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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

#81

Post by _ak »

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.

That's not the point here. The point is whether the Hebrew bible is simply a transcript of tradition and religious beliefs that were previously transmitted orally, or whether some people wrote it Hubbard-style, with the express intention to scam and defraud people. Since stylometry has shown us that it is a document written by many authors over a longer period of time, and since Judaism was very much a tribal religion then, the former is much more likely. Then, there's no point in deriding the Hebrew bible as "just a made-up thing", since it served an important socio-cultural function, so strong in fact that Judaism managed to survive as a religion and culture to this very day, while most other cultures and religions of the bronze and iron age have long been forgotten, or have been assimilated or superseded by others.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#82

Post by nitrogen »

c0achmcguirk wrote: post #73
jeena wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one "believe" in science?

By believing in the Inductive Principle and the future will be like the past. How do you prove that? By relying on the Inductive Principle... circularity is unavoidable and this is where faith comes in.

It's interesting how the word "faith" has many meanings in common usage. I don't think scientists would use the word "faith" to describe their tendency to extrapolate from prior evidence. Here are a couple of articles from one particularly vocal scientist about the distinction between religious faith and scientific confidence:

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/do-scien...

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

---

I'll also note that science generally relies on empiricism rather than induction. Sure, scientists will expect the future to be similar to the past (because the present is like the past, and the past was like the more distant past, etc.), but they will also test that expectation with continued experiments.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#84

Post by jlos »

partiallypro wrote: post #52
baldfat wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prof. Edward Greenstein of Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “The process of transmission was much more complicated than scholars used to think.” Theology Student Here - MY TAKE This is pretty Bogus Study in terms of these are Statisticians' work based on one outpost on one piece of pottery. Someone had to publish something to make use of the research money. This is also out of their domain. Seems like trying to t…

I think the study has very little to do with different vocabs, most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors, JEPD for instance is widely accepted...though perhaps not as it once was. Either way, in the documentary hypothesis or other non-Mosaic origin theories, the books were written separately, from different people and revised over hundreds of years. This study doesn't really refute that. The oral history…

JEPD is widely discussed, though widely accepted depends on the academic circles. Biblical studies is unusually plagued by myopic assessments of where current scholarship is at, even failing to recognize the existence of alternative scholarship (this goes for theologically liberal and conservative camps). Either everyone has too much theological/philosophical skin in the game to concede legitimate, well researched, and opposing theories exist, or it Biblical Studies is driven more by worldview than research.

On the JEPD theory, though, Umberto Cassuto's scholarship presented significant challenges to the JEDP theory as early as the first half of the 20th century. Continued scholarship suggests Wellhausen's theory was based on incomplete assumptions on the evolution of language common to his time (the late 19th century). The 20th century produced vast amounts of philological research unavailable in Wellhausen's time (late 19th century).

More recently, John Sailhamer has done some very interesting research into the Torah (Pentateuch). His research suggests the seeming fragmented inclusions are not the result of numerous authors, but a single author using existing sources to weave a single narrative, similar to the Gospel of Luke. His incorporation of both Higher Criticism, Canonical Criticism, and liteary research manage to harmonize compelling elements from the various competing theories. Would highly recommend his recent(ish) book, "the Meaning of the Pentateuch".

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#85

Post by pluma »

mholt wrote: post #46
nitrogen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I wrote a book about the Norman invasion today in Germany, saying the book "originates ~1000 CE in England" would at least be extremely misleading, no matter how factual any claims in the book might actually be.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#86

Post by pluma »

mholt wrote: post #12
bduerst wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/720086233754370048 https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/720104906724663296 Stay classy, Matt.

Nobody was commenting with reasons for the down votes. What's classy about that?

I'm a straight white cisgender male too and I will still downvote you if you derail the conversation with irrelevant rambling about your pet religion.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#88

Post by baldfat »

davemel37 wrote: post #60
partiallypro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the study has very little to do with different vocabs, most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors, JEPD for instance is widely accepted...though perhaps not as it once was. Either way, in the documentary hypothesis or other non-Mosaic origin theories, the books were written separately, from different people and revised over hundreds of years. This study doesn't really refute that. The oral history…

> most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors Source? From what I can tell, most religious people disagree with this point.

Religious people and Academic Study are two different things. Technically this is Biblical Criticism (AKA the study of authorship, origin and sources). I am one of the people who love this stuff and still religious and that isn't as common as you would think.

Deut 34:5 And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said.

I think it is pretty clear someone also had their hand in writing that line and the rest that followed :) Most hyper-religious stances are relatively new. Heck their is very little literal 7 day creation support through most of the history of Jewish and Christian theology.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#89

Post by baldfat »

partiallypro wrote: post #52
baldfat wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prof. Edward Greenstein of Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “The process of transmission was much more complicated than scholars used to think.” Theology Student Here - MY TAKE This is pretty Bogus Study in terms of these are Statisticians' work based on one outpost on one piece of pottery. Someone had to publish something to make use of the research money. This is also out of their domain. Seems like trying to t…

I think the study has very little to do with different vocabs, most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors, JEPD for instance is widely accepted...though perhaps not as it once was. Either way, in the documentary hypothesis or other non-Mosaic origin theories, the books were written separately, from different people and revised over hundreds of years. This study doesn't really refute that. The oral history…

JEPD is really sort of dead in terms of the 4 different sets of editors. No one is a supporter of it now BUT there are ideas that grew from it and add more editors but the basic premise is that more then one editor is highly accepted but everything else is not accepted by a group close to a majority.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#90

Post by gnaritas »

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.

Any written text can be either true or false, fiction and mythology have always been wildly popular. The bible, like all works of fiction, was made up by men.

> That seems to remove the possibility to know anything from a written text including science, history, autobiographies, and other forms of non-fiction.

Things aren't true because they're written, they're true because they can be verified as true; writing merely adds the possibility to pass on the knowledge required to verify a truth. Absent re-verification, nothing is true simply because someone wrote it down.

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