[Phys-L] Re: [SPAM-4.611] Re: THE WEDGE STRATEGY of The ID Movement

[David_Bowman at GEORGETOWNCOLLEGE.EDU (David Bowman)]

Regarding Steve Clark, Ph.D's questions:
> ...
> But I have another question -
>
> Why are these Judeo-Christian ideas thought to be from Aristotle or
> the Babylonians? What evidence is there that Moses didn't write the
> first 5 books of the Old Testament? Or that the traditions that have
> come from the Jews didn't originate with their time in Egypt about
> 2500 BC?  ....

Steve, for some reason I doubt that you really want to go there.
The questions *are* off-topic for this list. But since you asked:

In regards to the 1st question it seems to be a matter of history
that the ancient Hebrews borrowed much of their cosmology from the
Babylonians (while carefully purging it of its former polytheistic
aspects), and the medieval Christian scholastics borrowed most of
their cosmology and other science from Greek sources such as from
the likes of Ptolemy, Aristotle, etc. (while baptizing it as
officially sanctioned doctrine).

The second question can be most easily dealt with by providing
some examples from the Pentateuch that clearly demonstrate that
holding to Mosaic authorship of those things would be a most
strained interpretation at best, and could only be held to by
someone who decided such issues on the basis of their prior
religious bias that they refuse to examine in any critical detail,
and for whom the actual evidence simply did not matter.

First off, the references to Moses in the Pentateuch are typically in
the 3rd person rather than in the 1st person as one would expect if
it actually was written by Moses.  But there are *lots* of other
features in the text than make a Mosaic authorship of them
problematic.

For instance, in Ge 14:14 we read "When Abram heard that his nephew
had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his
house, three hundred eighteen of them, and went in pursuit as far as
Dan."  This anachronism is interesting in that Dan was a great
grandson of Abraham who, at the time of this account about Abraham
had not even been born for a few generations.  The tribe of the
descendents of Dan named their city Dan during the time of the Judges
(see Jdg 18:29) which was generations *after* the conquest of Canaan,
which itself was *after* the death of Moses.

Also consider Ge 36:31 where is an introduction to a list of the
kings of Edom comparing them to the kings of Israel, to wit, "These
were the kings who reigned in Edom before any Israelite king reigned:
...".  Note that the reigning of the Israelite kings are mentioned in
the past as having already reigned.  Israel did not even *have* any
kings until *after* the time of the Judges--well after the death of
Moses.  Moses could not have been referring back to the kings of
Israel.

Also consider Ge 47:11 where we read "Joseph settled his father and
his brothers, and granted them a holding in the land of Egypt, in the
best part of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had
instructed."  Now the generally accepted dates for the reign of
Rameses the Great (Rameses II) reigned when he built his cities and
other construction projects in the 13 century BCE.  But often those
fundamentalists who hold to Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch also
typically accept Ussher's date (or close to it) of the Exodus as
being in the mid 15th century BCE because that date is based on
1 Ki 6:1 "In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites
came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel,
in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the
house of the LORD".  Since Solomon began building his temple in about
966 BCE, subtracting 480 years from this date puts the Exodus in
1445/6 BCE.  If this is the case, we have a problem with Moses being
the author of Genesis, because the time of Moses was concurrent with
the Exodus, but Rameses didn't reign for about another 200 years
*after* this date so Moses couldn't have included the reference to
Rameses in the anachronistic account of Joseph and his brothers
settling into Egypt hundreds of years *before* the Exodus and the
time of Moses.

Also, consider Nu 12:3, "Now the man Moses was very humble, more so
than anyone else on the face of the earth".  It is very hard to
believe that Moses would write something bragging that he, Moses, was
the most humble man on the earth.  Now if Moses *had* written this we
would have another biblical example (besides Ti 1:12) of Epimenides'
Paradox, AKA the Liar Paradox, (i.e. a self-referential statement
that falsifies itself upon its own claims).  Epimenides was the
Cretan poet who was famous for having claimed that "Cretans always
lie".

Also, consider Dt 34:5-12.  It seems crazy to think that this was
written by Moses since it explicitly claims to be at a time after the
death of Moses, and even includes an account of Moses' death.

Again, consider Dt 1:5 where it mentions that Moses expounded the law
in Moab "beyond the Jordan".  The author's perspective of reference
for this verse is from inside the land of Israel/Canaan, in
particular, from a point on the other side of the Jordan river,
(i.e. the west side) from Moab where Moses gave his farewell speech.
But according to the text Moses never set foot west of the Jordan and
was prevented from doing so by God Himself in Dt 34:4.

In addition, it seems the prophet Jeremiah was not much of a fan of
(at least) the P material in the Pentateuch.  Consider (among other
things) Jer 7:22, "For in the day that I brought your ancestors out
of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them
concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices".  Contrast this with what
we find in the book of Leviticus (nearly all P material) in
Lev 7:37-8, "This is the ritual of the burnt offering, the grain
offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the offering of
ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being, which the LORD commanded
Moses on Mount Sinai, when he commanded the people of Israel to bring
their offerings to the LORD, in the Wilderness of Sinai".  Thus, the
prophet Jeremiah seems to be challenging the legitimacy of the book
of Leviticus.  (BTW, it is a common theme among the OT prophets to
deny the relative importance of the sacrificial system, e.g. "I
desire mercy, *not* sacrifice" was a *recurrent* theme of the OT
prophets.)

Consider, also, the part of the oracle given Jeremiah in Jer 8:8
where it says "How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law (i.e.
Torah) of the LORD is with us,' when, in fact, the false pen of the
scribes has made it into a lie?".  Here, apparently, God, through
Jeremiah, makes an accusation that the scribes have corrupted the
Torah.  So if the Torah of Jeremiah's time was supposedly corrupted
by "the false pen of the scribes" the version of it that Jeremiah
had couldn't have been unadulterated work of only Moses (unless one
wants to consider that Moses himself may have been one of these
lying scribes).

These are just *some* of the many examples sprinkled throughout
the Pentateuch than make a sole Mosaic authorship of the text
pretty hard to maintain with a straight face.

Regarding your 3rd question I fail to see where you got that 2500 BC
date for the time of the sojourn & enslavement of the Israelites in
Egypt considering that I have never heard of *anyone*--even the most
conservative scholars--who dated the patriarch Abraham any earlier
than, at most, about 2100 BCE.

BTW, I second Jack U's suggestion to study up on this stuff.  There
certainly isn't any shortage of scholarly references one could
peruse.

To the rest of the list I apologize for the extended off-topic
discussion here.  I don't plan on perusing the thread any further.

David Bowman