4 ms·

> Prof. Edward Greenstein of Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “The process of transmission was much more complicated than scholars used to think.” Theology S

by baldfat 11y ago

> Prof. Edward Greenstein of Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “The process of transmission was much more complicated than scholars used to think.” Theology Student Here - MY TAKE This is pretty Bogus Study in terms of these are Statisticians' work based on one outpost on one piece of pottery. Someone had to publish something to make use of the research money. This is also out of their domain. Seems like trying to try a new approach and this is all we get? It is MUCH more complicated and the Oral Tradition of ANE (Ancient Near East) is pretty amazing. This also is not taking up the fact that the majority of the text have very different vocabs, writing styles and different mediums for delivering ideas (Think Epics like Noah and personal stuff like Job and politics like the kings) All very different writings. I would say that Theology and Archeologist and other disciplines are more and more agreeing that the scriptures have more evidence for a much later date then 300 - 50 year ago "liberal" scholarship believed. Heck I remember old Priest saying the Gospels were written in 250 AD and nothing was written in the first century (To bad we have a bunch of manuscripts from the first century now) Heck Pontius Pilot (The Roman leader who sent Jesus to the cross was believe to be made up until 25 years ago when they found his name inscribed in an unearthed building. This is interesting times. TL:DR Bad statistical work and very little meat. Nothing to see here.

partiallypro 11y ago
I think the study has very little to do with different vocabs, most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors, JEPD for instance is widely accepted...though perhaps not as it once was. Either way, in the documentary hypothesis or other non-Mosaic origin theories, the books were written separately, from different people and revised over hundreds of years. This study doesn't really refute that. The oral history is much, much older; the question is when could this have begun to have been written down? A lot of scholars have the Torah being penned closer to the 600BC time frame.
- davemel37 11y ago
  > most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors Source? From what I can tell, most religious people disagree with this point.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    I have no firm source as the arguments are scattered over the last three decades. I can summarize the current viewpoints: Pro-JEPD camps point towards style analysis, dividing the pentateuch into four distinct dictions, each with their own (hypothesized) time frames. Anti-JEPD camps tend to a) pick apart style arguments (with mixed success) and b) argue for a cohesion of content. I tend to give the Pro-JEPD camps slightly more credit for their empirical approach; this is entirely my point of view. In any case, "most religious people" will argue for Moses himself writing the Torah in its entirety. AFAIK there is absolutely zero evidence for a historical Moses. In fact, the strongest evidence is put forth by the Anti-JEPD camps themselves. Contrast this to the Quran, which has cohesion of support around authorship by Muhammad (or in a religious context, transcription of the word of God via Muhammad) in its entirety; argument around authorship tend to revolve around modifications during oral propagation between Muhammad's lifetime and the earliest fragments we have (notably the Sana'a manuscript and the slightly later Uthman standardized version). There is simply not as much evidence for multiple authorship of the core text here, though not as much textual analysis has been performed here as the time period for revision is tiny compared to the bible and the torah.
    - davemel37 11y ago
      > AFAIK there is absolutely zero evidence for a historical Moses. Lack of evidence is not evidence of anything. The scientific method is good for eliminating the likelihood of a hypothesis being correct based on evidence...not the lack of evidence. > "most religious people" will argue for Moses himself writing the Torah in its entirety It always amazes me how many people have opinions about the Torah without studying the Talmud in it's entirety. Why not defer to those Rabbis who have spent their lives studying the talmud instead of scientists who choose to ignore a massive body of research and discourse that is highly relevant.
      - duaneb 11y ago
        > Lack of evidence is not evidence of anything. The scientific method is good for eliminating the likelihood of a hypothesis being correct based on evidence...not the lack of evidence. I agree completely! But the claim that Moses wrote the Torah doesn't hold any water either, as you just argued, due to ZERO contemporary evidence. The same problem applies to e.g. the figure Lykourgos forming the pugnacious culture of Sparta: he's called out a few places, including Plutarch via Aristotle, but no contemporary evidence of him exists. Most likely he (Lykourgos) is a myth. > It always amazes me how many people have opinions about the Torah without studying the Talmud in it's entirety. What does the Talmud have to do with the Pentateuch authorship? I was not commenting on the authorship beyond Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus. The Talmud also wouldn't present any contemporary evidence as it dates to several centuries after the earliest Pentateuch fragments and ~1.5k years after Moses would have walked around. I'm very open to arguments that the Talmud IS relevant (it'd be pretty exciting to me, I'm a big fan), but I don't see it off hand. The Rabbis had every reason to present a coherent narrative regardless of its accuracy, and they were certainly not in a position to verify it themselves. If they did, I'd love to see how.
- baldfat 11y ago
  JEPD is really sort of dead in terms of the 4 different sets of editors. No one is a supporter of it now BUT there are ideas that grew from it and add more editors but the basic premise is that more then one editor is highly accepted but everything else is not accepted by a group close to a majority.
- jlos 11y ago
  JEPD is widely discussed, though widely accepted depends on the academic circles. Biblical studies is unusually plagued by myopic assessments of where current scholarship is at, even failing to recognize the existence of alternative scholarship (this goes for theologically liberal and conservative camps). Either everyone has too much theological/philosophical skin in the game to concede legitimate, well researched, and opposing theories exist, or it Biblical Studies is driven more by worldview than research. On the JEPD theory, though, Umberto Cassuto's scholarship presented significant challenges to the JEDP theory as early as the first half of the 20th century. Continued scholarship suggests Wellhausen's theory was based on incomplete assumptions on the evolution of language common to his time (the late 19th century). The 20th century produced vast amounts of philological research unavailable in Wellhausen's time (late 19th century). More recently, John Sailhamer has done some very interesting research into the Torah (Pentateuch). His research suggests the seeming fragmented inclusions are not the result of numerous authors, but a single author using existing sources to weave a single narrative, similar to the Gospel of Luke. His incorporation of both Higher Criticism, Canonical Criticism, and liteary research manage to harmonize compelling elements from the various competing theories. Would highly recommend his recent(ish) book, "the Meaning of the Pentateuch".
duaneb 11y ago
I think this is the strongest statistical work possible given the dearth of physical evidence. I do agree that a) the grant money might have been spent better elsewhere and b) the conclusions are anorexic.
mcphage 11y ago
> work based on one outpost on one piece of pottery Well, 16 pieces. Although how it ties into Biblical dating I don't really follow.

by baldfat 11y ago

partiallypro 11y ago

I think the study has very little to do with different vocabs, most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors, JEPD for instance is widely accepted...though perhaps not as it once was. Either way, in the documentary hypothesis or other non-Mosaic origin theories, the books were written separately, from different people and revised over hundreds of years. This study doesn't really refute that. The oral history is much, much older; the question is when could this have begun to have been written down? A lot of scholars have the Torah being penned closer to the 600BC time frame.

davemel37 11y ago
> most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors Source? From what I can tell, most religious people disagree with this point.
- duaneb 11y ago
  I have no firm source as the arguments are scattered over the last three decades. I can summarize the current viewpoints: Pro-JEPD camps point towards style analysis, dividing the pentateuch into four distinct dictions, each with their own (hypothesized) time frames. Anti-JEPD camps tend to a) pick apart style arguments (with mixed success) and b) argue for a cohesion of content. I tend to give the Pro-JEPD camps slightly more credit for their empirical approach; this is entirely my point of view. In any case, "most religious people" will argue for Moses himself writing the Torah in its entirety. AFAIK there is absolutely zero evidence for a historical Moses. In fact, the strongest evidence is put forth by the Anti-JEPD camps themselves. Contrast this to the Quran, which has cohesion of support around authorship by Muhammad (or in a religious context, transcription of the word of God via Muhammad) in its entirety; argument around authorship tend to revolve around modifications during oral propagation between Muhammad's lifetime and the earliest fragments we have (notably the Sana'a manuscript and the slightly later Uthman standardized version). There is simply not as much evidence for multiple authorship of the core text here, though not as much textual analysis has been performed here as the time period for revision is tiny compared to the bible and the torah.
  - davemel37 11y ago
    > AFAIK there is absolutely zero evidence for a historical Moses. Lack of evidence is not evidence of anything. The scientific method is good for eliminating the likelihood of a hypothesis being correct based on evidence...not the lack of evidence. > "most religious people" will argue for Moses himself writing the Torah in its entirety It always amazes me how many people have opinions about the Torah without studying the Talmud in it's entirety. Why not defer to those Rabbis who have spent their lives studying the talmud instead of scientists who choose to ignore a massive body of research and discourse that is highly relevant.
    - duaneb 11y ago
      > Lack of evidence is not evidence of anything. The scientific method is good for eliminating the likelihood of a hypothesis being correct based on evidence...not the lack of evidence. I agree completely! But the claim that Moses wrote the Torah doesn't hold any water either, as you just argued, due to ZERO contemporary evidence. The same problem applies to e.g. the figure Lykourgos forming the pugnacious culture of Sparta: he's called out a few places, including Plutarch via Aristotle, but no contemporary evidence of him exists. Most likely he (Lykourgos) is a myth. > It always amazes me how many people have opinions about the Torah without studying the Talmud in it's entirety. What does the Talmud have to do with the Pentateuch authorship? I was not commenting on the authorship beyond Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus. The Talmud also wouldn't present any contemporary evidence as it dates to several centuries after the earliest Pentateuch fragments and ~1.5k years after Moses would have walked around. I'm very open to arguments that the Talmud IS relevant (it'd be pretty exciting to me, I'm a big fan), but I don't see it off hand. The Rabbis had every reason to present a coherent narrative regardless of its accuracy, and they were certainly not in a position to verify it themselves. If they did, I'd love to see how.
baldfat 11y ago
JEPD is really sort of dead in terms of the 4 different sets of editors. No one is a supporter of it now BUT there are ideas that grew from it and add more editors but the basic premise is that more then one editor is highly accepted but everything else is not accepted by a group close to a majority.
jlos 11y ago
JEPD is widely discussed, though widely accepted depends on the academic circles. Biblical studies is unusually plagued by myopic assessments of where current scholarship is at, even failing to recognize the existence of alternative scholarship (this goes for theologically liberal and conservative camps). Either everyone has too much theological/philosophical skin in the game to concede legitimate, well researched, and opposing theories exist, or it Biblical Studies is driven more by worldview than research. On the JEPD theory, though, Umberto Cassuto's scholarship presented significant challenges to the JEDP theory as early as the first half of the 20th century. Continued scholarship suggests Wellhausen's theory was based on incomplete assumptions on the evolution of language common to his time (the late 19th century). The 20th century produced vast amounts of philological research unavailable in Wellhausen's time (late 19th century). More recently, John Sailhamer has done some very interesting research into the Torah (Pentateuch). His research suggests the seeming fragmented inclusions are not the result of numerous authors, but a single author using existing sources to weave a single narrative, similar to the Gospel of Luke. His incorporation of both Higher Criticism, Canonical Criticism, and liteary research manage to harmonize compelling elements from the various competing theories. Would highly recommend his recent(ish) book, "the Meaning of the Pentateuch".

duaneb 11y ago

I think this is the strongest statistical work possible given the dearth of physical evidence. I do agree that a) the grant money might have been spent better elsewhere and b) the conclusions are anorexic.

mcphage 11y ago

> work based on one outpost on one piece of pottery Well, 16 pieces. Although how it ties into Biblical dating I don't really follow.