Hermeneutics - Who [Re-]Wrote the Old Testament?

[Turtle]

so thens, i reviewed our thread Who [Re-]Wrote the Bible, and found that it is focussed on the new testament, so as we have had some interesting, but misplaced, enquiry into the hermeneutics of the old testament here lately, vis-à-vis genesis, i have an interest to pursue the topic.

 

while i have not probed genesis for the earliest known writing(s)/copy, i have looked into noah & knowa' (:rant:) that is is so similar in detail to the earlier epic of gilgamesh, as to be nothing more than a later re-write of a borrowed mythos. :phones:

 

Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE). ...

 

discuss. :friday:

[JMJones0424]

Forgive my ignorance, but I did a google and a google scholar search for "Maureen Gallery Kovacs" and all I found were references to her 1989 translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Who is this person, and how credible is she? I see she is well cited, and perhaps that should be proof enough...

 

I went to Wikipedia out of desperation, and didn't find a direct entry for her, however in Gilgamesh Flood Myth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Gilgamesh flood myth is a deluge story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was added as Tablet XI to the ten original tablets of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who copied or altered parts of the flood story from the Epic of Atrahasis.[1]

 

And the source for this statement is listed as:

Tigay, Jeffrey H., (1982). The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. ISBN 0-8122-7805-4.

 

So it appears that even the Gilgamesh version of "Noah's flood" may not be the first?

 

Atra-Hasis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Alas. I can't help wondering why bother? Excuse me while I go back to struggling to understand physics.

[Turtle]

Forgive my ignorance, but I did a google and a google scholar search for "Maureen Gallery Kovacs" and all I found were references to her 1989 translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Who is this person, and how credible is she? I see she is well cited, and perhaps that should be proof enough. I went to Wikipedia out of desperation, and didn't find a direct entry for her, ...

that's the version i first read of the entire work when it first came out, though i had for many years seen various passages quoted. i no longer have a hardcopy and gave a link to just one of various sites giving translations online.

 

there is a review from the book cover at the amazon advert "look-inside" thingy at this link; sorry i don't know how to isolate or copy it, but the work is referred to as "authoritive", it's from stanford press (does that carry any weight? :phones:), and it is touted as taking into account new discoveries in language that make this a different translation to english than others available. so, perhaps there are better french translations or some such? mon deua. :cheer: : Amazon.com: The Epic of Gilgamesh (9780804717113): Maureen Kovacs: Books http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Gilgamesh-Maureen-Kovacs/dp/0804717117#reader_0804717117

 

..., however in Gilgamesh Flood Myth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Gilgamesh flood myth is a deluge story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was added as Tablet XI to the ten original tablets of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who copied or altered parts of the flood story from the Epic of Atrahasis.[1]

...And the source for this statement is listed as:

Tigay, Jeffrey H., (1982). The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. ISBN 0-8122-7805-4.

 

So it appears that even the Gilgamesh version of "Noah's flood" may not be the first?

 

Atra-Hasis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Alas. I can't help wondering why bother? Excuse me while I go back to struggling to understand physics.

 

well, somebody be mistakin' sumpin', cause the wicked on atra-hasis gives a date of

...The oldest known copy of the epic tradition concerning Atrahasis[2] can be dated by colophon (scribal identification) to the reign of Hammurabi's great-grandson, Ammi-Saduqa (1646–1626 BCE) ...

, while the clay tablets of sumeria were dated by my source @

...originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE). ...

. or have i mistooken the date of gilgamesh's reign with the date of the the clay tablets?

 

well, we bother because we all love a good story. always have, always will. this'n here is a good part detective story by my reckon, but you can call it whatever shade puckers yer lips. :rolleyes: :evil:

[Eclipse Now]

Dudes, read my mate John's article.

 

http://www.iscast.org/journal/articles/Dickson_J_2008-03_Genesis_Of_Everything.pdf

 

It focuses mainly on Chapter 1 of Genesis, and the way the original author is 'marking' the worldviews of the current day. While there are similarities in the images used, you'll note the incredible differences.

 

EG: The stars are there to mark the seasons, and serve US as OUR calendar, they are not gods that we are to serve (or sacrifice babies to!)

 

EG: IN the Enuma Elish, Marduk does battle with Tiamet (that naughty Goddess that made the yukky Dr Who like serpent beings) and basically split her in half, and out of this the oceans emerge. "No no no!" says Genesis, GOD just divides the waters, and HE is in control of it and setting out the boundaries, etc.

 

7 days? Did you know the Enuma Elish basically has 7 tablets, and 7 creation sequences that roughly mirror the bible days? Whoever wrote Genesis 1 was having a go at a number of the Mesopotamian creation stories, and it would have resonated as much as if he'd started writing,

 

"Oh, say! can you see by the worlds's early light

What so proudly God hailed at the earth's first gleaming;

Whose broad sunshine glows and bright stars illuminate through the perilous night,"

 

See Dr John Dickson's article, as he does a better job at explaining it than the above. :rolleyes:

 

 

 

This is why it is so frustrating to hear Creationists trying to read this as a scientific textbook! They are missing the revolutionary theological bombshell that this is, through sheer ignorance of the culture into which this message arrives. They are shoving scientific questions onto the passage which are 4000 years removed from the actual theological concerns of the original author.

 

I've done a bit of a comparison, just from my layman's reading of the Enuma Elish... I'm no historian of the period, but just read through the Enuma Elish and tried to comprehend what they were saying and how it compares to Genesis. But above all, I recommend my mate John's history of understanding Genesis. (They've also done a history of Creationism, where it came from and mistakes they've made... but that's not entirely relevant just now).

[sman]

Dudes, read my mate John's article.

 

http://www.iscast.org/journal/articles/Dickson_J_2008-03_Genesis_Of_Everything.pdf

 

I read it. It is, if nothing else, good advice for Biblical inerrists, which there seem to be too many of, especially in this country. I'm glad it's out there. Thanks. :)

 

My understanding is that the Genesis was compiled by a group of people, which we should think of as a "priestly class", returning from the Exile in Babylon -circa 500BC- where the striking monotheism that was to become Judaism had been incubating. I think its not inaccurate to look at the document as a political tool for uniting some scattered tribes of west semitics, imbibed with Mesopotamian culture and legends, into a unified nation. It was very important to the authors of the Genesis to re-interpret local legens in the terms of the powerful new monotheism that they brought with them from Babylon.

 

I think it also should be mentioned that the Genesis (and the great portion of the torah) is a blend, or redaction, of at least two rival traditions with some added material here and there by the redactors to smooth over the seems.

 

So....c'n I come aboard? :) (<--me behaving myself)

[Eclipse Now]

Thanks for reading it! Yeah, John surpassed himself in explaining some fairly difficult concepts. I love the bit about the Enuma Elish being like the Babylonian national anthem, read aloud once a year, a bit like Aussies might listen to "At the going down of the sun, we will remember them!" and the Last Post on ANZAC day. The Enuma Elish is Christmas and ANZAC day rolled into one... and Genesis turns it on its head as a counter-polemic.

 

I don't know how any Christian that reads the Enuma Elish (and other comparable Mesopotamian and, I hear, some Egyptian creation myths) cannot see Genesis for what it is: a creative narrative teaching theological truths, not scientific truths.

 

It can still be inerrant if the metaphors involved teach truth. Jesus taught in parables and metaphors. Poetry can use bizarre imagery, and yet still reflect on reality.

 

In other words, there's no 'error' there if one is not asking the wrong questions in the first place. :) Rather than arguing with Creationists on their usual stomping grounds, I think I'll ask them to prove that it is even discussing literalistic scientific truths in the first place. Wait, tried that, didn't help. :) Oh well. Live and let live, and try to educate the newcomers to Christianity before these guys get to them... :)

[sman]

:)

It can still be inerrant if the metaphors involved teach truth. Jesus taught in parables and metaphors. Poetry can use bizarre imagery, and yet still reflect on reality.

 

We must not harbor the assumption that the bible doesn't err, either literalistically or parabolically :doh: - you know what I mean. We do not approach the Enuma Elish this way, nor the Iliad or any other ancient writing. This document should be no different. If we have preconceptions about it, we must set those aside while we perform our scholarship. The morals we live by today will stay the way we left them no matter what we find in the bible.

 

Oh well. Live and let live, and try to educate the newcomers to Christianity before these guys get to them... :hihi:

 

Educate them too much & you ruin them for Christianity. That's what happened to me. The thing about understanding is you can't give it back. This is why Christianity is so in-the-states-face about education: they want it, but only to a point.

 

Oops, I'm s'posed to behave myself. Sorry. :evil:

[Turtle]

...

I don't know how any Christian that reads the Enuma Elish (and other comparable Mesopotamian and, I hear, some Egyptian creation myths) cannot see Genesis for what it is: a creative narrative teaching theological truths, not scientific truths.

 

In other words, there's no 'error' there if one is not asking the wrong questions in the first place. :evil:

 

erhmmm.. seems you're goin' all non sequitar there.

 

Here are two types of non sequitur of traditional noteworthiness:

 

1) Any argument that takes the following form is a non sequitur:

 

1. If A is true, then B is true.

2. B is stated to be true.

3. Therefore, A must be true

 

1. so in your first statement i boldened, your A is that it is true that genesis is not scientific truth, so it is B, theological truth

2. you state B is true

3. therefore, you conclude A is true

 

oui/no?

 

but then in your second stement i boldened, you appear to use another form:

2) Another common non sequitur is this:

 

1. If A then B. (e.g., If I am in Tokyo, I am in Japan.)

2. Not A. (e.g., I am not in Tokyo.)

3. Therefore, not B. (e.g., Therefore, I am not in Japan.)

 

[The speaker could be anywhere else in Japan. This sort of non sequitur is called denying the antecedent.] ...

 

so you say 1) A, asking the right questions , B, gives right answers. then 2) you ask wrong questions, then 3) deny right answers can follow from wrong questions.

 

seems like something along those lines to me anyway. :) Non sequitur (logic - encyclopedia article about Non sequitur (logic.)

[Eclipse Now]

Turtle, I was just making the obvious point that Sman made above: that if you approach the passage with the wrong assumptions, you'll ask the wrong questions.

 

(EDIT TO ADD:

Having re-read my statements above, I might have sounded like I was saying "If you only read it my metaphorical way you'll see it's TRUE!" but what I was actually saying is "If you read it my way you'll see it doesn't have to come across as full of error". There's a big difference between the 2. As a Christian living in a sceptical world, I see a combination of philosophy and historical probability moving me from Jesus life backwards into accepting the Old Testament, not the other way around, but this is way outside my area of expertise and I'd probably express it in all the wrong sort of ways, and was not really in this thread to try and 'prove' Christianity.)

 

EG: Creationists approach the passage with today's issues about the scientific process to do with creation, and end up uncomfortable when they see evolution saying something different to Genesis 1 & 2.

 

As to Sman's comments about how we must approach the text, well, Sman is assuming secularism as a worldview being required to read any ancient passage correctly. We 'must'. Why must we all have Sman's secularist worldview to read?

[Turtle]

Turtle, I was just making the obvious point that Sman made above: that if you approach the passage with the wrong assumptions, you'll ask the wrong questions.

 

(EDIT TO ADD:

Having re-read my statements above, I might have sounded like I was saying "If you only read it my metaphorical way you'll see it's TRUE!" but what I was actually saying is "If you read it my way you'll see it doesn't have to come across as full of error". There's a big difference between the 2. As a Christian living in a sceptical world, I see a combination of philosophy and historical probability moving me from Jesus life backwards into accepting the Old Testament, not the other way around, but this is way outside my area of expertise and I'd probably express it in all the wrong sort of ways, and was not really in this thread to try and 'prove' Christianity.)

 

well, the last first. i think i gave us all enough latitude by the title & op of the thread to investigate the situation along many lines including yours. exactly what we had in mind when we made a Theology Forum. :Alien: what i am stridently opposed to is proselytizing, dissembling, logical fallacies, and willful ignorance; but so far i think you're not there. :evil:

 

what i see is that the more i have learned about the bible, the less factual information i find. while you have gone on about other aspects of genesis, you have avoided my interjection of gilgamesh. not that that surprises me as it's rather a fly in the ointment of the "it's all original & true" to jewish/muslim/christian believers. by yours/their's non-sequitar-but-who-cares business on these texts, if there's a fact in something, the something is factual. that's a BIG problem. :doh:

 

my interest is in rooting out the oldest know written copies extant of whatever; mostly because if pushed to shove i would say i'm currently a writer. :hihi:

 

:)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ~ george santayana ~

/forums/images/smilies/banana_sign.gif

[Eclipse Now]

Sorry, what is your point? I hear informed theologians referring to Gilgamesh and the Genesis references to it & the Enuma Elish & others every time we cover Genesis 1. It's a comparative exercise covered in our hermeneutics for Genesis 1, and the similar writing style and images can hide the profound theological differences if one is not looking out for them.

[Turtle]

Sorry, what is your point? I hear informed theologians referring to Gilgamesh and the Genesis references to it & the Enuma Elish & others every time we cover Genesis 1. It's a comparative exercise covered in our hermeneutics for Genesis 1, and the similar writing style and images can hide the profound theological differences if one is not looking out for them.

 

"informed theologin" is an oxymoron. :evil: pardon, what was your point? :)

[Eclipse Now]

what i see is that the more i have learned about the bible, the less factual information i find. while you have gone on about other aspects of genesis, you have avoided my interjection of gilgamesh. not that that surprises me as it's rather a fly in the ointment of the "it's all original & true" to jewish/muslim/christian believers. by yours/their's non-sequitar-but-who-cares business on these texts, if there's a fact in something, the something is factual. that's a BIG problem.

I'm just asking you to unpack this a bit.

 

You seem to be arguing that because Genesis has a specific cultural context and is written in a very specific metaphorical form, it is full of non-factual statements? Ummm...? :confused:

 

Can't it use a well known form to critique the surrounding "national anthems" and belief systems?

[Turtle]

I'm just asking you to unpack this a bit.

 

You seem to be arguing that because Genesis has a specific cultural context and is written in a very specific metaphorical form, it is full of non-factual statements? Ummm...? :note:

 

Can't it use a well known form to critique the surrounding "national anthems" and belief systems?

 

i'm arguing that it's full of un/non-verifiable statements. the text is a critique insofar as we now can verify specific elements. yes it's "of a form". so what? so is all writing. what is verifiable that we can ask about it? is the text old? yes we can ask this and answer it because we have the actual, age-verifiable-by-scientific-means, texts/text fragments. so, which fragment is oldest? where was it found? who was there then? how did it travel? why was it written? who could read it? how do we know? yada yada yada... where's-the-beef-i'm-from-missouri-show-me-the-money. :note: no matter how much of this verifiable questioning that we verify, it is no evidence or affirmation of what the fragments say of non-verifiable things. non sequitar then to pretend that this spirit or that angel is the source of the text or is "quoted" in the text. how do you know it's not scripts from plays? what makes it any more true than one of the greek plays concerning myths? what makes it oh-so-more representative of today's problems than any other old work?

 

nothing. it's value lies in that it is old and gives a view to how people thought & wrote back to the oldest wroting we have found on this 3rd rock from a star and the occasional clue to archaeological discovery. it is a record of the past that santayana warns not to repeat, or at least i wrote him warning against repeating the old error of believing genesis true, but he's still dead so he can hardly object. :confused:

[Eclipse Now]

Hmmm, I think I see where you're coming from and I think a "Philosophy of History" course, and maybe even some Epistemology... how we know what we know basic philosophy might also be helpful... because it sounds like you want an empirical scientific proof of something that is a historical and philosophical issue. EG: How do you "scientifically prove" the larger issue behind what we are discussing, the existence / non-existence of an Almighty Spirit beyond the very space-time in which science operates?

 

Unless of course He visited here. :confused:

 

Now we're thoroughly off topic, which I thought was early Genesis.

[Turtle]

Hmmm, I think I see where you're coming from and I think a "Philosophy of History" course, and maybe even some Epistemology... how we know what we know basic philosophy might also be helpful... because it sounds like you want an empirical scientific proof of something that is a historical and philosophical issue. EG: How do you "scientifically prove" the larger issue behind what we are discussing, the existence / non-existence of an Almighty Spirit beyond the very space-time in which science operates?

 

Unless of course He visited here. ;)

 

Now we're thoroughly off topic, which I thought was early Genesis.

 

:note: no, no, no. you are spot on topic visàvis genesis inasmuch as what you say there IS what you think early genesis IS. you, fortunately or know no, used almost exactly the phrase of our dear friend of lo these many years doctor dick, i.e. how we know what we know, or What can we know of reality to quote 'im. i think you'll find me there challenging him on that as well. (as if. :note:)

 

well, i digress too mayhaps. :doh: so if you could, please summarrize some earliest dates of texts of genesis that you have garnered from your lookage, and, per se, bust up with some shareage. oh, and i don't agree with your throwing history to the wolves as it were, as with philosophy where we might consider it an acceptable loss.

 

so it was said. :confused:

[sman]

Wikipedia never fails to surprise me! Documentary hypothesis

 

... so if you could, please summarrize some earliest dates of texts of genesis that you have garnered from your lookage, and, per se, bust up with some shareage. :confused:

 

 

Aparently the creation myth from Genesis 1 (Gen 1:1-2:3) - as opposed to the one in Genesis 2, which is compleatly different - is from the Priestly account (P), but the rest of Genesis up until Noah's flood, with the exception of some redactional stuff which probably took place little before 450BC, is from the Yawist (J) material, which is very old (circa 950BC). P could be as old as 600BC, but hard to say.

 

As to Sman's comments about how we must approach the text, well, Sman is assuming secularism as a worldview being required to read any ancient passage correctly. We 'must'. Why must we all have Sman's secularist worldview to read?

 

Well, I guess I'm not insisting. I just think it's good advice to try our best to remain objective. Skepticism is all I ask of theists, not worldview reformation.

 

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense. - Carl Sagan