5 ms·

> 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 t

> 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.
- davemel37 11y ago
  >What does the Talmud have to do with the Pentateuch authorship? As someone who spent 10 years studying and only covered about 10% of the talmud, I can assure it that there is deep and complicated discourse on everything you can think of including the authorship of the Torah. There is nothing taken for granted. No one is given a free pass to "maintain a consistent narrative". There is constant dispute about every single letter written in the Torah (in fact, dispute on grammar, sentence structure, etc.. to the point that there are rules compiled for how to interpret every single word choice, letter, phrase, etc... in the Torah.) It is highly relevant and these discussions are beyond my capabilities to address fully other than to know to defer to the several dozen people alive today that are truly deep experts, or the several thousand others who at least completed the entirety of the talmud. It's simply ignorance to have an opinion on the Torahs authorship without being a talmud expert. (Too many people dismiss it because they have no idea whats actually in it!)
  - duaneb 11y ago
    Somehow i don't think you were interested in addressing anything I said. Assurances are worthless compared to the very specific evidence i requested. I see no way anything written in the talmud would have any effect.
    - davemel37 11y ago
      >i don't think you were interested in addressing Interested, just not knowledgable to address them fully. >I see no way anything... I presume this is because you dont actually know whats contained in the talmud. While modern science tools may not have existed, smart scientisits, mathmeticians, liguists, historians, etc... did and in fact, they discuss at length the authorship of the torah. You wrote previously that the rabbis wanted a cohesive narrative. This is patently false. There is even a concept within torah study called "eilu ve'eilu" which means we can disagree, and still both be right. My point being that there is nothing cohesive or narratove based in the talmud other than a rigorous search for Absolute Truth. Pretty much every word mentioned by someone in the talmud is followed by an aggressive quest to disprove it...and many things are even left unanswered... Without taking a peek into the talmud, it is not intellectually honest to dismiss it...especially invoking modern science without even seeing if its consistent with that science or not.
      - duaneb 11y ago
        You misunderstand me. A), i have read some of the talmud; i do not believe i have the collected texts in their entirety. B), i meant to say it is in the interest of the rabbis to propagate the cohesive narrative of Moses authoring the pentateuch, NOT that the talmud itself has a cohesive narrative. Perhaps there was some confusion about the word "torah"--I was refering to the pentateuch, ie the original five written texts, not the broader meaning including the rabbinical texts. To my knowledge, authorship of the latter is entirely a different topic of which I do NOT have much knowledge or interest--not because it is not interesting, but because it is orders of magnitude more complex and (personally) I just enjoy reading it and the authorship does not play into my enjoyment the way the authorship of the pentateuch lends it meaning. Can you understand how it would be different written by the patriarch of an entire ethnicity vs some unknown goat herders? The text means entirely different things under these interpretations, so the argument over authorship is worth the pursuit. Personally, i dont think it means any less in either interpretation; i think the pentateuch is invaluable regardless of your beliefs, ethnicity, or stance on JEPD. Genesis itself just might be the greatest text ever written in my humble opinion--I see new things every time I read it, and it is the closest we will ever get to understanding the the, erm, human experience of civilization itself. Sorry for the confusion!
- baldfat 11y ago
  > It always amazes me how many people have opinions about the Torah without studying the Talmud in it's entirety Well my reading in Seminary was anywhere from 2,00-14,000 pages per class. There is NO WAY I could read the complete Talmud (What length is it? At LEAST 5,000 pages and it is difficult to get the order right with the writing) Time - Well I would place it from what 200 BCE to 500 CE and that is way out of from the writing of the Torah. Big Error - We treat writing from ANE with the eyes and genres of 21th century people. We try to fit them into our mold. There would be no concern what so ever about the authorship being true or not just like how Pseudepigrapha works were also very much accepted with the full knowledge that another author wrote that work. Clearly Enoch didn't write the Book of Enoch but that didn't keep people from reading it and accepting it. Heck The Book of Enoch is quoted in Jude.

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.

davemel37 11y ago
>What does the Talmud have to do with the Pentateuch authorship? As someone who spent 10 years studying and only covered about 10% of the talmud, I can assure it that there is deep and complicated discourse on everything you can think of including the authorship of the Torah. There is nothing taken for granted. No one is given a free pass to "maintain a consistent narrative". There is constant dispute about every single letter written in the Torah (in fact, dispute on grammar, sentence structure, etc.. to the point that there are rules compiled for how to interpret every single word choice, letter, phrase, etc... in the Torah.) It is highly relevant and these discussions are beyond my capabilities to address fully other than to know to defer to the several dozen people alive today that are truly deep experts, or the several thousand others who at least completed the entirety of the talmud. It's simply ignorance to have an opinion on the Torahs authorship without being a talmud expert. (Too many people dismiss it because they have no idea whats actually in it!)
- duaneb 11y ago
  Somehow i don't think you were interested in addressing anything I said. Assurances are worthless compared to the very specific evidence i requested. I see no way anything written in the talmud would have any effect.
  - davemel37 11y ago
    >i don't think you were interested in addressing Interested, just not knowledgable to address them fully. >I see no way anything... I presume this is because you dont actually know whats contained in the talmud. While modern science tools may not have existed, smart scientisits, mathmeticians, liguists, historians, etc... did and in fact, they discuss at length the authorship of the torah. You wrote previously that the rabbis wanted a cohesive narrative. This is patently false. There is even a concept within torah study called "eilu ve'eilu" which means we can disagree, and still both be right. My point being that there is nothing cohesive or narratove based in the talmud other than a rigorous search for Absolute Truth. Pretty much every word mentioned by someone in the talmud is followed by an aggressive quest to disprove it...and many things are even left unanswered... Without taking a peek into the talmud, it is not intellectually honest to dismiss it...especially invoking modern science without even seeing if its consistent with that science or not.
    - duaneb 11y ago
      You misunderstand me. A), i have read some of the talmud; i do not believe i have the collected texts in their entirety. B), i meant to say it is in the interest of the rabbis to propagate the cohesive narrative of Moses authoring the pentateuch, NOT that the talmud itself has a cohesive narrative. Perhaps there was some confusion about the word "torah"--I was refering to the pentateuch, ie the original five written texts, not the broader meaning including the rabbinical texts. To my knowledge, authorship of the latter is entirely a different topic of which I do NOT have much knowledge or interest--not because it is not interesting, but because it is orders of magnitude more complex and (personally) I just enjoy reading it and the authorship does not play into my enjoyment the way the authorship of the pentateuch lends it meaning. Can you understand how it would be different written by the patriarch of an entire ethnicity vs some unknown goat herders? The text means entirely different things under these interpretations, so the argument over authorship is worth the pursuit. Personally, i dont think it means any less in either interpretation; i think the pentateuch is invaluable regardless of your beliefs, ethnicity, or stance on JEPD. Genesis itself just might be the greatest text ever written in my humble opinion--I see new things every time I read it, and it is the closest we will ever get to understanding the the, erm, human experience of civilization itself. Sorry for the confusion!
baldfat 11y ago
> It always amazes me how many people have opinions about the Torah without studying the Talmud in it's entirety Well my reading in Seminary was anywhere from 2,00-14,000 pages per class. There is NO WAY I could read the complete Talmud (What length is it? At LEAST 5,000 pages and it is difficult to get the order right with the writing) Time - Well I would place it from what 200 BCE to 500 CE and that is way out of from the writing of the Torah. Big Error - We treat writing from ANE with the eyes and genres of 21th century people. We try to fit them into our mold. There would be no concern what so ever about the authorship being true or not just like how Pseudepigrapha works were also very much accepted with the full knowledge that another author wrote that work. Clearly Enoch didn't write the Book of Enoch but that didn't keep people from reading it and accepting it. Heck The Book of Enoch is quoted in Jude.