That is you, and as I can see you have faith, so it is not really valid. You missed all my arguments on why you wouldn’t want to do this.
Not once.
Deuteronomy 31 says Moses wrote the law, not that he wrote the Torah, and “this song” (segregated into that particular chapter) was given to Moses. That chapeter is a separate piece inserted into Deuteronomy by the editor of Deuteronomy.
None of those are part of the Torah, so they’re irrelevant.
Because Hebrew didn’t arise from Canaanite until around 1200 CE. It’s not just “absence of evidence,” it’s that we have the ability to trace the evolution of the language (as well as the emergence of the Israelites themselves at that time). You also still do not undrestand where the burden of proof lies. Can you prove that modern English did not exist during the Persian Empire?
You are confusing genre with style. Style is something that an author can’t hide, and the differences in the Torah sources are more than stylistic anyway.
Plus, you have to do better than just saying “prove it’s NOT true.” You ahve not offered a single positive arguement in favor of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, just appealed time and again to absence.
Diogenes:
-
I can’t respond to your vague argument about the evolution of language, simply because I am not trained in that field (and neither are you). The mere fact that there are so many disagreements between scholars regarding when the Torah was written, ranging from King Solomon’s era to the Hashmonean era, tells me that the scholars aren’t sure themselves how sure they are about the evolution of language.
-
The verse in Deuteronomy 31 doesn’t just say that Moses wrote the song. It says that he wrote the Book of the Law until the end.
-
If a book claims that it was written by someone, and all the subsequent books agree that it was written by that same person, then I don’t think the burden is on me to prove that Moses wrote the Torah. Why would some subsequent charlatan write the Torah, and then instead of taking credit himself, says that some guy 500 years earlier wrote it, and commanded that the Jews study it, and commanded that Joshua should write the Torah on twelve stones (which Joshua did according to, I believe Joshua 8 (or 13, I forgot which chapter)? What would be the incentive for such a fraud, and why would the people believe it?
If the entire nation accepts that Moses wrote the Torah, then I need to see some pretty good evidence that he didn’t before anything else.
Finally, you claim that certain verses were added later. I’m sorry, but I have no way to respond to your faith-based dogmatism.
Diogenes: The reason why the “scholars” claim that Moses didn’t write the Torah is because that would imply that miracles took place. The scholars are against miracles.
It’s for the very same reason that the archeologists claim that there was no exodus. To quote finkelstien, “Unless one allows for a divine miracle, there is no way that the Hebrews would have been able to break out of Egypt.”
To paraphrase William Dever, “The Jews could not have been in the desert, because so large a population could not have survived in the desert.”
Diogenes, these scholars are afraid of miracles. I, however, am open to the evidence for miracles.
They are not afraid of them. Again extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It is the same reason we do not accept claims of other mythologies either.
But we have extraordinary evidence. We have the Book of Moses, who claims to be an eyewitness of the national miracles, and claims to have been written by Moses. We have the Book of Joshua, who claims to be an eyewitness of the national miracles, and claims to have been written by Joshua himself. Much more importantly, we have the Jewish people, who have (until recently) unanimously accepted that the national miracles described in the Torah happened to millions of their ancestors.
If that isn’t extraordinary evidence, then what is?
Again, I am not arguing that this means that Judaism is the correct religion. Islam and Christianity - and I even heard that many segments of Buddhism and Hinduism accept this as well - all hold that national miracles happened to the Jews. So, this doesn’t prove anything about Judaism. It does prove, however, that GOD DOES EXIST.
Every culture and religion has claims of miracles. These books are simply written versions of these are they all real?
The fact that we have a religious group that believe what their religions claims is to be expected and is not evidence of anything unless we accept every religion that has ever existed and every superstition. Most of the people used to think the world was flat. Most were sure the sun went around the earth. These are not evidence in any real sense. Try to go to court and prove someone guilty of a crime by claiming that a large number of people with no direct experience of an event believe it happened.
Sorry, but I don’t want to go back into the Kuzari argument. All your points have all already been dealt with in the Kuzari thread.
All of these religions (other than Buddhism and Hinduism and I don’t think they accept anything unless they have an influence from one of these religions) come from the same routes so obviously they accept these things. It does not even come close to proving anything.
I mentioned Christianity and Islam not to use them as proof (of course!). I was merely stating that my point wasn’t to prove the truth of Judaism. Rather, my goal is to prove that God exists. Why would I want you to believe that God exists? Because I think it’s comforting to know that God exists.
Hmmm. You said
Sounds pretty clearly you were saying it proves he exists.
They were far from dealt with. You made claims and they were all shot down.
Ciritcal thinking precludes accepting impossible claims at face value, but as I said,m the reason Mosaic authorship of the Torah is not taken seriously is based on actual evddence, not philosophical agendas.
That’s a nice way of saying it would have been impossible, but that’s not th reason archaeologists no longer believe the Exodus was historical. Once again, that’s based on evidence not agendas.
Dever is correct.
Everybody is open. Show us the evidence.
Got to go. C U 2morrow.
Let’s see it.
The Torah claims none of those things, and none of those claims would be evdience in any case.
Once again, claims are not evidence.
Religious and cultural beliefs are not evdience either.
Evidence that actually proves an extraordinary claim. Evidence that proves an extraordinary event ocurred and which precludes ordinary explanations.
See you.
No, it doesn’t.
I have evidence that proves that if you step on the foul line in baseball, your team will lose. I have evidence that if you touch the conference championship cup, you won’t win the Stanley Cup. I have evidence that if you shave your facial hair your team won’t make it to the final.
What’s the point of even giving Pascal’s wager a moment of thought if you believe that people believing something proves it is real? Seems like there’s more fundamental problems to deal with.
That’s not evidence. It’s a claim, which requires evidence.
Again: this is not evidence those things happened, and there is much stronger evidence they didn’t happen. You have also not proved that all Jews believed those things. All of this was explained in the other thread. You keep saying you don’t want to re-argue Kuzari, and then you keep making reference to it as if nobody has responded to these arguments before.