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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why should we believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
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.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
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.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
So "divine inspiration" has nothing to do with faith, Christianity, or religion? You can't be serious.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
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.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
But I would consider at least belief in God to be a prerequisite to believing in divine inspiration. Your mileage may vary.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
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.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I never said so. I said "had to do with" not "caused" or "is caused by" or anything like that.
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Luke
Soli Deo Gloria
# 306
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Posted
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.
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Emily's Voice
Posts: 822 | From: Australia | Registered: May 2001
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
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
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Luke
Soli Deo Gloria
# 306
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Posted
I wouldn't want to tangle with Jesus over this one. (Mark 10:3, Mark 12:26 , etc)
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.
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Emily's Voice
Posts: 822 | From: Australia | Registered: May 2001
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
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.
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Luke
Soli Deo Gloria
# 306
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Posted
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.
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Emily's Voice
Posts: 822 | From: Australia | Registered: May 2001
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
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.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
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 ]
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
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.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
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.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
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 ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I'm not convinced it was deceptive. What's your reasoning there?
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
"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.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
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.
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Jesus could well have believed Moses wrote the books, he could also have been wrong.
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Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
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.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
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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