He might need all his energies for self defense?
Total speculation on YOUR part, as usual. He is raised in the Royal Court in Egypt, around him all people speak Egyptian, he was BORN in Egypt, the Hebrews are slaves, and you have in conversing with slaves out on the dunes? I don’t think so, tom.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
tom, do you think GOD waspleasedthat Moses murdered a man?
Some clues that Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch:
One passage describes a sequence of events; a later passage states that they happened in a different order. Presumably Moses would have remembered the proper sequence.
In the story of the Flood, one passage has Noah collecting two of each species while another passage states that he collected 14. One verse describes water coming from the heavens and from below the ground; another describes all of the water falling as rain. The duration of the rain differs between two verses.
Genesis 11:31 describes Abraham as living in the city Ur, and identifies that location with the Chaldeans. But the Chaldeans did not exist as a tribe at the time of Abraham; they rose to power much later, in the 1st millennium BCE
Deuteronomy 34 describes the death of Moses. It is difficult to attribute the description of a funeral to the deceased.
One passage in Genesis 33 has Jacob legally purchasing the location Shechem for the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Genesis 34 has Jacob’s sons killing all of the men of Shechem by a deceitful trick.
The first part of the story in Numbers 25 about the rebellion at Peor referred to Moabite women; the second part said that they were Midianites.
Moses is described as going to the Tabernacle in a passage where the Tabernacle had not yet been built.
A list of Edomite kings included some monarchs who were in power after Moses’ death
Some locations are identified by names that were invented long after the death of Moses. One example is seen in Genesis 14:14; it refers to the city of Dan. That name did not exist until a long time after Moses’ death.
There are many verses in the Torah that state that something has lasted “to this day”. That appears to have been written by a writer who composed the passages at a much later date.
Numbers 12:3 states “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.” (NKJ) If Moses were that humble, it is unlikely that he would have described himself in these terms.
Deuteronomy 34:10 states “There has never been another prophet like Moses…” (NLT) This sounds like a passage written long after Moses’ death.
History of the Documentary Hypothesis:
11th Century AD Isaac ibn Yashush suggested that the list of the Edomite kings in Genesis 36 was added by an unknown person after Moses died. For this assertion, he became known as “Isaac the Blunderer.” 3
15th Century: Bishop Tostatus suggested that certain passages were written by one of the prophets, not by Moses.
16th Century: Andreas van Maes suggested that an editor added additional material to some of Moses’ writings.
17th Century: Thomas Hobbes prepared a collection of passages that seemed to negate Moses’ authorship.
18th Century: Three investigators (Witter, Astruc and Eichhorn) independently concluded that doublets in the Torah were written by two different authors. A doublet is a story that is described twice, as in: the two creation stories in Genesis
two descriptions of the covenant between God and Abraham
two stories about the naming of Isaac
two stories about the renaming of Jacob
two versions of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 & Deuteronomy 5)
two accounts of Moses’ striking the rock at Meribah
These doublets appeared to contradict each other. In most cases, one referred to God as Yahweh while the other used the term Elohim.
19th Century: Scholars noticed that there were a few triplets in the Torah. This indicated that a third author was involved. Then, they determined that the book of Deuteronomy was written in a different language style from the remaining 4 books in the Pentateuch. Finally, by the end of the 19th Century, liberal scholars reached a consensus that 4 authors and one redactor (editor) had been actively involved in the writing of the Pentateuch.
20th Century: Academics have continued to refine the Documentary Hypothesis by identifying which verses (and parts of verses) were authored by the various writers. They have also attempted to uncover the names of the authors.
“…there is hardly a biblical scholar in the world actively working on the [authorship] problem who would claim that the Five Books of Moses were written by Moses.” R.E. Friedman, Biblical Expert
“…it has long been recognized that… [Moses] cannot have been the author, and that the Pentateuch is in fact anonymous.” D.J.A. Clines Biblical Expert
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
Who translated the 5 Books of Moses, Pentateuch, from Moses’s native tongue, Egyptian, into Hebrew? Was that done after his death?
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
John, I am not speculating on anything. To the extent that we view the tradition of Exodus as a history of an event, we need to at least consider that the story presented has the general outline of facts correct. You will not find me arguing for the literal accuracy of the Torah, nor for the Mosaic authorship. That is not my belief.
However, I find it strange that you are willing to accept portions of the Bible as literally true (Moses lived with the royal family) in order to deny other portions of the same passages (Moses was raised in the house of the royal family by his own mother as wet nurse). What are you trying to accomplish/learn/state/explain/whatever?
If you are going to debate someone as to the literal nature of Scripture, you are logically inconsistent to accept an Egyptian-raised Moses (an event found only in Scripture, not in any Egyptian records) while denying that he was raised by his own mother (an event found in the same passages of Scripture).
I think that it would be a good idea for you to develop an actual thesis for this discussion, then follow it. Challenging anyone’s beliefs based on history or challenging history based on beliefs leads nowhere. Jumping back and forth between beliefs and history makes it appear that you simply want to score points. This may have prompted andros’s questions, earlier.
What, specifically, do you believe? or what, specifically, are you trying to learn? Indicating your ultimate intention will probably make it easier for cmkeller to formulate responses that you can both deal with.
Tom~
You’re not speculating? What are you doing then? “we need to at least consider that the story presented has the general outline of facts correct” oh, really? Why is that, tom?
What is really strange, tom, is that Christians and Jews except some parts of the Bible as true and overlook the inconsistency and contradictions of other parts? See my post above.
What proof do you have, where and WHEN was that written, that Moses’s was raised by his mother, that she was his wet nurse? The Egyptian Royal family allowed that? You’re funny
Fanciful addition added AFTER HIS DEATH, WAYYYYY AFTER HIS DEATH, by unknown authors and editors.
Why must the questioner develop a thesis? Why can’t my questions be random, like your attempts at a logical answer?
If you insist that I narrow it to a central thesis I would say that it is that the Bible, Torah, Pentateuch, NT, OT, and all the other books you could name, are based on very flimsy proof, inconsistencies, contradictions and heroic inventions.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
tom, it might help your argument, if you ever formulate one, if you stop attacking the motives and character of the other person and try answering the question.
I’m not attacking Christianity or Judaism but the fact that you all spout these inventions as fact and there is none. IT’S ALL FAITH, NOT FACT.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
Biblical scholars have noted that almost every page of the Bible, whether written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek contains both spelling and grammatical errors. Although some spelling errors could be attributed to mistakes by later copyists, it appears reasonable to assume that some of the grammatical errors were in the original copy. If one assumes that the Bible is not inerrant, then one would expect errors of all types to creep into the Bible: errors in fact, errors in belief, errors in spelling and errors in grammar. But if the Bible is inerrant, one wonders why the original writings were not free of errors in grammar.
** No Bible translation is free of bias. [/b Essentially all versions are the product of translators who come from a similar theological background. Being human, they sometimes produce versions of the Bible that tend to match their own belief systems. For example: The original Hebrew and Greek texts contain a number of different concepts for the place where people will live after death: Sheol, Gehenna, Hades. Some translations transliterate these place names, and so they appear in the English text in their original forms as “Sheol,” “Gehenna,” and “Hades.” The reader is thus aware that they refer to different beliefs about life after death. But other Bible versions are homogenized by rendering all three locations as “Hell.” This makes the Bible appear more internally consistent than it really is, and clouds the meaning of the original text.
Many Bible translations contain what appear to be intentional errors in relation to some acts. Exodus 22:18, in the original Hebrew orders the death penalty for “m’khashepah” The word means a woman who uses spoken spells to harm others - e.g. causing their death or loss of property. Clearly “evil Sorceress” or “woman who does evil, black magic” would be a clear translation. But many versions of the Bible render this word as “witch,” thus inverting the meaning of the original text. (Witches and other Neopagans are prohibited by their Wiccan Rede from doing harm to others.) A similar intentional mistranslation in some versions of the Bible relates to the Greek word “pharmakia” from which the English word “pharmacy” is derived. It refers to the practice of preparing poisonous potions to harm or kill others. “Poisoner” or simply “murderer” would be an accurate translation here. But many versions of the Bible invert the meaning of the original text by render the word as “witch.” These inverted translations have caused a few modern-day, devout people to persecute Neopagans, believing that they are following the will of God.
A small number of conservative religious people believe that a particular English translation of the Bible is inerrant. Often this is the King James Version, prepared in 1611 AD. Most believe that it is only the original autograph copy as written by the author in Hebrew, Aramaic and/or Greek that is inerrant. This leaves open the possibility that subsequent manual copying introduced mistakes into the book. Thus, later copies may be errant. Often, we have no way of detecting where errors or later insertions have occurred.
The Bible is not totally inerrant and contains many contradictions because it was written by mortal man. It is faith, not fact.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
John, stop and think about this statement of yours:
Now, why do you think that Moses (if he existed) even knew the royal family of Egypt?
In other words, you are willing to accept the word of the Bible that Moses was raised among the Pharoah’s family, but not accept the word of the same Bible in the same passage that he was actually raised by his mother in the Pharoah’s palace.
The position you have taken on this issue seems to be tied in with your need to deny that Moses could have taken dictation from God in Hebrew because he spoke Egyptian.
If you denied that Moses even existed, you would have no need to get into this area of discussion. By trying to use the Bible to claim that Moses couldn’t know Hebrew, you get tangled up in accepting and rejecting statements in the same paragraph of text.
I don’t care. I am not attacking your beliefs. You seem to be attacking Mr. Keller’s. (Mr. Keller and I do not agree on substantial protions of our belief, but I am not challenging him to defend his beliefs.)
The reason that I suggest you develop a thesis or a question is simply that your comments are so scattered that it is hard to figure out what you are asserting and what you are denying. It seems that you want to assert that no true knowledge of something or other can be gotten from the Bible. OK. What exactly can we not get from the Bible? Is there no history in the Bible? Is there no example of God’s word to humanity in the Bible? These are perfectly respectable positions to take. Many people believe one, the other, or both of those statements. However, if one of those statements (or some different statement) demonstrates your beliefs/understandings regarding Scripture, then just what are you asking of Mr. Keller?
Do you want him to acknowledge that you are right and his belief is invalid?
Do you want him to explain how he comes to a belief that you do not share?
Would you like him to try to persuade you that his belief is True?
Challenging the (Bible-based) belief that Moses could not know Hebrew as a way to deny that the Bible is accurate does not seem to have a purpose to it.
I am not telling you that you have no right to ask any questions. I am pointing out that the posts you have issued in pursuit of your question are confusing and are not liable to provide the answers you are seeking (particularly if it is unclear what question you are actually asking).
Tom~
Separate post for a separate issue:
The original statements in this paragraph are simly not correct. (The “every page” is especially hyperbolic.)
We have very clear evidence in the New Testament of the words that were chosen. We have fragments going back to the 2d century that agree completely (in their text) with the complete texts we have from the 4th century. The copyists’ errors are not that difficult to sort out, because we have many texts to compare. Most of them do not have many errors. There are a very few places where one or two words differ along the lines of the traditions of texts. (In other words, a word may differ between a 4th century Syriac text and a 4th century African text and all of the later Syrian or African manuscripts follow the difference of the earlier text in the same tradition.) There are very few of these and they are all known and identified.
Regarding the Hebrew text, the Talmudic scholars began a rigorous effort in the 6th century to “clean up” the text of copy errors and other problems. By the 10th century they had completed their efforts. When the Hebrew texts were found among the Dead Sea scrolls, they were compared to the Masoretic text–which turned out to be amazingly faithful to the oldest texts we can find.
The point is not that there can be no human error or interpolation in the texts of the Bible. We do not have a scroll in the handwriting of either Moses or Paul/Saul of Tarsus. However, the statements often tossed out by people who have never actually studied the Scriptural texts (and occasionally quoted by folks like John John) that the written texts of the Bible are riddled with errors is simply not true.
Unlike, CMKeller, I do not accept Moses as the scribe for the Torah, I do not accept a single author for Isaiah. Unlike some Fundamentalist Christians, I do not accept a date of 67 for Revelation. These are issues that one can discuss and disagree on in another context.
Those differences, however, are not the same as declaring that the Biblical texts are so error-filled that they can be used for nothing but homiletics.
Tom~
tom
No, tom, that is not what I’m saying and your unintentional twisting is indicative that you do not understanding what I am saying. I’m saying you and Chaim accept parts of the Bible and ignore the contradictions. I repeating what your Bible, Chaim and YOU, tells us and pointing out the contradictions.
What I am also saying is that if YOU accept all parts of the Bible you should be able to explain the seeming inventions and contradictions. If you believe that Moses was raised in the Paroah’s Palace, that is what Yours 7 Chaim’s Bible tells YOU, then why will you ignore the obvious fact that Moses did not speak Hebrew but spoke the tongue of his birth, Egyptian? Moses was an Egyptian of partial or dubious Hebrew parentage.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
** forged and counterfeit writings**
We are using these terms with reference to today’s value systems. For example, if someone wrote in 1999 an essay in the form of an encyclical by Pope John XXIII, and attempted to pass it off as an unknown work of the Pope, then we would consider it a forgery or counterfeit. If someone write today a speech in the style of George Washington and tried to publish it as if it were written by the first President, we would also consider it a forgery.
But things were a little different in the 1st and 2nd century AD. It was quite an accepted practice at that time for followers of a great philosopher or religious thinker to write material which emulated their leader. They passed it off as if that leader wrote it. This was not considered unethical at the time. We use the term forger and counterfeiter in this essay to emphasize that the passages were written by person or persons unknown. It does not necessarily indicate that the passages are any less valid than other texts in the Bible. However, it is clear that they were not written by the original author(s).
There were dozens of gospels, large numbers epistles, and even a few books on the style of Revelation that were considered religious texts by various movements within the early Christian church. When some of these were selected to form the official canon of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament), the main criteria was whether the book was written by an apostle or someone very close to an apostle. The canon was regarded as inerrant, as inspired by God; it still is by conservative Christians. Liberal theologians have reached a consensus that many books in the New Testament were not written by the authors that they claim to be written by. This puts their legitimacy in question. We also know that unknown persons later inserted their own writings into some books.
Some of the books that liberal theologians believe were not written by their original authors are:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (a.k.a. The Pentateuch, the 5 Books of Moses, the Books of the Law, the Law, the Torah). these state in numerous places that they were written by Moses. But mainline and liberal theologians have long accepted the “Documentary Hypothesis” which asserts that the Pentateuch was written by a group of four authors, from various locations in Palestine, over a period of centuries. Each wrote with the goal of promoting his/her own religious views. A fifth individual cut and pasted the original documents in to the present Pentateuch.
The authors of the gospels claim to have been eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry. Yet liberal theologians believe that the gospels were written during the period 70 to 100 AD by writers who had only second-hand knowledge about Jesus.
The text of various Pauline epistles state that they were written by Paul. However, liberal theologians believe that Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus were written by persons unknown, mostly in the 2nd century, many decades after Paul’s death.
Other epistles of unknown authorship, according to religious liberals, are Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 1, 2 & 3 John, and Jude.
Religious liberals have concluded that Revelation was written by an unknown author - perhaps a Jewish Christian whose primary language was Aramaic.
References
Adrian Swindler, “The Flat Earth: Still an Embarrassment to Biblical Inerrantists,” at: http://www.mantis.co.uk/sceptical/3flat90.html
1 Corinthians 14:33: http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/1co14v33.htm
Bruce Metzger, “Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament, Second Edition,” United Bible Societies, New York NY, (1993). Available at: http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/joh05v03.htm
John, Chapter 21: http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/joh21v15.htm
Mark, 9:29: http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/mar09v28.htm
Matthew 6:13: http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/mat06v09.htm
Revelation 1:11: http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/rev01v11.htm
Copyright 1996 to 1999 incl.
Latest update: 1999-DEC-21
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
Tom, perhaps you and/or Chaim can tell me, since you believe in the Bible, how there was light and darkness, separation of night and day, on the 1st day of creation when the sun, moon and stars were not created till the 4th day? How long was that 1st day then?
I would also like you/Chaim to tell me how the Babylonian story of creation, “Enuma Elish” written in 1120 BC so closely resembles the Jewish story of creation, Genesis, **written centuries later]/b] in 800 to 900 BC ? It would seem that the Hebrews improved on/copied the idea. Do you think that is coincidence?
If it is based on a single truth, as Chaim suggests, then we owe the story of creation to the Babylonians, not the Hebrews.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
John, for heaven’s sake go read the first five chapters of Exodus! The book says that:
Moses was born to a Hebrew family.
In fear for his life, his mother put him in a reed basket in the Nile.
His sister watched from a short distance away.
The Pharoah’s daughter found the basket.
Moses’s sister popped out of the reeds to say she could find a Hebrew woman to wet nurse him.
Moses’s mother raised him.
Now, for you to claim that he was raised as an Egyptian, you have to accept the word of the Bible that he even existed. You want to accept (from the Bible) that he was raised in an Egyptian household and deny the very same passages in the Bible that say that his mother was brought in to do the actual nurse/nanny job. (Go back and read the text.)
As to your post on Scriptural sources, I do accept most of the responsible scholarship that discusses the development of Scripture from the perspective of Literary Criticism. (I love the fact that you are forced to use “liberal” sources to back you up, by the way.)
Given that I accept the more conservative voices among the Literary Criticism approach to Scripture, so what?
Given that cmkeller accepts the Divine Authorship approach to Scripture, so what?
There are a lot of people who accept one or the other of those two approaches.
Those who accept Direct Divine Authorship have to deal (in general) with reconciling apparent contradictions.
Those who accept the Inspired Collection of Human Writings approach have to deal (in general) with questions regarding “How do you know that is inspired?”.
These are not new issues. Everyone who accepts the Jewish or Christian faiths knows (in some form) that they must choose one of these paths and reconcile that choice with the obvious objections to it. So, scrolling back up through this thread to your original questions of cmkeller, what is your point?
Do you want anyone to deny their beliefs?
Do you want anyone to prove the Truth of their beliefs?
What do you want?
Tom~
Simulpost!
If I can figure out what you ultimately want to discern, I can provide one answer and we can invite Polycarp, moriah, Navigator, and a few others to share their thoughts.
As long as it appears that you are simply looking to pick at discrepancies that you feel you have found in Scripture, we are not going to get to any Truths by addressing them piecemeal.
Tom~
I’ve been offline for a couple days, so I’m gonna go back a bit.
On the subject of “choseness”: The Parshat haShavua (Torah portion) of this last week was the one that first alludes to the Israelites being the Chosen People. The way the leader of my Torah study group explained it, the Hebrew people were chosen to follow God in this particular sense. That doesn’t mean that the Hebrews are better than anyone else, but that in this particular sense of a Higher Being, they have been chosen to follow a particular path, to follow the mitzvot, to participate in tikkun olam, the bettering of the world.
On Moshe’s ability/inability to speak Hebrew: Why do you care? This is GOD. If Moshe can’t speak Hebrew but god thinks that the Torah should be written in it, how hard can it be for god to give Moshe the ability to speak Hebrew?
Lastly, John John, why do you insist upon picking apart peoples’ beliefs? CMKeller does not have to defend his religion to you.
Shavua tov.
~Harborina
Oh my goodness! I just want to know what on earth the last 50 or 60 posts have to do with understanding the reason Jews have been persecuted throughout history? Have we gotten a liiiiiiiittle off track here, debating Moses’ native tongue and inconsistencies in the Bible?
On second thought, maybe not. Perhaps it’s abundantly clear, by the tangent that this thread has gone off in, that the reason Jews have been persecuted for so long is that people like John John seem to take such great pains (and pleasure) in tearing us and our beliefs apart. As long as people like John John, who refuse to simply allow us to believe what we believe while they themselves believe something different, continue to inhabit this earth, Jews will continue to be persecuted.
How sad is that?
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
tom
Yes, I know.
It is faith, not fact.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
shayna
No, what is sad is that people like YOU expect to be able to criticize everyone else’s religion and hold their religion under a microscope but when it is done to YOU you cry persecution. How many times have YOU said, or other people said, that Jesus was NOT the Son of God, maybe He wasn’t, but a mere mesenger and they didn’t believe what Christians say He was, and went to great pains on these boards to question it? Do you believe in Muhammed? No, of course you don’t. So why am I the devil for not believing in Moses, or questioning his authorship of the Penatateuch? I don’t believe it.
How have I prevented YOU from believing what you want? Do YOU require that I believe it too? Am I terrible because I don’t? Am I terrible because I question it?
What I have illustrated is that ALL religion is BASED ON FAITH, NOT FACT. You are no different than anyone else, you have NO facts either.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.