracity.
Present your evidence that Paine didn't produce any "proof" and please be specific, because I WILL call you on it.
Start with any book of the Bible that Paine disected. ANY Bible book. Then we will go through ALL of them one-by-one.
Genesis, for example. Attack Paine's arguments on Genesis. We can start there. This should prove to be a lively debate.
Your move, or can't you rebut Paine on at least the book of Genesis?
Farkel, who loves this stuff!