Morality of the Old Testament

[DavidSMoore]

Cosmological expansion was originally seen through observations by Edwin Hubble.

Small correction. Vesto Slipher measured the spectra of several nebulae in the 1920s. At that time there was much dispute as to whether the nebulae were inside the Milky Way or outside. He found that the spectra of the nebulae were shifted-- some toward the red and some toward the blue. When Hubble found out he interpreted Slipher's findings as being the result of a Doppler shift-- meaning that they were due to relative motion between observer and observed. Larger surveys showed that the majority of nebulae were shifted toward the red, and that led to the realization that the universe is expanding. I bring this up not to quibble with your thoughts but to give Mr. Slipher his due.

 

[jimb]

Small correction. Vesto Slipher measured the spectra of several nebulae in the 1920s. At that time there was much dispute as to whether the nebulae were inside the Milky Way or outside. He found that the spectra of the nebulae were shifted-- some toward the red and some toward the blue. When Hubble found out he interpreted Slipher's findings as being the result of a Doppler shift-- meaning that they were due to relative motion between observer and observed. Larger surveys showed that the majority of nebulae were shifted toward the red, and that led to the realization that the universe is expanding. I bring this up not to quibble with your thoughts but to give Mr. Slipher his due.

The OP topic is "Morality of the Old Testament". Your scientific discussion is clearly off-topic.

 

[jimb]

I would not consider the independent universalist perspective a specific culture. It is an independent perspective of different cultures and religions.

Your question of what is true Catholicism (Universalism) and what is idolatry requires judgements form different cultural perspectives.

The Roman Church (RCC) claims to be Catholic from the perspective of their beliefs as the One and only One true Church. From their perspective they do not consider their use of images and statuary as symbolic and not idolatry.

Other religious perspectives define the Roman Church use of imagery and struary as idolatry, because of the way they define idolatry, and they define Catholicism from their perspective. It is common for some Churches to define Catholicism as defining Christianity but limited to Christianity. Different religions and their variations like Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and the various Vedic beliefs called Hinduism. I observe in this form believers in the different religions stoically defend their beliefs as universal at the expense and rejection of other claims of the universal.

I define the universal independent perspective is the universal is beyond any religious or cultural perspective. I look at the different cultures and religions simply from the independent perspective of the matter of fact at what the believe, which would not be a universal perspective in the whole diverse nature of humanity in the over 300,000 years of our existence.

So you don't think subjectively?

P.S. Since you emphasize academic, why do you make so many grammatical errors? "idolatry requires judgements form different cultural perspectives", 1) "Other religious perspectives define the Roman Church use of imagery and struary as idolatry", 2) "Different religions and their variations like Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and the various Vedic beliefs called Hinduism (no verb)", 3) "I define the universal independent perspective is the universal is beyond any religious or cultural perspective".

 

[Brickjectivity]

I always feel manipulated and held hostage by YouTube videos myself. But maybe that's just me. Same with podcasts and narrated books, Just let me read something. I can and will decide for myself as far as the validity of the source goes.

When I want to quickly extract the essence of the video I rely upon tricks. I may speed up the play to 1.75x or 2x. I may skip around using buttons 0-9. Often it helps to start by pressing 4, because this skips lots of introductions and fluff. I may have youtube make a transcript, so I can quickly scan for information. The details of videos often have links to sources, so I may check those.

Aside from this there are programs which can take a downloaded video and scan it or make a transcript. I don't know much about them. In the near future I expect we will have at our disposal programs which can create summaries for us.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

P.S. Since you emphasize academic, why do you make so many grammatical errors?

P.S. Since I like pizza, why is it Sunday?

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

When I want to quickly extract the essence of the video I rely upon tricks. I may speed up the play to 1.75x or 2x. I may skip around using buttons 0-9. Often it helps to start by pressing 4, because this skips lots of introductions and fluff. I may have youtube make a transcript, so I can quickly scan for information. The details of videos often have links to sources, so I may check those.

Aside from this there are programs which can take a downloaded video and scan it or make a transcript. I don't know much about them. In the near future I expect we will have at our disposal programs which can create summaries for us.

A text version the audio generated closed captions of this documentary about the history of afropatiano culture is available at Scribd.

Invisibles

INVISIBLES: Las guerillas del Patía​

Los Valles del Patía (Cauca) se consolidaron en la colonia como un fortín de los esclavos negros huidos de las haciendas y los enclaves mineros. Allí se formó una sociedad autónoma donde la fiereza de sus habitantes se convirtió en leyenda.

 

[DavidSMoore]

In any event, you ask for "any and mean amy text from the Pentateuch that can be dated before 600 BCE." [emphasis added - JS]:

Psalm 137 explicitly says that it was written on the banks of the Euphrates, and that the author was a captive of Babylon. That would seem to place it during the time of the Babylonian captivity-- roughly 597 BCE to 522 BCE.

Does that mean that all the Psalms were written during or after the Babylonian captivity? No, of course not. But we may ask: when did the authors of the story of the creation come to believe that the universe began as an ocean of water? I think the most likely time would have been during the Babylonian captivity. During that time the elites of Judah would have heard many of the stories and myths that were popular in Mesopotamia at that time. One such myth would have been the Enuma Elish-- the Babylonian myth of creation. That story says that the universe began as an ocean of water and that the first act of the creation was the separation of the good (i.e. fresh) water from the bad (i.e. salty) water.

What about the story of the flood-- how did that find its way into the Bible? I think again the most likely time would have been during the Babylonian captivity. One of the most popular stories in that region at that time was the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written by Sin-leqi-unninni in roughly 1200 BCE. That story contains a variant of the story of the flood story that has a number of significant similarities to the version in the Bible-- too many for it to be merely accidental. But there are also some profound differences. One difference is that in the biblical story the flood lasts for over a year, whereas in the Gilgamesh version the flood only lasts seven days. (As far as I know all earlier versions of the story say the flood lasted only seven days.) Another major difference concerns the reason why God, or the gods, decided to invoke a flood. In the Bible, Yahweh wanted to wipe out all people other than Noah and his family because they were too violent (Genesis 6:11 – 13). But in the Gilgamesh version the gods decided to wipe out all humans because they were too noisy and it was impossible for the god Ellil to get any sleep. When Ellil discovered that one man (Utnapishtim) had survived the flood, he was outraged.

Does that mean that the entire Bible was written sometime after 600 BCE? My opinion-- and it’s just an opinion-- is that the similarities I’ve highlighted above are not definitive proof one way or another. But I’m not terribly invested in the answer to that question. For me it’s enough to know that at least some of the stories in the Old Testament have clear antecedents in stories that were well known in the broad region of Mesopotamia and the Levant at the time.

 

[dybmh]

I do not believe there is an issue of choosing Text-A or Text-B.

I did not say "choosing". I said "looking".

Looking at BOTH text-a AND text-b are required else it is conjecture at best. This is a very simple idea. Please let me know that you understand?

Spoiler: an exaggerated example demonstrating my point of view

Assertion: "Text-A evolved from Text-B".

Question: "Do you have a copy of Text-B?"​

​

Answer: "No. I heard it from a credible source."

Question: "You haven't looked at Text-B, but, you heard that it's true?"​

​

Answer: "Yes. From a credible source."

Question: "How would you know if the source is wrong or has omitted important details?"​

​

Answer: "You can't handle the truth. You've been indoctrinated by your religion and are afraid to examine the facts that I have brought."

Question: "Have you forgotten what it's like to be skeptical? Do you remember how it feels to doubt?"​

​

Answer: "These are academic facts. You are denying them."

Question: "What facts have I denied?"​

​

Answer: "All of the facts that I have brought."

Question: "The facts that you heard? You heard that Text-A evolves from Text-B?​

​

Answer: "Yes, it's a fact that Text-A evolved from Text-B. It comes from a credible source."

Question: "Why haven't you looked at Text-A and Text-B to compare?"​

​

Answer: "I heard it from a credible source."

Question: "How do you know that the source did not make a mistake?"​

​

Answer: "They are credible. You are denying it."

Question: "What am I denying? Are your sources infallible?"​

​

Answer: "They are credible. You are denying it."

Question: "How do you know that the source did not omit important details?​

​

Answer: "They are credible. You are denying it."

Question: "How do you know that the source did not make a mistake?​

​

Answer: "They are credible. You are denying it."

Question: "How do you know that the source did not omit important details?​

​

Answer: "They are credible. You are denying it."

Question: "How do you know that the source did not make a mistake?​

​

Answer: "They are credible. You are denying it."

Question: "How do you know that the source did not omit important details?​

​

Answer: "They are credible. You are denying it."

... etc ...

My references and my view take the text as a whole in complete context of the culture of the time.

How is that accomplished accurately without looking at what is **actually** written in the text?

​

Hebrew Law as in Deuteronomy it is an evolved system of Law based on Babylonian Code of Hammurabi.

Do you have access to a copy of the "Babylonian Code of Hammurabi"?

 

[dybmh]

From Isaiah's point of view the teachings of Yahweh were to be disseminated to all the peoples of the world.

I asked ...

What are these teachings, in your opinion?

Hopefully I did not inadvertently ignore your reply, @DavidSMoore . However, I'd like to share what I think is one of the most important teachings which is produced by considering the entire Hebrew Bible ( aka the teachings of Yahweh, as you described them ).

"There are multiple sides to every issue."

​

בֶּן בַּג בַּג אוֹמֵר, הֲפֹךְ בָּהּ וַהֲפֹךְ בָּהּ, דְּכֹלָּא בָהּ. וּבָהּ תֶּחֱזֵי, וְסִיב וּבְלֵה בָהּ, וּמִנַּהּ לֹא תָזוּעַ, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ מִדָּה טוֹבָה הֵימֶנָּה:​

​

Ben Bag Bag said: Turn it over, and turn it over, for all is therein. And look into it; And become gray and old therein; And do not move away from it, for you have no better portion than it.​

That ^^ is the morality of the Hebrew Bible ( what I think you intend by the name: "The-Old-Testament" ).

The morality of the Hebrew Bible:

"There are multiple sides to every issue."

I think you'll find that nuance is introduced from consideration of the entire cannon in its original language.

"Nuance exists in each and every situation" is the foundation of the morals brought in the Hebrew scriptures.

 

[firedragon]

As a general principle, certainly that is good advice. But what if your father and mother are criminals? Should you still honor them? What if a young woman’s father is a sexual predator who has raped his own daughter repeatedly-- should the daughter honor him? Or should she instead leave home and seek shelter somewhere where she isn’t likely to be raped? There is no nuance in the Commandment as stated above, so we can’t really determine what the proper course of action should be in such cases, based on the literal wording in the Bible. Furthermore, here’s what the Bible says about the punishment that should apply to disrespectful children:

I am no Bible believer. But your whole thesis here is what anyone would call whataboutery.

Of course no one would honor their parents if they are sexual predators. But the commandment is in general, not in "what about" situations. This argument of yours is a logical fallacy called a red herring because you ntroduce irrelevant issues (the extreme cases of criminal parents and sexual predators) to distract from the original point about honoring parents and to cast doubt on the validity of the commandment. Instead of addressing the principle itself, it diverts attention to extreme scenarios that are not directly related to the topic at hand..

 

[Audie]

Psalm 137 explicitly says that it was written on the banks of the Euphrates, and that the author was a captive of Babylon. That would seem to place it during the time of the Babylonian captivity-- roughly 597 BCE to 522 BCE.

Does that mean that all the Psalms were written during or after the Babylonian captivity? No, of course not. But we may ask: when did the authors of the story of the creation come to believe that the universe began as an ocean of water? I think the most likely time would have been during the Babylonian captivity. During that time the elites of Judah would have heard many of the stories and myths that were popular in Mesopotamia at that time. One such myth would have been the Enuma Elish-- the Babylonian myth of creation. That story says that the universe began as an ocean of water and that the first act of the creation was the separation of the good (i.e. fresh) water from the bad (i.e. salty) water.

What about the story of the flood-- how did that find its way into the Bible? I think again the most likely time would have been during the Babylonian captivity. One of the most popular stories in that region at that time was the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written by Sin-leqi-unninni in roughly 1200 BCE. That story contains a variant of the story of the flood story that has a number of significant similarities to the version in the Bible-- too many for it to be merely accidental. But there are also some profound differences. One difference is that in the biblical story the flood lasts for over a year, whereas in the Gilgamesh version the flood only lasts seven days. (As far as I know all earlier versions of the story say the flood lasted only seven days.) Another major difference concerns the reason why God, or the gods, decided to invoke a flood. In the Bible, Yahweh wanted to wipe out all people other than Noah and his family because they were too violent (Genesis 6:11 – 13). But in the Gilgamesh version the gods decided to wipe out all humans because they were too noisy and it was impossible for the god Ellil to get any sleep. When Ellil discovered that one man (Utnapishtim) had survived the flood, he was outraged.

Does that mean that the entire Bible was written sometime after 600 BCE? My opinion-- and it’s just an opinion-- is that the similarities I’ve highlighted above are not definitive proof one way or another. But I’m not terribly invested in the answer to that question. For me it’s enough to know that at least some of the stories in the Old Testament have clear antecedents in stories that were well known in the broad region of Mesopotamia and the Levant at the time.

Flood got in the Bible because the whole text
is a hodgepodge of tales with no god involved.

 

[Audie]

I am no Bible believer. But your whole thesis here is what anyone would call whataboutery.

Of course no one would honor their parents if they are sexual predators. But the commandment is in general, not in "what about" situations. This argument of yours is a logical fallacy called a red herring because you ntroduce irrelevant issues (the extreme cases of criminal parents and sexual predators) to distract from the original point about honoring parents and to cast doubt on the validity of the commandment. Instead of addressing the principle itself, it diverts attention to extreme scenarios that are not directly related to the topic at hand..

As a Jesuit told me re cimmandments:
"God gave you a brain, expecting you to use it."

 

[Kathryn]

When it comes to the flood, it sure seems like something significant happened in that region, involving water. During that time, wouldn't it have been as if the entire earth was covered in water? Rather than just a region?

Anyway, it's a cool story.

 

[DavidSMoore]

When it comes to the flood, it sure seems like something significant happened in that region, involving water. During that time, wouldn't it have been as if the entire earth was covered in water? Rather than just a region?

The region would have been ancient Sumer, since the oldest versions of the flood story were written in Sumerian. The Euphrates has often flooded, so yes it could have seemed to the residents of that region that the entire world was submerged when in fact it was just a local flood. Here's what Stephanie Dalley, one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, has to say about it:

Atrahasis, the hero of the Flood story, was a citizen of Shuruppak in lower Mesopotamia. An extensive flood as a natural event sometimes took place in that region, where the Euphrates in spate can overflow and spill across the intervening land into the lower-lying Tigris, which itself often breaks its own banks in sudden spate, but a flood would be impossible on a similar scale in Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, or Greece. Such floods occur quite commonly in Iraq, and strata of silt deposits on Early Dynastic sites of the fourth millennium BC, found there by archaeologists, can be interpreted as recording various different floods in remote antiquity. That evidence does not, however, disclose whether one particular flood was more catastrophic than others; it only shows that no unusual break in cultural continuity was caused by such a deposit, and that the layer of flood silt found in excavations at Ur is certainly much earlier in date than the flood deposit found at Shuruppak.
(Myths from Mesopotamia, translated by Stephanie Dalley, Oxford World's Classics, 1989, pg. 4-5)

@Kathryn:

Anyway, it's a cool story.

Yes, it is. And so is the Epic of Gilgamesh.

 

[DavidSMoore]

Hopefully I did not inadvertently ignore your reply, @DavidSMoore .

Here's my previous response: DSM previous response

The point is that I find it hard to believe that God would decide to starve people just because they don't observe the Festival of Booths. It seems to me that he would be much more concerned that the people of the world would follow the laws that he established.

Yes, I'm okay with the idea that there are multiple sides to every issue. But lawmakers in a democratic society are required to consider all sides when writing legislation to ensure that the result is actionable, but not draconian. That's why modern laws tend to have many clauses for special cases or unusual circumstances. Laws that lack such nuance aren't especially helpful in the modern world.

 

[firedragon]

As a Jesuit told me re cimmandments:
"God gave you a brain, expecting you to use it."

Very good. The brain is to be used. Very good.

 

[Kathryn]

The region would have been ancient Sumer, since the oldest versions of the flood story were written in Sumerian. The Euphrates has often flooded, so yes it could have seemed to the residents of that region that the entire world was submerged when in fact it was just a local flood. Here's what Stephanie Dalley, one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, has to say about it:



@Kathryn:


Yes, it is. And so is the Epic of Gilgam

The region would have been ancient Sumer, since the oldest versions of the flood story were written in Sumerian. The Euphrates has often flooded, so yes it could have seemed to the residents of that region that the entire world was submerged when in fact it was just a local flood. Here's what Stephanie Dalley, one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, has to say about it:



@Kathryn:


Yes, it is. And so is the Epic of Gilgamesh.

I will check it out!

I will check it out!

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Does that mean that the entire Bible was written sometime after 600 BCE? My opinion-- and it’s just an opinion-- is that the similarities I’ve highlighted above are not definitive proof one way or another. But I’m not terribly invested in the answer to that question.

Good post. Still, FWIW, ...

I tend to resist discussions about when "the entire Bible was written" since, as you know, the Hebrew Bible is a curated collection of evolved and redacted work. And, yes, it was almost certainly woven together in the wake of the Babylonian exile.

For me it’s enough to know that at least some of the stories in the Old Testament have clear antecedents in stories that were well known in the broad region of Mesopotamia and the Levant at the time.

Of course, and many suggest that one can neither understand nor appreciate the text without understanding the intent and the audience. So, for example, in introducing the transgression pericope found in Genesis 3:1-7, Nahum Sarna notes:

1. the serpent The serpent has always been a creature of mystery. With its veomous bite, it can inflict sudden death. It shows no limbs, yet it is gracefully and silently agile. Its glassy eyes -- lidless, unblinking, strangely lustrous -- have a fixed and penetrating stare. Its longevity and the regular, recurrent sloughing of its skin impart an aura of youthfulness, vitality, and rejuvenation. Small wonder that the snake simultaneously aroused fascination and revulsion, awe and dread. Throughout the ancient world, it was endowed with divine or semidivine qualities; it was venerated as an emblem of health, fertility, immortality, occult wisdom, and chaotic evil; and it was often worshipped. The serpent played a significant role in the mythology, the religious symbolism, and the cults of the ancient Near East. As noted in the Introduction to Genesis 1, biblical poetic texts such as Isaiah 27:1 demonstrate that there once existed in Israel popular compositions in which the serpent, a monster representing primeval chaos, challenged, to its own ruin, God's creative endeavors.​

​

This background is essential for an understand of the demythologizing that takes place in the present narrative. Here the serpent is introduced simply as one of "the creature that Lord God had made." In the wording of the curse imposed on it in verse 14, the phrase "all the days of your life" underlies its mortal nature. Of the three parties to the transgression, the serpent alone is summarily sentenced without prior interrogation -- a sure sign of its impotence in the presence of the Diety, In sum, the serpent is here reduced to an insignificant, demythologized stature. It possess no occult powers. It is not demonic, only extraordinarily shrewd. Its role is to lay before the woman the enticing nature of evil and to fan her desire for it. The serpent is not the personification of evil; in fact, its identification with Satan is not encountered before the first century B.C.E., when it appears for the first time in the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon 2:24.​

What we have here, as in Genesis 1, is not simply some idle rewrite of ANE mythology, but, rather, a monotheist polemic against it.

 

[Kathryn]

The region would have been ancient Sumer, since the oldest versions of the flood story were written in Sumerian. The Euphrates has often flooded, so yes it could have seemed to the residents of that region that the entire world was submerged when in fact it was just a local flood. Here's what Stephanie Dalley, one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, has to say about it:



@Kathryn:


Yes, it is. And so is the Epic of Gilgamesh.

I did check it out. Interesting.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

@Kathryn
@DavidSMoore

Regarding the flood, you might find the following interesting:

The Flood Story in its Ancient Near Eastern Context​

Let me know what you think.