By whom and when was scripture written?

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Quietfire' date='Jun 29 2005, 06:26 AM']LittleLes,
You still havent answered the question.

Yes
or
No
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RESPONSE:

I'm afraid you have fallen into the "either-or" fallacy. Many writings are inspired to some degree. But in the case of the Bible, this does not mean that it is inerrant. It contains errors and contradiction.

LittleLes

[LittleLes]

Genesis contains a doublet, two creation accounts which conflict regarding the sequence of events.

Genesis chapter 1

1:10-13 creation of vegetation.
1:20-23 creation of fishes and birds
1:24-25 creation of animals
1:27 creation of man and woman

Genesis chapter 2

2:7 creqtion of man but not woman
2:8-9 creation of vegetation
2:19-20 creation of animals
2:20-25 creation of woman from man's rib.

Question:

Are either of these considered to be historical? If so, which?

[LittleLes]

Interim summary:

As has been shown, internal evidence strongly suggests that the first five books of the Bible, the Penteuarch, traditionally said to have been authored by Moses about 1500 B.C., most likely was actually written between 990 and 770 A.D. by two or more authors.

Nothing in these books can be proven to be fully historical.

Next, the big question. Is the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt allegorical or historical. What evidence besides the Bible exists to establish that this was a real historical event?

Littleles

[LittleLes]

(1) Literary analysis suggests that there were four writers involved in the creation of the Pentateuch, none writing earlier than 922 B.C. The two most involved with the first few books of the Pentateuch were the Jahwist from the southern kingdom and the Elohist from the northern kingdom. Later these writings were merged.

(2) And, as we have seen, since Genesis lists the late Edomite kings, the last living about the time of Saul (c 1,000 B.C.), clearly Moses (c. 1500 B.C.), being long since dead, was not the author, or at the very least had his writings added to and modified.

(3) Thus the Jahwist and Elohist were writing legends most likely passed on by word of mouth (and embellished) of events happening more than 500 years previously. This would be roughly similar to myself writing a story about the discovery of America from the legends I had heard about it.

(4) Next lets look at the legend of Moses and Exodus. Because legends usually have a very slight basis in some event or person in the past, lets see how these stories probably originated and what evidence exists to support them, as well as when and by whom they were recorded.

[Quietfire]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Jun 30 2005, 03:20 PM']RESPONSE:

I'm afraid you have fallen into the "either-or" fallacy. Many writings are inspired to some degree. But in the case of the Bible, this does not mean that it is inerrant. It contains errors and contradiction.

LittleLes
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This is my second response to this particular post. I walked away from the first because it would have resulted into something that you would have wanted...
turning the attention toward you and away from the main point...God.

You accuse me of the "either-or" fallacy..(your words).

True.
And why?


Faith. Its the most logical place to start.
I believe in God. I hope in God. I love God.
All because of faith.
To believe is to accept as true. We believe something when we give our definite and unquestioning assent. Not in the sense of using it loosely, such as "I believe its gonna rain tomorrow". In that sense, I am only expressing an opinion. An opinion is not really a belief.
Faith means certainty.
But not all certainty is faith. I dont say I believe something if its something I can plainly see and understand. Like 2+2=4. I know that 2+2=4. Thats something I can understand and prove to my own satisfaction.
Belief/faith is the acceptance of something as true on [i]the authority of someone else.[/i]
Hey, Ive never been to England. But I know alot of people who have been to England and they have assured me its really there. This kind of knowledge is called human faith. Since there is so much we dont understand in life, and so little time for investigating everything for ourselves, then one must admit that most of our knowledge is based on faith. If we dont have confidence in our fellow human beings, life would stand still. If the man who says, "I only believe what I can see," or "I dont believe it unless I can understand it." really lives up to his words, he will accomplish very little.

This kind of faith spoken of above, this acceptance of a truth on the say-so of another human is called [i]human[/i] faith. The adjective "human" distinguishes it from the faith which accepts a truth on the authority of God. When our minds accepts as Truth simply because God has said that it is so, our faith is called [i]divine faith[/i]. It is plain that divine faith is a much more certain knowledge than merely human faith.

It is not likely, but it is possible, for all human witnesses to be mistaken about a particular fact... eg: Scholars may have once thought that the world is flat. It is not likely, but it is possible for all available human witnesses to be deceivers. But God cannot be mistaken, He cannot deceive, He cannot lie. He is infinite Wisdom and infinite Truth. Concerning the truths that God has made known to us, there can NEVER be the faintest shadow of a doubt. This is supernatural faith, an infused virtue of divine faith.

To entertain doubts about a truth of faith willingly is to question either God's infinite knowledge or His infinite truthfulness. To speculate, " I wonder whether there really are three persons in God?", or " I wonder if Jesus is really present in the Holy Eucharist?" is to question the credibility of God and deny His authority. It is, in effect, to reject divine faith.

For the same reason, true faith must be [i]complete[/i]. It would be folly to suppose that we can pick and choose among the truths God has revealed, according to our taste. To say, " I believe in Heaven, but not in Hell", or "I believe in baptism but not in confession" or " I believe in God but feel that there are errors and contradictions within His inspired written word...the Holy Bible", is the same as saying, in effect "God can be wrong." The logical conclusion then is...


Why believe in God at all?



Pax.

Edited July 1, 2005 by Quietfire

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Quietfire' date='Jul 1 2005, 06:39 PM']This is my second response to this particular post.  I walked away from the first because it would have resulted into something that you would have wanted...
turning the attention toward you and away from the main point...God.

You accuse me of the "either-or" fallacy..(your words).

True.
And why?
[/quote]

Response:

Because your question does not allow any degrees of difference. Your question demonstrates this. You asked do you believe that God inspired Genesis on not? Answer Yes or No.

That's the either -or fallacy in a nutshell!

Providentissimus deus tells us that:

"Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write-He was so present to them-that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture."

and,

" For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true."

But ,as we have shown contradiction exists in scripture. In the case of a contradiction, either one or both of the alternatives are in error. So if contradiction exists, "inerrency" does not.

Pope Leo XIII and others were wrong on this point.

[LittleLes]

True.
And why?
Faith. Its the most logical place to start.
I believe in God. I hope in God. I love God.
All because of faith.
To believe is to accept as true. We believe something when we give our definite and unquestioning assent.
[/quote]

RESPONSE:

Does it matter to you whether or not what you "give (your) definite and unquestioning assent" to is true or not? I does to me!

If it doesn't matter to you, what is the fundamental difference between your giving assent to Catholicism and a Muslim giving assent to Islam?

[LittleLes]

Moving along with the "who and when" of the writing of scripture, we need to determine the approximate dating of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. Aside from the Old Testament, there is very little evidence to support the Exodus account.

Certainly Jews had been settled in Egypt as throughout the MidEast for some time. In fact, it is thought that the Pharaoh named Akhenaten (more later) had a Israelite mother named Tiye.

Using the Bible, we have two conflicting dates for the Exodus.

Ex 1:11 describes forced labor of the Israelites building the cities of Pithom and Raamses. This is placed at the time of the Pharaoh Ramses who had a reputation as a great builder. He reigned from 1290 BC to 1224 BC. Thus the Exodus would be dated as occurring sometime during his reign but not earlier.

On the other hand, 1 Kings 6:1 reports that the Temple constructed by King Solomon was built "480 years from the Exodus" in the fourth year of Solomon's reign. Solomon lived from 970 to 928 B.C. so, if we take his reign averaging approximately 950 BC. and add the 480 years, we arrive at a date for the Exodus as being about 1430 B.C.

Thus we seem to have a contradiction. It is, of course, difficult to maintain the claim of biblical inerrancy when such exists. But if these biblical books merely report legend, then problems with dating become understandable.

[Quietfire]

Evidently someone didnt read my post.
Im not surprised by that really, I didnt think you would.

First, you make my point in your immediate post. minus of course, your personal remark at the end.
Then, you take my words out of context and assume that because I give my assent to the teachings of the Church(divine faith), then I give my assent to something like 2+2=5.(human faith).

I thought you knew the difference. I thought wrong on that, eh?
Guess I was proven right (in reference to human faith)


Pax.

Edited July 2, 2005 by Quietfire

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Quietfire' date='Jul 2 2005, 11:05 AM']Evidently someone didnt read my post.
Im not surprised by that really, I didnt think you would.

First, you make my point in your immediate post.  minus of course, your personal remark at the end.
Then, you take my words out of context and assume that because I give my assent to the teachings of the Church(divine faith), then I give my assent to something like 2+2=5.(human faith).

I thought you knew the difference.  I thought wrong on that, eh?
Guess I was proven right (in reference to human faith)
Pax.
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RESPONSE:

I think what your post proves is that you haven't investigated the reasonableness of what you believe. Did you just select Catholicism at random?

[LittleLes]

1. The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament which tells the national epic of the Jewish people, was the work of several writers.

2. The earliest date of its composition is 922 B.C., about 300 to 500 years after the purported exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.

3. While there is little evidence besides the account in the Pentateuch to support the Exodus story - it is possible that this was a simple migration - the two possible dates given in the Old Testament are c1430 B.C. ( 1 King 6:1) or c1200 B.C. (Ex 1:11). Combined, this gives a putative date range of 1430 to 1200 B.C. for the exodus.

4. Traditionally, Moses is supposed to have led the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to the "Promised Land." But there is little evidence besides scripture that the Jews were ever enslaved by the Egyptians.

5. Regarding the person named Moses in the biblical account, was this a real or legendary figure?

6. Consider the following:

(a) Akhenaten (also called Amenhotep IV) was an Egyption pharoah who was in power from about 1367 to 1333 B.C. (depending on the reference used). So we have the correct date range. His wife was Nefertiti.

(b) Akhenaten's father was Amenhotep III and his mother was Trye, said to be a Jewess.

© It is claimed that those in power threatened the life of the child since they did not want anyone other than a member of the royal family ( both parents had to be of royal lineage) to succeed as pharaoh, and he had to sent to a place of relative obscurity.

(d) Akhenaten was unique in that he insisted on the practice of strict monotheism, the worship of only one god, named Aten.

(e) It is claimed that Akhenaten was eventualy banished by those favoring the worship of the traditional Egyptian gods, and replaced by his cousin Smenkhkare.

Question: Could Akhenaten have been the model for Moses?

[Quietfire]

Did I select at random?

Should I even answer the question?
Eh, why bother.

The question was simple.



So your answer is no then, huh?

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Quietfire' date='Jul 3 2005, 12:15 PM']Did I select at random?

Should I even answer the question?
Eh, why bother.

The question was simple.
So your answer is no then, huh?
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RESPONSE:

My answer is:

(1) Exodus was written many generations after the events it describes, not by witnesses to the events or even those "within living memory" of the events.

(2) There is no independent evidence confirming the events described by Exodus.

(3) In creating a national epic it is not at all uncommon to rely on legends and embellish accounts.

(4) Akhenaten was a real figure living during the Exodus time frame whose life events closely parallel those described of Moses.

Therefore, it is highly possible that his story formed the basis for the legend of Moses.

Exodus 11:3 claims: "Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people. " Yet there is no record in any Egyptian records of Moses.

But one can't prove a negative. I can't "prove" that Saint Peter didn't have a halo or never lived in Brooklyn. So I can only have such certitude as the nature of the thing allows.

LittleLes

[Socrates]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Jul 3 2005, 06:58 PM']RESPONSE:

My answer is:

(1) Exodus was written many generations after the events it describes, not by witnesses to the events or even those "within living memory" of the events.

(2) There is no independent evidence confirming the events described by Exodus.

(3) In creating a national epic it is not at all uncommon to rely on legends and embellish accounts.

(4) Akhenaten was a real figure living during the Exodus time frame whose life events closely parallel those described of Moses.

Therefore, it is highly possible that his story formed the basis for the legend of Moses.

Exodus 11:3 claims: "Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people. " Yet there is no record in any Egyptian records  of  Moses.

But one can't prove a negative. I can't "prove" that Saint Peter didn't have a halo or never lived in Brooklyn. So I can only have such certitude as the nature of the thing allows.

LittleLes
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Evidently the LittleLes parrot/bot is incapable of answering simple yes or no questions, and is only capable of parroting words from the modernist/revisionist party line.

You've basically admitted you have no evidence and can't prove your case - all you've done is once again offered a bunch of unproven assertions and hypothesis with no concrete evidence to back them up.

The idea that Moses is really Akhenaten is absurd and unsubstantiated. There is really very little in common between these two figures. Akhenaten was the Egyption Pharoah, the enemy of the Hebrews. Why would they turn him into their leader who liberated them from the tyranny of the Pharoah? Quite a stretch! This hypothesis, like all the others you offer as "fact" takes as its starting point the assumption that the Biblical story must be false.

As historian Dr. Warren H. Carroll writes:

[quote]There is now general agreement among scholars that the Exodus took place during the thirteenth century (1300-1200) B.C.; former support for the earlier date, around the time of Akhenaten or even before, has dwindled away.  The evidence of the building of Pithom and Ramses in the first quarter of the centry (1300-1275), together with the stele of the Pharoah Merneptah (c. 1220 B.C.) locating Israel outside Egypt -- but as a wandering nation, not yet settled--and the remarkable accumalation of archeological evidence indicating a destructive conquest of Central Palestine shortly before 1200 B.C., unite to provide a convincing case.  Unless we do drastic violence to the text of the Book od Exodus, a very substantial time must be allotted to the Exodus events--time for a whole generation to grow old and die in the wilderness.  . . . Therefore the most probable hypothesis is that the Exodus occurred during the the first half of the long reign of Ramses II, about 1275 B.C.[/quote].

The Egyption Pharoahs reigned as god-kings, and of course after Pharoah Ramses' humiliation at the Exodus of the Hebrews, it is natural that he would not wish this to be recorded for posterity.

[LittleLes]

"There is now general agreement among scholars that the Exodus took place during the thirteenth century (1300-1200) B.C.; former support for the earlier date, around the time of Akhenaten or even before, has dwindled away. The evidence of the building of Pithom and Ramses in the first quarter of the centry (1300-1275), together with the stele of the Pharoah Merneptah (c. 1220 B.C.) locating Israel outside Egypt -- but as a wandering nation, not yet settled--and the remarkable accumalation of archeological evidence indicating a destructive conquest of Central Palestine shortly before 1200 B.C., unite to provide a convincing case. Unless we do drastic violence to the text of the Book od Exodus, a very substantial time must be allotted to the Exodus events--time for a whole generation to grow old and die in the wilderness. . . .
Warren Carroll

RESPONSE:

You neglect to mention that Warren Carroll is the founder of the very conservative Christendom University and is an strong apologist for the Catholic Church's version of history, which, not too suprisingly ,supports the Church's "party line."

But lets look at what he admits.

"Therefore the most probable hypothesis is that the Exodus occurred during the the first half of the long reign of Ramses II, about 1275 B.C."

If Carroll is correct, he is evidencing that 1 Kings 6.1 is clearly in error although claimed to be an inspired writing. 1 Kings 6:1 puts the date of the Exodus at about 1430 B.C., as I previously pointed out.

"In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD." Do the math!

But you have overlooked the obvious. The biblical account was written between 922 and 722 B.C., much after the fact so the exact date of Akhenaten's reign is not really the issue. Only that the general facts of his story were remembered in the 922 - 722 B.C. time frame and included when the Pentatauch was written by the J and E source.

LittleLes