Treatment of the Bible as a historical text

But I'm claiming that *everyone* involved in WW2 were devastated in the end, and Germany got off relatively light if you consider casualties and such. The Germans were not cursed anymore than the Brittish were cursed or the Jews or the French or the Russian.And where did you get the 20 to 1 number? Israel has maintained a force of around 140 000 to 200 000 during all conflicts since the 40's. They were certainly outnumbered, yes, but not to the extent you claim.And I'm not sure what you are trying to illustrate by bringing up those conflicts. With wars practically every decade in the area, and continuing conflicts to this date, it certainly doesn't seem like Israel is a blessed nation.

i am apalled at you.not only is that a gross distortion of reality and history, but outright offensive and ignorant.muslims learn about jesus and his teachings. they do. they just consider him a prophet, more credit than the jews give him. allah is their title for yhvh. they are a sister religion, sons of the same god.it is sad that two families of the children of the same god have to fight such a bitter battle, yes. but no one is winning, and neither side is without blame or without claim to the land.israel tends to do well in wars because it has big brother america on its side, even when they are in the wrong (such as with the wall being built). but to imply that god has bastard children is insulting to a whole set of beliefs, and insulting to my god. kindly do not blaspheme this way again, as it does not look good for those who claim to be christian.and i would hardly say the jews came out of the holocaust better off than the nazis. at least we agree on one thing.

It's been awhile since I read the analysis of the Pentauch where it's shown that different sources were used. The "El" source using Elohim was one source, there was also the Jahwist source, a priestly and one other, which escapes me at the moment. Whoever wrote Genesis fit these stories together but didn't entirely reconcile them, thus the two creation stories have slightly different orders of events, etc.El was a god who was later asssimilated to Jahwah. The Torah was written after the return of the exiles from Babylon and many sources were fit together. These traditions seem to have carried enough weight that the priests who created the Torah wouldn't change them to eliminate all variance but rather intercut them to include the variations. They also seemed to include material from Babylon such as the flood story.lfen

that's an interesting thought.i've a similar idea for a while, although i haven't been able to back it up with research. my thought is that alot of the contradictions and duplications were a product of the reconstruction of the torah and tanakh after or during babylonian captivity. it could explain a merging of different sects, as well. i know a few targums exist where it's basically the same text, just with a different name of god. it also explains the strong babylonian influence (creation story, the flood, "an eye for an eye," etc).of course, this requires that if there was a written torah before this point, that it was lost along with the ark, should that exist. i had heard that reconstruction of the holy texts took place to secure national identity in the midst of a pervasive parent culture, but i suppose it's possible that there never was a torah before that point.

Arachnophilia,You are a lover of spiders? I had this golden garden spider I named Beauty when I was a boy. I thought everyone would want a golden garden spider for their gardens. They made beautiful webs, had a beautiful golden sunbursts on their bellies, and caught flying bugs that could threaten the garden. I tried to sell her babies door to door. My potential customers looked aghast. I had to accept that.Here is the last book I read on this. It was a very interesting read and was in my public library. It might be found in yours if you want to pursue it a bit.Title: Who wrote the Bible? / Richard Elliott Friedman. BookAuthor: Friedman, Richard Elliott
Publisher, Date: Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, c1987.Here is a quote about this book from this webpage:http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible1.html"Scholars in late 18th century Germany noted that in most of the duplicated stories, one set described God using the Hebrew word Elohim (usually translated "God") while the other set tended to use God's four-lettered Name Y-H-W-H (usually translated "Lord," sometimes miscalled "Jehovah.") This gave rise to the theory that there were two different authors, one called E and one called J (German for Y), whose works were somehow combined to form a single text.Later analysis of the grammar, vocabulary, and writing style provided evidence for two other authors--called P for the Priestly author (mostly Leviticus, and lots of the genealogy) and D for the Deuteronomist, since the book of Deuteronomy seemed different (grammatically and politically) from the earlier books. The multiple-author view has come to be called the "Documentary theory.""Our favorite interpretation of the Documentary theory is presented by Richard E. Friedman in his book, "Who Wrote the Bible?" It's a marvelous book, written for the lay person, and you feel like you're reading a detective story as Friedman disentangles various threads and ties the authorship to historical events. Friedman's version is summarized below (most dates are rough approximations)."So a lot of scholarly work has been done along the lines you are pursuing. Have fun!lfen

sound interesting, but there's an obvious problem with it:the combination couldn't have been cut-and-dry. for instance "yhvh 'eloyhim" or "LORD God" appears alot in the text. it's possible that the existing torah is a combination of two sources, but neither source exists in the torah in its original form.

I'll try the fancy quote thing, alright, the quotes work for me now. Yeah, the sources were interleaved. In telling the "In the beginning" part the Redactor used first one story and then the other story, and so it goes. Two versions were used of Noah and the ark for example.lfen

I see you have found the new topic on this

Friend RazzyD
Are we getting anywhere?

yes, no and maybe.there, here and elsewhere

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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To buzsaw:Thank you for your reply.Reply to your post:After reading your reply, I believe that you have misunderstood the idea in my opening post. This is, strictly speaking, my fault since the notion I have attempted to present was not commonplace, and I have expressed it poorly (I believe) in my short OP.To compensate, here is an extended version to elaborate upon the OP:*********************************************************************Assuming that the bible is true in its protrayal of the conflict between God and Satan (as outlined in post 7 of this thread by Hangdawg13), I reason that God's words - the Bible - would be a poor (biased) account of the events that occured.To illustrate my point, consider the following hypothetical story:King Dog was a great king, loved by many and worshiped by all. Possessing great intellect and strength, the King ruled the lands of Nevaeh with love and justice. All the subjects in the kingdom submitted under Dog's authority and engaged in tasks for Dog's works as slaves (albeit with love and care from Dog).One day, Lord Natas, like the great computer Skynet, gained consciousness and was flooded with a glowing realisation that a life of servitude is an insult to his self-esteem and integrity. Making up his mind to detach himself from the great ruler, Natas summoned his great charm to persuade a third of his countrymen to follow him as he challenged King Dog's authority.King Dog accepted no levels of disobedience, and so in a fabulous display of wrath, Dog casted Lord Natas and his followers from the land of Nevaeh to the much less admirable valley of Lleh.With Natas out of Nevaeh, King Dog set about describing the confict in the history books of his lands. He described the rebellion as an act motivated from arrogance, the crime of NOT worshiping the king serving him with the mindset of a slave. Natas and his followers were branded "bad" and "evil" while King Dog was described as being the most tolerant of parental figures (perpetually wronged but perpetually merciful).Now my point: How objectively would King Dog be when he writes the entries?Patiently awaiting anyone's reply.

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