Piggy
Unlicensed street skeptic
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2006
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I'm glad you're enjoying the thread.
It occurs to me that you and others might get more out of it, though, if an overview of the Biblical source documents were provided.
Most folks tend to think of the Bible in terms of its various books, which is fine for the New Testament of the Christian Bible, but doesn't work well for the early books of the Hebrew Bible, such as the ones we're discussing here.
That's because the current books are woven together from a variety of sources. (So are the New Testament books, but not in quite the same way.)
This was discovered when scholars noticed that in some passages of the Pentateuch (the first five books) it was asserted that God was known by the name YHWH (Yahweh) from very early times, while in other passages it was asserted that God did not reveal his name to anyone before Moses.
Long story short, decades of investigation has found that there are several early sources which are identifiable by a number of elements which divide them into clear sets. These include:
• The language used, including vocabulary and time period (e.g. it isn't hard to distinguish between a passage from Dickens and a passage from Hemingway)
• References to things which existed at that time or earlier but not later, or at that time and later but not earlier, such as cities, structures, practices, etc.
• Theology, political stances, and cultural norms
• Literary devices, such as whether puns are prevalent or absent, whether placenames are given origin stories or not, which stock phrases are repeated, and so forth
These differences are not randomly distributed, but are clustered, not just within categories but across categories so that, for example, the sections with the oldest forms of Hebrew also include the earliest references and theology, while the sections with the latest forms of Hebrew include the latest references and theology.
The various doublets -- or to use the phrase more common to this forum, "Bible contradictions" -- are also distributed in this manner, and the forms they take are consistent with the theology, politics, and other norms found within the distinct sets of passages.
It is impossible to "cherry pick" that kind of convergence.
Examining these source documents, as well as we can reconstruct them, reveals a great deal about who wrote these documents, when, where, and why.
The following is an overview of the major documents which comprise the Biblical books we are discussing. There are also other minor sources such as the Book of Records and the military account of the defeat of the Cities of the Plain (including Sodom and Gomorrah) but these are the most important to understand.
The Context
Before I compare the contents of the sources, I'll briefly set the scene.
The ancient Hebrews were a collection of semitic tribes who lived on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean and were culturally, linguistically, and religiously similar to other semitic groups living in that area. These were literate peoples (or at least certain classes of them were) who wrote an alphabetic language on papyrus, leather, and clay, made inscriptions in stone, and used broken pottery in the way we might use scrap paper.
These groups had rather loosely defined territories, so that more than one group might hold cities in the same general area. The Hebrew tribes were culturally subdivided into two clusters, one centered around the Dead Sea in the south, and the other centered around the Jordan river and Sea of Galilee in the north.
The dominant god in the area was El, who was viewed as the head of a heavenly council which included various nature gods and so forth. The Hebrew equivalent was Yahweh, and Yahwistic Hebrews used the term "El" in the way we use the term "God". Over time, the official Hebrew religion came to view Yahweh as the dominant god of all gods of all tribes (not just theirs) and eventually as the only real god in existence, but that process took several centuries and the popular culture always lagged behind the official (or priestly) religion which often railed against popular practices.
Our first clear archaeological evidence of the Hebrews dates from the 12th century BCE.
Early Hebrew society was ruled by a theocratic co-regency of tribal warrior-judges and priests, existing in tandem (often uneasily) with a prophetic tradition. Prophets were men recognized to have been chosen by Yahweh to voice his word, and they could be judges or priests or in some cases laymen with a popular following.
In the latter part of this era, theocratic power centered on Shiloh, in the tribal region of Ephraim to the north of present-day Jerusalem in the southern sector of the Northern cluster, where there was a tabernacle which was claimed to be the dwelling place of Yahweh on earth, as well as Hebron in the tribal region of Judah just south of present-day Jerusalem.
In response to the rise of the power of the Philistines on the southern coast in the 11th century BCE, the Hebrews eventually united under a single warrior chief, Saul, but when Saul fell in battle against the Philistines, the Northern tribes rallied around his son Ishbaal while the Southern tribes rallied around his chief general and son-in-law David.
But David garnered the support of the Shilohan priests and seized the opportunity to re-unify the tribal confederacy shortly before the year 1000 BCE.
To achieve this unification, David sacked the city of the Jebusites, Jerusalem, which lay on the border between the Northern and Southern clusters, and moved the capital there. This was a shrewd move, because it avoided the dilemma of having to choose between a capital in either Shiloh or Hebron.
He moved the tabernacle from Shiloh to Jerusalem, and placed inside it the Ark of the Covenant, the most holy Southern relic which was reputed to hold the original stone tablets upon which Moses had inscribed the first code of Law, as dictated by Yahweh.
David set up a co-priesthood of two High Priests, a Mushite from the North and an Aaronite from the South. (The Mushites traced their lineage back to Moses, and the Aaronites traced their lineage back to Aaron.) He also took wives from all of the various tribes.
In the 900s BCE, David's heir Solomon built a temple around the tabernacle, a two-room structure about the size of a 3-story house in the modern United States. One room was an antechamber, and other held the tabernacle, flanked by statues of two standing cherubim -- creatures that resembled sphinxes -- the tips of whose outstretched wings touched each other above the tabernacle and touched the walls of the temple on either side.
He also embarked on many other building projects, primarily in the South, which were partly funded by effectively selling off some of the far Northern territories to other kings, and removed the Northern Mushite High Priest (who had supported one of his brothers in the power-struggle for his father's throne) favoring the Southern Aaronite line.
Solomon managed to keep the kingdom unified, but his heir Rehoboam was not able to hold the coalition together, and around 930 BCE the North broke off into the kingdom of Israel, ruled by Jeroboam in the city of Sechem (in the tribal region of Manasseh to the north of Ephraim) while Rehoboam held onto Judea.
David and Solomon had centralized certain important annual sacrifices -- but not all sacrifices -- at the Tabernacle and later the Temple which was built around it. This was clearly untenable for Jeroboam, so he established twin capitals for Israel at Dan in the extreme north and Bethel in the extreme south just north of Jerusalem.
This arrangement effectively disenfranchised the Shilohan priesthood, who had been previously been supportive of the Davidic line.
In contrast to the gold-painted wooden cherubim of the Southern Temple, Jeroboam set up a golden bull as the throne of Yahweh at each of his capitals, thereby identifying Yahweh with El, whose symbol was the bull and who was still worshipped in many areas, in an effort to secure popular support.
It is during this period of divided monarchy that the earliest Biblical texts were written, one in the North and one in the South, each drawing on older traditions.
These texts were, in all likelihood, each based in part upon some sort of Davidic Torah (or law) which is now lost, because David's consolidation of power must have included a central law code of some sort.
The Davidic Torah, in turn, would have been based upon -- or would have been an expanded version of -- the very earliest law code, the one attributed to Moses, also now lost, the original version of which was reputed to be held within the Ark of the Covenant, brought by David to Jerusalem (most likely from Hebron) and held by Solomon in the Temple.
The Old Judean Torah (or the Yahwist Torah, or "J")
The first source we will look at was produced somewhere in the South, probably Hebron or Jerusalem, and is written from a decidedly pro-Aaronite, pro-Judah, anti-Sechem point of view.
It is commonly known as "J" or the Yahwist Torah, because in this document God is known by his name Yahweh from very early times long before the birth of Moses.
Important features to note:
• Earliest stage of Biblical Hebrew
• Noah brings 7 of all clean animals onto the ark (not 2) so that some may be sacrificed
• Law is given on Mount Sinai
• God is known as Yahweh from the outset
• No mention of the Tabernacle, but the Ark features prominently
• Cherubs stand at the gates of Eden
• No mention of the divination tools Urim and Tummim
• No mention of the prophetic tradition
• God sometimes shows mercy by changing his mind
• God walks the earth and interacts with humans
• God speaks to people in dreams
• Angels interact with humans
• Numerous parallels with the Court History of David in 2nd Samuel
• Numerous parallels with the book of Hosea
• Abraham dwells in Hebron in Judah
• The scouts of Moses describe no land beyond Judea
• Includes stories of the life of Judah, including Judah saving Joseph from his other brothers, and Judah being promised the birthright ahead of his 3 older brothers
• Gives birth and naming stories only for the ancestors of the Southern tribes
• Includes the story of the massacre at Sechem
• Extensive discussion of Edom, which borders Judah
• God forbids the construction of molten idols specifically (the Southern cherubim were wooden figures covered with gold paint, the Northern bulls were made of molten gold)
• Makes no mention of Joshua (an Ephraimite hero)
• Sacrifice occurs at various locations during the era of the patriarchs
The Old Ephraimaic Torah (or the Elohisitc Torah, or "E")
This source tells many of the same stories as the Old Judean Torah (J) -- and shares its inclusion of angels and talking animals -- but consistently puts Moses in a more favorable light, and Aaron in a less favorable light.
It it also hostile to many of the policies of Jeroboam. The obvious candidate for authorship is therefore the marginalized Mushite priesthood from Shiloh.
Important features to note:
• Earliest stage of Biblical Hebrew, like J
• Law is given on Mount Horeb rather than Sinai
• God first makes his name Yahweh known to Moses; before that, he is called El
• The Ark of the Covenant is never mentioned, but the Tabernacle is important
• Cherubim do not appear, nor do Urim and Tummim
• Miracles are performed with the staff of Moses
• God walks the earth and interacts with humans
• God speaks to people in dreams
• Angels interact with humans
• A prophetic tradition is recorded (validating the legitimacy of the practice of speaking for God outside of the officially established power structure)
• Numerous parallels with the book of Hosea, like J, but not with the Court History of David
• The root-word of the name Rehoboam never appears (it appears 6 times in J)
• No encounter with Edom in the exodus story, Esau not named as father of the Edomites
• Gives birth and naming stories only for the ancestors of the Northern tribes
• There is no massacre at Sechem; territory is purchased at Sechem instead
• Birthright is given to Joseph (not Judah) who receives a double portion which is passed down to Ephraim and Manasseh
• Reuben, not Judah, saves Joseph from his other brothers
• Joseph's remains are taken to Ephraim for burial
• Solomon denounced for introducing forced labor, using the same terms that describe the forced labor in Egypt
• Joshua treated extensively, portrayed as the successor to Moses
• Includes the Covenant Code (indicating authorship by priests)
• Ahijah, a prophet from Shiloh, prophecies against the dynasty of Jeroboam after the installation of the golden bulls
• Contains the story of Aaron making the golden calf (a sin against God) while Moses and Joshua are with Yahweh on the mountain (note that Aaron proclaims "these are your gods" even though only one calf is made)
• All gods of silver and gold are forbidden, not just molten gods
• Moses shatters the tablets of the Law, they are not preserved
• Aaron speaks against Moses for taking a Cushite wife, but God declares Moses to be justified above all prophets
• Aaron recognizes Moses' superiority and calls him "my lord"
• Sacrifice occurs at various locations during the era of the patriarchs
• Moses crafts a bronze snake that is used to heal snakebites
It is important to note here that Aaron is not punished for his sin of making the golden calf to worship, despite having broken a law for which punishment is required. Nor is he punished with a blemish when he criticizes Moses, although his sister Miriam is.
This is because it is accepted by everyone, even his enemies, that Aaron was a High Priest of Yahweh, and it would not have been possible for him to hold that role had he been smitten by God for his transgressions. There are limits to how far propaganda can go. (Liberals may vilify Bush for invading Iraq, for example, but they cannot claim that he was impeached and removed from office for doing so, because everyone knows he completed two terms as president.)
The Combined Old Religion Torah ("JE")
The Northern kingdom of Israel fell in 722 BCE, and many Hebrews fled from Israel to Judea in the South, bringing with them their version of the Hebrew religion as well as its texts. At some point after 722, the Old Judean and Ephraimaic Torahs were combined into a single document, JE.
The Hezekian Torah (or the Priestly Torah, or "P")
In the early years of the 7th century BCE, king Hezekiah of Judah instituted radical religious reforms, with the goal of increasing his kingdom's political fortunes by instituting a stricter religious code centered on the Aaronid priesthood of the Temple. Aaronites become the only Temple priests, not just the High Priest -- all other Levites are removed from Temple service.
All of the locations of popular worship, the local altars and the "high places", are destroyed (but not the shrines built by Solomon, who removed the Mushite High Priest in favor of the Aaronid priest) as well as the bronze snakes of the Mushites. A new Torah was written, purged of the more primitive elements of the old religion, such as anthropomorphic images of God and angels, as well as all references to sacrifice prior to the consecration of Aaron as High Priest or by anyone other than Aaron and his descendants. All insults to Aaron are removed.
In this version of the Torah, which follows the narrative structure of JE, Hezekiah is praised as the greatest of all kings since David.
Important features to note:
• Later stage of Biblical Hebrew than J and E
• Noah brings only 2 of each animal onto the ark, and no sacrifices are made by Cain or Noah or Abraham or Joshua
• The Law is given on Sinai, as in J (but not E)
• God does not communicate with people through dreams, only through the priesthood
• God does not appear in anthropomorphic form
• All stories involving talking animals are removed
• Abraham is never commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac
• Aaron is Moses' elder brother rather than just his tribe-mate
• God never changes his mind to show mercy -- the terms for "mercy", "grace", and "kindness" appear nowhere in the text
• People fall on their faces before God (this does not happen in J or E)
• There is no story of the golden calf, or the punishment of Miriam (Joshua is therefore added to the story of Caleb in order to justify his special position, but most of the stories about Joshua from E are removed)
• When non Aaronid Levites claim that all Levites are fit to make offerings to God, God burns them to death
• Moses is punished by God for striking a rock with his staff in order to produce water, rather than waiting for God to produce the miracle -- in E, this is related as a miracle of Moses rather than a sin
• Moses is disfigured by his encounter with God on the mountain and must wear a veil over his face afterward (neither he nor his descendants can then be priests)
• When a man desecrates the Tent of Meeting by taking a Midianite woman into it to have sex, Moses witnesses it and does nothing, but Phineas (Aaron's grandson) kills them with his spear and is granted an eternal covenant of priesthood by God for his descendants
• Lengthy codes of law are propounded, occupying about half of Exodus and Numbers and nearly the entire book of Leviticus
• Moses purchases a tomb in Hebron, thus acquiring the rights to the land
• Gilded cherubim stand over the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple
• Miracles are performed by the staff of Aaron (not Moses as in E)
• Urim and Tummim are used for divination in the Tabernacle within the Temple
• A prophetic tradition is not recorded (the word "prophet" appears only once, in reference to Aaron)
• Numerous parallels with Ezekiel, but not Hosea
Many years later, this Torah will be combined with the merged Old Religion Torah to form the first 4 books of the modern Bible.
The Josian Torah and History (The Deuteronomic History, or "D")
Hezekiah's strategy of returning to God failed, and Judah became a vassal state of the Assyrian Empire. Under his son Manasseh and the regency for his grandson Josiah, his strict reforms were reversed, and the plan of absolutely centralized worship was abandoned. Altars and high places were rebuilt by local populations, some of whom had never really given up their Hebrew-flavored form of native Canaanite El worship in spite of the dictates from the Jerusalem Temple.
Meanwhile, the Babylonian Empire was strengthening, and Egypt formed an alliance with Assyria against it.
When Josiah came of age and took power, he re-instituted his grandfather's reform with a vengeance. Centralized sacrifice was brought back, and the other altars again demolished, this time including the shrines of Solomon.
And he, too, produced his own version of the Law, or an addendum to it (the book of Deuteronomy) as well as an extensive history (in the modern Bible, Joshua, Judges, and the books of Samuel and Kings). This book was compiled from various earlier source materials with new writings added.
In this book (which Josiah claimed to have "discovered") all kings are judged according to their adherence to the Deuteronomic version of the Law, portrayed as the final speech to the Hebrews by Moses.
Josiah is of course the most righteous -- even more righteous than David who sinned with Bathsheba -- and is even (uniquely) portended by name in a story set 3 centuries before his birth, when it is revealed to Jeroboam that his priests will one day be put to the sword upon the altar of Bethel by Josiah.
Josiah, in fact, is nothing short of the modern counterpart to Moses, fulfilling every one of his promises, and in several places the two leaders and their actions are described in identical language which applies to no one else in the Bible (e.g. "none arose like him", smashing idols "thin as dust").
The theology of the Deuteronomic History (DH) is covenant theology, judging everything on the basis of how well the legal covenant between God and the Hebrews is kept. And this covenant includes a promise to the line of king David that they will remain in power forever.
Of course, in 587 the Babylonians take Jerusalem, destroy the Temple, and take the king's court and his top generals and priests into exile in Babylon to thwart potential insurrection. So the DH had to be rewritten to account for this fact, which is blamed on idolatry in violation of the Josian reforms.
These two versions of the DH are known as D1 and D2.
One of the interesting features about D, however, is that although it approves of Josiah and his reforms and is certainly written from a priestly perspective, it includes laws placing limits on the king's wealth and power, its earliest source materials do not reflect any detailed intimate knowledge of Temple practices, and it identifies Josiah as the new Moses, not the new Aaron.
In other words, it comes from the perspective of Mushite priests who approve of the Josian reforms, most likely the priest-prophet Jeremiah of the Shilohan line and his scribe Baruch, then living in Anathoth just outside of Jerusalem, who favored Josiah and had a cooperative relationship with him.
Important features to note:
• Latest stage of Biblical Hebrew
• Law given on Mount Horeb
• Unlike the earlier books, states that Moses had a "book of torah" placed alongside the Ark -- Josiah's priest Hilkah finds "the book of Torah" in the Temple
• The Deuteronomic Law Code (a subsection) makes no mention of Aaron, the office of High Priest, cherubim, the Ark of the Covenant, Urim and Tummim, or a distinction between Aaronites and other Levites -- all Levites are considered equal
• Strongly opposes the establishment of the altar at Bethel by Jeroboam
• Opposes standing armies in favor of musters
• Portrays Solomon as an idolator
• Prohibits all graven images
• Numerous parallels with the book of Jeremiah
• The repeated phrases "go after other gods", "turn to other gods", and "worship other gods" appear only in D
• Includes stories of angels and talking animals
• Includes stories of God communicating through dreams
• Includes a prophetic tradition
• Includes instructions to consult the priests and the judges regarding matters of law (P omits the judges, and in fact never mentions them anywhere)
What does it all mean for this discussion?
When we talk about these stories, their "meaning", and who wrote them and when and why, we can't simply point to the stories in our modern Bibles and ask "What does Exodus say, and is it history or made up?"
Instead, we have to ask what the authors of J, E, P, and D have to say and what does that mean.
Most of what we read is simply blatant political propaganda intended to solidify or assert claims to power by one group over other groups. You often hear the Hebrew Bible described as something like "a record of the relationship between a people and their God", but that's just a bunch of warm fuzziness. These are political documents written by and for a ruling elite.
But it's important to note that they are definitey NOT "fairy tales". Very little of the Hebrew Bible is "old myth" -- Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, the Nephilim, etc. Those who say it's all "just a bunch of fairy tales" are embarrassing themselves, because they are simply wrong about that, and eggregiously so.
The "contradictions" that are so often used around here to claim that "the Bible is wrong" are, in fact, simply evidence of ancient political "spin" used to interpret Hebrew history, as they saw it, for various ends. To say that they prove that the Bible is wrong, or none of it ever happened, is a bit like saying that the "contradictions" between Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann prove that television is wrong and that the Bush and Obama presidencies never happened.
But there are some traditions which are clearly so solid that they are affirmed by everyone, even when it works against their political goals, or at least does them no favors. These include:
• The Levites entered the tribal confederacy at some point after it had been formed, but not as landholders, yet they were able to establish themselves as a priestly class supported by all the other tribes.
• The Levites trace their origins back to Egypt and have Egyptian names, but they are ethnically and culturally Hebrew.
• Moses was an early, and very powerful, Levitical leader who wrote the first code of law for the Hebrews (now lost) which was promulgated to the tribes, and introduced the practice of circumcision as confirmation of a covenant which bound the tribes together under Yahwism and differentiated them in an unmistakable way from the surrounding tribes (so that a male member of a Hebrew tribe could not attempt to pass as a non-Hebrew to escape capture or death)
• Aaron was the first national High Priest of Yahweh
And the thing about these claims is that they are entirely plausible within the context of the Ancient Near East. In fact, there's nothing at all remarkable about them, from a historical perspective.
Does that prove that they're accurate? No. But it does mean that we have no firm basis for doubting their general accuracy, and that if we're going to claim that they're just "made up", we have to provide a comprehensive theory of who made them up and why they made them up and why everyone accepted them and no faction attempted to dispute them even when it would have served their purposes to do so.
That's a rather tall order, and I haven't seen it done yet in any satisfactory way, so until new evidence crops up to the contrary, it's perfectly reasonable to accept that Moses and Aaron most likely were actual political and religious leaders of the Levites, a group who had come from the south and seized power from the Benjaminites sometime around 1200 in an alliance with the tribes of Judah and Ephraim.
On the other hand, there are stories which we can classify as obvious political spin and propaganda, and which in some cases are contradicted by archaeological evidence. These include:
• The enslavement of all the Hebrews in Egypt
• The birth story of Moses
• Moses leading the Hebrew tribes out of Egypt
• The sibling relationship between Moses and Aaron
• The revelation of God to Moses on the mountain
• Moses dying before reaching Canaan
• Joshua as an all-conquering hero
I hope that outline has been worth the reading, and that it helps in establishing a more effective framework for looking at and discussing the Biblical stories of the alleged exodus.
