MEB, you raise some good points (as usual). I have a few comments in response… sorry for the length.
First, on the consistency of the text: I mean subject matter and thematic content, not writing style, grammar, or presentation of detail. Sorry about not being clear.
NOTE: For this argument, I am working from the multiple-author theory. Example: The Flood story, separated into the two authors usually assigned to that story, still have remarkable consistency: Noah and family build an ark, bring in animals, rain destroys world, God takes care of them, they emerge unscathed. The differences in the two authors are things like, how many days did it rain, how many of each kind of animal were brought into the Ark, etc. The base story itself is (fairly clearly) an original that had taken on slightly different variants through oral transmission – much as if someone were to take two different versions of Snow White and knit them together. The base story, however, remains the same.
Similarly with the Joseph story, also a composite, but again the basic story is the same: brothers sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt, whether to Midianites or Ishmaelites.
Those are the stories that are composites from the two authors. The stories that are from separate authors but placed side by side, still have an astounding consistency in plot, theme, meaning, and context.
What that says to me is that the Redactor had a solid and consistent thematic approach that infused his work. He stands, in my mind, as one of the great poetic geniuses of all time: he was working with slightly different traditions, slightly different variants, and he knitted them together into a work with such a single artistic vision, that even today we are debating whether it was the work of one Author or many.
And, no, I wasn’t talking about Genesis alone, I was talking about the entire Torah, first five books.
Have the “inconsistencies” been “freely debated”? I don’t know about within Christian circles, where there were certainly centuries of repression of unpopular ideas, but within the Jewish world, there was certainly free debate. It’s called the the Talmud, a collection of debates and discussions over meanings; and there are also Midrashim, interpretations and reading “between the lines” of the text.
Targeting Christian literalists: As I say, the inconsistences [in the Pentateuch] have all been resolved or answered by rabbinic scholars, long ago. It seems to me that your approach to discussions with Christian fundamentalists is to present these inconsistencies to them, in hopes of shaking their faith in an inviolate text. That’s really just playing to their ignorance. If they’d studied the text, and the commentaries upon the text, they would have answers to the inconsistencies you are pointing out.
Now, if your purpose is to push them into true scholarship and study, then well and good. But if your purpose is to trick them into abandoning their belief by presenting arguments to which they don’t know (haven’t learned) the answers… that seems somehow shabby to me.
Now, they try to play the same trick in reverse, of course. All those idiotic claims about a “missing day” that proves the Bible, or finding a piece of Noah’s ark (or was it his cousin, Jonah of Ark?), or whatever. They use these tricks to try to convert people, playing on their ignorance. I find that … well… shoddy. And I react negatively to what I perceive as the same trick played on them. Do unto others as they did unto you?
On the consistency of the New Testament: I do not take a stand. I am not well enough versed to comment on the internal consistency. I do think it’s amusing that someone could take both Old Testament and New Testament to be word-perfect and infallible, since the New Tesatment CLEARLY contradicts and overturns parts of the Old Testament. Laws that God says are eternal and unchangable in the Old Testament, then Paul says, “Oh, well, forget it, we’ve changed them.” I’m amazed at the mind that can claim infallibility/perfection for BOTH texts.
Now, I am aware of “minor inconsistencies” (like, if Jesus was born in Bethlehem, howcome he’s said to be from Nazareth?) On the other hand, the New Testament is asserted to be the works of different authors. The New Testament was compiled, with inconsistent books thrown out (or relegated to the Apocrypha, full of miraculous tales, leading to the saying, “Apocrypha of miracles” … but I digress. Where was I?) No one tried to edit the individual texts, each text has its own author; the committee only accepted or rejected texts.
In contrast, the Redactor of the Torah (assuming the multiple author approach) did, in fact, edit: sometimes weaving two versions together into one, sometimes putting two versions side-by-side, sometimes sprinkling the two versions far apart in the text, sometimes adding explanatory comments. That editing was done either by 1000 BC or by 700 BC, depending on which theory you accept. Any works that were discarded by the Redactor are long lost.
So, I put the Redactor up there among the great poets of all time, but I have no similar individual to credit the New Testament to.
Conclusion: I do understand the annoyance of being plagued by people who try to take the texts literally but who don’t really know what they’re talking about, they’re just trying to convert you. I understand the desire to confound them by presenting them with concepts they haven’t met before. I would prefer those concepts be on a large scale – conceptual, philosophic – rather than on a gnit-picking scale.