Anyone who is interested in more information after reading this is encouraged to read anything written by Baruch Halpern.
Since his work tends to be rather technical, as a starter text you might prefer to seek out 'Who Wrote the Bible?' by Richard Elliott Friedman. This book is absolutely fascinating and provides a lot of very useful, exceedingly well-researched information.
So, the Old Testament in a nutshell.
The Pentateuch was written by 2 principle authors referred to as J and E. The J author always refers to his god as Yahweh (or Ywha) and the E author always refers to his god as either El or Eloi. Most Christians will try to claim that they are the same god but their personalities are so different that this cannot possibly be so.
One is merciful and forgiving and tolerant and the other is vengeful, jealous, untrustworthy and often evil. This explains what the casual reader of the Bible, and investigator of Christianity often sees as the rather schizophrenic nature of God.
In addition to J and E there are P and D. P is definitely a priest and wrote his contribution with an eye on his job. His writing is devoted to maintaining the position of the priesthood. D, the author of Deuteronomy, is sometimes divided (by Baruch Halpern especially) into Dtr1 and Dtr2 based on both content and stylistic considerations. As to who these were specifically the two most likely candidates are Jeremiah and Ezra.
It is interesting to note that Jeremiah refers to his scribe by name as Baruch son of Neriyah. He is mentioned explicitly as writing documents for Jeremiah (and some scholars believe that it was he who is actually the composer of much of Jeremiah).
In 1980 a clay stamp (used to make a seal in wax on documents) was uncovered by the archaeologist Nachman Avigad that says "belonging to Baruch son of Neriyah the scribe". This means that in the Israel Museum we now have the signature of the recorder, and possibly the author/composer/editor, of eight books of the Bible! Amazing.
Nothing in the OT was written before 722 BCE and the largest portions were probably written around 587 BCE. The most important author is probably R who isn't really an author at all but is rather the redactor or editor who blended (very skillfully) all of the other sources. He added very little of his own, a line here and a line there, but he kept the multiple versions of many of the stories. This is why there are two creation stories, three sets of ten commandments etc. He didn't see that contradictions were a problem since he saw it as simply two different views of the same thing that brought one to the same conclusions anyway.
This is far too complicated a subject to get into in a single message but, if you are interested, the Friedman book is an excellent source for all of the stuff that I have mentioned above and more.
Most Christians I have discussed this with say stupid things like "I don't need to read about who wrote the bible, it was written by god." What they don't understand is that the question is not 'who inspired the bible' or 'who revealed the bible', that is a matter of faith. The question is 'who put pen to parchment and recorded the words that we now read as the Bible?'.
In order to understand the Bible (or anything that one reads) one must understand two things of primary importance. The first is called 'gap proximity' and it refers to the distance between the reader's and the writer's environment and experience. The second is called 'sitz im leben' (German for 'seat in life') and means that one must understand the context in which something was written.
If you believed that your country was to last forever (because your god told you so) and then Assyrians and Babylonians overrun your land seemingly at will and cart you off into slavery your writing is going to be influenced heavily by your confusion over the breaking of your god's promise. Rationalization will run rampant. By attempting to understand the times and the stresses and problems that the author had to deal with you can better understand his statements and positions.
The sitz im leben for the authors of the OT is completely beyond true comprehension for most twentieth century humans. Imagine a world with no TV, no radio, no electricity, no books (even if you had one you wouldn't know how to read it). What would you do with yourself after a very hard day in the fields or pastures? How would you explain your youngest child's or firstborn son's death? How would you explain thunder and lightning? How would you explain conquering hordes and slavery? How would you explain stars and the moon and the sun? How would you answer the question 'where did I come from?' with no knowledge of biology, genetics, paleontology or anthropology?
By dismissing these aspects of the authorship of the Bible as well as the basic question 'who wrote the bible' Christians force themselves into absurd defenses of contradictions or even more absurd denials that there are any contradictions to begin with. A better understanding of who wrote it, when and why, should not harm their faith since it does no more than explain where and how their faith originated. For one who doesn't have such faith a study of the origins of that faith can lead to a better understanding of how that faith works.
-- "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
[Voltaire]
Thanks for the thoughtful post. I've been listening to the History of
the Hebrew Bible by Professor Christine Hayes (part of Yale's Open
Courses).
There's one lecture in particular that addresses the authorship issue.
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testame...
On Nov 7, 3:41 pm, Simon Ewins <sjew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone who is interested in more information after reading this is encouraged to read anything written by Baruch Halpern.
> Since his work tends to be rather technical, as a starter text you might prefer to seek out 'Who Wrote the Bible?' by Richard Elliott Friedman. This book is absolutely fascinating and provides a lot of very useful, exceedingly well-researched information.
> So, the Old Testament in a nutshell.
> The Pentateuch was written by 2 principle authors referred to as J and E. The J author always refers to his god as Yahweh (or Ywha) and the E author always refers to his god as either El or Eloi. Most Christians will try to claim that they are the same god but their personalities are so different that this cannot possibly be so.
> One is merciful and forgiving and tolerant and the other is vengeful, jealous, untrustworthy and often evil. This explains what the casual reader of the Bible, and investigator of Christianity often sees as the rather schizophrenic nature of God.
> In addition to J and E there are P and D. P is definitely a priest and wrote his contribution with an eye on his job. His writing is devoted to maintaining the position of the priesthood. D, the author of Deuteronomy, is sometimes divided (by Baruch Halpern especially) into Dtr1 and Dtr2 based on both content and stylistic considerations. As to who these were specifically the two most likely candidates are Jeremiah and Ezra.
> It is interesting to note that Jeremiah refers to his scribe by name as Baruch son of Neriyah. He is mentioned explicitly as writing documents for Jeremiah (and some scholars believe that it was he who is actually the composer of much of Jeremiah).
> In 1980 a clay stamp (used to make a seal in wax on documents) was uncovered by the archaeologist Nachman Avigad that says "belonging to Baruch son of Neriyah the scribe". This means that in the Israel Museum we now have the signature of the recorder, and possibly the author/composer/editor, of eight books of the Bible! Amazing.
> Nothing in the OT was written before 722 BCE and the largest portions were probably written around 587 BCE. The most important author is probably R who isn't really an author at all but is rather the redactor or editor who blended (very skillfully) all of the other sources. He added very little of his own, a line here and a line there, but he kept the multiple versions of many of the stories. This is why there are two creation stories, three sets of ten commandments etc. He didn't see that contradictions were a problem since he saw it as simply two different views of the same thing that brought one to the same conclusions anyway.
> This is far too complicated a subject to get into in a single message but, if you are interested, the Friedman book is an excellent source for all of the stuff that I have mentioned above and more.
> Most Christians I have discussed this with say stupid things like "I don't need to read about who wrote the bible, it was written by god." What they don't understand is that the question is not 'who inspired the bible' or 'who revealed the bible', that is a matter of faith. The question is 'who put pen to parchment and recorded the words that we now read as the Bible?'.
> In order to understand the Bible (or anything that one reads) one must understand two things of primary importance. The first is called 'gap proximity' and it refers to the distance between the reader's and the writer's environment and experience. The second is called 'sitz im leben' (German for 'seat in life') and means that one must understand the context in which something was written.
> If you believed that your country was to last forever (because your god told you so) and then Assyrians and Babylonians overrun your land seemingly at will and cart you off into slavery your writing is going to be influenced heavily by your confusion over the breaking of your god's promise. Rationalization will run rampant. By attempting to understand the times and the stresses and problems that the author had to deal with you can better understand his statements and positions.
> The sitz im leben for the authors of the OT is completely beyond true comprehension for most twentieth century humans. Imagine a world with no TV, no radio, no electricity, no books (even if you had one you wouldn't know how to read it). What would you do with yourself after a very hard day in the fields or pastures? How would you explain your youngest child's or firstborn son's death? How would you explain thunder and lightning? How would you explain conquering hordes and slavery? How would you explain stars and the moon and the sun? How would you answer the question 'where did I come from?' with no knowledge of biology, genetics, paleontology or anthropology?
> By dismissing these aspects of the authorship of the Bible as well as the basic question 'who wrote the bible' Christians force themselves into absurd defenses of contradictions or even more absurd denials that there are any contradictions to begin with. A better understanding of who wrote it, when and why, should not harm their faith since it does no more than explain where and how their faith originated. For one who doesn't have such faith a study of the origins of that faith can lead to a better understanding of how that faith works.
> --
> "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
> [Voltaire]
On Nov 7, 12:41 pm, Simon Ewins <sjew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone who is interested in more information after reading this is encouraged to read anything written by Baruch Halpern.
> Since his work tends to be rather technical, as a starter text you might prefer to seek out 'Who Wrote the Bible?' by Richard Elliott Friedman. This book is absolutely fascinating and provides a lot of very useful, exceedingly well-researched information.
It is a good book. I have read it and got it back out a few days ago.
> Thanks for the thoughtful post. I've been listening to the History of
> the Hebrew Bible by Professor Christine Hayes (part of Yale's Open
> Courses).
> There's one lecture in particular that addresses the authorship issue.
> http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testame...
Thanks. That is quite interesting. I disagree with some of the dates but only by a few hundred years.
Good stuff.
-- "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
[Voltaire]
> > Thanks for the thoughtful post. I've been listening to the History of
> > the Hebrew Bible by Professor Christine Hayes (part of Yale's Open
> > Courses).
> > There's one lecture in particular that addresses the authorship issue.
> >http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testame...
> Thanks. That is quite interesting. I disagree with some of the dates but only by a few hundred years.
> Good stuff.
> --
> "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
> [Voltaire]
> Anyone who is interested in more information after reading this is encouraged to read anything written by Baruch Halpern.
> Since his work tends to be rather technical, as a starter text you might prefer to seek out 'Who Wrote the Bible?' by Richard Elliott Friedman. This book is absolutely fascinating and provides a lot of very useful, exceedingly well-researched information.
> So, the Old Testament in a nutshell.
> The Pentateuch was written by 2 principle authors referred to as J and E. The J author always refers to his god as Yahweh (or Ywha) and the E author always refers to his god as either El or Eloi. Most Christians will try to claim that they are the same god but their personalities are so different that this cannot possibly be so.
> One is merciful and forgiving and tolerant and the other is vengeful, jealous, untrustworthy and often evil. This explains what the casual reader of the Bible, and investigator of Christianity often sees as the rather schizophrenic nature of God.
> In addition to J and E there are P and D. P is definitely a priest and wrote his contribution with an eye on his job. His writing is devoted to maintaining the position of the priesthood. D, the author of Deuteronomy, is sometimes divided (by Baruch Halpern especially) into Dtr1 and Dtr2 based on both content and stylistic considerations. As to who these were specifically the two most likely candidates are Jeremiah and Ezra.
> It is interesting to note that Jeremiah refers to his scribe by name as Baruch son of Neriyah. He is mentioned explicitly as writing documents for Jeremiah (and some scholars believe that it was he who is actually the composer of much of Jeremiah).
> In 1980 a clay stamp (used to make a seal in wax on documents) was uncovered by the archaeologist Nachman Avigad that says "belonging to Baruch son of Neriyah the scribe". This means that in the Israel Museum we now have the signature of the recorder, and possibly the author/composer/editor, of eight books of the Bible! Amazing.
> Nothing in the OT was written before 722 BCE and the largest portions were probably written around 587 BCE. The most important author is probably R who isn't really an author at all but is rather the redactor or editor who blended (very skillfully) all of the other sources. He added very little of his own, a line here and a line there, but he kept the multiple versions of many of the stories. This is why there are two creation stories, three sets of ten commandments etc. He didn't see that contradictions were a problem since he saw it as simply two different views of the same thing that brought one to the same conclusions anyway.
> This is far too complicated a subject to get into in a single message but, if you are interested, the Friedman book is an excellent source for all of the stuff that I have mentioned above and more.
> Most Christians I have discussed this with say stupid things like "I don't need to read about who wrote the bible, it was written by god." What they don't understand is that the question is not 'who inspired the bible' or 'who revealed the bible', that is a matter of faith. The question is 'who put pen to parchment and recorded the words that we now read as the Bible?'.
> In order to understand the Bible (or anything that one reads) one must understand two things of primary importance. The first is called 'gap proximity' and it refers to the distance between the reader's and the writer's environment and experience. The second is called 'sitz im leben' (German for 'seat in life') and means that one must understand the context in which something was written.
> If you believed that your country was to last forever (because your god told you so) and then Assyrians and Babylonians overrun your land seemingly at will and cart you off into slavery your writing is going to be influenced heavily by your confusion over the breaking of your god's promise. Rationalization will run rampant. By attempting to understand the times and the stresses and problems that the author had to deal with you can better understand his statements and positions.
> The sitz im leben for the authors of the OT is completely beyond true comprehension for most twentieth century humans. Imagine a world with no TV, no radio, no electricity, no books (even if you had one you wouldn't know how to read it). What would you do with yourself after a very hard day in the fields or pastures? How would you explain your youngest child's or firstborn son's death? How would you explain thunder and lightning? How would you explain conquering hordes and slavery? How would you explain stars and the moon and the sun? How would you answer the question 'where did I come from?' with no knowledge of biology, genetics, paleontology or anthropology?
> By dismissing these aspects of the authorship of the Bible as well as the basic question 'who wrote the bible' Christians force themselves into absurd defenses of contradictions or even more absurd denials that there are any contradictions to begin with. A better understanding of who wrote it, when and why, should not harm their faith since it does no more than explain where and how their faith originated. For one who doesn't have such faith a study of the origins of that faith can lead to a better understanding of how that faith works.
> --
> "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
> [Voltaire]
> ok, ordered from amazon.
> read "unearthing the bible" Finkelstein and silberman a couple of
> months ago and found it facinating.
> Particularly good when I watch a History channel Doc and an apoplectic
> Israeli archeologist pops up screaming about "the gates of solomon".
I just watched part 1 of the History of Christianity (BBC Doc) last night. Looks interesting.
-- "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
[Voltaire]
On 8 Nov, 12:36, Simon Ewins <sjew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [Dead Kennedy]
> > ok, ordered from amazon.
> > read "unearthing the bible" Finkelstein and silberman a couple of
> > months ago and found it facinating.
> > Particularly good when I watch a History channel Doc and an apoplectic
> > Israeli archeologist pops up screaming about "the gates of solomon".
> I just watched part 1 of the History of Christianity (BBC Doc) last night. Looks interesting.
> --
> "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
> [Voltaire]
> I was disappointed it started with constantine (after a very short
> exploration of palastinian christianity).
> It was a bit like doing the history of USA starting 100 years hence.
> Can you get the iplayer to work? (australia cant)
I just grabbed an avi file from a usenet binary group so I can't help there.
I agree. I think that the entire first episode should have been on Palestinian Christianity pre-Constantine.
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Atheism vs Christianity" group.
> To post to this group, send email to
> atheism-vs-christianity@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> atheism-vs-christianity+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/atheism-vs-christianity?hl=en.
-- "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
[Voltaire]
> > I was disappointed it started with constantine (after a very short
> > exploration of palastinian christianity).
> > It was a bit like doing the history of USA starting 100 years hence.
> > Can you get the iplayer to work? (australia cant)
> I just grabbed an avi file from a usenet binary group so I can't help there.
> I agree. I think that the entire first episode should have been on Palestinian Christianity pre-Constantine.
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> > Groups "Atheism vs Christianity" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to
> > atheism-vs-christianity@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> > atheism-vs-christianity+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> > For more options, visit this group at
> >http://groups.google.com/group/atheism-vs-christianity?hl=en.
> --
> "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
> [Voltaire]
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