Thread: Why should we believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Over on the Creation Science thread I raised the question, does it say anywhere in the Bible that Moses wrote the Pentateuch? It's a huge topic and I realize now I should have started a new thread. So here it is.
Sharkshooter wrote a nice juicy reply which would provide an excellent starting point for debating the issue; I've asked him to reproduce it here.
Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on
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Your wish is my command (as long as you don't want to wax my car).
Biblical references to show that Moses wrote the Pentateuch:
quote:
What are the arguments for Mosaic authorship? First, there are numerous passages in Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy that point to Moses as author. For instance, Exodus 34:27 says, "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.'" In fact, there are references throughout the Old Testament (Joshua, 1 & 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and Malachi) that claim that Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
New Testament writers assumed that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible as well. In Matthew 19:8 Jesus refers to laws regarding marriage in Deuteronomy and credits Moses with writing them. In John 7:19 Jesus says, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me." In Romans 10:5 Paul states that Moses wrote the law. It would be hard not to attribute either deception or error to Christ and the apostles if Moses did not write the Pentateuch.
There are many other internal evidences that point to Mosaic authorship. The writer of Exodus gives eyewitness details of the event that only a participant would know about. The author of Genesis and Exodus also portrays remarkable knowledge of Egyptian names and places. This knowledge is evident even in the style of writing used. One scholar has noted that the writer used "a large number of idioms and terms of speech, which are characteristically Egyptian in origin, even though translated into Hebrew."
Having received training in the most advanced literate culture of the day as well as having access to the Jewish oral tradition make Moses a remarkably able and likely candidate for God to use in documenting the founding of the Jewish nation.
Link.
Note that I don't know who wrote this web-page, but it contained some of the ideas I had, and more, so I quoted it here to support the position. The document does discuss the deconstruction of the multiple author theory as well.
As for me, is it that important? Not really. That is why the "How did Moses write about his own death?" issue doesn't cause me distress.
[ 22. April 2010, 17:47: Message edited by: sharkshooter ]
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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It is not enough to say that the Graf-Welhausen documentary analysis "has been subject to devastating criticism" (quoting a source) without indicating the nature of the criticism.
Then, to go on and quote yet another source to the effect that liberals have not managed to rebut that criticism is yet another unsubstantiated assertion.
Quoting secondary or even tertiary sources and crediting them with total and unquestioned "authority" is, to my mind, a dicey proceedure.
I have not seen a rebuttal of the themes of Graf-Welhausen which has not been made on the grounds of a-priori assumption.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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Clever bloke then, this Moses chap, to be able to write in such detail about his own death.
Ah, somebody will say, he was inspired.
Yeah. Right!
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
It is not enough to say that the Graf-Welhausen documentary analysis "has been subject to devastating criticism" (quoting a source) without indicating the nature of the criticism.
Indeed "devastating criticism" sounds like a bit of wishful thinking. At the least it's the sort of breathless praise you'd expect from a headline writer of a tabloid, not a scholar.
I'm rather skeptical about the claim that there are details that only an insider could know, therefore Moses wrote it. By that logic, Peter had to have written the gospel of John, since only Peter could know the things Jesus said to him privately.
[ 22. April 2010, 19:24: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Clever bloke then, this Moses chap, to be able to write in such detail about his own death.
Ah, somebody will say, he was inspired.
Yeah. Right!
So, someone else added the last 12 verses as an addendum. Is that the best you've got?
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on
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The discussion is on what evidence is there that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, which makes for an entertaining discussion, but why should it matter to me if it was written by Moses or about Moses or in the Mosaic tradition? Maybe I am being pedantic, but authorship of the Pentateuch is not something I believe in.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
The discussion is on what evidence is there that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, which makes for an entertaining discussion, but why should it matter to me if it was written by Moses or about Moses or in the Mosaic tradition? Maybe I am being pedantic, but authorship of the Pentateuch is not something I believe in.
Who said it should matter to you? There are lots of threads on the Ship about things that don't matter to me. I don't read them.
Posted by k-mann (# 8490) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
Maybe I am being pedantic, but authorship of the Pentateuch is not something I believe in.
I'm pretty sure you believe in it, unless you believe it doesn't exist... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Clever bloke then, this Moses chap, to be able to write in such detail about his own death.
Ah, somebody will say, he was inspired.
Yeah. Right!
So, someone else added the last 12 verses as an addendum. Is that the best you've got?
No serious OT scholar, Christian or Jewish, believes that Moses wrote it.
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
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Does any scholar believe that Moses wrote part of it?
I think there is a fashion among literary scholars to claim more and more that no one and everyone wrote the Bible. But while an editor or editors may have compiled and consolidated the final version we know of today, I believe they must have worked with original ancient materials. I believe much of what they worked with did originate with Moses, though how much and whether that means Moses can be considered the actual author of our modern text is debateable.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
It is not enough to say that the Graf-Welhausen documentary analysis "has been subject to devastating criticism" (quoting a source) without indicating the nature of the criticism.
Nor, continuing this line of argument, is it the case that our only options are the full Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis or else Moses wrote it all.
The Graf-Wellhausen documentary hypothesis has a number of components.
1) The Pentateuch as we have it is composed from pre-existing material.
2) The pre-existing material took the form of a definite number of concrete pre-existing documents.
3) There were precisely four of those documents.
4) It is possible to work out which of the four documents any given passage came from.
5) It's possible to identify the background and theological interests behind each of the four documents.
6) The final editor made little to no alteration to the pre-existing materials.
7) The final editor had no particular interest in arranging his (or her) material beyond the desire to fit it all in, even where that meant including contradictory material.
8) The time that the final editor arranged the Pentateuch into its final form was late - during or after the Babylonian exile.
It's quite possible to doubt 6 or 7, or even 2 - that there were identifiable and distinct documents - without calling 1 or 8 into question at all.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
No serious OT scholar, Christian or Jewish, believes that Moses wrote it.
Is that how they justify their beliefs too?
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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Not sure what you mean.
Basically, scholarship is about rigorous study of text and belief has nothing to do with it - except a belief in honesty and integrity.
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Not sure what you mean.
Basically, scholarship is about rigorous study of text and belief has nothing to do with it - except a belief in honesty and integrity.
Except literary analysis is an incredibly subjective field of scholarship. I think belief, or subjective opinion, has quite a lot to do with it. I don't think there's any way a scholar can say with any objective certainty that a bunch of words was originally written by Moses or not as opposed to any other bunch of words. Especially considering we have no idea when Moses lived, or have any original text to work from, or any independent example of his writing style to compare it to.
It's interesting to discuss the various theories these scholars currently hold, but it's certainly not scientific fact.
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on
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If your honest and... heh, integretous... scholarly look at the matter leads you to believe that the main person, besides that ol' inspirational (Holy) Ghost Writer, who could be credited with authorship of the first five books, is Moses, well, there ya go. Or if it leads you to believe that's not so, there y'are.
The only way I can see utterly divorcing belief from the matter working, is to turn yourself into one of those nasty cold-fish scribes, or one of those various smalltime rabbis of Jesus' day, who would yammer on about how this rabbi said this, and that school of thought leads most scribes to support that position...
All the while never speaking with any sort of authority, or firm conviction, or personal belief at all. No wonder Jesus' teaching stood out so much -- the Gospels make it nearly seem like the people had to go out to the desert & grab a Zealot or an Essene to hear any kind of conviction at all.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Not sure what you mean.
Basically, scholarship is about rigorous study of text and belief has nothing to do with it - except a belief in honesty and integrity.
Except literary analysis is an incredibly subjective field of scholarship. I think belief, or subjective opinion, has quite a lot to do with it. I don't think there's any way a scholar can say with any objective certainty that a bunch of words was originally written by Moses or not as opposed to any other bunch of words. Especially considering we have no idea when Moses lived, or have any original text to work from, or any independent example of his writing style to compare it to.
It's interesting to discuss the various theories these scholars currently hold, but it's certainly not scientific fact.
This is most certainly true.
You can sit there and do word counts, or look for odd structures, etc. but it doesn't tell you anything terribly reliable. If you ran the same analyses on the corpus of Lamb Chopped's works, you'd easily be able to construct a whole raft of weird authorship theories and back them up with graphs, frequency counts, etc. etc. etc. That's because I write differently for different occasions, subjects, or just because I'm on a (fill in the blank with verbal oddity) kick this month.
I've made most of my living for the past twenty years as a writer in several fields, so believe me, you could easily construct things to rival JEDP and similar theories. (If it weren't so deadly boring, I'd do it myself, just to be eeevilll. But I can't bring myself to spend that much energy on a practical joke.)
Heck, you could construct such things from my posts on Ship. There would be the "ass" vs "arse" author theories, differences in the frequency and choice of smileys (often? never? depends on the month), and the vexed critical question of how such a conservative pain in the ass could ever have played a vampire streetwalker in the Mafia game two years back. Let's call that one "pseudo-LC."
One thing that all scholars would agree upon is that LC is longwinded. Well, almost always. . .
But really, folks. Lit crit is (was?) one of my fields. Don't put so much stock in the shit we say. We're often guessing or going by the feel of it, and we're ALWAYS looking at the "publish or perish" issue. Not to mention the temptation to stand well in the opinion of our colleagues in the field... and the best way to do that is to strike out some original notion that flies in the face of what our ancestors believed. Everybody loves a rebel, and the words "fearless critic" and "scathing analysis" look well on a book jacket, very well indeed.
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on
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This reminds me of the *theory* that William Shakespeare's play weren't written by William Shakespeare but by another man also called William Shakespeare.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
You can sit there and do word counts, or look for odd structures, etc. but it doesn't tell you anything terribly reliable.
I rather fell out of love with that kind of thing when I moved from Seattle to Chicago. In an amazingly short time my vocabulary, phrasing, and even accent started to change. I came home after only 3 months in Chicago and had a hard time making myself understood to a restaurant worker because my pronunciation of the word "spoon" had changed so much (I'm a sponge). I'm sure that Tarsus is a lot more different from Rome than Chicago is from Seattle, the cultural and linguistic leveling effects of mass media not having been invented yet. I'm afraid I find this kind of "evidence" not very convincing.
[ 25. April 2010, 21:32: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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I currently have three accents which I use depending on my company--
A Californian accent (voice higher in my register, different vocab);
A Midwestern accent (grrrravel grrravel); and
A Vietnamese accent.
Please please don't put me in a room filled with all three types of people, or I shall do exactly what a boggart does--attempt to turn myself into three things at once, and Pfffft!!
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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Lamb chopped, you'll probably do what I do, which is respond to each person in the language they use, as normal, but switch when responding to the next person, which raises eyebrows rather a lot!
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally quoted by sharkshooter:
The writer of Exodus gives eyewitness details of the event that only a participant would know about.
Alastair MacLean gives eyewitness details that only a participant would know about in his books as well - that must mean he was actually there when all of his stories happened...
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
It's interesting to discuss the various theories these scholars currently hold, but it's certainly not scientific fact.
Thanks. That was my point.
So a bit of unpacking rather than Leo simply giving a summary statement would be helpful.
Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on
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I personally don't know anyone in the more informed/engaged circles of my denomination who believes that Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. Come to think of it, the rabbi I took a class with didn't think Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. I don't see how it's relevant to anything.
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I personally don't know anyone in the more informed/engaged circles of my denomination who believes that Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. Come to think of it, the rabbi I took a class with didn't think Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. I don't see how it's relevant to anything.
This was what I was saying in my first post that mousethief took such an exception to.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Lamb chopped, you'll probably do what I do, which is respond to each person in the language they use, as normal, but switch when responding to the next person, which raises eyebrows rather a lot!
It does. People think you're mocking them. ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
I'll confess to thinking Moses wrote the Pentateuch. (bar the last wee bit, I suppose--but AFAIK the faith doesn't stand or fall on the issue.) Still, why the hell should I think I know better than the ancients who thought so, and were far closer in time than I?
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on
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The last time I had much opportunity to talk with rabbis, I was living in Sioux City. Church work, homeschool work and journalistic work brought me into contact and conversation with all three leaders of all three variously flavored synagogues and/or temples in town. That was a wildly varied experience. If I go by what they taught me, the whole OT was a crock... or wasn't. God is a crock... or isn't. Sin is an important problem... or not. Life is a sacred thing... all the time, or sometimes, or only if the person has already been born.
Amazing.
I should've asked them, when I had the chance, "So, who wrote the Pentateuch?" Maybe their three answers would be useful here...
.
.
.
naaaaahhh...
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I personally don't know anyone in the more informed/engaged circles of my denomination who believes that Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. Come to think of it, the rabbi I took a class with didn't think Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. I don't see how it's relevant to anything.
This was what I was saying in my first post that mousethief took such an exception to.
No, it clearly isn't. I can scroll up; can't you? You said it didn't interest YOU. She said it's not relevant to anything. Quite different things.
[ 27. April 2010, 02:14: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I personally don't know anyone in the more informed/engaged circles of my denomination who believes that Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. Come to think of it, the rabbi I took a class with didn't think Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. I don't see how it's relevant to anything.
I personally don't know anyone in my denomination who thinks Moses DIDN'T write at least the majority of the Pentateuch, informed/engaged or otherwise. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
In regards to how relevant it is, I would agree it's not vital. But I think it is important to know whether the law was given to the Israelites by Moses as the author claims, or just by some priests who made it up centuries later, pretending that it was from Moses.
(And of course, since most of the law is directly related to a desert, nomad situation, it would be very unlikely to have been written by the established priests of the later period.)
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Why is it important?
Not because the truth depends upon Moses saying it. Fact is a truth is a truth whoever says it, be it Moses, a post-exilic priest, Jesus the Christ or the local minister on a Sunday morning.
But it is important for an understanding of the nature of the Pentateuch. Was it a given, once-for-all document (by God to Moses) or was it, like the rest of Scripture, the record of a progressive insight into how God's will might be worked out in the light of changing circumstances?
Was it God-inspired from beginning to end or is it the story of a progressive and developing understanding of God's will?
It is this debate which marks off the fundamentalists from the liberals if labels must be used.
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I personally don't know anyone in the more informed/engaged circles of my denomination who believes that Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. Come to think of it, the rabbi I took a class with didn't think Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. I don't see how it's relevant to anything.
This was what I was saying in my first post that mousethief took such an exception to.
No, it clearly isn't. I can scroll up; can't you? You said it didn't interest YOU. She said it's not relevant to anything. Quite different things.
I thought I did not say it did not interest, and I didn't. Yes, I do believe I can scroll up.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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I'm sorry. I thought "why should it matter to me" indicated disinterest. So you're saying you are interested, just not sure why you should be.
Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'll confess to thinking Moses wrote the Pentateuch. (bar the last wee bit, I suppose--but AFAIK the faith doesn't stand or fall on the issue.) Still, why the hell should I think I know better than the ancients who thought so, and were far closer in time than I?
Funny. I had assumed that LCMS would certainly teach "higher criticism" because I think of The Boys as being generally a fairly serious, scholarly lot as clergy. I had further assumed that higher criticism just made common sense; it doesn't make any of the Biblical content less inspired or true. But I find online that LCMS is officially opposed to higher criticism and neither teaches nor employs it. Huh. I loined sometin' new.
For me, higher criticism opened the Bible to me in a new way; it made me love Scripture and drew me closer to the God who inspires people. It was like listening to a magnificent performance by a symphony orchestra after only hearing a tinny, crappy, flat AM radio version of the same piece. "Moses wrote it, shut up, believe it" was an approach that, for me spiritually, somehow flattened the Pentateuch. The theories of higher criticism added colour and richness and marvel at the ways in which God has inspired people, and interest in what people felt was spiritually important.
Lamb Chopped: I'm under the impression that you have some experience dealing with texts. I understand that 'the ancients' seem to have had a different attitude toward author attribution than we have today. AIUI (and what follows is very simplified) if they could in all good conscience claim, "This is the kind of thing Moses would certainly have written," they would have no ethical dilemma in ascribing authorship to Moses. Persuading people to believe in the truth and power of the content may have been held to be more important than a strictly historical understanding of authorship. Is this a theory you've encountered before?
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Leaf:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'll confess to thinking Moses wrote the Pentateuch. (bar the last wee bit, I suppose--but AFAIK the faith doesn't stand or fall on the issue.) Still, why the hell should I think I know better than the ancients who thought so, and were far closer in time than I?
Funny. I had assumed that LCMS would certainly teach "higher criticism" because I think of The Boys as being generally a fairly serious, scholarly lot as clergy. I had further assumed that higher criticism just made common sense; it doesn't make any of the Biblical content less inspired or true. But I find online that LCMS is officially opposed to higher criticism and neither teaches nor employs it. Huh. I loined sometin' new.
For me, higher criticism opened the Bible to me in a new way; it made me love Scripture and drew me closer to the God who inspires people. It was like listening to a magnificent performance by a symphony orchestra after only hearing a tinny, crappy, flat AM radio version of the same piece. "Moses wrote it, shut up, believe it" was an approach that, for me spiritually, somehow flattened the Pentateuch. The theories of higher criticism added colour and richness and marvel at the ways in which God has inspired people, and interest in what people felt was spiritually important.
Lamb Chopped: I'm under the impression that you have some experience dealing with texts. I understand that 'the ancients' seem to have had a different attitude toward author attribution than we have today. AIUI (and what follows is very simplified) if they could in all good conscience claim, "This is the kind of thing Moses would certainly have written," they would have no ethical dilemma in ascribing authorship to Moses. Persuading people to believe in the truth and power of the content may have been held to be more important than a strictly historical understanding of authorship. Is this a theory you've encountered before?
I'm flattered! Yes, the LCMS are the deadly dull,* scholarly lot--I've a friend just finished writing a what, 800 page commentary? on the Song of Songs, all out of the Hebrew. It's ridiculous that five pages of English comes out to that much in commentary, but that's the Lutherans for you!
(* on occasion. Get some beer into them, and ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
)
On the other hand, "Shut up and believe!" was never a Lutheran creed, and in fact we actively discourage people from parking their brains at the door. (Would cut down on enrollment in the Concordia University system, y'know?) Our pastors do average about a master's degree and a half, and we force the biblical languages down their throats, as well as four years of seminary. So you got us mostly right.
But higher criticism is not the authoritative thingy it makes itself out to be. Lower criticism I'll grant you; that's what I did my variorum critical edition with. It's basically things like manuscript filiation, hermeneutics, all the ways good manuscripts can Go Terribly Wrong, and so forth. In other words, the dull, plodding, and absolutely necessary spadework you have to do in order to produce a half-decent text--or translation.
Higher criticism, on the other hand, is AFAIK an import from my own field, which is literature and rhetoric. Once upon a time it was HOMER they were microanalyzing in the hopes of finding proof that it was some kind of quilted-together text, with no single author--a thing like Topsy, that "just growed" that way, with perhaps a friendly redactor or five to help the process along. By and large my field has given that crap up. We've long since moved on to other fashionable follies. But for some reason it takes a few years for new fads in lit theory to leap the genre fence into theology, and even longer for them to fade away. Particularly when people have built their entire scholarly careers on such theories, applying them to a single very limited corpus of literature (Pentateuch? Isaiah? Paul?) and this without any grounding to speak of in the rest of humanity's literatures. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If you want to understand cars, you do well to look under the hood of as many as you can possibly lay eyes on. If you want to understand human bodies, ditto. And if you want to understand texts, well . . .
So my primary complaint against higher criticism is a scholarly one--not a religious one. And there are enough scholars in my denom that I'm hardly the only one. But being dull and Germanic (for the most part) we rarely make much of a splash outside our very insular circles, and most of the world ignores us. Our fault, I know.
Now COULD God have used the patchwork approach if he pleased? Surely, why not? The question is simply, did he? And if he did, in what bits?
The LCMS view does not disallow multiple authorship, editorship, etc. altogether--it simply pays due attention to the claims the text makes for itself, whenever it does so. There are plenty of Bible bits we have no idea who wrote them. There are signs and clear avowals of source document usage in some places (try Ezra/Nehemiah in the OT for one, Luke in the NT for another). No problemo. I have no idea who the Chronicler was, and I don't particularly care. I do have a decent respect for any of the really ancient traditions about authorship, etc. given that they're ages closer to the scene of the action than I. But they, too, could be wrong.
The other thing that we pay attention to is if Christ himself decides to attribute something to someone (e.g. "As Moses said,"...). In those cases we bow to the authority of the Lord. I mean, duh. He was there, he should know.
Forgive me for waffling on so. I rarely get to talk academic shop outside the Ship.
You mentioned a theory that the ancients held a different attitude about the ethics of pseudo-authorship. I've heard this theory advanced, but never seen any evidence for it. In fact, all the evidence we have goes the opposite way--it suggests that people found authorship claims very important, and that's the reason why we get counterfeits at all.
Nobody counterfeits Lamb Chopped's signature--I am so far from famous and have so little in the bank that it would be an utter waste of time. But plenty of people try to counterfeit Abraham Lincoln's. And plenty of OTHER people spend their lives detecting those counterfeits. If the content of the text was all that mattered, no one would have bothered forging a prophetic or apostolic signature to it. But it obviously did matter, and thus the array of counterfeits.
I'm sure there were people then (as there are now) who argued that a "higher morality" allowed the forgery, since the message they were trying to get out was so important. "Let us do evil that good may come." But they were clearly not the mainstream, as we can see from above.
Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
The LCMS view does not disallow multiple authorship, editorship, etc. altogether--it simply pays due attention to the claims the text makes for itself, whenever it does so. There are plenty of Bible bits we have no idea who wrote them. <snip> I have no idea who the Chronicler was, and I don't particularly care. I do have a decent respect for any of the really ancient traditions about authorship, etc. given that they're ages closer to the scene of the action than I. But they, too, could be wrong.
Thank you for your explanation - not waffling on at all. (BTW I am also Lutheran, so no explanation about scholarliness and beer necessary )
I appreciate that higher criticism is not the be-all and end-all of literary theories, and also the trendy nature of academic theories - academics being as judgmental and vicious as teenage girls regarding the latest fashions.
"Lower" criticism is also a lot of fun, at least when someone else does all the work for you and points to their findings.
I think I'll post more thoughts on the OP later.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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Teenage girls is right! (remind me to tell you sometime about a purely vicious attack appropo of nothing in Shakespeare class)
Posted by Luke (# 306) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I personally don't know anyone in the more informed/engaged circles of my denomination who believes that Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. Come to think of it, the rabbi I took a class with didn't think Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. I don't see how it's relevant to anything.
So what would be the main argument for Moses not writing the Pentateuch? (I'm fairly conservative but I think its possible to hold to a loose Mosaic authorship/editorship, while avoiding that German 'Documentary Hypothesis' nonsense.) Does an argument exist for non-Mosaic authorship that doesn't require me to leave divine inspiration at the door?
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
that German 'Documentary Hypothesis' nonsense
What's nonsense about it? (honest question)
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
Does an argument exist for non-Mosaic authorship that doesn't require me to leave divine inspiration at the door?
Since you're placing the desired conclusion (divine inspiration) beyond the reach of any evidence or argument, why not just believe what you want to believe and not bother with questions of accuracy?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Since you're placing the desired conclusion (divine inspiration) beyond the reach of any evidence or argument, why not just believe what you want to believe and not bother with questions of accuracy?
Do you really understand Christianity that poorly?
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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How can divine inspiration be precluded by any evidence or argument about authorship? Wouldn't it be compatible with just about any view of the human authorship? I realize that it might be easier to believe in divine inspiration if Moses was the author, but I don't see how it's the only way to believe in it.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Since you're placing the desired conclusion (divine inspiration) beyond the reach of any evidence or argument, why not just believe what you want to believe and not bother with questions of accuracy?
Do you really understand Christianity that poorly?
I'm not trying to understand Christianity, I'm trying to understand Luke. He's the one tacitly asserting a tension betweeen "non-Mosaic authorship" and "divine inspiration". Unless you're claiming that such a theory of tension is a standard Christian belief, in which case I guess I am trying to understand the Christian position after all.
Posted by MerlintheMad (# 12279) on
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My two cents worth echoes the position that all scripture is manmade. It doesn't really matter when or by who(m). And the inspiring bits were written under the same Muse/Spirit that inspires the reader. There is such a thing as genetic memory. And there is such a thing as Existence outside of space-time considerations: that includes naturally enough ALL literature.
It's only the Bible inerrancy proponents who are in trouble if it could ever be proven that Moses did not write the first five books of the OT (or even that Moses did not historically exist); or that the Gospels were cobbled together long after the new sect was a fact, etc....
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Since you're placing the desired conclusion (divine inspiration) beyond the reach of any evidence or argument, why not just believe what you want to believe and not bother with questions of accuracy?
Do you really understand Christianity that poorly?
I'm not trying to understand Christianity, I'm trying to understand Luke. He's the one tacitly asserting a tension betweeen "non-Mosaic authorship" and "divine inspiration". Unless you're claiming that such a theory of tension is a standard Christian belief, in which case I guess I am trying to understand the Christian position after all.
You seem to be saying that somebody who accepts Christianity on faith ought to be able to bring himself by act of will to accept anything on faith. Maybe I should say it's faith you don't understand.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You seem to be saying that somebody who accepts Christianity on faith . . .
He goes by "Luke". Are you working under the assumption that if you don't refer to him by name, he won't know you're talking about him?
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
. . . ought to be able to bring himself by act of will to accept anything on faith. Maybe I should say it's faith you don't understand.
All I'm saying is that if you start with a restriction on the type of hypothesis you're willing to consider (e.g. only those that "doesn't require me to leave divine inspiration at the door") then you are to a large degree pre-determining the outcome of your inquiry. If that's the case then it's much simpler to just go directly to the conclusion you prefer since that's where you've already determined you'll end up.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You seem to be saying that somebody who accepts Christianity on faith . . .
He goes by "Luke". Are you working under the assumption that if you don't refer to him by name, he won't know you're talking about him?
I was speaking about anybody at all. Luke is an instantiation of a class. I was speaking of the class as a whole, as an example of a general principle you seem to be espousing. It's logic. You might find it interesting.
quote:
All I'm saying is that if you start with a restriction on the type of hypothesis you're willing to consider (e.g. only those that "doesn't require me to leave divine inspiration at the door") then you are to a large degree pre-determining the outcome of your inquiry. If that's the case then it's much simpler to just go directly to the conclusion you prefer since that's where you've already determined you'll end up.
Thinking that one can pick and choose what to believe on the basis of what's "simpler" suggests a staggering misunderstanding of what religious belief is.
[ 11. May 2010, 16:47: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by k-mann (# 8490) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
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Originally quoted by sharkshooter:
The writer of Exodus gives eyewitness details of the event that only a participant would know about.
Alastair MacLean gives eyewitness details that only a participant would know about in his books as well - that must mean he was actually there when all of his stories happened...
Except that Alastair MacLean didn't exactly claim that his stories are true. So I don't really see how this argument has anything to do with anything.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I personally don't know anyone in the more informed/engaged circles of my denomination who believes that Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. Come to think of it, the rabbi I took a class with didn't think Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch. I don't see how it's relevant to anything.
So what would be the main argument for Moses not writing the Pentateuch? (I'm fairly conservative but I think its possible to hold to a loose Mosaic authorship/editorship, while avoiding that German 'Documentary Hypothesis' nonsense.) Does an argument exist for non-Mosaic authorship that doesn't require me to leave divine inspiration at the door?
Now here we agree.
The documentary hypothesis has been overtaken by recent scholarship or, at least, been made far more complex.
On the more substantive issue of divine inspiration, I believe that God speaks to us in many different ways including stories - after all His Son told a lot of stories.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
All I'm saying is that if you start with a restriction on the type of hypothesis you're willing to consider (e.g. only those that "doesn't require me to leave divine inspiration at the door") then you are to a large degree pre-determining the outcome of your inquiry. If that's the case then it's much simpler to just go directly to the conclusion you prefer since that's where you've already determined you'll end up.
Thinking that one can pick and choose what to believe on the basis of what's "simpler" suggests a staggering misunderstanding of what religious belief is.
I would have thought so too, but then you started equating that sort of flawed reasoning with "Christianity", "faith", and "religious belief". I was just pointing out the obvious hazards of creating deliberate blind spots in an investigatory process. You were the one who said "that sounds like my religion!"
Posted by Luke (# 306) on
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Hi Croesus,
I thought we'd be passed this one, but everyone has biases and presuppositions regardless of where you stand on the ideological spectrum, no one is neutral.
quote:
Since you're placing the desired conclusion (divine inspiration) beyond the reach of any evidence or argument ...
But then so have you, you've ruled out a priori divine-inspiration because of whatever biases and presuppositions you have. So maybe an alternative argument doesn't really exist for non-Mosaic authorship, like most scholarship it seems to come down to basic premises and whether or not you accept them.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I would have thought so too, but then you started equating that sort of flawed reasoning with "Christianity", "faith", and "religious belief".
No wonder you don't understand what any of those things mean. You can't even figure out what I was saying.
quote:
I was just pointing out the obvious hazards of creating deliberate blind spots in an investigatory process.
And whom were you accusing of doing that? and which blind spot were they creating? and why do you think they were doing it? Nothing to do with religion, faith, or Christianity?
quote:
You were the one who said "that sounds like my religion!"
Um, no, I rather didn't.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I was just pointing out the obvious hazards of creating deliberate blind spots in an investigatory process.
And whom were you accusing of doing that?
For the third time, I'm accusing Luke of doing that.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
and which blind spot were they creating?
His automatic dismissal of any theory that doesn't include "divine inspiration".
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
and why do you think they were doing it? Nothing to do with religion, faith, or Christianity?
No idea. That's why I asked. Maybe he'll clarify.
quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
But then so have you, you've ruled out a priori divine-inspiration because of whatever biases and presuppositions you have. So maybe an alternative argument doesn't really exist for non-Mosaic authorship, like most scholarship it seems to come down to basic premises and whether or not you accept them.
Who says I've ruled out divine inspiration on an a priori basis? I'll grant you that I don't consider it likely, but I'm willing to at least entertain the hypothesis.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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So "divine inspiration" has nothing to do with faith, Christianity, or religion? You can't be serious.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
So "divine inspiration" has nothing to do with faith, Christianity, or religion? You can't be serious.
I wouldn't consider believing in the divine inspiration of the Pentateuch to be an absolute requirement for any of those three things. I've known faithful, religious Christians whose opinions of the authorship of the Torah to be ambivalent at best.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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But I would consider at least belief in God to be a prerequisite to believing in divine inspiration. Your mileage may vary.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
But I would consider at least belief in God to be a prerequisite to believing in divine inspiration. Your mileage may vary.
But believing in God doesn't necessarily require you to believe in the divine inspiration of any particular writing or utterance.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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I never said so. I said "had to do with" not "caused" or "is caused by" or anything like that.
Posted by Luke (# 306) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I was just pointing out the obvious hazards of creating deliberate blind spots in an investigatory process.
And whom were you accusing of doing that?
For the third time, I'm accusing Luke of doing that.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
and which blind spot were they creating?
His automatic dismissal of any theory that doesn't include "divine inspiration".
Wouldn't a blind spot imply a presupposition your not aware of?
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos: quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
But then so have you, you've ruled out a priori divine-inspiration because of whatever biases and presuppositions you have. So maybe an alternative argument doesn't really exist for non-Mosaic authorship, like most scholarship it seems to come down to basic premises and whether or not you accept them.
Who says I've ruled out divine inspiration on an a priori basis? I'll grant you that I don't consider it likely, but I'm willing to at least entertain the hypothesis.
Sure, I made the assumption on the basis of your line of argument. You could be an inconsistent Christian and hold non-Mosaic authorship along with believing in divine inspiration, but it's probably not theologically-healthy in the long run.
Posted by John Holding (# 158) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
You could be an inconsistent Christian and hold non-Mosaic authorship along with believing in divine inspiration, but it's probably not theologically-healthy in the long run.
So why is a belief that scripture is divinely inspired inconsistent with believing that Moses did not write the Pentateuch?
So far as I am concerned, scripture is divinely inspired -- but that doesn't mean that I have to believe that there was only one author of Isaiah, or that Moses wrote the Pentateuch or that Jonah is actual history (rather than an extended parable) or that Job is actual history.
John
Posted by Luke (# 306) on
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I wouldn't want to tangle with Jesus over this one. (Mark 10:3, Mark 12:26 , etc)
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Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
that German 'Documentary Hypothesis' nonsense
What's nonsense about it? (honest question)
Sorry I forgot to answer your question. Basically it rests on the premise that you can extract separate source material through pure textual/thematic analysis. The reality turns out to be every Tom, Dick and Harry deciding whatever they like about who the various sources are and what they wrote.
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
I wouldn't want to tangle with Jesus over this one. (Mark 10:3, Mark 12:26 , etc)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
But these verses don't give any evidence for Mosaic authorship at all!
Mark 10 simply refers to an oral tradition and tells us nothing about who wrote it down.
Mark 12 talks about Exodus as the 'book of Moses' which again tells us little. At best it might mean that Moses wrote Exodus (but tells us nothing about the rest) and at worst it tells us that the burning bush comes from a book about Moses.
Posted by Luke (# 306) on
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I'm equally confused, where does Jesus qualify the Mosaic authorship? Where's the 'oral tradition' reference in Mark 10:3? I oh see it, how could I have missed it; "He answered them, “What did (the 'oral tradition' of ) Moses command you?”
Like with most things we build case from the available evidence. Something in the New Testament is referred to as "the Law of Moses" (Acts 28:32, 1 Cor 9:9) sometimes people will do this business of "reading Moses" (2 Cor 3:15) a tradition evident in the synagogues (Acts 15:21). Then you have all these pesky Moses quotations; "Moses says" (Rom 10:19) followed by a quote from Deuteronomy, "Moses writes" (Rom 10:5) and then a quote from Leviticus and "For he says to Moses" (Rom 9:15) which leads into a quote from Exodus. The enemies of the gospel assume Mosaic authorship as well (John 8:5). Most annoyingly of all, Jesus keeps quoting Moses, as though Moses wrote the Pentateuch (e.g. Mark 12:26, Luke 20:37, John 1:45) didn't Jesus know anything about the Documentary Hypothesis?
Based on the available New Testament evidence, coupled with a historical tradition it would be then reasonable to assume that Moses is responsible for most of the Pentateuch.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
that German 'Documentary Hypothesis' nonsense
What's nonsense about it? (honest question)
Sorry I forgot to answer your question. Basically it rests on the premise that you can extract separate source material through pure textual/thematic analysis. The reality turns out to be every Tom, Dick and Harry deciding whatever they like about who the various sources are and what they wrote.
I understand the premise it rests upon. The worst I've seen of it lately is that as originally stated, it's too simplistic.
I don't see the flaw in the premise. I do see flaws however in your idea of what is useful evidence to determine authorship, predetermined answer, and outright dismissal of it.
While the doc. hypothesis may not be correct, you haven't answered any of the questions it tries to answer with your prooftexts.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
Based on the available New Testament evidence, coupled with a historical tradition it would be then reasonable to assume that Moses is responsible for most of the Pentateuch.
If I say, "As Lazarus Long says..." does that mean that I believe that a person named Lazarus Long wrote Heinlein's books?
Or again, if I say, "The Harry Potter books" does that mean that I think that a person named Harry Potter wrote them? If I say, "The Moses books" does that mean I think there was a person named Moses who wrote them? If not the first, why the second?
[ 15. May 2010, 22:04: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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MT, the difference is, you are making your (putative) remarks in a context that involves you knowing it is fiction, your hearers knowing it is fiction, and basically general agreement in your whole culture that it is fiction. Jesus was speaking of Moses in exactly the opposite context--where everyone knew or believed that it was nonfiction. It makes a difference.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Jesus also said that the sun rises. Surely he, as God, knew better, but was using that language because that's what made sense in the culture he was in. We too say the sun rises but for us it's a metaphor for what really happens.
It was, as you say, believed at the time that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. If he didn't, then Jesus presumably knew better, but spoke in the way of the people of that time because that's what they'd understand. His gospel message wasn't the deconstruction of the then-extant literalistic understanding of Mosaic authorship. I don't see why he'd go into it. But that doesn't mean he necessarily believed Moses wrote the Law, even if he spoke so.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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There's a difference between speaking phenomenologically (which is what "the sun rises" is) and knowingly feeding someone else's misconceptions. The exact nature of the directional interaction between sun and earth is not under contemplation in 99.99999% of cases where we mention sunrise; argue about it and you'll get brushed off as an irrelevant pedant. But the authorship of Moses is at least partially relevant to the discussions Jesus was having with people ("What did Moses say?" is a wee bit different than "What did that mass of literary/theological work of unknown authorship and provenance say.") A tad less authoritative, and so Moses matters.
ETA: He could just as well have said "The Law" if he knew "Moses" was false and yet didn't want to get into the details.
[ 16. May 2010, 01:01: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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I'm not convinced it was deceptive. What's your reasoning there?
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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"Deceptive" is a bit too strong--but you've got a well-known rabbi (let alone all the rest he was!) talking of Moses this and Moses that, all the while knowing (on your hypothesis) that Moses had no hand in the authorship, AND that that fact would make a difference to his hearers and the amount of authority they perceived in the text--I do think they ought to be told. Oughted? whatever.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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I think it would have been a red herring and totally sent them off in a bad direction if he told them. His purpose was to fire them up for taking the gospel to the world, not to invent higher criticism. And if it is true, that doesn't necessarily mean the writings aren't inspired, and again it would get the disciples all embroiled in a side issue.
Probably an area where different persons of intelligence and goodwill can believe different things. And people like you and I, also.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Jesus could well have believed Moses wrote the books, he could also have been wrong.
...
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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Jesus is also on record as having said that the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds, and that it gives rise to the largest of shrubs that becomes a tree. I do not believe anyone takes this as a relevant contribution to the science of botany.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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Microbiologists quoting from "Bergey's manual of determinative bacteriology" or "Bergey's manual of systematic bacteriology" will say "Bergey says this" or "Bergey says that" even though he has been dead for the last few editions.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
Based on the available New Testament evidence, coupled with a historical tradition it would be then reasonable to assume that Moses is responsible for most of the Pentateuch.
Yes, but that's not at all the same as saying that he wrote every word of it. A true Biblical literalist ought to believe that Moses didn't make the version of the Torah that we have now, because it has editorial comments obviously inserted later.
And in particular that Moses did not write down Deuteronomy, although whoever did used things Moses had said or done, because it looks back on him from after he was dead - it is written in the third person claiming to contain writings and sayings that Moses made in the past before Israel crossed the Jordan.
In Deuteronomy 31 God commands Moses to place the scroll of the Law in the Ark, then after that is done he tells Moses to make a song or psalm and teach it to the people precisely because they will remember the song even when they have forgetten the written Law. The scroll is placed in the Ark, and then then Moses sings the song to the people in the next chapter.
Of course most modern scholars assume that Deuteronomy was written by priests much later and that that story was inserted into it as a sort of an explanation of how the book was "discovered" after all those years. (Even if some of them think that Moses's song is genuinely old - in fact some of them seem to think that the handful of psalms that are embedded in the Pentateuch are the oldest texts in the Bible)
Then we get the final set of blessings and cursings and Moses goes to the mountain to look over to the Promised Land.
But that's irrelevant to this point - the book itself does not bear the interpretation that it was entirely written down by Moses because it says it wasn't. So a real literalist would not believe that it was.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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I don't believe that Moses wrote the Pentatech.
It undoubtedly has moments of inspired truth ( as in Genesis 1 - X1 expressed in parable and mythological truth)
Lots of it is cultural expression.
yet whatever truth there is does not depend on who recorded it.
be it the Yahwist or the Priestlty or the Deut authors or whover the truth is its own validation.
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