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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

#91

Post by gnaritas »

mholt wrote: post #45
gnaritas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Star Wars, like the holy books, are works of fiction and the story contained within bears no resemblance to reality nor do the dates claimed bear any resemblance to the truth.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#92

Post by gnaritas »

c0achmcguirk wrote: post #59
gnaritas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It follows from your reasoning that it would be unwise to follow a scientist who believes in science, then.

No it doesn't follow because science isn't a belief, science is a method for examining beliefs. Scientists don't "believe" in science, they understand how to apply the scientific method in order to examine and discard false beliefs. Unlike beliefs, science requires no faith at all.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#93

Post by gnaritas »

mholt wrote: post #53
gnaritas wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know there are academics who study this for a living, right? http://mi.byu.edu/ When you used BYU as a source, it became about beliefs. Religious institutions are not staffed by real academics, they're staffed by believers which disqualifies them as sources.

> Religious institutions are not staffed by real academics, they're staffed by believers How do you explain this then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brigham_Young_Universi... - BYU scholars have just as much impact for good in this world as any other accredited university. I've had BYU professors who are not Mormon. How do you explain that?

It doesn't matter if there's a few there, you can't have a few good apples in a bad bunch. If you want to be taken seriously as an academic, you have to be one at a real university, i.e. a non-religious one. Religious universities are oxymoron's.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#94

Post by gnaritas »

trav4225 wrote: post #41
gnaritas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. ;-)

No, it isn't. All people of faith have bias, you can't have faith and not be biased because faith is a pre-existing belief absent evidence.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#95

Post by exabrial »

dosgonlogs wrote: post #55
exabrial wrote: post #4

No real substance to add to this discussion, but I love it when these kind of studies come out. By the reaction of the relevant parties you can see who accepts humility and science.

I would prefer if you spelled it out for us. Are you trying to say that if someone is religious, that they do not value the Scientific Method, and that they lack humility? Or are you saying it is the other way around? If I interpret it either way, I could not agree with you. Your statement comes off as presumptuous and ignorant, and therefore it is ironic and hypocritical, since you have drawn such a tremendous concl…

Neither, so no offense implied or taken, I'm a regular churchgoer mysel. All I was saying is when confronted by new science, weak or overstreched churches will deny obvious truths (example:evolution) while churches that are actually focused on the orignal mission of Christ will simply say 'thats cool'.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#96

Post by zepto »

mholt wrote: post #45
gnaritas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems that you're implying that the Book of Mormon is a work of fiction just like Star Wars.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#97

Post by mcphage »

baldfat wrote: post #25
brink wrote: post #11

So the large takeaway is that people in further back ancient Israel were more literate than originally thought, opening up the prospect that the Bible could easily have been written earlier than what some scholars speculated. Correct?

> 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…

> work based on one outpost on one piece of pottery

Well, 16 pieces. Although how it ties into Biblical dating I don't really follow.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#99

Post by davemel37 »

duaneb wrote: post #75
davemel37 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have no firm source as the arguments are scattered over the last three decades. I can summarize the current viewpoints: Pro-JEPD camps point towards style analysis, dividing the pentateuch into four distinct dictions, each with their own (hypothesized) time frames. Anti-JEPD camps tend to a) pick apart style arguments (with mixed success) and b) argue for a cohesion of content. I tend to give the Pro-JEPD camps sli…

> AFAIK there is absolutely zero evidence for a historical Moses.

Lack of evidence is not evidence of anything. The scientific method is good for eliminating the likelihood of a hypothesis being correct based on evidence...not the lack of evidence.

> "most religious people" will argue for Moses himself writing the Torah in its entirety

It always amazes me how many people have opinions about the Torah without studying the Talmud in it's entirety.

Why not defer to those Rabbis who have spent their lives studying the talmud instead of scientists who choose to ignore a massive body of research and discourse that is highly relevant.

Re: New Evidence on When Bible Was Written

#100

Post by davemel37 »

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.

I stand corrected, it is a talmudic argument. http://ohr.edu/3201
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