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Scriptural literacy

Greediguts said:
The author of chapter 1 saw God as removed from the earth, distant, mysterious, and just barking commands so things pop into existence. The author of most of chapter 2 and all of 3 sees God as walking around, shaping man out of mud, breathing life into him, and interacting with Adam and Eve (notice the author of chapter 1 never mentions the names Adam and Eve). A much more intimate story. It becomes much clearer why scholars see the beginning chapters of Genesis as two stories mashed together.
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About the name Adam: I was under the impression that "Adam" was originally a noun that meant simply "human," but that it was later interpreted as a name.

Ah, yes. I've just looked it up in the slightly less new New Oxford Annotated Bible. In a note to Gen. 3.17-19:
An explanation of why people ("'adam") have to struggle to eke out an existence from the ground ("'adamah"). Work is not intrinsically evil (2.15) but it becomes toil when relationship with the Creator is broken. In v. 17 and elsewhere (2.20; 3.21) later editors took the Hebrew word "'adam" to be a personal name . . . , as in the genealogy of 5.1ff.
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Sorry for the digression.
 
Lucian:

There's some debate as to whether ha adam, "the person" was based on ha adamah "the soil" or on Adom, Edom, meaning "red." In the latter case, his name would mean something like "to show blood in the face" i.e. "ruddy." Considering that the Egyptians referred to the Levant and Syria as the "red lands" after their red soil (they called Egypt Khemet, "the black land" after its rich alluvial soil), I suspect that both sides are right, and that Adam was the man of red earth.
 
TimCallahan said:
Lucian:

There's some debate as to whether ha adam, "the person" was based on ha adamah "the soil" or on Adom, Edom, meaning "red." In the latter case, his name would mean something like "to show blood in the face" i.e. "ruddy." Considering that the Egyptians referred to the Levant and Syria as the "red lands" after their red soil (they called Egypt Khemet, "the black land" after its rich alluvial soil), I suspect that both sides are right, and that Adam was the man of red earth.
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Interesting, thanks. What I was wondering about originally was whether a noun meaning "person" at some point got misinterpreted as a name.
 
TimCallahan said:
It's in Numbrs 20. The story is rather odd. The Israelites are short of water in the wilderness and, as usual, start to grumble against Moses. So Moses and Aaron pray to God with the following result (Num. 20:6 - 8):

Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the tent of meeting, and fell on their faces. And the glory of the LORD appeared to them, and the LORD said to Moses, "Take the rod and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yeald its water; so you shall bring water out of the rock for them; so you shall give drink to the congregation and their cattle."

Moses and Aaron respond as follows (Num. 20:9 - 11):

And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gaathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?" And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle.

So far, we have a pretty straight-forward miracle story. Then it gets weird (Num. 20:12):

And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not beleive in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them."

This is one of those head-scratching passages in the Bible, where things don't make any sort of sense. Moses and Aaron seem to have done what God asked them to do. Yet, for this one infraction (whatever it was) he denies them entry into the Promised Land. There are generally two explanations for God penalizing the two men for doing what he told them to do. One is that Moses says, "Shall WE bring forth water for you out of this rock?" meaning that he was claiming to be the power behind the miracle. The other is that he struck the rock twice, indicating that he wasn't trusting in God, in which case he would have struck it once. Both explanations seem rather lame.

The problem is complicated further when Moses says in his farewell speech to the people of Israel, in Deurteronomy, that he asked God if he could go across the Jordan to see the Promised land (Deut. 3:26, 27):

But the LORD was angry with me on your account, and would not hearken to me; and the LORD said to me, "Let it suffice you; speak no more to me on this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward, northward, southwrd and eastward, and behold it with your eyes; for you shall not go over this Jordan."

So here, in a rival document (D) Moses isn't being punished for any lapse on his part, but is, rather unjustly, punished for the sins of his people.
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The Numbers story would appear to come from the P source. This same event with the rock is described in Exodus 17:1-7, which probably comes from the J or E source. One has the waters of Meribah in Rephidim and the other has the waters of Meribah in Kadesh. It would appear to be another narrative doublet.

So in Exodus the story is used to explain how they would have water if they were wandering in the desert (J or E). Numbers uses it to cast Moses in a bad light (P). Deuteronomy uses it to cast the people in a bad light (D).

Speaking of sources, anyone familiar with the H source? Apparently, P is now divided between 2 sources - the priestly P and the other priestly H (for holiness). H is looked at as a priestly-popular movement with a concern for social reform; P is priesthood-only. Anyone have more info on H?
 
This is the first time I've heard of the H source. Can you tell me where you heard of it and what parts of P are actually H?

Btw there's an interesting parallel to the biblical water-from-the-rock story in Greek mythology. When Danaus assumes the throne of Argos, the country is suffering from a drought. He sends his 50 daughters out to look for any source of water. One of them, Amynome, is assualted by a satyr. She calls on the sea god, Poseidon, who appears and hurls his trident at the satyr. The satyr dodges the trident - which ends up stuck in a boulder - and flees. The grateful Amynome gladly give her self to the god. When they are finished with their tryst, he asks her what she's doing in the woods. When she says she was searching for water, he tells her to pull his trident out of the rock. She does so, and three streams of water come out of the rock where the tines of the trident had hit. This becomes the springs that are the source of the river Lerna.

Striking the rock in the biblical stories seems to mean splitting it. Psalms 78:15 says:

He cleaved rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink abundantly out of the great deep.

In both the biblical stories and the more lively Greek myth we see the same concept, held by ancients in the eastern Meditrreanean and contiguous Near East, that a fresh water ocean lay under the world. Hence, drilling wells brought up water, and splitting rocks would also bring water up out of the "great deep."
 
TimCallahan said:
This is the first time I've heard of the H source. Can you tell me where you heard of it and what parts of P are actually H?
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I first heard of it in How to Read the Bible by James Kugel. He talks of scholars at first assuming H was older than P, but most modern scholars accepting the idea that P and H represented 2 opposing schools of priests, with H being the final editor. Two names he mentions are Jacob Milgrom (Wiki and Amazon links - read the Amazon review. It gives some "H" background) and Israel Knohl (Wiki and Shalom Hartman Institute - Israel Knohl is putting out a book about the Gabriel Revelation tablet. First time I've heard of this discovery and it sounds very interesting!!!)

As far as what parts are P and what parts are H, the Amazon review mentioned "..."P" (Priestly source, chiefly Lev. 1-16) and "H" (Holiness source, chiefly Lev. 17-27),". That's all I got at the moment but I will continue to dig...
 
Greediguts said:
As far as what parts are P and what parts are H, the Amazon review mentioned "..."P" (Priestly source, chiefly Lev. 1-16) and "H" (Holiness source, chiefly Lev. 17-27),". That's all I got at the moment but I will continue to dig...
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Thanks. I'll have to dig a bit deeper into this. It would be interesting to see how H and P divide up the P material in Genesis, Exodus and Numbers.
 
In another thread I noticed the story of Lot was being re-told with humorous comments. As the thread seemed to disintegrate into an argument (What? On this forum? No way!), I decided to post here. I just wanted to point out some etiological aspects of the story.

If the towns existed at some point and were wiped out by some natural occurrence (different theories are discussed here at Biblical Archaeology Review) the story becomes a very convenient way to explain the ruins of the cities to following generations. Also, maybe one of the rock formations looked like a woman (which Josephus talks about when he visited the area - Jewish Antiquities 203) and thus the story of Lot's wife being turned into salt is born.

But more interesting is the story of Lot's daughters bearing their father's children. The ending verses in particular:

"Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab; he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and named him Ben-ammi; he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day." (Genesis 19:36-38)

The Moabites and Ammonites were neighbors of Israel. They all shared a similar language and would have been thought to have common ancestors. Yet both were unkind or even outright hostile to the Israelites throughout their shared history. The names of the children reinforce the tale. The name Moab (eponym of the Moabites) takes after the phrase "from father" in Hebrew (me'ab) and Ben-ammi comes from “My dad's son" (ben 'ammi). Now granted, the Hebrew 'am developed a more general meaning as time went on ("kinsman"), but most scholars see it as specifically meaning "father" in early texts. So basically, the story explains why they shared things (language, ancestors) but also why those two groups generally acted like a bunch of bastards!!!:)
 
I can´t help wondering.
In modern child abuse cases it is usualy not the daughters that take the iniative with a drunk father.
I suspect the story was edited a bit with a misogynist slant.
 
Toke said:
I can´t help wondering.
In modern child abuse cases it is usualy not the daughters that take the iniative with a drunk father.
I suspect the story was edited a bit with a misogynist slant.
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I don't know, I think it is more likely that they are simple etiology stories. Many of the patriarch stories serve the same function -- Ishmael and Arabs, Esau and Edom. The important point is that the other competing groups can always be characterized in a negative way through the story.

Sort of like Polish jokes if you're from central Europe, Aggie Jokes if from Texas, Belgian jokes if from France, etc.

It's just a story, not something that really happened.



There is also the guest-host relation issue with Lot offering his daughters to the crowd instead of allowing them to violate his guests. The whole point of that story was to show how evil the men of Sodom were (Lot, for that time and in the story, does what is proper -- which is why the other thread can so easily mock ideas of absolute justice). Just like the repeat of the story in Judges (the rape of the Levite's concubine) is used to show how far the tribes have fallen into degredation.
 
Good point, just stories.
And they show what the moral norm was at the time.

A few years ago my father showed me judges (#19?) as we were talking about women and religion.
Rather scary.
 
I wondered if a discussion of the Lot story would be discussed here after the circus in the other thread. I had hoped to talk about the repeat in Judges, but Ichneumonwasp beat me to one of the points. I think the repeat in Judges is a bit of an etiology story as well, what with the description of the concubine being divided into twelve parts and distributed amongst the various tribes.
 
Hokulele said:
I wondered if a discussion of the Lot story would be discussed here after the circus in the other thread. I had hoped to talk about the repeat in Judges, but Ichneumonwasp beat me to one of the points. I think the repeat in Judges is a bit of an etiology story as well, what with the description of the concubine being divided into twelve parts and distributed amongst the various tribes.
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But in either case, it reads more of the kind of story you use to describe the origin of your enemies and not yourself.

"We're the descendants of incest and/or crazed rapists!!!"
 
Hokulele said:
Oh, I agree. I hope no one thought I was implying otherwise.
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I didn't mean to imply that you were. I simply don't get it. The old testament is the jewish traditions. Why would they maintain such a tradition?

And note, that this concept even goes back to Noah.
 
The thread on the tower of Babel caused me to go back and look at that story again. Most Christians say God punished the people for being arrogant. They tried to build a tower that would reach the heavens.

The actual text talks of the people being scattered by God and they "left off building the city". The city was called Babel; the tower was one part of it. If the tower was knocked down or destroyed, the text remains silent on this issue, which is interesting if the tower was the main focal point of the story. I've read some sites that mention the name "Babel" comes from bab ilu in Akkadian (which means "gate of the god"). The most obvious word choice (and most scholarly) would be that of balal which is Hebrew for mix or confuse. The proper noun "Babylon" in Hebrew is Babel. The end of the story seems to be a direct reference to Babylon.

So couldn't this actually be two stories mashed together? It would be easy to say that the story describes why so many languages are spoken, but wouldn't another point be to show that God was not pleased by ziggurats and large cities? The early Israelites lived in small communities. The Babylonians lived in a metropolis (well, the ancient version of a metropolis anyway:)). If this was written during the exile period, it would be another instance of warning the Jews not to adopt Babylonian customs or become heavily influenced by their society. "These are things that do not please God; in fact, He even messed up all the languages and broke one of their ziggurats because the Babylonians were too full of themselves!" The etiological aspects of the story probably came first but then the story evolved during the exile period and was finally recorded during that time.

Looking at what I have typed, I know I've read something similar somewhere. I'm too tired to recall what it was. I'll have to go back and dig for the source. Meanwhile, any thoughts?
 
As in the Eden narrative, the tower of Babel story depicts a god more in line with those of the Sumerian, East Semitic, Canaanite and Greek pantheons - a bigger than life human not immune to such human frailties such as fear. The reason God drove Adam out of the garden is fear-based. God has already meted out the punishments to Adam, Eve and the serpent, when he expouds the reason for driving Adam out of the garden (Gen. 3:22 - 24):

Then the LORD God [Yahweh Elohim] said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also ofthe tree of life and live forever" - therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

So the reason Yahweh drove Adam out of the garden wasn't part of the punishment, but was out of fear that humans would become immortal. God's fear of the potential power of his creatures also comes through in the Babel story (Gen. 11:5 -7):

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

So God confuses the speech of the people building the tower out of fear that "nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them."
 
Greediguts said:
Just came across this and wanted to share. Someone has put some lectures of Bart Ehrman on YouTube-

"Lost Christianities - Christians who would refuse to be Jews" -part one. Other 2 parts are under related videos.

"The Gnostic Gospel of Truth" Part one - still looking for parts 2 and 3.
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Thanks, man.

I've been meaning to ask you and Hok -- have you guys come to any conclusions about who you think Jesus was? I keep vacillating between the idea that he was an apocalypticist and that the apocalyptic message was only added later. I think I could even see John the Baptist being added later by Mark as a way to tie Jesus to the Essene apocalyptic movement (if John was Essene) sort of through Paul's influence, since Paul's message was clearly apocalyptic.

But wasn't John also mentioned in the Gospel of Thomas? I don't remember much of Thomas since I've never spent a lot of time with it.

I think I may be more confused now than in the past over just who or what Jesus was. I'm still a big Ehrman fan, but I find myself more drawn to John Dominic Crossan's portrayal. I just don't know, though.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Thanks, man.

I've been meaning to ask you and Hok -- have you guys come to any conclusions about who you think Jesus was? I keep vacillating between the idea that he was an apocalypticist and that the apocalyptic message was only added later. I think I could even see John the Baptist being added later by Mark as a way to tie Jesus to the Essene apocalyptic movement (if John was Essene) sort of through Paul's influence, since Paul's message was clearly apocalyptic.

But wasn't John also mentioned in the Gospel of Thomas? I don't remember much of Thomas since I've never spent a lot of time with it.

I think I may be more confused now than in the past over just who or what Jesus was. I'm still a big Ehrman fan, but I find myself more drawn to John Dominic Crossan's portrayal. I just don't know, though.
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Good question. There are alot of variables. Was John the Baptist an Essene? Was the Gospel of Thomas written first? How much did Paul really know of Jesus' actual teachings and how much was his interpretation through the Hebrew Bible?

(BTW, John the Baptist is mentioned once in the Gospel of Thomas - verse 46: "Jesus said, "From Adam to John the Baptist, among those born of women, no one is so much greater than John the Baptist that his eyes should not be averted. But I have said that whoever among you becomes a child will know the Kingdom and will become greater than John."

Compare to Matthew 11:10-14:

"This is the one about whom it is written, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.' Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.")

Honestly, I'm somewhat stuck on that whole question. I lean more towards apocalyptic Jesus rather than just social reformer. A Jewish laborer, spending time and being baptized by John, strikes me as someone who was looking for the end to come. I see his wanting to change social norms as an offshoot of preparing for the coming Kingdom of God on Earth.

For me, a big part of the puzzle is John the Baptist. He clearly is an important part in the development of Jesus' worldview. But how much? When it comes to John's teachings, did Jesus keep them/change them/develop them/cast them aside?

The more I read, the more questions I have, so I read more, which causes more questions, so I read more, but that...


Ack! :boggled:
 
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