What's Best Reconciliation of Gen 1 and 2 You've Heard?

Well, if this subject has you so excited yer throwing your money around like that you should see if they also have a copy ofTitle : How the Bible became a book : the textualization of ancient Israel
Author : Schniedewind, William M.
Publisher, Date : Cambridge, U.K. ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004.
ISBN : 0521829461 - Description : xiii, 257 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Call Number : 220.1 SCHNIEDEWIN 2004It examines the political agendas operating during and after the Exile in Babylon. Fascinating stuff.lfen

This is a reply to DeclinetoState's post but is generally offered to anyone interested in understanding the Bible as historical literature. I'm hoping somewhere to get Brian's and Arach's opinion.I'm about half way through reading:The secular Bible : why nonbelievers must take religion seriouslyAuthor : Berlinerblau, Jacques.
Publisher, Date : New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.
ISBN : 0521853141 (hardback) - Description : xiii, 217 p. ; 24 cm.Berlinerblau has two Ph.D.s one in ancient Near Eastern languages. I'm about half way through the book and I think he is offerring a very important viewpoint one a bit different than I've encountered before.The one tidbit I'll throw out here is that he states that translators have offerred what amounts to a cosmetic version of the bible. He make a suggestion that I would love to see which is a bible that is as literal a translation as possible, one that would leave all the difficulties for the reader to be aware of. I'll quote from page 75:"Genesis 6:3 is one of the many verses flagged with this disclaimer. in Hebrew, this curious line features the following proclaimation from God: lo-yadon ruhi badam le olam besagam hu basar. Confronted by this confounding locution, the JPS team does what translators have done for ages: it takes an impressivly erudite stab at the verse's meaning:the Lord said, "MY breath shall not abide in man forever, since he too is flesh."Because we do not feel compelled to clarify ambiguous Scripture, we translate:Yahweh said: My breath (?) will not .... in humanity for eternity ... he/it is flesh."From reading as much of Berlinerblau as I have I would say that his view is that the Bible is an aggregate of many scribes and writers with so many inconsistencies and incongruities that one can make whatever reconcilliation one chooses based on how you select and weight the citations, but there is ulitimately no final or real reconcillation.from page 50 Berlinerblau writes:"Composition by aggregate, it has just been suggested, is a very creative process; it brings into being countless possibilities of meaning. But what is more significant, and almost never discussed, is that the same process also yields countless impossiblilities of meaning. .... Is not the lack of logical coherence that characterizes so many biblical texts the most likely outcome of its peculiar literary assemblage?"It would appear that often from the best of intentions the translators of the Bible have given us a work that did not exist in the texts they translated and they have hidden the true state of the manuscripts thus in effect foisting off a bit of hoax on those who read their translations. I would especially like to hear from Arach and Brian on their take on Berlinerblau book or ideas.lfen

Thanks, Arach, your examples helped me see a tiny bit more of how different and how ancient the bible is. "in effect foisting off a bit of hoax on those who read their translations." was my statement of how I feel about the translation not an attribute of the translators. What you have said goes along with Berlinerblau.Berlinerblau stresses that the bibles we have are the aggregate of about a thousand years of many copyists, scribes, and editors working and reworking the material and that this processes has introduced material and also corrupted texts to the point they become confusing or meaningless.Even though the contradictions are there in the translations many are able to come up with interpretations to allow them to claim or believe that the bible is without error or contradiction. What shocked me was Berlinerblau demonstrated that the material is even more uncertain than the translations indicate. It's not that the translators intend hoax but that people reading the translation get the impression that the material is in better condition than the originals really are.Thanks for replying in detail.lfenedit: corrected typo "woarking" to "working"This message has been edited by lfen, 04-02-2006 11:02 AM

Jman,Welcome to EvC. I for one and I'm not alone find it very difficult to read long paragraphs, something about the white on blue? I don't know but breaking a long stretch of writing up with blank lines really helps.Try reading your long paragraph and then try breaking it up into small units and see it it isn't easier. Just a tip but it will help you to have a somewhat wider readership.lfen

Gravity keeps on working, the sun shines, the earth turns, DNA replicates, and people still read and recount the old tales that they told each other. The universe works but the books that were collected as this bible or that were written by humans and are full of human error.You are wrong because you place your faith in human infalliblity. You have conflated the working of the Source with human speculation about the source. Of course you can have it your way but your error is not God's error, it is just yours.lfen

I've no examples of God being wrong.As to Genesis the topic here is limited to Gen 1 and 2. So I will briefly mention Noah, the Exodus, and Jericho but I won't discuss them as that would be off topic.I've seen that you will deny everything as you stick to your story. That is your right. I just want to register my offense that you are fobbing off all these old human books on God. Just because the books carry no author's names doesn't mean that they weren't written by humans and is absolutely no justification for blaming them on God.lfen

Oh but he does. If whisper is not simple he is somebody who has cloned simple's gimmick. He is luring anyone into a debate where he will spring his endless stalemate that the laws of the universe were changed by God some time in the past and then he can pull any answer he wants out of his behind because he will then negate anything you say based on whatever he wants to based on this last thursdayism until everyone tires of it.Just a heads ups. This is as tedious a repetitious troll as I've ever encountered.lfenEdited by lfen, : Noticed there wasn't a subtitle and came back to add it.

Arach,That is simple aka whisper that you are arguing with! Remember he is the guy who claims there were entirely different laws of physics in the universe prior to God changing them to what we know now.Evidence means nothing to him! Nothing at all! He makes up anything he wants, any time he wants and applies to whatever he wants.Evidence? He don't need no stinkin' evidence!Sheesh,
lfen

YES! He is the poster child of Trolls.They must have merged accounts. I was tipped earlier to hover the pointer over a name to see the alias. I thought he was still banned and had snuck back in but I guess they are giving him a little more rope.lfen

The one thing a troll knows is where the food is. As long as they are getting fed they hang around. That's one reason he changes alias, that and to get around suspensions.He slips into a thread and starts out as a typical newly arrived YEC and after suckering some responses then the same old stuff creeps in. He can't suppress his style for long but he manages for a brief spell to fool people.lfen

Don't do anything. It's pointless to talk to him. Within a few days in one thread or another he will get completely out of control again, and be suspended again mostly likely for repetitious use of last thursdayism and refusal to offer any evidence when asked, or some variant thereof.lfen

I wouldn't either. I'd call it "philosophically simple" and that has definite appeal. Unfortunately biology is a lot more complex than the ID arguments and so those arguments can be very appealing.lfen