evolution of judaism

how do you then justify this?

quote:

---

Exd 25:18 And thou shalt make two cherubims [of] gold, [of] beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat.

---

and

quote:

---

Num 21:8 And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
Num 21:9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

---

are those not idols? in fact, in the book of kings, hezekiah tears the second one down as an idol.it turns out that this is a cheap way of getting at other nations. in no mesopotamian culter were idols worshipped. i'll repeat that: not one culture in the area worshipped idols. they were used to worship, but worship of gods not physical. in sumeria, the idols were of the people who owned them, and they would place them in temples to continually offer sacrifice to their gods.with the cherubim on the ark, god was said to sit on them. same with jeroboam's gold calves (and probably aaron's as well). the god was not pictures, but sat on top of the idol.it is unclear whether the author of say, kings, thought of ba'al as a real god in any sense of the word, but it is clear that accusations of idolatry was a way to disapprove of the northern kingdom of israel, which had broken off of judah.the impression from earlier writings does imply the existance of other gods. the phrase "sons of god" comes up numerous times, but can also be translated just as accurately as "family of gods." in modern christianity, this is read "angel." but there's a verse in psalms that says god made the number of nations according to number of this group of beings, as if one were to watch over each. but israel belongs to this god, yhvh.

you're both wrong. the idea of a three-in-one god is very old, supposedly. depending on what date you put on the qabala.however, you're both also wrong for another reason.lets analyze these sentances:"i like my pants. they are blue jeans"how many am i talking about? one, or more than one? "pants" is written like a plural, but is singular. we even use a plural pronoun for them. same with "scissors.""eloyhim" is like "pants" or "scissors" in english.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 10-08-2004 02:35 AM

"eloyhim" is the general term for god -- ANY god. the implication is not real or false, it's just a title, a word like god.when seen by itself, refering to the god of israel, the text is probably later tradition. earlier texts refered to god BY NAME, or by name AND title.so in english "the LORD" or "the LORD God" instead of "God"this might have been done so that you'd know which god they were talking about.

(consolidated from multiple posts) all of it? i don't know. parts of it certainly are younger. genesis 1 is apparently much newere than genesis 2. (look at how god is referred to in genesis 1 and 2) moses did not write genesis. he MAY have written parts of it, but certainly not all of it. the torah (and some of the the nevi'im) has been identified as coming from five different traditions, the j document (or "yahwist) because it refers to god by name, the e document, were god is called "el" and variants, the d document (most deutoronomy. this document was found, according to the bible, during the reign of hezekiah), the h document (mostly leviticus, concerned with ritual cleanliness), and the p document (where we get most of the genealogies).so which did moses write? incorrect. there is no pretense that moses wrote it. moses is supposed to have written exodus, leviticus, numbers, and maybe most of deutoronomy. but these texts all have different sources and dates. and moses could not have written about his own death.SOME of genesis was added as late as the babylonian exile. we can tell this because it shows much, much stronger babylonian influence than the surrounding text. stories such as genesis 1, the tower of babel (babylon), and noah's flood are all babylonian. strangely, these are the parts creationists fight for most, but they date to around 600 bc. yes, and human beings such as moses as well. however, it's still grammatically used as a singular noun when in reference to yhvh.and i do, btw, have other pants, plural. like the bible talk of other gods, plural. i just happen to like this particular pair of pants more than the rest.

almost got the quotes working. qs works better. actually, it's not. internal inconsistencies are some of the best proof of inconsistencies of authorship, beit time, or personage.for instance, if we look at star wars episodes 4, 5, and 6, and compare them to 1 and 2, we can tell quite plainly that there were made at different times, even if you're looking at the souped-up special editions. why is that? the special effects are different, the haircuts are different, the style is different, and there are errors (like where kenobi says yoda taught him, but then is taught by someone else in episode 1). i bet that looking at the two set we could even figure out what order they were made in.now, it's the same deal with the bible. it was not written all at once. whole books weren't even written all at once. anyone who knows how to look at stylistic differences and inconsistencies can tell this. did the same person write the psalms as wrote job? how can you tell? you misunderstood. these documents are implied from the current text. the understanding of these traditions is derived from the tanakh (old test). it is evident that the people who composed the torah had five different sources at hand during the last drafting phase. we know for instance when the deutoronomy document was found, and it's date doesn't match with the rest. on top of that, it is evident IN THE BIBLE itself that people before the time it was found did not know about it. when it is brought to the attention of hezekiah, he changes the way the entire religion is run because of it. that's nice. please show me the book, chapter, and verse in the torah where moses claims authorship. don't you think it's weird that moses writes in third person and talks about his own death?new testament verses don't count, btw. and you're probably reading them wrong anyways. they'll say "the laws of moses" or "the book [singular] of moses." eponymous authorship and actual authorship are two very different things. the tradition is of moses, but that doesn't mean that he physically wrote the version of the books today that contain it. also, the text bears evidence of multiple authorship. except for two things:
1. noah's and gilgamesh's flood bear strickingly similar specifics, such as the bird released, and the covenant with god in the sky. flood legends are common, sure, but this one reads like a plaigarized english paper.
2. gilgamesh predates the earliest claimed date for genesis by about 500 years.

you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means.

quote:

---

pretense ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prtns, pr-tns)
n.
The act of pretending; a false appearance or action intended to deceive.
A false or studied show; an affectation: a pretense of nonchalance.
A professed but feigned reason or excuse; a pretext: under false pretenses.
Something imagined or pretended.
Mere show without reality; outward appearance.
A right asserted with or without foundation; a claim. See Synonyms at claim.
The quality or state of being pretentious; ostentation.

---

that's what i thought, actually. my mistake.

that's like saying shakespeare didn't write "hamlet" by thomas kyd. i'm not talking about genre differences here, i'm talking about actual wording, names, and ideas. read shakespeare's "taming of the shrew" and watch "10 things i hate about you." they're the same story. which one did shakespeare write? i could have done better. there's alot of verse in deutoronomy that seems to indicate that moses wrote it. however, since it ends in his death, it must have had at least a second author. but this doesn't say ANYTHING about genesis. no, not specifics if i recall. i've read all three, and heard a bit about the chinese legend too. like i said, flood legends are common, but they don't all contain the same specifics. if moses wrote the book of genesis, he wrote during or just after the reign of ramses ii. that was about 1200 bc, give or take. the oldest written date for gilgamesh is 2500 bc, and the last version was about 1600 bc. so, which came first? yes, oral tradition. tell me though, does the tower of babel story pre- or post-date the great ziggurat at babylon? the story is play on babylonian legend. it's not unreasonable to say there is babylonian influence on the text when it talks about babylon.and i don't recall the date of the vedas off hand.but i have to go to work. maybe i'll reply more indepth later with better figures.

the two i mentioned were written about 400 years apart. assuming moses wrote deuteronomy, and someone after the babylonian exile wrote kings, those two books are at least 600 years apart.now, how is it a gross exageration? stylistically? compare song of songs (or solomon) to leviticus. i GAVE you one earlier. the names of god. some parts refer to god as eloyhim, some yhvh, some yhvh eloyhim, and some el. genesis 1 and 2 contradict each other. parts of chronicles and kings are identical, yet chronicles is only concerned with judah and not israel. no one person could have possibly written the bible. it spans more than a thousand years. slightly, yes. and beethoven's 5th symphony certainly is not a work of mozart. and rachmaninoff's piano concerto no. 3 isn't either. you can't look at all of the bible, or even all of the torah and assume that moses or some other figure wrote it all, just as mozart was not the only classical musician. in fact, just demonstrate how bad the average perception of history is, rachmaninoff wasn't even a classical musician.looking at the bible and saying it's by one author is like looking at rachmaninoff's music as being written by mozart. even ignoring blatant stylistic differences and structure, and periods of music, mozart was long dead by the time rach lived.similarly, genesis shows evidence of being at the very least tampered with at least 600 years after moses should have lived. this is PROBABLY the date the text was compiled from the various sources, to protect the tradition during the hebrews' stay in babylon. actually, it's not. almost EVERY flood myth goes that way.in gilgamesh, utanapishtim is warned by the gods of the flood, builds and ark acording to one of their specifications. after the flood, the boat gets stuck on a mountain, for a few days, and he releases a bird to see if the land is dry. when he finally gets out of the boat, the god atrahasis makes a covenant with him to never destroy all of the earth again by a flood, and places the milky way galaxy in the sky as a reminder of this agreement.most of those elements are clearly borrowed in noah's story. that's nice, but the written date for gilgamesh still precedes most of the ORAL dates for hebraic traditions. and you misunderstand oral traditions. ever played telephone? oral traditions are recorded in genesis, but they come from at least two distinct sources, on top of obvious babylonian influence. if moses was the redactor of genesis, he lived in babylon at the time. yes. i can. the tower is babylonian. who cares what their legend about it was, it was a ruined ziggurat that the hebrews were making fun of in their text. the tower is in babylonian. it's name was bab-el, or gate [ladder?] of the gods in english. i think the name babylon is derived from this name.and the hebrews made a JOKE about it. they pointed out that bab-el sounds like balal, the hebrew word for confound. so their story went that god confounded the people in babylonian, so that they failed in building their giant temple. it's a pun, it's supposed to funny.but i can gaurantee you that the babylonians didn't go half-build a ziggurat in their city to validate a random hebrew insult directed at them. think about it for a second. which came first? the story or the actual tower?This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 10-10-2004 03:15 AM

well, this thread is going nowhere fast.i'd love to analyze the evolution of hebrew tradition and their views of god, even in the space of just genesis. but we seem to have to get people to accept that the bible wasn't written all at once by one person before we can look at the differences over time.

well, with kings and genesis, one's a history (sort of). the other is mythological. how is this different than movies and plays? movies and plays are more or less the same thing, it's just one is recorded.remember, shakespeare is meant to be watched, not read. in fact, shakespeare himself never wrote his plays -- his actors did for posterity. one is an orderly priestly story, and one is a "way back when" story. seriously, read the bible -- they are VERY different styles. so your claim is just that only one person wrote each book? yes, because they're in the bible. you're getting the events in the wrong order. isn't suspicious that it'll refer to god one way and only way for a chapter or two, and then change and only refer to god that way for a chapter or two?if i wrote a book about you, and called you "jason" and nothing else for a chapter, but then the one chapter wrote about some guy named "bob" would you even assume that i'm still talking about you? every romantic comedy goes the same way: guy meets girl, guy and girl get together, something bad happens and they split up, and then they get back together for a cute happy ending. now, try as i might, i can't seem to get this to work out right in real life.the lesson of the story is that commonalities in stories do not neccessarily reflect and underlying truth. again, check the ages.i'm gonna stop playing with assumptions here. no more "if moses wrote genesis..." the earliest text we have for genesis is about 300 bc. the earliest text we have for gilgamesg is 2500 bc. that's twice as old. actually, there is. they can't predate the people that originated them. the story *IS* true, in some respect. there was indeed a tower called bab-el, whose construction had not been completed. i can't find a date for when it was first built, but a king of babylon that jews particularly despised rebuilt it around 600 bc: king nebuchadezzar.so the story might date from its first construction, but it was far more likely that story comes from 600 bc or so, when the jews were actually in babylon. the story was obviously written with intent to belittle and poke fun at the babylonians, and it makes too much sense for this to be done when they had a good reason to do it.there is no evidence for an earlier date. and assuming the story is just true is missing the joke.

this will be the theme for the post. your words, not mine.

quote:

---

Hell, if you'd bothered to read it,

---

quote:

---

When the LORD God made earth and heaven -- when no shrub of the field was yet on the earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil, but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole earth -- the LORD God made man from the dust of the earth

---

are there plants when god makes man? yes or no?one verse later:

quote:

---

The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east...

---

now are there plants?

quote:

---

The LORD God said, "It is not good for man to be alone;"

---

man is alone. are there animals? yes or no?

quote:

---

"I will make a fitting helper for him." And the LORD God formed out of the earth all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky...

---

are there animals now?seriously, are we reading the same book?

yeah, really. this is pretty frustrating.

actually, i know several people on this board that might make that claim. no, the two running examples we've used, homer and shakespeare, are questioned ALL the time. and shakespeare's hardly ancient. no, flood myths are NOT clearly all based on the same story. some are very different. but yes. all in involve a flood. wow. every culture has a creation myth too, where a god or gods creates almost everything. is that true?they don't share specifics. for instance, not all of the flood stories involve a boat, and not all involve everything dying. i didn't say it was allegorical. i said it was making fun of a real babylonian ziggurat. it didn't really happen that way, and it wasn't all the people of the world, it was JUST the babylonians. construction was eventually completed, at a whopping 295 feet high. for reference, the great pyramid of giza dates to 2500 bc or so, and 480 some feet high. there were certainly things taller in the ancient world for god to have struck down.ie: the bible is factually incorrect.

actually, if the chapter starts "the end" it's sort of suspicious that someone got the divisions wrong. almost every story in genesis has a beginning and an end. the end is usually "such is the story of..." or "and that is why..." etc. it's a good cue that the story is now over. the stories usually start "when god..." or "when so-and-so...".go read genesis 1 and two again, but this time, instead of breaking the stories by chapters, break it in the middle of 2:4, and end it at the second last verse of 2. does the structure make more sense now?the verse numbering system was a christian invention from around 300 ad. the book was not written that way. in reality, the breaks in genesis are implied story breaks (such as i described above) and actually sections. (such as between 6:8,9; at the start of 12,and 18, etc.