Who Wrote the Bible and When?

What do you think of tales of the miraculous?

 

Well, yeah. I was pursuing another issue...however it's way off the subject of this thread and too involved, so I'm dropping the subject.

 

I tend to look for naturalistic explanations or regard them as myth. Generally speaking, I think there's a presumption in favor of naturalistic explanations, and that Hume was right: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is, for me, a policy matter. Whether there are elves and unicorns or not, I think it's important not to believe in them because they don't fit the available evidence and the rest of our knowledge, and if we believe in them, why not everything?

 

We seem to have a lull. What about the Old Testament? How much, if any, can we believe? A century ago, scholars assumed that any early passage from the Bible was mythical. Then a generation of archeologists, Bibles in hand, set out to find the sites where it all happened. The finds of W.F. Albright, Kathleen Kenyon and Nelson Glueck put the Bible back on the map. But a more recent generation of archeologists began to question their findings because of discrepancies between evidence of settlement patterns and the likely time periods for biblical events. The earlier archeologists were shown to be overgeneralizing from their data, bringing the very existence of biblical accounts into question. Biblical minimalists like Van Seters, Finkelstein and T.L. Thompson said the available evidence failed to support the existence of the patriarchs, and Thompson, in particular, argued that the Bible was never intended as history and that it is as misguided to regard it as such as it is to regard it as science. So what do you think?

 

To illustrate: The pro-Bible archaeologists developed the so-called Amorite hypothesis that Abraham's migration from Mesopotamia was part of a large mass migration of Western Semitic peoples from the same place at the same time. Also, Albright made a case that Abraham operated a donkey caravan, at first from Ur to Haran, and later from Damascus to Egypt, and he also contended that the city of Bethel was extensively occupied during the period in question. Later archaeologists were able to show that all of these claims were unlikely, which for some cast a cloud over Old Testament accounts. But for Bible scholars all this is puzzling, because the Bible doesn't say anything about this stuff: no mass migration of Amorites, no donkey trains, no bustling Bethel. All it says is that Abraham left Mesopotamia with his wife and nephew. As far as the Bible is concerned, Bethel could have been a campsite during the period in question.
Another archaeologist,D.N. Freedman, got excited about clay tablets in the Ebla archives, which seemed to confirm the existence of the five cities of the plain mentioned in Genesis 14 around 2600-2300 B.C. , and even mentioned King Birsha, also named in Gen 14 as the King of Gomorrah. But more recent scholarship cast doubt on the names of the cities, and established that the king mentioned on the tablet was not Birsha of Gomorrah, but was actually Birsha of Admah. And that's how it goes. The consensus seems to be that Abraham's migration couldn't have happened either in 2100 B.C. to 1800 B.C., as originally thought, or in 1500 B.C., as later archaeologists tried to argue, because of the settlement patterns and cities. But our inability to place the patriarchs in a time frame consistent with our present knowledge doesn't necessarily mean that the narratives are pure fiction. It just means we have no evidence except the Bible to conclude that they aren't. Some archeologists have been exploring a date closer to 2092 (early Middle Bronze Age)for Abraham's migration as a better fit for most of the biblical accounts.

 

I've imported these from a different thread since they deals with issues non-Christians often bring up about the Bible and I thought this might be the better venue for considering them. The author is Losthoughts:
"The God of the old tesament acted suspiciously like a pagan god, in that he chose one nation to be his favorite (why would a real god do that?) killed thousands of babies in Egypt, commanded Jews to attack a city and kill every man, woman, child, and animal, and punished them when they saved things to sacrifice to him. He also allowed the devil to kill Job's (one of god's most faithful followers) entire family, as well as his slaves. (God was cool with slaves back then) just because Satan was talking trash to god. He also flooded the earth... Killing countless more children, oh, and he destroyed Sodom, gamorah, and jericho.. (however niniva got a chance to be redemed.. They must have been Gods second favorite people). God then gave the Jews a list of ten things he really didn't want them to do (he probably should have added pedophilia to the list, judging by how the catholic church operates. But who knows... Maybe he just has it out for kids). One of the rules being that you couldn't work every 7th day, this is representative of the day god rested, because apparently after 6 days of creating the universe, god was too pooped out to do anything, and needed to rest. "

A jaundiced view of the Old Testament, but one which is common enough among Christian and non-Christian literalists alike. Here is another by the same author:
"If there was no talking snake, and no magic tree, then Jesus had no reason to die. The whole point of his existence was to set right the problems caused in genesis. If the begining of genesis is true, it seems like the next logical step is that the rest of it is true. Genesis (assuming it's true) shows us how God handles day to day situations (several of which I mentioned)

aside from genesis, Jesus refrences many, many parts of the old testement. If he was in fact supernatural, he knew the validity of the passages he quoted, and to quote lies would have defied his nature. (well.. Unless god is in the habit of lying to and tricking us, it seems he may have pulled a prank by planting evidence that contradicts the Bible's young earth. Good one God!) he also said that he came not to change the law, but to fufil it. )fun fact This is the same law that says that we should kill the fags, stone the blasphemers, and chop up people who masterbate.). This suggests that there was nothing wrong with the law, and it was in fact god inspired, not the creation of some devious Jew." I plan to address these thoughts in the course of addressing the historicity of the Bible, but I thought I'd get them out here in case others want to comment.

 

I am not a bible scholar, but I find the Genesis creation story and the subsequent creation of man story with it's tale of the "separation" of man from God to be a very accurate statement of the psychological dilemma that faces man. That dilemma looks like this.

There is good in the world and I ought to have it.
Why is my good absent, because somebody told me so. Someone called me bad or insufficient.
Because my good is absent, I must have done something wrong.
Or because my good is absent, you must have done something wrong.

 

What thread did you get that from?

I want to give Lostthoughts some rep =D

 

I do not see those things as part of the law at all. Those things were given by Moses for the sake of hardness of heart. Without mercy, there must be discipline, or sacrifice. Jesus' intent to restore the pre-fall state of man dwelling in the sabbath.

 

Jesus says: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke or a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."

Matthew 5:17-18

 

I can see this in one sense...however my personal take on the exile from the garden is as a metaphor for the crossing of some threshold of conscious self-awareness and the beginning of dualistic thinking...eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and losing access to the place where God used to walk around in fellowship with human beings. It sounds like the development of the prefrontal cortex. When human beings acquired enough conscious awareness to lie, the sense of wholeness - being at one with the universe and fully in the moment - was lost. And thus the need for religious and spiritual practices, looking for ways to regain what was lost.

But maybe it's just me...

 

It came from a thread in this forum entitled "Until I meet Jesus personally".

 

That is an interesting take. For me the fact that a deep sleep fell upon Adam is a significant development in that nowhere does it say that he woke up however Jesus calls for it. Remain awake, vigilant always for God. The whole patriarchal model a dream of division and separation.

I think it important to point out that we only dreamed that we learned how to lie, however in such a state we are self deceived.

 

Yes, that's what it says in Matthew. Matthew thought that Christians need to keep the Law even better than the Jews did. Paul, on the other hand, said that justification was through faith alone, and that trying to keep the law would indicate that it a person thought (s)he could earn God's favor. Of course, since the Bible doesn't contradict itself and is inerrant, we must live with these passages with the faith that somehow they can be reconciled. Unless our faith is in God rather than the Bible, and that the Bible is a human effort to understand God rather than God giving dictation, in which case we might decide that Paul and/or Matthew didn't have it quite right.

 

Exactly. When asked questions regarding this very law Jesus said some interesting things. He called upon a higher virtue than the one that had been required by Moses.

 

Lostthoughts: "he also said that he came not to change the law, but to fufil it. )fun fact This is the same law that says that we should kill the fags, stone the blasphemers, and chop up people who masterbate.)"

The part about chopping up masturbators is one I missed. (Oh, Oh. I'm in deep doo doo!) As for "killing the fags", I don't find that one in the Bible either. The closest is in Leviticus 18:22, where it says: "and with a male you shall not lie the lyings of a woman (mishkeve ishah): it is toevah". That's what it says. What does it mean? Mishkeve (lyings) is used elsewhere in the Bible in the context of herteorsexual rape of Bilah, Jacob's concubine. Taken in the context of other prohibitions against various homosexual acts in the Bible, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the act referred to is sex where the motive is not love but domination. Among the Jews at the time, as was true throughout most of the ancient world, sexuality was primarily and expression of dominance, by men of women, slaves, and boys. For a man to do this to another free man was to make the latter into a woman, and for a man to submit to this was to allow himself to be emasculated. And that was considered to be a really bad thing--depersonalizing the victim and making him into a thing. Note that in the passage in question, it is the act of penetration of man by man that is prohibited. Lesbian acts are not included, nor is it clear that oral sex would be prohibited for males. The generalizing of the language to include all non-procreative sex is only one interpretation. Obviously our social mores have evolved so that today women are considered to be coequals instead of chattel, and we have an ideal (not always followed) that sex and love go together. Do these words have the same significance in this cultural context?

Also note the word toevah (usually translated "abomination") which is the word for ritual impurity. Leviticus is a ritual purity manual for priests. It is part of the Law of Moses intended for Jews to set them apart from non-Jews, not for Gentiles who are under the earlier Law of Noah. Toevah is close to the concept of "taboo"--ritually impure rather than intrinsically evil. Other examples of toevah include eating pork and shellfish and trimming one's beard. As toevah goes, male to male anal sex was considered to be serious, carrying the death penalty for both parties, which was unusual for the time, where the penetrator was considered to be blameless. But the prohibition follows a prohibition against sacrificing children to Molech. Interestingly, all of the other prohibitions carrying the death penalty are repeated in Deuteronomy except the one against men lying with men. However, Deuteronomy does contain a prohibition against male temple prostitution, leading some scholars to conclude that this is what Leviticus was really getting at. It is also noted that Paul's famous letter to Romans 1:26-27 is primarily about idolatry, and the unnatural lust that it breeds, including both male homosexuality and (for the first time) lesbianism. Some of the cults that were active in Rome at the time, especially the cult of Cybele and Atis, involved homosexual temple prostitution of both kinds. Once again, the kind of homosexual offenses Paul may have had in mind--pederasty, homosexual prostitution, lust, sexploitation, etc--don't necessarily include a loving relationship between two same-sex partners.

 

I don't even remember seeing that, about Adam falling into a deep sleep - that certainly is interesting when added to my overall interpretation.

We can't lie to the awakened, but those still sleeping aren't aware of lies unless they discover them in some material way.

 

All the conflicts in the bible are contentions for power and authority.

 

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