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Is the Bible Allegorical or Literal?

joelr

joelr

Well-Known Member
Jayhawker Soule said:
@joelr , your post #355 appears to be, at least in part, a cut-n-paste of Joel S. Baden, which begs the question: is this you, or did I miss the attribution?
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At that point I was sourcing him in earlier posts with this member -


Definitely not true, none of the 4 or 5 versions in scripture. Dr Joel Baden lectures at Yale Divinity and is an excellent scholar of the Hebrew Bible.






Joel Baden is a lecturer at Yale Divinity, this conspiracy theory level hand waving of top scholars is bizarre. The versions of Exodus in scripture are not true.



I thought I mentioned it was from the Composition of the Pentateuch but maybe it was someone else I said that too?
That isn't "begging the question". That means a statement assumes the answer incorrectly.
 
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joelr

joelr

Well-Known Member
pearl said:
This is not true. Within the 'historical critical' scholars many are men and women of faith.
They are exegetes who search layer after layer through extant manuscripts distinguishing
what is historical from what is myth, legend, folk, etc. There is a distinction between biblical exegetes
and biblical apologists. The late are predisposed to defend the faith.
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Again, historical work is not relying on faith. It relies on evidence from literary, archaeological and historian sources. There is no historian who says they believe Yahweh is real because of my faith and present this as proof in historical monographs.
 
Jayhawker Soule

Jayhawker Soule

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Premium Member
joelr said:
At that point I was sourcing him in earlier posts with this member -


Definitely not true, none of the 4 or 5 versions in scripture. Dr Joel Baden lectures at Yale Divinity and is an excellent scholar of the Hebrew Bible.






Joel Baden is a lecturer at Yale Divinity, this conspiracy theory level hand waving of top scholars is bizarre. The versions of Exodus in scripture are not true.



I thought I mentioned it was from the Composition of the Pentateuch but maybe it was someone else I said that too?
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Actually, I did not ask where or if you mentioned him. Rather, I wanted to know if you provided proper attribution in post #255 or, conversely, whether it was simple (sloppy) plagiarism.

For what it's worth, my strong preference would be that, when quoting, you quote and acknowledge the source. [It may be an RF preference as well.]
 
Jayhawker Soule

Jayhawker Soule

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Premium Member
joelr said:
There is no such thing as " Biblical minimalist scholars", there is the Biblical historicity field.
I don't care about anti-Bible skeptics, I am interested in actual scholarship.
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Please see Wikipedia: Biblical Minimalism. I believe that I first encountered the term in one of William Dever's books.

It is clearly a claim/categorization found in the literature. Taking up the sword against the label strikes me as silly at best.
 
joelr

joelr

Well-Known Member
Jayhawker Soule said:
Actually, I did not ask where or if you mentioned him. Rather, I wanted to know if you provided proper attribution in post #255 or, conversely, whether it was simple (sloppy) plagiarism.

For what it's worth, my strong preference would be that, when quoting, you quote and acknowledge the source. [It may be an RF preference as well.]
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No it isn't plagiarism because I have been sourcing him for several posts and said "he" was going by the Hebrew at the top of the post. It's clear I'm not passing anything off as my own but in a rush didn't credit him that post.
Your preference is worth nothing if you cannot approach me in a civil manner. If it's a rule, I'll be sure to follow it.
 
joelr

joelr

Well-Known Member
Jayhawker Soule said:
Please see Wikipedia: Biblical Minimalism. I believe that I first encountered the term in one of William Dever's books.

It is clearly a claim/categorization found in the literature. Taking up the sword against the label strikes me as silly at best.
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Well we are even because it's silly to defend a derogatory term especially when used by fundamentalists to be some sort of put-down and anti-knowledge position in favor of an atheist bias. Which isn't true with Dr Baden AT ALL.



"Minimalism is not a unified movement, but rather a label that came to be applied to several scholars at different universities who held similar views, chiefly Niels Peter Lemche and Thomas L. Thompson at the University of Copenhagen, Philip R. Davies, and Keith Whitelam. Minimalism gave rise to intense debate during the 1990s—the term "minimalists" was in fact a derogatory one given by its opponents, who were consequently dubbed "maximalists", but in fact neither side accepted either label."


Also "begging the question" means something else.
 
Jayhawker Soule

Jayhawker Soule

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Premium Member
joelr said:
No it isn't plagiarism because I have been sourcing him for several posts and said "he" was going by the Hebrew at the top of the post. It's clear I'm not passing anything off as my own but in a rush didn't credit him that post.
Your preference is worth nothing if you cannot approach me in a civil manner. If it's a rule, I'll be sure to follow it.
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Thanks.
7. Quotations and Citations/References
Plagiarism is illegal. All quotations, whether to posts of other members or to material external to RF, should be properly referenced or cited. When quoting other members, use the forum's quote feature so the person and material you are responding to are easily referenced (see Rules 1 and 3 for additional guidelines regarding quoting other members' posts). When quoting material external to RF, even if it is your own, always provide a citation and limit your quotation to a paragraph or two rather than quoting the entire content (see Rule 4 for additional guidelines). [source]
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Have a great day.
 
joelr

joelr

Well-Known Member
Jayhawker Soule said:
Thanks.
​
Have a great day.
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Rule 7.Good to know.

Begging the Question​


Description: Any form of argument where the conclusion is assumed in one of the premises. Many people use the phrase “begging the question” incorrectly when they use it to mean, “prompts one to ask the question”. That is NOT the correct usage. Begging the question is a form of circular reasoning.

Good day.
 
Jayhawker Soule

Jayhawker Soule

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Premium Member
Brian2

Brian2

Veteran Member
joelr said:
There is no such thing as " Biblical minimalist scholars", there is the Biblical historicity field.
I don't care about anti-Bible skeptics, I am interested in actual scholarship.

If you have to create a conspiracy theory around real scholars and even the Yale Divinity lectures then you are most certainly following a false narrative.
They are not skeptics, they present what evidence shows. Same with archaeologists. The fundamentalist narrative just isn't supported. You don't find truth by holding beliefs and attempting to make them true.
You do not care about what is actually true.
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What is the Biblical historicity field? Does it have minimalists on one side and maximalists on the other?
How do you know if something is anti-Biblical or actual scholarship or pro-Bible?
I don't think I'm creating a conspiracy, I'm just saying how it is. Opinions against opinions and some are skeptical about the supernatural and others believe in the possibility of the supernatural.
The ones who believe in the possibility of the supernatural come up with completely different conclusions than the skeptic side (the ones who tow the naturalistic line),
It is amazing how different the conclusions can be when the evidence is looked at from different pov.
It is a matter of building one conclusion on another, on another etc however.
Begin for example by believing the archaeology of Jericho based on a time line that is not Biblical. (ie. that the Exodus was about 1250BC) and we find Jericho did not exist and Israel was already an established part of Canaan. So we end up with no Exodus and the writing (making up) of the Pentateuch at a later time.
Go to the Biblical dating of the Exodus (1450BC) and we see that Jericho could have been destroyed then, in the way the Bible tells us, and we see archaeology of the conquest as the Bible tells us. So the conclusion is that the Pentateuch was written by Moses and his contemporaries and we don't have to make up a time for the writing of the Pentateuch or call it all fiction.
So care about what is actually true and go along with those who want to make up the story instead of reading the story in the book and realising that by accepting Garstang's instead of Kenyon's dating of Jericho's destruction, it is all true.
 
Brian2

Brian2

Veteran Member
joelr said:
Historical scholars do not have faith. They go by what the facts and evidence present.
Please show me a historian who believes otherwise. Not an apologist who doesn't study historical evidence and will not even look at it. Your answer reflects this attitude, you won't even consider it.
I am looking for truth not bias.
It is proven way beyond doubt.
Dr Bowen says there is no doubt. 2:57 - NO QUESTION


Flood Myths Older Than The Bible - Dr. Joshua Bowen


Assyriologist who specialized in Sumerian literary and liturgical compositions



1:25

OT scholars will say Genesis is using a Mesopotamian background and apologist will say

“Well no, there is no literary evidence that shows it borrowed, we cannot show literal evidence”…”it was in the air”….”how do you know it wasn’t true”…….somehow downplaying the Mesopotamian background…

2:57 Dr Josh Bowen - there is no question as far as Biblical scholars and Assyriologists are concerned that the Biblical text is much later than Mesopotamian text and it’s borrowing directly or subtly from Mesopotamia.

References monograph - Subtle Citation, Allusion and Translation in the Hebrew Bible by Z. Zevit. Explains intertexuality and what Hebrew Bible is doing. Not seen as plagiarism in the ancient world.

21:00

Enuma Elish, Babylonian creation myth Genesis 1 borrows from, is recited every year at the New Years festival. Exiled Israelite kings were in captivity in Babylonia. Genesis was written after the Exile.

Genesis demythicizes the Babylonian stories.

23:22

“(Well we don’t know which came first), is nonsense, we do know. The textual tradition for the flood story is much much earlier than the Biblical text. Israel is NOT EVEN A……”
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I don't say that the Bible flood story came before the Gilgamesh tale. I just say they both recall a gigantic flood.
I do deny that the completely different creation story of Genesis (and yes there is only one creation story there) is a copy of the Babylonian Enuma Elish and was not written in the Exile. The writing in the Exile comes from believing there was no conquest (dealt with in last post to you about the different archaeological conclusions about Jericho) and the documentary hypothesis which seems to be still around even though I thought it was debunked ages ago.

 
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Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
1213 said:
1. Modern continents as the result of broken and collapsed original continent. Flood came when the continent was broken and sunk and water that was below the original continent was released.
2. Oil, gas and coal fields, the results of all organic material that sunk during the flood.
3. Marine fossils on high mountain areas, evidence for that the area was under water once.
4. Vast sediment formations and orogenic mountains.
5. Vast glaciers. Climate cooled because of the rain and flooding water, which caused the ice age and glaciers.
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Sorry, but it looks as if you do not have evidence. You have an ad hoc explanation. None of those are evidence for a flood without a testable hypothesis.
 
Hockeycowboy

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
It Aint Necessarily So said:
What ostracism has the Bible received?
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The following presents a few facts (start w/ paragraph 4, for the pertinent information):

Regarding ‘buying it to give it away’, and ‘not reading it for themselves’…. I had to laugh! Because you’re right; many do that.

Fortunately, for the members of my group - Jehovah’s Witnesses - most of us strive to make personal application.
 
1

1213

Well-Known Member
Subduction Zone said:
Sorry, but it looks as if you do not have evidence. You have an ad hoc explanation. None of those are evidence for a flood without a testable hypothesis.
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Sorry, I disagree with you. When the flood story states for example that: all living things on surface of dry land drowned/sank. It means we should found traces of vast amount of organic material. Oil, gas and coal would be results of that. We can found those results, so we have evidence for that it could have happened.
 
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