could moses have written the first five books of the bible

I withdraw my troll comment.

My apologies Chiroptera--I'm an idiot. What I meant to ask is "how do we know that Moses didn't exist" (which would have been closer to the topic). But I see your reasoning regarding both Moses and Noah.FYI--I am an {agnostic/"weak" atheist} with an interest in the history of the bible, thus my question. I thought that perhaps you had some research showing Moses to be a construct.Thanks.

Alright, I'm writing this post to argue for Mosaic authorship of the Penteteuch and to argue against the JEDP theory being espoused by a number of people in this thread.
#arachnophilia#

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however, there is sufficient evidence that at least 5 distinct groups wrote the torah, one of which could be the levites.
  —arachnophilia

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I challenge this claim. I don't agree and I think there is no evidence for this at all and I challenge you to provide evidence for this. However, I'd caution you before you do this. You may want to read this article I'll give a link to here. Missing Link | Answers in Genesis I think you'll find that Evangelical scholars view the JEDP theory as both flimsy and silly and they don't hesitate to scoff at either. For example, this article points out

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There is no external evidence at all in support of J, E, D, P, or R. What were their names? What else did these alleged literary savants write? History, both Hebrew and secular, knows nothing of them. They exist only in the fertile imaginations of the inventors of the documentary hypothesis.

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This is a major hurdle that liberal scholars need to overcome and quite frankly they simply can't. At any rate, it would behoove you or anyone else wanting to take up my challenge, to have some inkling of what you are up against before they begin to argue against my argument.
#Post#4 from arachnophilia#

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we all know where abraham was from: ur of the chaldeans. when were the chaldeans in ur? about 900-600 bc.
  —post4

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This claim presupposes we know where "Ur of the Chaldeans" from Genesis 11:31 is. I challenge anyone to prove that the Uri that Sir Leonard Woolley excavated is in fact the "Ur of the Chaldeans" mentioned in Genesis 11:31. And personally I think this is an impossible task. The fact is that "Ur of the Chaldeans" has absolutely squat mentioned about it in the Bible, except that it is where Abram and his family came from. It is mentioned 3 times in Genesis(11:28, 11:31, & 15:7), all merely refering to it as being where Abram and his family came from and once in Nehemiah(Neh 9:7), merely refering to the same thing in Genesis. The book of Acts does however mention that Abraham came out of "the land of the Chaldeans" and says that Abraham was "in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran."(7:2) I think the reason why Stephen, in the book of Acts, says it was in Mesopotamia(Which is hardly a precise geographical location) is because he knew perfectly well that no one knows where "Ur of the Chaldeans" even is. In point of fact it may not even be a thriving metropolis like Woolley found at all. It may have been a mere village and not even in existence for very long. But claiming it is the Ur in Babylon, is just wild and baseless conjecture and certainly cannot be used in an intellectually honest way to date authorship of the Pentateuch to the time of the captivity. Here's a link that discusses some of the problems of placing "Ur of the Chaldeans" where Woolley has. http://www.arlev.clara.net/genabraham.htm
#Post#4 from arachnophilia#

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want some more evidence? look at the heavy babylonian influences: one creation account, the story of noah
  —post4

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These bear only slight resemblence to the Babylonian accounts. They have a handful of the same ideas and otherwise are completely different. If the Jews in Babylonian captivity used them as a basis for their creation and flood accounts in Genesis, then why are there as few similarities as there are? Why are there not whole lines or continuous ideas that clearly appear to be lifted out of Babylonian writings? There is nothing of the case. The best argument one could make to account for the few similarities they have is that they both a distant common source or are refering to an event known by both cultures. I challenge anyone to provide good evidence that the creation and flood account were clearly borrowed from Babylonian texts.
#Post#4 from arachnophilia#

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and the tower of babel are prime examples. noah's often debated, as is creation, so lets look at babel.

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there really is a tower of babel. if i recall correctly, it's where we get the name "babylon" from. bab-el means ladder of the gods (or "stairway to heaven" if you will). it was completed at some point (a few millenia before christ), but fell into disrepair and crumbled, leaving only the first few levels of the ziggurat. around 600 bc, king nebuchadnezzar (remember him?) set about to rebuild and it was never finished. so we have an ancient babylonian temple, that "reached to the heavens" and a failed attempt to rebuild it by a very famous king.

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...and a story in the bible that makes fun of it. you see, the tower of babel story is a JOKE. balal means "confusion" and SOUNDS like babel. and so the hebrews reading this story, and looking at nebuchadnezzar's project are laughing. "god must have confused him or made him stupid," they would say.

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it's entirely too much of a coincidence for there to be a project to rebuild the babel ziggurat while the hebrews are there for it to NOT indicate that it influenced the writing.
  —post4

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Well I don't know anything about this but I suspect it's just wishful thinking on the part of liberal Biblical scholars. Where do you get this information from? Is there really a strong connection? I mean something tangible, not a "cuz I say so" kind of connection.
#Post#4 from arachnophilia#

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so i think it makes a lot more sense to say that good portion of genesis was written IN babylon, or compiled and editted in babylon. i suspect a large motivation in doing this was to preserve certain oral legends, myths, and stories, so that the hebrew tradition would stay alive and isolated in a foriegn land. although i'm also pretty sure that certain parts of it date much, much earlier.
  —post4

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I don't see any significant evidence that suggests this. Mentions of Babel in Genesis and creation and flood accounts that bear slight resemblence is in no way strong evidence of this. Furthermore Genesis mentions an enormous amount of specific names and specific name places, something that would be absolutely bizarre if the original author did not expect his orignal audience to know where he was refering to. And where are these specific place names located? Well mostly in Palestine of course. Now please explain to me why priests in Babylon would mention all these things to a generation of Israelites that would no longer be familiar with them?
#arachnophilia#

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see also my thread on the forgery of deuteronomy, because there is evidence that it was written during the reign of josiah (which is in the book of kings).
  —arachnophilia

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Let me guess, this is refering to II Kings 22:8-17 and II Chronicles 34:14-25? It's nice theory but it is not evidence and also must presuppose that rather than finding a scroll in the Temple, that they simply lied and fabricated one. I don't buy it. Got anything more to this theory than "just so?"
#jar#

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There is lots of evidence in the Bible that is simply a redaction of many, many oral histories. This is particularly evident in the OT, for example the multiple versions of the creation story, the different versions of the flood myth and the differences in how GOD is described throughout. It is also seen in the NT with the inclusions and copies from Gospel to Gospel but in the later case, there may have been written records as well.
  —jar

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I don't agree with this and I challenge you to cite specific examples of this.
#arachnophilia#

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actually, there's no mention of any of the three in the bible. it never once says that moses wrote genesis, for instance.
  —arachnophilia

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This is true. However it is logically inferred since much of the same types of wording are present in Genesis as well as the rest of the Pentateuch, Genesis precedes the other 4 books of the Pnetateuch and Exodus picks up after it and Moses is given credit for writing the Pentateuch in numerous OT Biblical passages, and the Jews have an ancient tradition that Moses wrote it. I mean, if the account of the Pentateuch is correct, it makes perfect sense that Moses would have deliberately compiled the history of Genesis as he was trying to emphasize the difference between Hebrews and Egyptians, their origins, and differences in religion in the rest of the Pentateuch as well.
#arachnophilia#

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there is textual evidence that the torah is woven together under a redactor or group of redactors, from five original sources. i disagree that the original stories were unwritten, however. i think they show signs of being finalized before redaction and COPIED almost wholesale into the torah.
  —arachnophilia

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Once again, I don't agree with this claim and challenge you to provide evidence. As I know there is none, feel free to provide logic to back this up. I'll address that too.
#Rrhain#

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The most obvious reason that the Pentateuch could not have been written by Moses is the fact that Deuteronomy contains a description of the funeral of Moses.

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It's very hard to do that when you're dead.

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Now, on a low-level analysis, that a few verses at the very end of the set isn't that big of a deal, but it does set a precedent: If this part was not written by Moses, what else wasn't written?
  —Rrhain

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This constitutes a total 8 verses at the tail end of the Pentateuch. That is hardly problematic for Mosaic authorship. Obviously Moses did not write the last 8 verses of the Pentateuch. Besides the Jews have a tradition that Joshua wrote them. Seems the most logical explanation to me, but the point is that, yes, that part wasn't written by him.
#Brian#

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One of the most telling anachronisms in the Pentateuch is Genesis 36:31, which actually has two anachronisms.

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These were the kings who reigned in Edom before any Israelite king reigned

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This really needs to have been written during or after the beginning of the monarchy, about 450 years after the Exodus by biblical dating. So there is no way that Moses could have written this.
  —Brian

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Your quotation of Genesis 36:31 is a poor translation of what the passage really says. Arachnaphilia has a more literal one in post #18

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Gen 36:31 And these [are] the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.

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It is merely referring to the fact that these Edomite kings reigned in Edom PRIOR to the Israelites being ruled over by Pharoah. Here's a link that argues this point. The Skeptical Review » Internet Infidels Besides the term "children of Israel" is used throughout the Pentateuch. So actually this passage supports a single authorship as opposed to pigeonholing the date of the text to the babylonian captivity.
#arachnophilia#

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the chaldeans simply didn't exist during the lifetime of moses, let alone abraham, and so the very fact that the bible mentions them means that moses could not have written that part of the bible.
  —arachnophilia

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What evidence do you have that Chaldeans did not exist, mininally as a seperate and distinct tribal unit, prior to the writing of the Pentateuch and I suppose in Abraham's days according to Biblical chronology as well for that matter? And keep in mind that lack of non-Biblical evidence for their existence at the specified times, is not the same thing as evidence that proves they didn't exist then.
#arachnophilia#

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we don't read the bible much here, do we. both kings and chronicles end with israel and judah returning from captivity. therefore it is impossible that they were written entirely prior to nebuchadnezzar.
  —arachnophilia

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I'm assuming the Kings reference is referring to II Kings 25:22-30? And actually that could easily have been written shortly after the captitvity began, as well as the rest of the book for that matter. But there is nothign there that pins the date of the last few verses to AFTER the Israelites returned from captivity. Do you read the bible much arachnophilia?Now with Chronicles, ya II Chronicles 36:20-23 would have to have been written after the return from the captivity. That is the last four verses of II Chronicles, not the whole book. No doubt it was much like ending of Dueteronomy. No?
#arachnophilia#

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while genesis shows multiple authorship, and editting, enoch shows that it was written by a single author as an attempt to explain and elaborate on a very mysterious part of genesis. and it does so with ideas that are not found elsewhere in the bible until the new testament -- fallen angels.
  —arachnophilia

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It's likely that the information in it may well have been compiled by a single author but the original source material likely came from different sources. Have you read Enoch? I have. It radically shifts style and topics in a number of places, even more so than Genesis.
#arachnophilia#

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the most commonly held position in the academic worlds is that the torah was compiled as late as 600 bc in its current form by a redactor from five sources, which vary by location and date:
  —arachnophilia

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Alot of Evangelical Biblical scholars find this theory laughable. So keep in mind that many Biblical scholars DON'T believe it, and for well thought out reasons too.
#arachnophilia#

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even if parts of these do date the patriarchs, they've been altered beyond recognition. i bet you can think of a story involving camels, for instance. this would be really suprising, considering that camels were not domesticated until well after the patriarchal period.
  —arachnophilia

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What evidence do you have that camels were NOT domesticated during the time of the Biblical Patriarchs? And once again, keep in mind that lack of evidence for domestication, is not the same thing as evidence that they were not domesticated by then.
#d_yankee#

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Moses wrote down the "LAW".
  —d_yankee

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Indeed and this is backed by an enormous amount of Biblical passages. Exodus 17:14; 24:4-7; 34:27; Numbers 33:2; Deuteronomy 31:9, 22, 24. Joshua 1:7-8; 8:32-34; Judges 3:4; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 14:6; 21:8; 2 Chronicles 25:4; Ezra 6:18; Nehemiah 8:1; 13:1; Daniel 9:11-13. Matthew 8:4; 19:7-8; Mark 7:10; 12:26; Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:46-47; 7:19. John 1:17; Acts 6:14; 13:39; 15:5; 1 Corinthians 9:9; 2 Corinthians 3:15; Hebrews 10:28.Edited because the quotes did not show up with specific names.This message has been edited by idontlikeforms, 01-03-2006 09:09 PM

answersingensis is "flimsy and silly" and we don't hesitate to scoff at it here, either. do you think that aig represents the academic majority? or the academic anything? do you think they don't have an agenda to sell? they are an anti-evolution propaganda mill, and defending mosaic authorship of genesis (notice it says "genesis" at the top and not "torah" or "pentateuch") defends their claim for it presenting their view of creationism. aig is a biased and irresponsible source.the evidence for multiple authorship requires a bit of literary knowledge. for instance, if we put some texts by j. d. salinger, earnest hemingway, douglas adams, and michael crichton next to each other we'd be able to tell there were four authors, not one. it might be a little tricky to pick apart which one was the salinger and which one was the hemingway based on style, but we could certainly tell that the texts were written in different voices. but salinger is one of my favourite authors, and hemingway i can't stand.the bible uses different voices too. they are somewhat subtle, like the salinger and hemingway difference, but we can tell them apart. what was the name of the scribe that wrote down isaiah's teachings? we have a lot of books of attributed authorship, but just because people traditionally attach a name to them doesn't mean we know who wrote them. where in the torah does it say that moses wrote genesis? i think i've heard an argument or two that "d" wrote joshua as well. that major hurdle is aig's incredulity. incredulity of obviously biased skeptics is not "a major hurdle." this is pretty simple really. we have a city called ur. we have a people called chaldeans. wouldn't it be great is the chaldeans ruled ur at some point? well, they did. do you suppose this is a huge coincidence, and there was really another city called ur, and another people called chaldeans who rule this different city at a different point of time?

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The 11th dynasty of the Kings of Babylon (6th century BC) is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean Dynasty.

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Several 9th and 8th century BC Babylonian kings were of Chaldean origin.

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Chaldea - Wikipedia

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this gives us a good timeframe of when chaldeans were around. it's kind of like saying "abram was from ur, which is in iraq." trying to prove that there were people around during abram's time or even moses' time called "iraqis" is just pointless ad-hoc apology. the statement is an anachronism. well, here's some references for "chaldees" (kasdiy)

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2Ki 24:2 And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by his servants the prophets.

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2Ki 25:4 And the city was broken up, and all the men of war [fled] by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which [is] by the king's garden: (now the Chaldees [were] against the city round about and [the king] went the way toward the plain.

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2Ki 25:5 And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him.

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2Ki 25:10 And all the army of the Chaldees, that [were with] the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about.

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2Ki 25:13 And the pillars of brass that [were] in the house of the LORD, and the bases, and the brasen sea that [was] in the house of the LORD, did the Chaldees break in pieces, and carried the brass of them to Babylon.

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2Ki 25:24 And Gedaliah sware to them, and to their men, and said unto them, Fear not to be the servants of the Chaldees: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon; and it shall be well with you.

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2Ki 25:25 But it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, came, and ten men with him, and smote Gedaliah, that he died, and the Jews and the Chaldees that were with him at Mizpah.

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2Ki 25:26 And all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose, and came to Egypt: for they were afraid of the Chaldees.

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2Ch 36:17 Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave [them] all into his hand.

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Isa 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

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could these be the same chaldees? maybe? that isaiah reference is pretty clearly referring to same chaldeans the wikipedia entry is referring to above. it doesn't really matter if it's the right ur -- it might not be. a little coincidence is ok. but i start being skeptical when it's two coincidences or three. we know when the chaldeans were in power and ruling babylon, which is undoubtably the region ur was in. it's about as vague as saying "mesopotamia." which is fine. cities get lost.

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In the 6th century BC there was new construction in Ur under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. The last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, improved the ziggurat. However the city started to decline from around 550 BC and was no longer inhabited after about 500 BC, perhaps owing to drought, changing river patterns, and the silting of the outlet to the Persian Gulf.

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Ur - Wikipedia

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and rediscovered. i'm pretty sure the book of acts was written between 550 bc, and the 1600's. i'm gonna take a guess and say it was somewhere in there. the problem is not the "ur" part but the "chaldeans" part. the flood bares only a slight resemblance?

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Gilgamesh
"For one day and then a second day, Mount Nisir held the ship fast.
A third day and a fourth -- still the ship couldn't move.
A fifth day and a sixth passed by with no motion.

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Genesis
And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth [month], on the first [day] of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

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Gilgamesh
"On the seventh day I set a dove free in the air.
The dove flew away but then came back.
She couldn't see a perch, so she turned around.

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Genesis
And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

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Gilgamesh
Then I set a swallow free in the air.
The swallow flew away but then came back.
She couldn't see a perch, so she turned around

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Genesis
Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters [were] on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

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Gilgamesh
Next I set a raven free in the air.
The raven flew away and saw that the waters were going down.
He ate, he circled, he cawed, but he never returned to me.

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Genesis
And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth [was] an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

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And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

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in academic circles, we'd call it "plagairism." same information, rearranged a bit, and no source creditted. you mean, like the 7 days of creation, versus 7 gods? or man being made from dirt and breath, instead of dirt and blood? or god pounding the heavens out of metal instead of... oh wait. the babylonians had a lot of different creation myths, and a number of them bare a bit more than a passing similarity to the jew's two. see above. here's nebuchadnezzar's inscription at borsippa, in 605 bc:

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"I have completed its magnificence with silver, gold, other metals, stone, enameled bricks, fir and pine. The first which is the house of the earth’s base, the most ancient monument of Babylon; I built and finished it. I have highly exalted its head with bricks covered with copper. We say for the other, that is, this edifice, the house of the seven lights of the earth, the most ancient monument of Borsippa. A former king built it, (they reckon 42 ages) but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed the sun-dried clay. The bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great god, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site nor did I take away the foundation. In a fortunate month, in an auspicious day, I undertook to build porticoes around the crude brick masses, and the casing of burnt bricks. I adapted the circuits, I put the inscription of my name in the Kitir of the portico. I set my hand to finish it. And to exalt its head. As it had been in ancient days, so I exalted its summit."

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now, there's a little bit of debate as to whether this is the biblical babel, but it fits the passing description: an ancient ziggurat that was never finished (until 600 bc). similarly, compare what isaiah said about the king of babylon:

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Isa 14:13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

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yes, i know "lucifer" and all that. check a few verses up:

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Isa 14:4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

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i find that description remarkably similar to the idea of genesis 11. or is it just another big coincidence? right -- the problem is that he uses the names his audience would recognize, which is NOT what they were called during the time the story takes place. those are anachronisms. genesis as a whole is basically an anachronism -- it's written after the fact largely to explain how places and people got their names. the name they are called by during the time of authorship. captivity only lasted a generation or so, and i was only using it as a marker for time period and influence. now, my father was born in london, but i've lived my entire life in the us. that's a bigger distance that babylonia to palestine (which were the same country during the exile). but i know about where london is, and i know its name. whats even more curious is that england there's a town named after one of my ancestors. i can tell you about how it got it's name, and about how (and where) my ancestor got his name, too. and that's 2000 miles away, more than 2000 years ago. deuteronomy makes mention of establishment of a king and the throne. exodus/leviticus/numbers does not. deuteronomy has a number of specific things which were not in other texts that validate the policy of the government of the time. that's like the cia documents that said iraq had nukes, when no other source said anything remotely similar, and then the government basing its policy decisions on that. it looks damned suspicious. jar DID, in the part you quoted.

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There is lots of evidence in the Bible that is simply a redaction of many, many oral histories. This is particularly evident in the OT, for example the multiple versions of the creation story, the different versions of the flood myth and the differences in how GOD is described throughout. It is also seen in the NT with the inclusions and copies from Gospel to Gospel but in the later case, there may have been written records as well.

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i do not agree that they were oral -- had they been, we'd see a lot more agreement. why do we have two creation stories? why do we have sam/kings and chronicles? why do we have four gospels? why five books of psalms, with some overlap? (i bet your bible doesn't even separate the books of psalms. most jewish ones do with sub-headings) i'm sorry, i'm gonna need something better than "logically inferred" when you're challenging logical inference as "just because i say so." why do you disregard evidence of wording and voice when it goes against your point, but then use it to your advantage later? that's a whopping double standard, isn't it?the wording and voice of the torah shows five different authors. some carries over from book to book (j, e, and i think p), but d and l are their own sources.i want you ponder a question for a little while. many fundamentalist christians consider the bible one continuous book with one author: god. you'll see this view espoused here quite often. so imagine for a second that we remove the book titles and verse numbers and chapter headings. what would we get? we'd get that one book, right?but clearly, isaiah had something to do with isaiah, and jeremiah with jeremiah, and ezekiel with ezekiel, right? could we pick the bible back apart into it's component sources?because this process is indeed what happened. chapter headings and verse numbers are added later, somewhat arbitrarily. sometimes, you'll even find some disagreement between christian and jewish texts. sometimes, we have chapter headings that have worked their way into the text: "a psalm of david" etc. sometimes, we have verse numbers. many psalms are alphabetical acrostics (in hebrew, anyways).sometimes, a stray source will make it's way. for instance, the book of ruth. in my bible, ruth is at the end somewhere. it's not strictly canon in judaism. but in a christian bible, it comes between judges and samuel. so the sources can easily be rearranged.sometimes, sources get cut up or left out, or rearranged internally, too. for instance, there's more than one book of ezra. the others get stuck at the back somewhere in bibles with apocryphas. there are two versions of jeremiah, as well. one is a rearrangement of the other, and missing some stuff.why is this a problem for the five sources of the pentateuch? is it hard to see how three books could get cut up, rearranged chronologically, solidified into one book, and then get cut up again according to period covered (probably due to scroll length)? it's like someone compiled the three synoptic gospels into a movie that fit on three tapes. all that does is explain why we get references to moses writing it. but that's like saying jesus wrote matthew. people SAYING it doesn't make it so. oh, ok. it works when leaving egyptian exile, but not babylonian? i see. actually, no i don't. in your words, "Now please explain to me why [Moses, from Egypt] would mention all these things to a generation of Israelites that would no longer be familiar with them?" provide evidence that the sources were written as opposed to oral, and finalized largely before redaction? i allow for some possible editing, but the number of disagreement of accounts and the repitition of stories suggests that no attempt was made to edit the sources for agreement, or to combine them (unlike my 3-tape analogy). so we get the story of adam's creation THREE times:

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Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.{e}

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Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.{j}

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Gen 5:1 This [is] the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

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Gen 5:2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.{p}

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had the stories been oral, and genesis a re-telling of three traditions, we'd probably see them worked together a little better. deuteronomy is a speech, given by moses directly before the hebrew enter the promised land. it's a speech that repeats a whole lot of what he already said. at great length. (ever read the book of mormon? lots of repition from the bible there too) by some accounts, the speech is given while moses is one side of the jordan, and the hebrew on the other. some translate the first verse like this:

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These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Dizahab.

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so someone else is writing down the words of moses -- NOT moses. by some accounts, it's joshua. as a speech, i doubt mose wrote it down and gave it to the people before he gave it to the people. oh, i love poor translation arguments.

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וְאֵלֶּה, הַמְּלָכִים, אֲשֶׁר מָלְכוּ, בְּאֶרֶץ אֱדוֹם--לִפְנֵי מְלָךְ-מֶלֶךְ, לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל.

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v'eleh, ha-melakym, asher malaku, b'eretz edom -- l'feny malak-melek l'beny yisrael

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and-these, the-kings, that kinged(of) in-country edom, to-befor kinged-king to-sons(of) israel

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and these are the kings the ruled over the country of edom before there were was a ruling king to the sons of israel

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it doesn't get more literal than that. were it "king over israel" it might say "malak al-yisrael" but it says "malak l'beny israel" (king TO the children of israel) and "beny yisrael" is a common idiom for israeli. so the sense is that king is an israelite, recognized by the israelites as their king, not an egyptian who just rules over them.your page argues that "children of israel" is evidence that it was not a country when it was written. granted, it would be nice and clear if it said "eretz yisrael."

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1Ki 8:63 And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the LORD, two and twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD.

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but the term is clearly used even when it is a country. do a search for it, it shows up all over the place. the distinction might be the people, vs the nation. so saying "the people of israel had no king" would be appropriate. having a king might make them a nation. -- i see no evidence to point to pharoah ever being called "king to the sons of israel." we know when they were in power, and ruling cities. if they're not the same people, and it's not the same ur, then it's just huge combination of coincidences. the argument that they're not the same chaldeans is a bit ad-hoc, imo. the last few verses of chronicles are 11 years into captivity. the last few verses of kings are 37 years into captivity. so chronicles had to be written after captivity, but not kings which spans a longer period of time? that's very odd.now, kings has a nice breaking point, at 27. chronicles doesn't. but the problem is the same as with the deuteronomy. that supposed addition is in the same voice, not a different one.what's even MORE curious is that chronicles and kings don't plagairize. they cite.

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2Ki 15:31 And the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all that he did, behold, they [are] written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

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2Ch 16:11 And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they [are] written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

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...possibly each other, but at least very similar books. i can't get the logic to work out nicely here. can you? these are later academic histories, citing earlier works. neet, huh? maybe i haven't read enough of enoch -- but i think you're right. i think someone earlier (maybe this thread) pointed out that i was wrong about this claim. it's been retracted.

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אָרַח

Well thanks for answering my post Arach. I was hoping your response would be long. I've debated this topic before online, so don't be afraid to expound on it even further. I can't respond to all of your post right now, because I need to leave soon. But I will respond to all of it in the near future.

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answersingensis is "flimsy and silly" and we don't hesitate to scoff at it here, either. do you think that aig represents the academic majority? or the academic anything? do you think they don't have an agenda to sell? they are an anti-evolution propaganda mill, and defending mosaic authorship of genesis (notice it says "genesis" at the top and not "torah" or "pentateuch") defends their claim for it presenting their view of creationism. aig is a biased and irresponsible source.

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This is what we call an "opinion," and it in no way invalidates their claims. They stand or fall on their own merit just like everything else. Or is the strength of your arguments habitually ad-hominen attacks? Let's stick to the points of the debate and not get side tracked into attacking people OK?

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the evidence for multiple authorship requires a bit of literary knowledge. for instance, if we put some texts by j. d. salinger, earnest hemingway, douglas adams, and michael crichton next to each other we'd be able to tell there were four authors, not one. it might be a little tricky to pick apart which one was the salinger and which one was the hemingway based on style, but we could certainly tell that the texts were written in different voices. but salinger is one of my favourite authors, and hemingway i can't stand.

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the bible uses different voices too. they are somewhat subtle, like the salinger and hemingway difference, but we can tell them apart.

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Nonetheless Russel Grigg has made an excellent point, there is zero evidence for the existence of JEDP authors. It is by virtue of technicality conjecture. No one outside of modern liberal scholars has the foggiest notion of this theory. That makes it a hard pill to swallow from the get go.

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what was the name of the scribe that wrote down isaiah's teachings? we have a lot of books of attributed authorship, but just because people traditionally attach a name to them doesn't mean we know who wrote them. where in the torah does it say that moses wrote genesis?

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Mosaic authorship for the Pentateuch is claimed in numerous places in the Bible, as I've pointed out at the bottom of my initial post in this thread. So either A)Moses wrote the Pentateuch, as the rest of the Bible plentifully attests to or B)The compilers of the Bible in Babylonian captivity wanted you to believe that he did. Either way we are forced to deal with an abundance of ancient claims for Mosaic authorship. JEPD has no such luxury. Had the theory not been invented in modern times, we would not be arguing about the matter at all. So it is more than mere Rabbinic traditions or scholarly theory for that matter. The real writers of the Bible, liars or not, testify to Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

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i think i've heard an argument or two that "d" wrote joshua as well.

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Why not other books too? Just find some arbitrary similarity or two and wallah we have any letter you want writing any book of the Bible, or parts of it, that suits our fancy. Anything, so long as we can promote some new radical idea and irritate orthodox scholars. Keep in mind that liberal scholars are wrong sometimes too. Their ideas must pass the test of scrutiny. And they have plenty of nonsense theories that even current liberal scholars don't adhere to just like some of the theories of Christian scholars all thoughout history from the beginning of Christianity.

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that major hurdle is aig's incredulity. incredulity of obviously biased skeptics is not "a major hurdle."

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This is an ad hominen attack pure and simple. In debate classes and critical thinking classes we are taught not to use these in arguments.

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this is pretty simple really. we have a city called ur. we have a people called chaldeans. wouldn't it be great is the chaldeans ruled ur at some point? well, they did. do you suppose this is a huge coincidence, and there was really another city called ur, and another people called chaldeans who rule this different city at a different point of time?

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No, we have a city called "Uri" and we have not even a shred of circumstantial evidence, other than a similar sounding name, to tie it to the "Ur of the Chaldeans" in the book of Genesis. That is my point. Do you have some new information on the matter? The fact is that there are numerous cities or towns in the ancient Middle East, that have similar sounding or even the same names. So yes we definitely need more than just that to be sure if it's the right city. Even in the Bible alone you'll find this phenomenon.I'm going to skip quoting the rest of your supporting argument for Ur. I'm perfectly well aware that Chaldeans or Chaldees are mentioned elsewhere in the Bible. My point has nothing to do with that. I applaud your effort to refute what I said, but I'm afraid you, perhaps unknowingly, went off on a tangent not relevant to my point.

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it doesn't really matter if it's the right ur -- it might not be. a little coincidence is ok. but i start being skeptical when it's two coincidences or three. we know when the chaldeans were in power and ruling babylon, which is undoubtably the region ur was in. it's about as vague as saying "mesopotamia."

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It matters a great deal whether or not it is the "Uri" that Woolley excavated. If it is not, than no one can use the argument to date the Pentateuch that you did in your earlier post.

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and rediscovered. i'm pretty sure the book of acts was written between 550 bc, and the 1600's.

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Interesting point. But this does not change the fact that Stephen likely didn't know where "Ur of the Chaldeans" was. There were many Jews in Babylonia during Stephen's time. It seems likely to me that many of them may have known about Woolley's Uri perfectly well. Jewish males also travelled plenty to Jerusalem too, including from Babylonia. I don't see why Stephen would have had no chance of knowing about it. But this is just a supporting point really anyways. You would still need to point to strong reasons for why "Ur of the Chaldeans" would be the "Uri" that Woolley found. Without that, it's mere conjecture at best and thus cannot be used as strong evidence to date the Pentateuch.Alright I'm out of time at present friend. Good debate. I'll respond to the rest soon.

you realize i was paraphrasing your argument, right? i mean, the "flimsy and silly" and "don't hesitate to scoff" were direct quotes. i just provided a little more detail.but i have dealt with a lot of arguments that cite aig, particularly in paleontology threads. they are habitually wrong. they have an agenda to sell, and that makes them not very credible. there's also zero archaeological evidence that moses existed. there's one stone that calls a king "from the house david" but that's the closest we've go to evidence of david. no one outside of the bible has the foggiest notion that these are even real people.the fact is that torah is composed of different sources. if it's one source, then moses suffered from multiple personality disorder. there's no other way to explain the repitition, inconsistencies, and multiple voices. saying that it's "hard to swallow" doesn't make it false, nor does one person's incredulity. arguments from incredulity are not academic. ok, let's look.

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Exd 17:14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this [for] a memorial in a book, and rehearse [it] in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

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exodus claims that moses wrote down the account of the destruction of amalek.

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Exd 24:4 And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

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exodus claims moses wrote down the covenant god established with him at horeb. (or is mt. sinai?)

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Exd 34:27 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

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more on the covenant.

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Num 33:2 And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the LORD: and these [are] their journeys according to their goings out

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moses also took down the census, too. so far we've got some good source material, but no whole.

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Deu 31:9 And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel.

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Deu 31:22 Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.

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Deu 31:24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,

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look, this is going to get repetitive. mose wrote the law, not the The Law. deuteronomy claiming that moses wrote down the stuff god told him is not moses writing down that moses wrote something down. (i suppose he wrote in third person, too) the rest, of course, aren't in the torah itself. i provided some evidence before that deuteronomy was written rather later than moses. the political motivation for it is overwhelming. attributing it to moses would lend it credibility. you don't see how that could be?genesis does not claim to be my moses. exodus claims that moses wrote down god's commandments (but not the book of exodus). numbers claims he took a census. where is this a claim that moses wrote down what we have today? and i suppose the city of troy was a modern invention too? and the notion that homer's iliad was based around a real war? academic knowlegde changes.the bible, btw, is rabbinic tradition. i want to point out a very curious entry, for your list:

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2Ki 14:6 But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

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this law is ONLY found in deuteronomy:

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Deu 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

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indeed, exodus takes the OPPOSITE opinion:

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Exd 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;

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so we know which book of the law this is referring to. however, this is before the book of deuteronomy was found, during the reign of josiah (8 chapters later). does later tradition work it's way into kings? clearly, the author of kings judges every single one of israel's kings as unjust according to the standards of deuteronomy. my, what a rational point of view you have.here's a selection from the book of mormon:

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2 Nephi 24:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! Art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!

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now, quick, who wrote that? joseph smith, or someone else maybe? how do we know? in debate and critical thinking classes we are also taught not to use arguments from incredulity. and the point is silly. we have a city called ur. there's also one called urfa, which is where muslims think abraham was from. take your pick. we also have people called chaldeans, and we know when they ruled babylonia. ur is probably in babylonia. you can say there's no evidence linking the biblical "ur kasdiy" and the real-life ur that was ruled by the chaldean dynasty between 900 and 600 bc along with the rest of babylonian all you want. but it's still an argument from incredulity.want to talk about a lack of evidence? how about you show me evidence that the kasdiy of genesis are not the same kasdiy refered to by kings and isaiah, which are clearly the ruling power of babylon? because there's no evidence for a second group of chaldeans. the city is unimportant. we know when the chaldeans were in power, and they ruled ALL of babylon. it's entirely relevent. show that they're not the same chaldeans. no, but it's a good reason why he wouldn't have known. if he did, indeed, not know. not for you it's not. why didn't stephen know where ur was? regardless of which city it actually is, shouldn't there be a traditional spot for the birth of abraham? if you went to jerusalem in the third century ad and asked around, you could find out where christ was crucified and buried -- constantine's mother just asked the locals. what part of this isn't getting through? it's not the "ur" part. pick a random village, i don't care where it is. it's the "chaldeans" part that's the issue. we know when the chaldeans were in power.it's like saying "the forbidden city of the ming dynasty" (in china). the issue regarding the date is not which city but which dynasty. we know the mings ruled from 1368 to 1644, so it had to be somewhere in between. we could be talking about "some little outpost along the great wall of the ming dynasty" or "beijing of the ming dynasty." the important point is the dynasty. not the place.

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אָרַח

I thought this comment from your link was interesting about the Five Books of Moses. Now the writing cannot claim anything, so really the author is making the claim and Grigg says the author is Moses. So according to Grigg, Moses claims he was the writer of the first five books.I disagree that the author(s) claim that Moses wrote the first five books. What is "this?" If we read the whole story, we find that "this" refers to the Amalekites defeat. God wanted the battle recorded because he was supposedly going to blot out the memory of Amalek.So the author only attests that Moses was told to write about the battle and to tell Joshua about it, which is odd considering Joshua was there. Again when we read the whole story we see that the author is only attesting to Moses' writing down what he had told the people that God had said. That covers Exodus 20:22-23:33. This only attests that Moses wrote down the words of the covenant which covers Exodus 34:10-26. Again the author attests that Moses recorded the stages of their journey.
This covers Numbers 33:3-49 All three are very limited attestments. "This law" being a very vague reference to boot.I do not see the author(s) make any claim that Moses was the author of the first five books; and given the small portion that the author actually said Moses supposedly wrote, I don't see enough to cover the whole five books (scrolls).I don't feel that these scriptures support Mr. Grigg's argument for Mosaic authorship.

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

On calling the 'answers in genesis' silly. ..If a web site deny's 99% of scientific evidence for the age of the earth, evolution, physics, and astrophysics, based on their religious beliefs, I have to assume anything they say about anything is extremely biased.

Not only do they not support Moses as the author, they are evidence that Moses did not write the rest of the book. If Moses had been the author of the first five books, specifically pointing out that he wrote parts of it is superfluous.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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you realize i was paraphrasing your argument, right? i mean, the "flimsy and silly" and "don't hesitate to scoff" were direct quotes. i just provided a little more detail.

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I'm afraid not. I'm realizing now though, that from your perspective, you may have just felt like you were responding to what I said in the same coin. But in truth, you went farther than this.

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Definitions of ad hominem argument on the Web:

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* a fallacious argument attacking the holder of a view rather than the position itself or a sound argument showing an inconsistency between a view held by a person and a consequence of that view. The person pointing out the inconsistency need not hold the initial view.
Glosario de trminos filosficos - Glossary of Philosophical Terms (Cuaderno de materiales)

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See Arach, this is what you did. You attacked AiG, not the argument. I didn't do that. In fact my pointing out that Evangelical Scholars viewed the JEDP arguemnt as "flimsy and silly" and "don't hesitate to scoff" is not only NOT an attack against liberal scholars themselves but was intended to inform the participants and readers of this thread that there was indeed a well thought out argument on the opposing side. It occurred to me, seeing that no one gave a hint of this in the thread so far, that perhaps folks here were genuinely unaware of that.

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but i have dealt with a lot of arguments that cite aig, particularly in paleontology threads. they are habitually wrong. they have an agenda to sell, and that makes them not very credible.

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Everyone is biased bro. Who doesn't have an agenda? That is besides the point. Besides their tendency to be incorrect or not on Paleontological issues is a whole other matter. In fact AiG did not even write the article that I referenced, Russell Grigg did.

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there's also zero archaeological evidence that moses existed. there's one stone that calls a king "from the house david" but that's the closest we've go to evidence of david. no one outside of the bible has the foggiest notion that these are even real people.

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There is abundant Biblical evidence that he exists, same with David. And there is a Rabbinic scholarly tradition that both these guys existed too. That is a mountain of evidence compared to JEDP, which there is not even a hint of existence of, as Grigg so accurately pointed out

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They exist only in the fertile imaginations of the inventors of the documentary hypothesis.

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Missing Link | Answers in Genesis

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the fact is that torah is composed of different sources. if it's one source, then moses suffered from multiple personality disorder. there's no other way to explain the repitition, inconsistencies, and multiple voices. saying that it's "hard to swallow" doesn't make it false, nor does one person's incredulity. arguments from incredulity are not academic.

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And are just so statements academic too? Keep in mind I don't agree with your assertion here. I am disputing this. That neccessitates that you back this claim up or you need to drop the point.

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ok, let's look.

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quote:Exd 17:14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this [for] a memorial in a book, and rehearse [it] in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

​

exodus claims that moses wrote down the account of the destruction of amalek.

​

quote:Exd 24:4 And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

​

exodus claims moses wrote down the covenant god established with him at horeb. (or is mt. sinai?)

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quote:Exd 34:27 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

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more on the covenant.

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quote:Num 33:2 And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the LORD: and these [are] their journeys according to their goings out

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moses also took down the census, too. so far we've got some good source material, but no whole.

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quoteeu 31:9 And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel.

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Deu 31:22 Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.

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Deu 31:24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,

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I freely admit, that these passages do not explicitly ascribe authorship of the whole of the Pentateuch to Moses. But they do explicitly ascribe authorship of parts of the Pentateuch to Moses. Therefore they are still part of the list of Biblical passages that ascribe authorship to Moses and that was my point all along. It still counts for something. JEDP will have to deal with this if it is to remain a reasonable theory.

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look, this is going to get repetitive. mose wrote the law, not the The Law.

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This is not how the Jews have traditionally viewed the matter. And your assertion that he only wrote the little law and not The Law is not more valid than their tradition. Or do you have some evidence to override this that I don't know of?

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deuteronomy claiming that moses wrote down the stuff god told him is not moses writing down that moses wrote something down. (i suppose he wrote in third person, too) the rest, of course, aren't in the torah itself.

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Lots of historical narratives have their authors writing in third person. It's hardly an unknown phenomenon. Need I cite some? I have many in my collection. Also whether Moses wrote in his own hand or had a scribe write what he dictated is irrelevant. That doesn't change authorship.

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i provided some evidence before that deuteronomy was written rather later than moses. the political motivation for it is overwhelming. attributing it to moses would lend it credibility. you don't see how that could be?

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Well look at Joshua 8:32-34.

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32And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.

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33And all Israel, and their elders, and officers, and their judges, stood on this side the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, as well the stranger, as he that was born among them; half of them over against mount Gerizim, and half of them over against mount Ebal; as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel.

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34And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

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OK your Deuteronomy theory has a problem right here.

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And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

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Know what this refers to? Deuteronomy 27:11-28:68, not earlier parts of the Law. Makes sense too as it's located near the end of the Pentateuch. That, chronologically, precedes the Kings and Chronicles passages about Josiah, the lost scroll, and the Temple.See, I don't need to do violence to the plain meaning of the Bible to support my views. I do not need to invent elaborate theories to get around logical problems that have as a neccessary premise that the Biblical authors are liars. In fact I approach all primary source documents in the same manner. I do not begin reading other historical narratives with the premise that the authors are lying and unreliable. I of course don't hesitate to accept that that may be the case when I see good evdience to demonstrate that. But I've never been forced to do this with the Bible yet, unlike many other primary source documents I've read.Either way our arguments on this point boil down to the Bible being true and logically consistent and your conspiracy theory, that neccessitates lying on the part of the Biblical authors in more books than just the ones that contain the passage you question the veracity of. Or do you think that the author of Joshua corraborated with the authors of the source cited in Kings and Chronicles, to make sure that their lying was less detectable?I acknowledge that your theory is logical. But it lacks compelling support, there is known evidence to the contrary, and the default view makes much more sense.

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genesis does not claim to be my moses.

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I freely admit that. But it is logically inferred as I've said and there is a Rabbinic tradition that he wrote it. That counts for something. It is not baseless conjecture to say he wrote it, unlike the JEDP theory that claims he didn't write it, based on zero evidence, only raw conjecture.

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exodus claims that moses wrote down god's commandments (but not the book of exodus). numbers claims he took a census. where is this a claim that moses wrote down what we have today?

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I concede this. But later Biblical authors claim he wrote the Law and it makes sense what the Pentateuch claims about what he wrote if he indeed wrote the rest of the Pentatuech. These still count for something.

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and i suppose the city of troy was a modern invention too? and the notion that homer's iliad was based around a real war? academic knowlegde changes.

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Oh no, quite unlike the JEDP theory, they were not. They were simply believed to be untrue for some time.

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the bible, btw, is rabbinic tradition.

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Perhaps according to the JEDP theory. But the orthodox scholarly view is that it predates rabbinic tradition. That's the view I hold to and I don't see any compelling evidence to the contrary yet.

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i want to point out a very curious entry, for your list:

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quote:2Ki 14:6 But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

​

this law is ONLY found in deuteronomy:

​

quoteeu 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

​

indeed, exodus takes the OPPOSITE opinion:

​

quote:Exd 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;

​

so we know which book of the law this is referring to. however, this is before the book of deuteronomy was found, during the reign of josiah (8 chapters later). does later tradition work it's way into kings? clearly, the author of kings judges every single one of israel's kings as unjust according to the standards of deuteronomy.

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And why wouldn't it, if Deuteronomy is part of the Pentateuch that Moses wrote. I've noticed a tendency on your part, in this debate so far, to view supporting points of your argument as consistently being then also incompatible with my argument. I think it's critical that before you make these types of claims you analyze each supporting piece of evidence through both JEDP theory goggles and the standard Orthodox Biblical scholarhip's goggles. Because it really is counterproductive and an innefficient waste of time, in this debate, to not do this. Keep in mind that many points are fully compatible with both arguments and thus are, in actuality, mute points for the debate.

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in debate and critical thinking classes we are also taught not to use arguments from incredulity.

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Well if you want to argue that Russell Griggs is consistently incredulable, go right ahead. But simply saying this is so, even repeatedly, does not make it so. It's what we call a "just so" argument. You got to support that claim or drop it.

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and the point is silly. we have a city called ur. there's also one called urfa, which is where muslims think abraham was from. take your pick. we also have people called chaldeans, and we know when they ruled babylonia. ur is probably in babylonia. you can say there's no evidence linking the biblical "ur kasdiy" and the real-life ur that was ruled by the chaldean dynasty between 900 and 600 bc along with the rest of babylonian all you want. but it's still an argument from incredulity.

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So are you conceding that "Ur of the Chaldeans" from Genesis may not be Woolley's Uri?I have no desire to argue against "Chaldees" not being "Chaldeans." Why would I want or need to do this? It's completely irrelevant for this debate.

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want to talk about a lack of evidence? how about you show me evidence that the kasdiy of genesis are not the same kasdiy refered to by kings and isaiah, which are clearly the ruling power of babylon? because there's no evidence for a second group of chaldeans. the city is unimportant. we know when the chaldeans were in power, and they ruled ALL of babylon. it's entirely relevent. show that they're not the same chaldeans. what part of this isn't getting through? it's not the "ur" part. pick a random village, i don't care where it is. it's the "chaldeans" part that's the issue. we know when the chaldeans were in power.

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I never argued that they were a second group. This is what I originally argued about them,

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What evidence do you have that Chaldeans did not exist, mininally as a seperate and distinct tribal unit, prior to the writing of the Pentateuch and I suppose in Abraham's days according to Biblical chronology as well for that matter? And keep in mind that lack of non-Biblical evidence for their existence at the specified times, is not the same thing as evidence that proves they didn't exist then.

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from post #63. See my argument was that they must have existed prior to their domination of Babylonia. They would likely have been the conquering Chaldeans ancestors. And since you already conceded that that lack of evidence for the domestication of camels, outside of the Bible, is not evidence that camels were not domesticated in Patriarchal times, you should also by the exact same logic concede that the Chaldeans may very well have existed in Abraham's time. And this combined with the inability to conclusively locate Genesis' "Ur of the Chaldeans" literally nullifies the claim that the Pentateuch can be dated because of the passage in Genesis 11:31. Which was the point I was driving at all along.Alright, I'll try and respond to the rest of post #64 some time today.

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Not only do they not support Moses as the author, they are evidence that Moses did not write the rest of the book.

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This does not logically follow.

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I thought this comment from your link was interesting about the Five Books of Moses.

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The Pentateuch claims in many places that Moses was the writer, e.g. Exodus 17:14; 24:4-7; 34:27; Numbers 33:2; Deuteronomy 31:9, 22, 24.

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Now the writing cannot claim anything, so really the author is making the claim and Grigg says the author is Moses. So according to Grigg, Moses claims he was the writer of the first five books.

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I concede that the claims of Moses writing in parts of the Pentateuch does not conclusively prove he wrote the whole of the Pentateuch. It is however supporting evidence of this and makes sense if he did write the whole thing.

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Exodus 17:14
14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."

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What is "this?" If we read the whole story, we find that "this" refers to the Amalekites defeat. God wanted the battle recorded because he was supposedly going to blot out the memory of Amalek.

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So the author only attests that Moses was told to write about the battle and to tell Joshua about it, which is odd considering Joshua was there.

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I think the "it" refers to Moses needing to tell Joshua that God wants to "blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."

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I do not see the author(s) make any claim that Moses was the author of the first five books; and given the small portion that the author actually said Moses supposedly wrote, I don't see enough to cover the whole five books (scrolls).

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I don't feel that these scriptures support Mr. Grigg's argument for Mosaic authorship.

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They are supporting points to it, even if they don't by themselves PROVE Moses wrote all of the Pentateuch. They clearly indicate that Moses was involved in the writing of much of parts of the Pentateuch, if nothing else. Thus JEDP theory promoters have some more passages they must claim Jewish scholars are lying about.

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I don't feel that these scriptures support Mr. Grigg's argument for Mosaic authorship.

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What about the rest of them? I'm not saying I agree with 100% of Grigg's claims or that I would word the argument the same as he did. I cited Grigg's article to give the understanding to viewers and posters of this thread that there was an opposing view that had something to it. In fact, his article is just a sampling of the argument against JEDP. If you google the matter, you'll find lots more and more thorough than what he wrote. Also I liked his summation of the JEDP theory which I quoted in post #63. So it was a reference for that too.

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They are supporting points to it, even if they don't by themselves PROVE Moses wrote all of the Pentateuch. They clearly indicate that Moses was involved in the writing of much of parts of the Pentateuch, if nothing else.

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All they support is that someone wrote about Moses writing something or being commanded to write something. We assume that what follows is taken from what Moses wrote.If I write a book and pull parts from someone elses book, that doesn't mean that author wrote my book.

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

From the Griggs web site These all refer to the book of law of Moses and variations on the name.Again all this really supports is that Moses wrote down laws. It doesn't support that Moses wrote any narrative.

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

A quick comment as an observer.It seemed to that arachnophilia was saying that AiG had little credibility with him. I didn't read him as attacking it beyond that.It also seemed to me that you were saying that liberal scholars have little credibility with you.I'm not seeing much difference between these, other than the choice of which source to disrespect.