Jesus is the law

[Guest]

Hello, JC,

Thank you for your posting.

OK, so we agree that Jesus imlicitly called himself a prophet. He needn't actually say the words, "I'm Jesus and I'm a prophet" in order to make the point. Jesus rarely took a direct course when explaining things to people and I believe he had specific reasons for this.

We do not fully agree. The statement has the potential to imply that Jesus is calling himself a prophet. But we cannot conclusively state that this was Jesus' intent.

Jesus taught as though prophets were holy men of God who spoke prophetically to the nation of Israel.

But you used the word in its own definition: prophets are those who speak prophetically. What does it mean, exactly, to speak prophetically?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Our knowledge of any historical person is second-hand. Do you discredit Abraham because Moses wrote his biography? Do you then discredit Moses because his writings were copied by others and handed to us? Do you have reason to believe the New Testament writers lied about Jesus? Granted, they could've very well fudged on trivial details, but certainly they'd remember whether or not a man who was publically executed ate fish with them three days later. If you think it difficult to assess things that are second-hand then you wouldn't know anything and neither would I.

I do not imagine that Moses wrote Abraham's biography. But as for your general point, I consider the narrative and legal sections of the Hebrew bible to be open to critical review. For example, I do not consider Deuteronomy to be a trustworthy account of Moses.

You do well to point out that even first-hand source material is transmitted through additional parties. That is why it is important to be sensitive to redaction as a textual critic. But generally speaking, one might expect a greater amount of variation when the entire text is dependent upon a second party's filter, as opposed to incidental gloss by a second party.

I have reason to believe that some in the New Testament lied about Jesus, yes - though they themselves may not have looked at it as lying, but rather theological portraiture. Yet for the most part I am not so concerned with outright lying, but rather credulous reception of hearsay, selective and metamorphic memory, and tendentious nuancing (whether conscious or unconscious).

As for the difficulty of knowing things second-hand, both you and I "know" a great deal less than we might imagine. Rather, we believe many things that we have little-to-no experience with or even practical capacity to evaluate. But Jesus is notably difficult to assess, because the data we have about him is supplied by parties who have strong investment in their personal understandings of him; such can readily lead to a measure of distortion.

You might want to preface this paragraph by saying, "In my opinion...." because this is stated as though it were a known fact. The truth is, what you've said here is not the opinion of any Christian I'm aware of so the argument is only effective to those holding a certain view of Judaism. I know you're not wishing to "convert" anyone with this line of reasoning but you know with whom you're communicating... and Christians don't hold the premise from which you begin this thought.

I found your comment here really striking ... and curious. This is a forum, not a Sunday School class, and I was not aware that I should need to pin a yellow star on perspectives that differ from a party line. Not that it matters so much on this occasion, because Christians hold to a variety of different perspectives on inspiration, and I would not consider my observation here to be particularly Jewish.

My point about prophets and messiahs is not so tentative as to be hedged with a disclaimer like "In my opinion...." Moses, one of the greatest prophets ever, miscarried his assignment from God in Kadesh [Numbers 20:7ff.]. And who would seriously suggest that David and Solomon, renowned messiahs, were preserved from error in all their words and behaviors? And even in your bible, does not Paul bother to make a distinction between what he has received from the Lord and his own thought [I Corinthians 7:25ff.]?

My hermeneutical perspective may seem radical, but it is really quite basic and eminently fair: when a text does not claim to be the word of God, it is not necessarily the word of God - and thus not necessarily invested with the perfection of God. What few readers bother to notice is how little of their bible claims to be the word of God.

The same carries over to individuals: when they are expressly giving the word of God, that is one matter; when they are not, it is another matter.


Shalom,
Emmet

[Guest]

Hello, Steve,

Thank you for your response.

I agree that God is not subject to the law which was the reason Jesus used for not observing the Sabbath so the logical conclusion s/b obvious.

In the Markan version of this pericope, Jesus' argument does not have to do with his (putatively) being God, but rather with the relationship between humanity and the Sabbath [2:27f.].

Jesus had been under the law but at some point (perhaps his baptism) he fulfilled the law.

Interesting proposition. So then you would not see his death as a requisite part of fulfilling the Law?

Please pardon me if I repeat myself, as I am managing several conversations right now on this topic: how, exactly, is this "fulfillment" accomplished, and what does it entail?

Now regarding what Jesus meant regarding his sermon on the Mount , i think he answered this himself later on.
Matt 9.16-17 "No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment , for the patch pulls away from the garment and the tear is made worse" Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins and both are preserved."
Another words Jesus was'nt adding on to the Sinatic Covenant for just as Jeremiah said "not according to the Covenant that i made with their fathers in the day that i took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt."
So in fact Jesus did'nt destroy the law but he made it clear it had a purpose and that purpose had passed, it was time to move on. Now i understand you disagree but that's not the issue here, the issue is what did Jesus mean?

Your citation of Matthew 9:16-17 is profoundly mishandled. To begin with, you have referenced it out of context. The discussion at hand is not the "old covenant," but the fasting practices of first century Jewish piety. The Law itself does not require fasting at any time. In addition, as you have indicated, Matthew concludes his version of the pericope with "both are preserved," which hardly suggests that one or the other has been done away with; in fact, the passage itself indicates that the disciples will indeed fast when Jesus is taken from them. If the issue is "what did Jesus mean?", then it should be important to pay close attention to context and content.

And, for what it is worth, you might consider the tag that Luke adds to his version in 5:39; the text is complicated by manuscript issues, but there is considerable evidence for reading it as "No one having drunk old is willing for new, for he says 'The old is more useful."

As for your citation from Jeremiah, the Hebrew text does not state "not according to the covenant," but rather "not like the covenant." The distinction between the earlier covenant and the new one is explicated in 31:33, that God's law will be implanted in the hearts of the people. So the "not like"ness is not necessarily related to content, but rather to the dynamic of the covenant.

BTW re God taking a day off, all we know is that He ceased from His creative efforts but someone still has to maintain the universe.

If God is as competent and powerful as some would have it, then could he not arrange things well enough by Friday afternoon for them to run on their own for a day?


Shalom,
Emmet

[Guest]

Your citation of Matthew 9:16-17 is profoundly mishandled. To begin with, you have referenced it out of context. The discussion at hand is not the "old covenant," but the fasting practices of first century Jewish piety. The Law itself does not require fasting at any time. In addition, as you have indicated, Matthew concludes his version of the pericope with "both are preserved," which hardly suggests that one or the other has been done away with; in fact, the passage itself indicates that the disciples will indeed fast when Jesus is taken from them. If the issue is "what did Jesus mean?", then it should be important to pay close attention to context and content.


Emmet, Surely you jest my friend. Yes they had been discussing fasting and the legalists both Pharisees and John's disciples disliked the fact that Jesus's disciples by contrast were almost partying. But as Jesus said with a brilliant segway "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? BUT the days will come when the bridegroom will be TAKEN AWAY from them, and then they will fast."
Firstly the others were fasting for wrong reasons but the real point is the taking away of Jesus initiates the New Covenant which He says can not be put into old wineskins. The old wineskins are inflexible and worn out and can not carry new wine. Yes he did say both are preserved but look at the contrast.
In Jer 31.31 "not like" according to you means a dynamic difference not a content difference. The point is viva la differance whether content or dynamic the New Covenant is in fact better.
Btw i stand corrected in that Jesus fulfilled the law when he shed his blood on the cross and said "it is finished." And that's what fulfilled means as in finished or completed or to meet the requirements of the law.

[Guest]

Emmet, greetings! My response is below.

I do not imagine that Moses wrote Abraham's biography. But as for your general point, I consider the narrative and legal sections of the Hebrew bible to be open to critical review. For example, I do not consider Deuteronomy to be a trustworthy account of Moses.

I won't fault you for that, except to say that I disagree with your view of Mosaic authorship. I do so not only on the basis of textual criticism but mainly because Jesus quoted it as though it were Moses. You and I are, however, in obvious disagreement on Jesus' authority.

You do well to point out that even first-hand source material is transmitted through additional parties. That is why it is important to be sensitive to redaction as a textual critic. But generally speaking, one might expect a greater amount of variation when the entire text is dependent upon a second party's filter, as opposed to incidental gloss by a second party.

Textual variations can exist for a number of reasons. If you have three tellings of a supposedly historical event and those writings differ on some points but agree in the macro sense, we could very well conclude that the event took place, but the details are sketchy. This would also be proof that collusion was unlikely. You're free to take it another way, I'm just offering you a valid alternative. Textual criticism as a scienice is also flawed, in that it makes assumptions that might be better explained another way. For example, if I found textual variations in style and grammar between two writings ascribed to a single man I might conclude that one of the writings is fraudulent. I might also conclude that he used an interpreter to pen one of them. Both explainations are equally valid, if the content of the writings bares resemblance in thought.

I have reason to believe that some in the New Testament lied about Jesus, yes - though they themselves may not have looked at it as lying, but rather theological portraiture. Yet for the most part I am not so concerned with outright lying, but rather credulous reception of hearsay, selective and metamorphic memory, and tendentious nuancing (whether conscious or unconscious).

You're attacking the character of men who have never been proven to fabricate, exaggerate, or otherwise lie on a single occasion. The writers of scripture strike me as entirely competent to record historical details. Perhaps it's the content of what they recorded that bothers you. To be a textual critic one has to always strike down supernatural occurances, at least if peer-credibility is a desireable thing. I don't mean to knock this form of historical science but it often reeks of bias just as pungently as religious bias. The only difference is -- one is accepted in academia and the other is not. Seems to me that a double-standard is afoot. Mind you, I'm not attacking your views, only textual criticism as a whole. You may or may not agree with general acceptance in the field -- I just don't know.

But Jesus is notably difficult to assess, because the data we have about him is supplied by parties who have strong investment in their personal understandings of him; such can readily lead to a measure of distortion.

Hmm. How did you come to the conclusion that the gospel writers had more reason to lie about these events than to tell the truth? From my experience in dealing with Christian people, I've found them far more honest than those in the academic world where temptation to fabricate for personal gain is around every turn.

My point about prophets and messiahs is not so tentative as to be hedged with a disclaimer like "In my opinion...." Moses, one of the greatest prophets ever, miscarried his assignment from God in Kadesh [Numbers 20:7ff.]. And who would seriously suggest that David and Solomon, renowned messiahs, were preserved from error in all their words and behaviors? And even in your bible, does not Paul bother to make a distinction between what he has received from the Lord and his own thought [I Corinthians 7:25ff.]?

You are aware, of course, that Christians hold that the messiah alluded to in the Old Testament is God himself. I find it strange you assume us to have a Jewish understanding of the messiah by putting Jesus in a long line of prophets, as though they all possess equal qualities. I hold that the messianic prophets of ancient Israel shared certain qualities with Jesus, but not on all points. Paul is not the Christ so he's free to make a distinction between what he thinks personally and what was revealed to him by God.

My hermeneutical perspective may seem radical, but it is really quite basic and eminently fair: when a text does not claim to be the word of God, it is not necessarily the word of God - and thus not necessarily invested with the perfection of God. What few readers bother to notice is how little of their bible claims to be the word of God.

Jesus quoted from the pslams and accredited it to God. The places he quoted just sounded like David's own prose. But I agree with your general point that not every line of the scriptures has to be taken as though it were dictated by God to man. I don't hold that view at all, actually.

God bless.

[Guest]

Hello, Steve,

Thank you for your response.

Surely you jest my friend.

I jesteth not.

Yes they had been discussing fasting and the legalists both Pharisees and John's disciples disliked the fact that Jesus's disciples by contrast were almost partying. But as Jesus said with a brilliant segway "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? BUT the days will come when the bridegroom will be TAKEN AWAY from them, and then they will fast."
Firstly the others were fasting for wrong reasons but the real point is the taking away of Jesus initiates the New Covenant which He says can not be put into old wineskins. The old wineskins are inflexible and worn out and can not carry new wine.

It is remarkable how Christians can massage so many passages to address what seems important to them, rather than letting the passages speak for themselves. A responsible interpretive ethic does not seek to inject meaning into a text [eisegesis], but rather to derive meaning from its inherent sense [exegesis].

If the point of the pericope were covenantal, then it is curious that after the initiation of the new covenant in the blood of Jesus -- "when the bridegroom will be TAKEN AWAY from them" -- the disciples should then be more in sync with the old ways, fasting like John's disciples and the Pharisees.

The illustrations are not covenantal, but pastoral in nature. Jesus is advocating patience with his disciples because they are new in faith and rightly excited during exciting times. However, as they become more seasoned in their faith experience, and encounter setback and loss, they will be more appreciative of measured discipline.

This is the point of the first illustration: the patchcloth is unseasoned, and has some laundering to go through before it is fit to accomodate the old. But one does not throw out a garment because the patch is unseasoned; rather, one launders the patch, and then it may serve its proper benefit. Indeed, the scrap of cloth used for the patch is hardly suitable to clothe a body by itself.

The second illustration, then, yields the pastoral solution: allow those who are new and exuberant latitude, so that their faith may be preserved. But it should not be overlooked that it is only a matter of time before the new wine seasons and its skins are also unfit for newer wine.

Yes he did say both are preserved but look at the contrast.

The natural contrast, from the imagery of the parable, would be that seasoned wine is preferred over unseasoned wine. But without allowing unseasoned wine its time to season, you would never have seasoned wine.

The passage is not contrasting covenants. It is contrasting points in the evolution of people's faith-experience and religious discipline.

In Jer 31.31 "not like" according to you means a dynamic difference not a content difference. The point is viva la differance whether content or dynamic the New Covenant is in fact better.

Actually, your point in citing Jeremiah was to indicate that Jesus' comments in the Sermon on the Mount were not related to the "old covenant": "Another words Jesus was'nt adding on to the Sinatic Covenant for just as Jeremiah said 'not according to the Covenant that i made....'" So my point on content deflected your point on content. And so you have changed points.

It is, of course, not a given that Jesus' covenant is the referent of Jeremiah's text. If, as Jeremiah states, the "New Covenant " will result in the house of Israel having God's torah written upon their hearts, then it would be curious to see this fulfilled in a community that is almost entirely Gentile and frequently hostile to the Torah.

Btw i stand corrected in that Jesus fulfilled the law when he shed his blood on the cross and said "it is finished." And that's what fulfilled means as in finished or completed or to meet the requirements of the law.

Of course, that classic "it is finished" only shows up in the gospel of John - like so many other pieces of Christian tradition that rest upon that single witness.

In any case, the word for finished [tetelestai] is different from the word for fulfilled [pleroo]. It is not given that the one is referring to the other; for example, it could be simply that the labor of enduring the ordeal was finished. And, of course, "fulfilled" has a broader range of potential meaning than you have identified.


Shalom,
Emmet

[Guest]

Hello, JC,

Thank you for your response.

I won't fault you for that, except to say that I disagree with your view of Mosaic authorship. I do so not only on the basis of textual criticism but mainly because Jesus quoted it as though it were Moses. You and I are, however, in obvious disagreement on Jesus' authority.

I am interested to hear your text-critical arguments in support of Mosaic authorship.

BTW, on a personal note - Jesus' credulousness toward Deuteronomy was a pivotal reason for my rejecting the notion of his infallibility.

Textual variations can exist for a number of reasons. If you have three tellings of a supposedly historical event and those writings differ on some points but agree in the macro sense, we could very well conclude that the event took place, but the details are sketchy. This would also be proof that collusion was unlikely. You're free to take it another way, I'm just offering you a valid alternative.

I agree that careful criticism needs to consider a variety of possible explanations for phenomena in biblical texts.

Most textual criticism would posit a direct relationship between the synoptic gospels, with utilization of common source(s). Given the extraordinary verbal correspondence of a significant part of these three gospels, such a conclusion does not seem untoward. Because of this, the variations are of limited value when it comes to disproving "collusion" (a harsher word than I would have chosen). Also because of this, the variations are telling about the personal concerns and biases of each gospel.

Textual criticism as a scienice is also flawed, in that it makes assumptions that might be better explained another way. For example, if I found textual variations in style and grammar between two writings ascribed to a single man I might conclude that one of the writings is fraudulent. I might also conclude that he used an interpreter to pen one of them. Both explainations are equally valid, if the content of the writings bares resemblance in thought.

Quality critical analysis will engage a variety of possibilities, and provide argumentation for preferring one over another. Like historiography, it is not strictly a science, though it avails itself of scientific tools on occasion. Both historiography and textual criticism are arts - requiring, like most arts, both technical ability and sensitive aesthetics.

It is cavalier to state that "oth explanations are equally valid, if the content of the writings bears resemblance in thought"; this would only be the case if sundry factors in a text did not favor one hypothesis over the other. Mere resemblance is not enough to establish such equatability.

You're attacking the character of men who have never been proven to fabricate, exaggerate, or otherwise lie on a single occasion. The writers of scripture strike me as entirely competent to record historical details. Perhaps it's the content of what they recorded that bothers you.

And you are defending the character of men whom you have never met, nor have you met anybody who has ever met them. But your complaint illustrates a fundamental difference in perspective. You, who have invested faith in these men, require a heavy burden of proof to dislodge that faith. An objective observer will require a heavy burden of proof to place faith in them - all the more so because they ask so much.

Primarily, I would challenge the author of John when it comes to outright fabrication; it seems unlikely to me that such a well-tooled and heterogeneous document would come into being without the writer's awareness of his own craftsmanship. The synoptic writers may have been susceptible to lesser failings, as I have alluded to: "credulous reception of hearsay, selective and metamorphic memory, and tendentious nuancing (whether conscious or unconscious)." Paul may have been a charlatan, but most probably he was just mistaken and/or marginally deluded.

But it is indeed the content of their writings that bothers me. It is that content which led me to divest myself of faith in their works.

To be a textual critic one has to always strike down supernatural occurances, at least if peer-credibility is a desireable thing. I don't mean to knock this form of historical science but it often reeks of bias just as pungently as religious bias. The only difference is -- one is accepted in academia and the other is not. Seems to me that a double-standard is afoot.

Naturally, like most fields, there is a sense of "orthodoxy" within scholarly biblical criticism. But though I am skeptical of people's accounts, I have no objection to the possibility of miracles or supernatural explanations per se. And it is not the miraculous material that makes me doubt the New Testament.

Quote: But Jesus is notably difficult to assess, because the data we have about him is supplied by parties who have strong investment in their personal understandings of him; such can readily lead to a measure of distortion.

Hmm. How did you come to the conclusion that the gospel writers had more reason to lie about these events than to tell the truth? From my experience in dealing with Christian people, I've found them far more honest than those in the academic world where temptation to fabricate for personal gain is around every turn.

I should like to know more about your representative samples of Christian people and academics.

In either case, honesty is a limited safeguard against falsehood. When people have an emotional or psychological predisposition that influences their thoughts and perceptions, they can be both completely honest and heavily unreliable. I rarely concern myself with suspicions of outright lying when it comes to the New Testament. I am much more concerned with factors like piety, affection, loyalty, aspiration, excitement, pride, creativity, and paradigmatic habit. Many of these are potentially noble, but all can contribute (however unwittingly) to the betrayal of truth.

You are aware, of course, that Christians hold that the messiah alluded to in the Old Testament is God himself. I find it strange you assume us to have a Jewish understanding of the messiah by putting Jesus in a long line of prophets, as though they all possess equal qualities. I hold that the messianic prophets of ancient Israel shared certain qualities with Jesus, but not on all points.

Forgive me if I clarify some diction here unnecessarily: "messiah" means "anointed," and the term applies quite notably to the anointed kings [see, for example, I Samuel 24:6], though priests and at least one prophet were also anointed.

I am well aware of Christian thought. My point involves the character of prophets and messiahs. If you wish to assert that Jesus is impeccable because he is God, that is one thing - albeit a blasphemous thing. But if you wish to assert that he is impeccable because he is a prophet or because he is a messiah, there is no warrant for it.

Jesus quoted from the pslams and accredited it to God. The places he quoted just sounded like David's own prose.

I don't find it surprising when Jesus appears to think like too many of his contemporaries, who had a rather less careful approach to scripture than is recommendable. I expect Jesus to be a man of his own time.


Shalom,
Emmet

[Guest]

Emmet, thank you for the conversation. Here are my thoughts.

I am interested to hear your text-critical arguments in support of Mosaic authorship.

I'm not a textual critic but find the following link pretty exhaustive in dealing with the evidence for and against Mosaic authorship: http://www.xmission.com/~fidelis/volume ... wright.php

Most textual criticism would posit a direct relationship between the synoptic gospels, with utilization of common source(s). Given the extraordinary verbal correspondence of a significant part of these three gospels, such a conclusion does not seem untoward. Because of this, the variations are of limited value when it comes to disproving "collusion" (a harsher word than I would have chosen). Also because of this, the variations are telling about the personal concerns and biases of each gospel.

I'm very familiar with the arguments given by higher criticism in favor of a common source text. This isn't to say that I completely disregard the field but I find the hard sciences more telling. For example, higher critics claim the book of Daniel wasn't written during the Babylonian captivity, even though archeology later proved that his record of kings bested the accuracy of Herodotus and Thucydides. The German higher critics (who are parroted by today's scholars) had egg on their faces. This is just one example, of course. There are numerous others.

It is cavalier to state that "oth explanations are equally valid, if the content of the writings bears resemblance in thought"; this would only be the case if sundry factors in a text did not favor one hypothesis over the other. Mere resemblance is not enough to establish such equatability.

I'm sorry if I didn't make my point more clearly. My tongue-in-cheek arguments don't translate well to written form. I'm trying to make the point that higher criticism is guesswork at best. You'd say it's highly educated guesswork. I'd say it's agenda-driven one-sided guesswork.

And you are defending the character of men whom you have never met, nor have you met anybody who has ever met them. But your complaint illustrates a fundamental difference in perspective. You, who have invested faith in these men, require a heavy burden of proof to dislodge that faith. An objective observer will require a heavy burden of proof to place faith in them - all the more so because they ask so much.

This is true, but only to an extent. I believe the writers of scripture were telling the truth by faith as well as reason. I believe they had nothing to gain and everything to lose. You might say, "How do you know this for certain?" I conclude this based on what I do know about these men. If you'd like me to expound on this point, please read Wililam Lane Craig's argument for evidence of the ressurrection. I agree with all his points, and he's a New Testament textual critic, though obviously a Christian.

Primarily, I would challenge the author of John when it comes to outright fabrication; it seems unlikely to me that such a well-tooled and heterogeneous document would come into being without the writer's awareness of his own craftsmanship. The synoptic writers may have been susceptible to lesser failings, as I have alluded to: "credulous reception of hearsay, selective and metamorphic memory, and tendentious nuancing (whether conscious or unconscious)." Paul may have been a charlatan, but most probably he was just mistaken and/or marginally deluded.

According to the only written sources we have about these men, John was sent into exile and Paul was beheaded for these testimonies. Human nature is such that men generally tell the truth under this kind of persecution. Sure, there are exceptions one could point to, but why make assumptions based on the exception? Men generally do not cling to a false notion when faced with the sword.

I should like to know more about your representative samples of Christian people and academics.

I can't answer this question without name-dropping and/or slandering, so I'll have to be vague. The representative Christians would obviously be unknown to you since they are friends and colleagues of mine. The number of academics whom I've described as dishonest are numerous. I realize this isn't helpful in the least so I'll make this point: Followers of Christ conduct themselves in truth, honesty and fairness. To do otherwise is to wear a false label. An academic may or may not abide by these same standards. I don't call everyone who disagrees with me "dishonest" so please don't get that impression. I'm speaking of my experience in dealing with two types of people so some broadbrushing is obligatory.

I am well aware of Christian thought. My point involves the character of prophets and messiahs. If you wish to assert that Jesus is impeccable because he is God, that is one thing - albeit a blasphemous thing. But if you wish to assert that he is impeccable because he is a prophet or because he is a messiah, there is no warrant for it.

You say that asserting Jesus is impeccable is blasphemous. May I ask by which logic or standard you make this claim? It's certainly blashphemous to a Jewish man or a Muslim but you're in dialogue with a Christian. I hold that God took on human flesh in an act of humility and love. You claim that God cannot do this, thus you limit the Creator of all things. You accused me of being cavalier ealier and here you've made a very careless statement. Please explain yourself. I'm hoping I just misunderstood you here.

I don't find it surprising when Jesus appears to think like too many of his contemporaries, who had a rather less careful approach to scripture than is recommendable. I expect Jesus to be a man of his own time.

Yes, because Jesus was so interested in following the status quo.

[Guest]

Hello, JC,

Thank you for your response.

I'm not a textual critic but find the following link pretty exhaustive in dealing with the evidence for and against Mosaic authorship:

The article you have referenced is a bit out of date, being nearly a hundred years old. Since its time, for example, textual criticism of the Hebrew bible has engaged the potential contributions of the Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, and Syriac & Latin sources; references to these are readily avilable in the critical apparatus of a BHS. And of course, we now have the benefit of Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts, which are a welcome contribution to plumbing the evolution of the text of the Hebrew bible.

The article addresses the Documentary Hypothesis, which is a renowned construct in the history of critical analysis of the bible, though its classic form in the work of Julius Wellhausen has since been critiqued in a number of ways. For my own part, my field is more Second Temple Judaism & Early Christianity, so I am not well-versed in the particular merits of the Hypothesis in its current stage(s) of refinement.

But in any case, the author of your article hardly makes a case for Mosaic authorship on terms of biblical criticism. Rather, he: (1) hails tradition and demands "incontrovertible opposing evidence" against it, which is hardly a responsible methodology (let us see "incontrovertible opposing evidence" that Krishna did not defeat the demons at Vrindavana, for example); (2) offers arguments that contribute toward the relative antiquity of the text (and/or materials preserved in the text), yet fail to demonstrate that Moses is the particular author; and (3) offers a rather attenutated definition of "Mosaic authorship" ("By it we do not mean that Moses wrote all the Pentateuch with his own hand, or that there were no editorial additions made after his death. Moses was the author of the Pentateuchal Code, as Napoleon was of the code which goes under his name. Apparently the Book of Genesis is largely made up from existing documents ... and a few other passages are evidently later editorial additions").

Touching briefly upon our initial line of discussion, the Hebrew bible does not indicate that Moses wrote or even edited the book of Genesis. Neither does it shed much light on the background of the Pentateuch as a text. But if Moses had generated the Pentateuch in his lifetime, we might expect that the text would make some manner of appearance in the narratives that follow in the history of Israel. What is remarkable is how absent the Pentateuch appears to be.

I'm very familiar with the arguments given by higher criticism in favor of a common source text. This isn't to say that I completely disregard the field but I find the hard sciences more telling. For example, higher critics claim the book of Daniel wasn't written during the Babylonian captivity, even though archeology later proved that his record of kings bested the accuracy of Herodotus and Thucydides. The German higher critics (who are parroted by today's scholars) had egg on their faces. This is just one example, of course. There are numerous others.

And if we were to judge "the hard sciences" on how perfect their assessments were in the 1800s, then we might find reason not to listen to doctors today. There are other reasons to regard Daniel as an outgrowth of the Maccabean era, regardless of the historical existence of Belshazzar (Darius the Mede is still MIA, though...). But that is a rabbit trail.

It is, of course, a matter of apples and oranges to compare critical work on Daniel and the synoptics. Incidentally, the fields of Hebrew bible and New Testament studies are rather distinct, and scholars from the one field rarely do serious work in the other.

I'm trying to make the point that higher criticism is guesswork at best. You'd say it's highly educated guesswork. I'd say it's agenda-driven one-sided guesswork.

All of which might be relevant if one were simply deciding whether to accept the conclusions of biblical critics or not. Such would be a fairly naive dilemma, especially since biblical criticism is not a monolithic field, and it has yielded a variety of competing theories and proposals. What is more appropriate is to actually learn the techniques of biblical criticism, so that one can employ them for oneself in a responsible fashion.

Like every field of human endeavor, biblical criticism has its limitations. Certainly, faith and tradition have the same. Sometimes they are agenda-driven and one-sided, too.

I believe the writers of scripture were telling the truth by faith as well as reason. I believe they had nothing to gain and everything to lose. You might say, "How do you know this for certain?" I conclude this based on what I do know about these men. If you'd like me to expound on this point, please read Wililam Lane Craig's argument for evidence of the ressurrection. I agree with all his points, and he's a New Testament textual critic, though obviously a Christian.

Here I will ask that you please take the time to articulate your case.

According to the only written sources we have about these men, John was sent into exile and Paul was beheaded for these testimonies. Human nature is such that men generally tell the truth under this kind of persecution. Sure, there are exceptions one could point to, but why make assumptions based on the exception? Men generally do not cling to a false notion when faced with the sword.

This argument is complicated by a number of factors: (1) It is unclear whether the exiled John is the same agency responsible for the gospel of John, and in any case exile is a potentially temporary setback, not a sword; (2) humans who wrongly believe something to be the truth will die for it as readily as if it actually were the truth; (3) humans who have invested their entire selves into a role may feel that they have more to lose by not seeing it through than by coming clean (e.g., personal humiliation, lost respect from their followers, compromise of the positive aspects they have nurtured amongst their community; I usually reference the movie "Sommersby" as an illustration of this).

Factor (2), especially, is a significant enough possibility that it should not be dismissed as an "exception."

I can't answer this question without name-dropping and/or slandering, so I'll have to be vague. ... I realize this isn't helpful in the least so I'll make this point: Followers of Christ conduct themselves in truth, honesty and fairness. To do otherwise is to wear a false label. An academic may or may not abide by these same standards. ... I'm speaking of my experience in dealing with two types of people so some broadbrushing is obligatory.

How helpful to have the luxury of claiming that every Christian who does not meet your ideal is not *really* a Christian.

But in any case, it is a stretch to judge the character of first-century Christians by the conduct of twenty-first Christians, for better or for worse.

Quote: I am well aware of Christian thought. My point involves the character of prophets and messiahs. If you wish to assert that Jesus is impeccable because he is God, that is one thing - albeit a blasphemous thing. But if you wish to assert that he is impeccable because he is a prophet or because he is a messiah, there is no warrant for it.

You say that asserting Jesus is impeccable is blasphemous. May I ask by which logic or standard you make this claim? It's certainly blashphemous to a Jewish man or a Muslim but you're in dialogue with a Christian.

It is not the assertion of impeccability that is blasphemous, but the treatment of that which is not God as if it were God. You would agree that such behavior is blasphemous.

As for the second part - you are in dialogue with a Jewish person, so you should not be surprised when I speak as a Jewish person. How curious that you seem to expect otherwise .

I hold that God took on human flesh in an act of humility and love. You claim that God cannot do this, thus you limit the Creator of all things. You accused me of being cavalier ealier and here you've made a very careless statement. Please explain yourself. I'm hoping I just misunderstood you here.

I do not claim that God cannot do this. I do claim that God did not do this. The case for this is clear enough. On the one hand, we have the murkiness of the New Testament itself concerning the subject; for such a crucial, earth-shattering notion, the dogma is strikingly neglected, which suggests that it is a relatively later innovation, distant and distinct from the historical Jesus. On the other hand, we have the vector of faith in the Hebrew bible, pounding home the significance of the one God, who is pointedly not a human; if God had foreseen the incarnation from even before creation, surely he might better have prepared his people to receive the notion of a fellow wandering out of the hinterland, announcing himself as "God in a bod."

As for limiting God, we should be wary of such a thing - but God is, of course, limited. As the old canard has it, "Can God make a rock so big that he cannot lift it?" Or can God sin?

Can an infinite God become a finite human, and still remain an infinite God, yet truly be a finite human? Can an immortal God become a mortal human, and still remain an immortal God, yet truly be a mortal human? If God becomes what God is not, is God still God - or isn't he, thenceforth, not God? And if God remains God, then how can he truly be, thenceforth, what is not God?

Quote: I don't find it surprising when Jesus appears to think like too many of his contemporaries, who had a rather less careful approach to scripture than is recommendable. I expect Jesus to be a man of his own time.

Yes, because Jesus was so interested in following the status quo.

Even those who change the course of history are denizens of the time and place they inhabit. They are not so far removed from the world before them, and not so far projected into the world that follows them.

I don't expect Jesus to think like a citizen of Confucian China, or of industrial Europe, or of postmodern America, or even of pre-exilic Israel. And though it is not impossible for his thought to display some original genius, I am not at all surprised when it conforms to the usual paradigms of his contemporaries. If, in fact, his thought were too far removed from his time and place, then he could not have found a following.


Shalom,
Emmet

[Guest]

Emmet, it occured to me that we may be trying to cover far too many topics in each post. This doesn't allow either of us to flesh out any fine points or definitive arguments. Likewise, we both seem intimately familiar with the each others' arguments and are, by extension, mutually unimpressed. It may be wise to start a seperate thread for each of these topics due to the exhaustive amount of information pertaining to each.

I would like to touch on one point, however, because I feel this is the main difference between you and I, regardless of the issue we're discussing. You hold to a form of Judaism I'm not familiar with and I hold a certain view of Christianty that you aren't (or don't seem to be) familiar with. For this reason we've both set up straw-man attacks at least once. Having said all this, if you'd like to continue our point-counter-point discussion in this thread I'll gladly do so. It's just frustrating to merely touch on deep and impactful issues like one is glossing over newspaper headings. I'll leave the proverbial ball in your court, my friend.

I do have one question I'd like you to answer, if you don't mind. You and I hold very different views on the nature of evidence but we both believe in a personal God. May I ask what evidence you use to support your view on this? I'd like to compare the evidence you have for the existence of God with textual evidence from the scriptures. In other words, you seem to accept the evidence for a personal God but reject the evidence for his written revelation, at least in part. I find this a curious paradox. God bless.

[Guest]

Hello, JC,

Emmet, it occured to me that we may be trying to cover far too many topics in each post. ... It may be wise to start a seperate thread for each of these topics due to the exhaustive amount of information pertaining to each.

We've rather departed from the topic of this thread. If you have points you're interested in pursuing further, I'll probably notice if you initiate a new thread, but please feel free to pm me if it seems I've missed it.

I do have one question I'd like you to answer, if you don't mind. You and I hold very different views on the nature of evidence but we both believe in a personal God. May I ask what evidence you use to support your view on this? I'd like to compare the evidence you have for the existence of God with textual evidence from the scriptures. In other words, you seem to accept the evidence for a personal God but reject the evidence for his written revelation, at least in part. I find this a curious paradox.

Things seem to happen when I pray. Which, of course, does not prove a personal God; even when there appears to be rationality or even humor behind the apparent response, that could be a case of cosmic projection/personification on my part.

In fact, the whole thing could be a matter of projection. If so, then this line of reasoning is like the lady who complained to her doctor about her husband being convinced that he was a chicken. She found it disconcerting that he went around clucking, and that he sat perched on the back of the couch. But when the doctor suggested psychotherapy, she objected, saying "What would I do without the eggs?"


I approach relationship with God as romantic (in both the broad sense and the narrow); it is not about argumentation. Which is not to say that romantic relationships should not be submitted to rational critique - they must be so, as a safeguard - but they are not so much grounded in rationality.


Shalom,
Emmet