BBS Moses
Introduction
What is for the most part an exact
copy of the script follows. There are a
few places where individual speakers could neither be heard nor understood: for
this we apologize. Every effort was made
to be precise: there were just spots that defeated us. Since this is a quote in its entirety it
seemed unnecessary to mark it with quotation marks. The notation for each speaker is tedious
enough: Narrator, Reader, etc. If you
discover bothersome errors please reply to this Blog and point them out. You may verify the script more easily by
starting to replay it where the “time” stamps indicate discussion begins. The second of the above links is free from
advertising and thus easier to use.
http://swantec-oti.blogspot.com/
There is no reason to doubt the
claim that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, except for minor
notations. The null hypothesis has not
been disproved, so arguments to the contrary are statistically and
scientifically in error. Since a thesis
was proposed claiming that there are two distinct Flood records, we examined
the material in greater detail. We are
compelled to reject the two Flood record hypothesis as unproved. Since discrediting Mosaic authorship and the
Flood record are two of the main foundation columns for developing the various
Documentary Hypotheses, we conclude that all Documentary Hypotheses, including
this one, fail for lack of evidence.
There is no material here which would warrant leaping to such false
conclusions. Other discrepancies are
claimed. To those who make such claims,
we reply, “State one.”
Script
Moses
(time 13:30)
N: So what was their objective? To find out, scholars must uncover who wrote
the Bible and when?
R: “And the Lord
said to Moses, write down these words, for in accordance with these words I
make a covenant with you and with Israel.” — Exodus 34:27
N: The traditional belief is that Moses wrote
the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, the story of Creation; Exodus, deliverance
from slavery to the Promised Land; Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, laws of
morality and observance. Still read to
this day, together they form the Torah, often called the Five Books of Moses.[1]
Michael Coogan:[2] The view that Moses had
personally written down the first five books of the Bible was virtually unchallenged
until the seventeenth century.[3] There were a few questions raised about this:
for example, the very end of the last book of the Torah, the book of Deuteronomy
describes the death and burial of Moses.
And so some rabbi said, “Well Moses couldn’t have written those words
himself, because he was dead and was being buried.”
N: And digging deeper into the text there are
even more discrepancies.[4]
Coogan: For example how many of each species
of animal was Noah supposed to bring into the Ark? One text says two, a pair of every kind of
animal. Another text says seven pair of
clean animals and only two of the unclean animals.[5]
N: In one chapter the Bible says the flood lasts
for forty days and forty nights. But in
the next it says, a hundred and fifty days.
To see if the flood waters had subsided, Noah sends out a dove, but in
the previous sentence, he sends a raven. There are two complete versions of the flood
story interwoven on the same page.[6] Many similar discrepancies throughout its
pages suggest that The Bible has more than one writer.[7] In fact within the first five books of the
Bible, scholars have identified the hand[8] of at least four different
groups of scribes writing over several hundred years.[9] This theory is called the Documentary
Hypothesis.[10]
Coogan: One way of thinking about it is as a
kind of anthology that was made over the course of many centuries by different
people adding to it, subtracting from it, and so forth.
Commentary
Moses’ record reveals exactly what
happened. Moses carried on an extended
conversation with God, during which he made a record of the conversation.[11] Joshua overheard much of this conversation
and may have assisted Moses in the recording of it.[12] The stone tables of the Decalogue we placed
inside of the Ark in an official ceremony.[13] The written original scrolls were formally
laid up beside the Ark in the most holy place.[14] Seventy men were chosen to assist Moses in
the explanation and application of Torah.[15] So, yes, we believe that the traditional view
is an accurate portrayal of the facts, and that any other view is a perversion
of the facts.
Notations added to Torah by
subsequent scribes, such as the note concerning the death of Moses, do not at
all justify the rending of Torah into hypothetical documents, commonly called
J, E, D, and P.
Noah’s
Flood
Careful reading of the Flood Record
indicates the following:
- -120 years: The Flood prophesied 120 years in advance.[16]
- -100 years: Japheth is born when Noah is 500.[17]
- -99 years: Ham is born when Noah is 501.
- -98 years: Shem is born when Noah is 502.
- -35 years: Lamech dies.[18]
- -7 days: Promise for rain to start.[19]
- -6 days: Methuselah dies.[20]
- Flood year 0, month 10, day 1: mountain tops are seen.[31]
- Flood year 0, month 11, day 18 (7 days later): dove sent a second time; dove returns with olive leaf.[34]
- Flood year 0, month 11, day 25 (7 days later): dove sent a third time.[35]
- Flood year 2: Shem is 100 years old.[40]
We used the six-hundredth year of
Noah’s life as our baseline. All of the
numbers add consistently as stated, producing equally consistent dates. Since the span of one-hundred fifty days
correspond exactly to five months, simple division causes us to believe that
Noah considered a month to be exactly thirty days long.[41] As far as Noah was concerned, the Flood
lasted one year, ten days.
Some of the language is difficult,
and the translation rather wooden. Since
there are no real tenses or participles in Hebrew it is difficult to say the
ground was drying, is dryer, is dry on the surface, is completely dry, or is
dry enough to walk on. We know that this
drying out is a process from our own experience, and from the fact that the
raven found suitable shelter on the first attempt; the dove a branch on the
second attempt; but the dove did not find suitable shelter until the third
attempt. Obviously, doves are not as
flood hardy as ravens, and require a dryer habitat.
Since Shem is one hundred years old
at year two after the start of the flood, Shem must be one-hundred years old
when Noah is six-hundred two years old.
Therefore Shem must have been born when Noah was five-hundred two years
old. This indicates that the order Shem,
Ham, and Japheth is the reverse of birth order; evidently Shem is the youngest
child. Shem is listed first because, in
the eyes of the Covenant, Shem is the heir of the Covenant headship. Clearly Japheth is the eldest, because he is
listed first in the Table of Nations;[42] Ham is the middle child;[43] while Shem is the baby of
the family.[44] Before we dispense with the Table of Nations,
we should note that Shem is the base word for Semitic and anti-Semitic; the
Table of Nations lists a vast number of ethnic peoples who are Semitic, but are
neither Israelites nor Jews.
Conclusion
There is no reason to doubt the
claim that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, except for minor
notations. The null hypothesis has not
been disproved, so arguments to the contrary are statistically and
scientifically in error. Since a thesis
was proposed claiming that there are two distinct Flood records, we examined
the material in greater detail. We are
compelled to reject the two Flood record hypothesis as unproved. Since discrediting Mosaic authorship and the
Flood record are two of the main foundation columns for developing the various
Documentary Hypotheses, we conclude that all Documentary Hypotheses, including
this one, fail for lack of evidence.
There is no material here which would warrant leaping to such false
conclusions. Other discrepancies are
claimed. To those who make such claims,
we reply, “State one.”
[1]
There is no statistical reason to doubt the claim that Moses wrote the Torah,
the first five books of the Bible, except for minor notations by scribes. Since we don’t know the rules for adding
notations in 1446-1406, we are not in any position to comment further. A few passages are obviously scribal
notations. We know this because it is
impossible that they be otherwise. In
any case, the null hypothesis has not been disproved, so arguments to the
contrary are statistically and scientifically in error.
[2]
Michael D. Coogan is a lecturer at Harvard
Divinity School and professor emeritus at Stonehill College with no
special qualifications in archaeology.
“The text is not, except perhaps in the abstract,
intrinsically authoritative: it derives its authority from the community.” He favors “thinking of the Bible in a more
nuanced way than simply as the literal word of God” and identifies the Bible as
“one foundational text in American society” which along with our Constitution
must be interpreted critically.
[3] We
simply do not know if Moses used scribes to assist in the completion of his
task. We are not told. Considering the enormity of the works of
leadership and writing, we expect that Moses used scribes to make necessary
copies to assist in the dissemination of information.
[4] We
cannot deal with alleged discrepancies.
The fact that they are not explicitly named and enumerated indicates
that they do not really exist. So until
the critics produce chapter and verse we will ignore this comment as an irrelevancy:
it is inane.
[5] The issue over animals
clearly indicates that pairs are in view; a distinction is drawn between clean
and unclean animals. To make such a
distinction into a contradiction, or into separate versions is trivial, since
any reader can grasp the point. The
reality is that our understanding of the Hebrew language is so poor that much
of its idiomatic expression escapes us.
Here the real problem is whether 7 individuals or seven pairs are meant. This hardly constitutes two versions.
Since the thesis was proposed that the Bible
presents two different intertwined Flood records, we are compelled to examine
the material in greater detail. Since
the dates will be shown to fit together with considerable accuracy for the time
and conditions, we are compelled to reject the two different intertwined Flood
record hypothesis as unproved.
[6]
Likewise scrutiny of the chronology of these texts reveals that all of the
details are necessary to construct a single consistent timeline. The idea of duplication is fabricated from
non-existent evidence. It fails to
account for the fact that the Hebrew method of reporting seems to be providing
the evidence in layers, so that one phrase, sentence, paragraph or section is
repeated, continued, or opposed in structures called parallelism. Such structures frequently employ grammatical
devices such as chiasm and repetition for emphasis.
[7]
All such falsely claimed discrepancies are easily discredited by careful
reading of the text. Such claims are
devoid of merit. If there were any merit
to them, they would have been listed for public evaluation.
[8] It
is impossible to discover “the hand,” the writing style of original writers
from printed texts far removed from these writers, or even from hand lettered
copies that are over two thousand years removed from such originals. The Dead Sea Scrolls are copies removed from
Moses by one thousand years, even possibly by language, and there is no
readable surviving Torah text; only a few illegible Torah text fragments
survive: so how, pray tell, is anyone supposed to distinguish “the hand” from
these? http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/?locale=en_US
[9]
1000 to 516 and afterward (484 years plus), rather than 1446 to 516 and
afterward (930 years plus).
[10]
Actually, these hypotheses relate almost exclusively to Torah. Except in rare incidences JEDP hypotheses do
not consider the Nebiim or the Ketubim at all; and when they do, only as
afterthoughts. The simple fact is that
Documentary Hypotheses are too cumbersome for evaluation of the rest of the Old
Testament with its Deuterocanon, and break down under their own weight. As each new book is examined, the many flaws
in the hypotheses increase in exposure, until even the “scholars” must give up
in defeat. These hypotheses all
eventually fail due to lack of evidence and numerous internal
contradictions. The Bible is
reliable. Documentary Hypotheses are not
reliable.
[11] Exodus
33:11 a; Deuteronomy 31:9, 24
[12] Exodus
33:11 b
[13] Exodus
25:16, 20-22; 4:20
[14] Deuteronomy
31:26; 1 Samuel 10:25 (a process repeated by Samuel)
[15]
This is the origin of the Sanhedrin.
Numbers 11:16-17, 25-29
[16]
Everyone had ample warning. Genesis 6:3
[17]
Genesis 5:32, 6:10; 9:18; 10:1; contrasted with 11:10
[18]
Genesis 5:31
[19]
Genesis 7:4, 10
[20]
Genesis 5:27
[21]
Genesis 7:6, 11
[22]
Genesis 7:10-12
[23]
Genesis 7:7, 13
[24]
Genesis 7:16
[25]
Genesis 7:17-20
[26]
Genesis 7:4, 10
[27] Genesis
7:17
[28]
Genesis 7:24; 8:3
[29]
Genesis 8:3
[30]
Genesis 8:4
[31] Genesis
8:5
[32] Genesis
8:5-6
[33]
Genesis 8:7-9
[34]
Genesis 8:10-11
[35]
Genesis 8:12
[36]
Genesis 8:13
[37]
Genesis 8:13
[38]
Genesis 8:14
[39]
Genesis 8:18
[40]
Genesis 11:10
[41] Since
a synodic lunar month is actually 29.53 days long; nowadays, we would expect to
make a correction. 29.53 * 12 = 354.36
and yields a lunar year of 354 days. The
solar year is 365.24 days, which yields a difference of 10 or 11 days,
depending on when the moon is first seen.
We suspect that this correction would mean that Noah was on the ark for
exactly one year. However, the Bible
makes no such correction and states that Noah was on the ark for exactly one
year, ten days. This does not surprise
us, because it is unlikely that Moses could measure the ecliptic precisely, or
that he could even make regular monthly corrections of half a day. We suspect that Moses kept his calendar by
marking on the ark wall in charcoal or limestone: he would doubtless know when
the sun came up; but he was in poor position to identify the phases of the moon
with accuracy. Besides all of this the
lunar calendar is only measured from Jerusalem: Noah would have no means of
knowing that, or any notion where he might be on earth, nor would any of these
things be important to him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_month#Synodic_month
[42]
Genesis 10:2
[43]
Genesis 10:6
[44]
Genesis 10:21
[45] If you have been blessed or helped by any of these meditations,
please repost, share, or use any of them as you wish. No rights are reserved. They are designed and intended for your free
participation. They were freely
received, and are freely given. No other
permission is required for their use.
No comments:
Post a Comment