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New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

nytimes.com

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Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#41

Post by trav4225 »

gnaritas wrote: post #26
mholt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not joking. You know there are academics who study this for a living, right? http://mi.byu.edu/ - see especially the works of Terryl Givens, John Sorenson, Hugh Nibley, Richard Bushman, Grant Hardy... I never said it was published 600 BC. It was indeed published in 1830, but story within it originates ~600 BC. Very different things.

Mormons who study the book of Mormon don't exactly qualify as good sources, nor are Christians who study the Bible, nor are Muslims who study the Koran as all are extremely biased by their beliefs. Such people look for evidence to justify beliefs rather than looking at evidence to decide what should be believed.

The statement "all are extremely biased" is a bit... biased. ;-)

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#42

Post by Animats »

So somebody found some commercial records in Hebrew, and this immediately gets extrapolated into religion. Somebody is obsessing.

Nine out of ten surviving Babylonian tablets are financial records.[1] There are surviving financial records from Ur two millennia older than Christianity.

[1] http://viking.som.yale.edu/will/finciv/chapter1.htm

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#43

Post by [deleted] »

gnaritas wrote: post #29
brink wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm ready to receive the down-votes here, but I've been reading through those posts along with scientific articles for years and I'm still not convinced that the Bible was made up. So it's refreshing to have actual open discussion rather than atheist and bible bashing fights.

Of course the Bible was made up, it didn't write itself; it's a work of fiction by men, nothing more. Nor is there a lick of evidence to the contrary.

[deleted]

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#44

Post by mholt »

menssen wrote: post #35
mholt wrote: post #2

> literacy may have been far more widespread than previously known in the Holy Land around 600 B.C., toward the end of the First Temple period. Interesting correlation to the Book of Mormon, which originates ~600 BC in Jerusalem. In fact, page 1, verse 2 says: > 2 Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. And further discusses how…

Upvoting this. It's at least as well reasoned as the original article. BUT it doesn't matter because it wasn't actually written down (and/or "revealed") until the 1800s, right? Is there a good academic treatment of the origin of the stories in the BoM?

Thanks, for distinguishing academics from religion. Trying to keep this academic but people keep turning it into a religious debate about beliefs.

> BUT it doesn't matter because it wasn't actually written down (and/or "revealed") until the 1800s, right?

Right, but that's still 186 years before this article was published. A text that's almost 200 years old still has historic value, whether or not one believes its contents. So there is an interesting link between this article and the book, regardless of personal beliefs.

> Is there a good academic treatment of the origin of the stories in the BoM?

There are some excellent resources at http://publications.mi.byu.edu/periodicals/jbms/. Yes, it's a religious university, but these topics are treated from a scholarly perspective. Also, https://bookofmormoncentral.org/ has some great resources -- it's a fairly new resource with less technical articles but scholarly citations, and its faculty is made of scholars in near-eastern studies and related fields.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#45

Post by mholt »

gnaritas wrote: post #36
yroc92 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was translated then. The text began in 600 BC.

According to whom? You can't use the book to prove itself, just because it claims to have been from 600 BC doesn't make it so.

I think people are confusing the publication date and setting of the story/account within it.

Star Wars took place a "long time ago" but we don't try to prove it either way -- it's just the setting of the story, whether or not it really happened.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#46

Post by mholt »

nitrogen wrote: post #40
mholt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not having a religious discussion here. We're talking academics: research, primary sources, etc. When did this become about beliefs?

This claim seems very strongly to suggest a system of belief that is not shared by all: "...the Book of Mormon, which originates ~600 BC in Jerusalem. In fact, page 1, verse 2 says..."

A story is allowed to state its own setting, fictional or not. Remember not to confuse date of publication with date of events within it.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#47

Post by sk5t »

mholt wrote: post #8
jeena wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me if you're a joking or not but the book of mormon was published in March 1830 AD.

I'm not joking. You know there are academics who study this for a living, right? http://mi.byu.edu/ - see especially the works of Terryl Givens, John Sorenson, Hugh Nibley, Richard Bushman, Grant Hardy... I never said it was published 600 BC. It was indeed published in 1830, but story within it originates ~600 BC. Very different things.

Isn't it reasonable to say that adherents to the Mormon faith have a pretty strong motive not to find the Book of Mormon to be a bunch of baloney--in fact, to invent as many arguments as necessary to support the idea that it isn't?

Edit: Appealing to the authority of academics seems a poor strategy when those academicians' dinners rely on toeing the party line.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#48

Post by cconcepts »

nZac wrote: post #38
gnaritas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the Bible was made up, it didn't write itself; it's a work of fiction by men, nothing more. Nor is there a lick of evidence to the contrary.

Do you mean that because a book doesn't write itself, which is an impossible task, it can't be true? That seems to remove the possibility to know anything from a written text including science, history, autobiographies, and other forms of non-fiction.

I've heard it described as confusion between cause and agency. Just because you know how something happened doesn't explain that thing's purpose or that it doesn't have intent.

I may have been in the Toyota factory and even met the engineers who designed the cars. That doesn't mean I understand the full intent of Toyota's board of directors.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#49

Post by maroonblazer »

nZac wrote: post #38
gnaritas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the Bible was made up, it didn't write itself; it's a work of fiction by men, nothing more. Nor is there a lick of evidence to the contrary.

Do you mean that because a book doesn't write itself, which is an impossible task, it can't be true? That seems to remove the possibility to know anything from a written text including science, history, autobiographies, and other forms of non-fiction.

The Koran and Dianetics didn't write themselves either. Are they true? If not, why not?

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#50

Post by menssen »

mholt wrote: post #44
menssen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoting this. It's at least as well reasoned as the original article. BUT it doesn't matter because it wasn't actually written down (and/or "revealed") until the 1800s, right? Is there a good academic treatment of the origin of the stories in the BoM?

Thanks, for distinguishing academics from religion. Trying to keep this academic but people keep turning it into a religious debate about beliefs. > BUT it doesn't matter because it wasn't actually written down (and/or "revealed") until the 1800s, right? Right, but that's still 186 years before this article was published. A text that's almost 200 years old still has historic value, whether or not one believes its con…

Okay but the argument is pretty strong that since it was completely written based on divine revelation 2000+ years after the events it describes, the historical claims are difficult to corroborate.

Is there scholarship on the legitimacy of the Lehi story, and, can you provide a link to the 101 version instead of a database?

(I know, lazy, but you're probably used to the burden of proof being on you on this topic.)

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