Daystar - 13 December 2009 05:35 AM

You have to understand that from my perspective there is absolutely no point in discusssing this with you.

(Andrew):  I agree that our perspectives differ, certainly.  I’m coming at the Bible from an historical and literary perspective, and you’re looking at it as revelation from God.  But I disagree that there’s no point in discussing it.  I can tell by what you write that you’ve never given the Documentary Hypothesis a moment’s thought, if that…so aside from the mental exercise involved in the back and forth, you stand to learn a great deal about the nuts and bolts of the book that you claim to hold in esteem.
Understanding and accepting the Documentary Hypothesis won’t turn you into an atheist, by the way.  If that’s a concern.

Daystar - 13 December 2009 05:35 AM

The scriptural support against your hypothesis is that Moses is said to have written the three verses I gave you rather than J, P and E, also that Moses was quoted throughout the Christian Greek scriptures…

(Andrew):  There is scriptural support for Moses having written “a scroll of the torah”—that could mean only one scroll of many, or it could mean the whole Pentatauch—but scriptural support for Moses having written scripture is pretty circular, don’t you think?  For us grownups? 
And anything from the Christian Bible is, of course, irrelevant.

Daystar - 13 December 2009 05:35 AM

...the historical evidence is that for thousands of years all but a few Jews believed Moses to have written it.

(Andrew):  That’s not historical evidence, Daystar.  For many thousands of years the whole human race thought that the earth was flat, but that’s not historical evidence for the earth having ever been flat. 
There is no historical evidence for Moses having existed, much less having authored the Torah.

Daystar - 13 December 2009 05:35 AM

You have only conjecture, speculation - faith and belief.

(Andrew):  No, no.  There’s lots of evidence for the Documentary Hypothesis.  I’ve already done a thread on doublets, but I’ll do another on some of the other evidence.  Give me a few minutes.

Daystar - 12 December 2009 06:32 PM

hannahfriend - 12 December 2009 05:53 PM

I recommend taking a geology course or visiting your closest museum of natural history.  There is no physical evidence of a world-wide flood in the past 6000 years.

You mean like whales in the deserts, sea creatures in the mountains . . . stuff like that?

Yes.  Your incredulity seems to indicate that you assume the deserts were always deserts and the mountains were always mountains.  Yet today we can document changes happening in the features of the earth.  Mountains are rising or sinking.  Shorelines are changing. 

The area where I live has been inundated by sea at least 3 times.  In between these periods, terrestrial sediments were deposited.  The layers of different rock are arranged like the pages of an open book.  Limestones, deposited in ancient seas and containing fossils of extinct sea animals are the oldest layers.  On top of the limestones are river and sand dune deposits.  On top of these are more seabed deposits containing different fossil species.  On top of these are more river deposits.  In the most recent age, weathering and modern rivers have worn through the overlying layers to reveal the older layers.

This clearly visible sequence just does not fit the picture of an earth created only a few thousand years ago as it is today.