A Reddit member asks about theistic evolution

[David Lamb]

Nothing in the text suggests Moses wrote Genesis. God told Adam what happened and it was verbally transmitted until Joseph.

Not in the text of Genesis, but we read in the New Testament, "Moses and the Prophets" as a phrase to mean the Old Testament. For instance:

“And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” (Lu 24:27 NKJV)

How do you know it was verbally transmitted "until Joseph"?

 

[EarlyActs]

Joseph created an alphabet? And again what is the evidence for this? And don't refer me to some scholar - tell me in your own words.

As I said, the traditional view is that Moses wrote the Genesis and I see no problem with that. Moses was not born until 400 years after the end of Genesis. But that doesn't mean he didn't write it. It's not like it was a live commentary of the events.

The evidence of Joseph was that he was trained in the limited glyphs of the Egyptians but could draw, write, compute. The Hittite idea of using 3 consonant sounds in unlimited combination was circulating at his time. A stone from the time found near Jericho is engraved in a proto Hebrew that instructs readers to go to Memphis for food.

What’s this business of not conferring with scholars? Your views are down to them. But they are all post-dated, meaning, you have taken 19th cent. Conclusions about when things happened and this makes the Torah a very late product, as late as the temple.

You need to work out when the Hebrew alphabet started and the custody of the text.

 

[EarlyActs]

Not in the text of Genesis, but we read in the New Testament, "Moses and the Prophets" as a phrase to mean the Old Testament. For instance:

“And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” (Lu 24:27 NKJV)

How do you know it was verbally transmitted "until Joseph"?

Sometimes the psalms are called Prophets too. That is merely synagogue convention.

There are studies of how verbal recitation was practiced and Genesis usually conforms to that. There is no Hebrew until the time of Joseph when he collected and wrote down all the accounts of his tribe, to insure their identity. God put him in a position which allowed this.

One of the scandals of Egyptian archeology is the neglect of Semitic names and objects under Goshen by a German explorer in the 19th century who did not want anything about Hebrew history to match the Biblical account. The name of the city under Goshen that was lost by him for decades escapes me.

The same trick took place in geology. Pellegrinis study of tectonics was buried by the Huxley s and their racist biology theory for decades until 1930 or 40.

J Austen ridiculed the science of her time by her line in Mansfield Park: the aristocrat claimed the natives in Jamaica are like mules; they cannot bear children. So Anglos had sex with them as a way of breeding more workers.

19th cent science was like that.

 

[Alive]

The evidence of Joseph was that he was trained in the limited glyphs of the Egyptians but could draw, write, compute. The Hittite idea of using 3 consonant sounds in unlimited combination was circulating at his time. A stone from the time found near Jericho is engraved in a proto Hebrew that instructs readers to go to Memphis for food.

What’s this business of not conferring with scholars? Your views are down to them. But they are all post-dated, meaning, you have taken 19th cent. Conclusions about when things happened and this makes the Torah a very late product, as late as the temple.

You need to work out when the Hebrew alphabet started and the custody of the text.

I see this all as speculation. You have mentioned evidence and yet all that is offered is speculation and a theory.

 

[EarlyActs]

I see this all as speculation. You have mentioned evidence and yet all that is offered is speculation and a theory.

You'll have to take some of it up with Malone, THE MOSES CONTROVERSY. The Hittite alphabet dates back to late 2nd mill BC, for sure.

The limited glyphs of the Egyptians has been set at about 400 figures, which only priests knew.

I think if you saw a chart of NW Semitic letter forms, you'd actually see a group was developing that similar. Often the sound of a letter would resemble a common shape, for ex, M for a cow.

There is no speculation about the burial of semitic terms and objects under Goshen; it is a huge embarrassment.

Do you have other specifics ?

Malone also shows the extent to which the U of Toronto linguistics department buried Cassuto; the UT professor who discovered his own department had buried his book is interviewed in it. My intro to Hebrew was under Dr Waltke at Regent College (Canada) and he had us read some of Cassuto.

 

[Alive]

You'll have to take some of it up with Malone, THE MOSES CONTROVERSY. The Hittite alphabet dates back to late 2nd mill BC, for sure.

The limited glyphs of the Egyptians has been set at about 400 figures, which only priests knew.

I think if you saw a chart of NW Semitic letter forms, you'd actually see a group was developing that similar. Often the sound of a letter would resemble a common shape, for ex, M for a cow.

There is no speculation about the burial of semitic terms and objects under Goshen; it is a huge embarrassment.

Malone also shows the extent to which the U of Toronto linguistics department buried Cassuto; the professor who discovered his own department had buried it is interviewed in it.

Honestly--I really don't care.
I am convinced that the Lord has preserved the scriptures for us just as they are and have no personal need to chase down rabbit holes.
Carry on.

 

[EarlyActs]

Honestly--I really don't care.
I am convinced that the Lord has preserved the scriptures for us just as they are and have no personal need to chase down rabbit holes.
Carry on.

They were not in English to start. Aren't you at all interested in archeology? In archeological scandal? What rabbit holes?

This does not have anything to do with 'trusting Christ for our righteousness before God' but if you are a student, a thinking person, it should be an area of interest.

What matters about Genesis here is that the authentic view of Genesis was some 2000 years before Egypt was an issue to the text (the period of exile there). Our friends who argue that it is 'speaking against Egyptian theology' should realize it was already a very ordinary-stated cosmology before Ra was a twinkle in a pagan priest's eyes. Genesis was not written because Israel needed to launch an identity.

 

[Alive]

What are your thoughts on what Jesus Himself said here...
Mark 12:26 (NAS20S) “But regarding the fact that the dead rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘ I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’?
and
Luke 24:27 (NAS20S) Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures.

 

[EarlyActs]

Not in the text of Genesis, but we read in the New Testament, "Moses and the Prophets" as a phrase to mean the Old Testament. For instance:

“And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” (Lu 24:27 NKJV)

How do you know it was verbally transmitted "until Joseph"?

On verbal transmission:
I don't know of any documents or even writing mentioned in the text until you get to Joseph who was skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians and thus writing. At the same time, the Hittite alphabet started, and charts of comparative alphabets reveal several similarities of what are called the NW semitic languages (Hebrew, Hittite, Phoenician, Syrian).

In the doc THE MOSES CONTROVERSY, Malone reports on a stone found near Jericho from the period of Joseph that is inscribed in proto Hebrew, saying, if you are starving, coming to Memphis in Egypt. Obviously to have readers understand, there must have been some linguistic activity going on in Cana/Judea.

 

[EarlyActs]

What are your thoughts on what Jesus Himself said here...
Mark 12:26 (NAS20S) “But regarding the fact that the dead rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘ I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’?
and
Luke 24:27 (NAS20S) Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures.

Can you not understand that titles can be convenient? Are you next going to report that Isaiah is not in the Prophets because it is not specifically named? So there has to be some conventions.

Notice that Joseph is immediately before Moses in the narrative. So we are really only talking about Genesis. Moses is obviously living after it. How can we have a narrative that says 6 times on the first page that God spoke, but then believe that nothing was known or transmitted until Moses came along...2000 years later? Of course, we have to start with Adam being part of a conversation with God before he can remember it; but God would have told him the prior, and there is no document, so it had to be verbal.

In Boorsten's history of discoveries, he reports ancients who could memorize and recite Homer, full-length, backwards! So let's not diminish verbal transmission.

Verbal is the topic of Cassuto's FROM ADAM TO NOAH book on the custody of Genesis from Adam to Joseph. If you want a technical study. He saved Genesis from the destructive theories about Genesis of German scholars @ 1900.

 

[EarlyActs]

What are your thoughts on what Jesus Himself said here...
Mark 12:26 (NAS20S) “But regarding the fact that the dead rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘ I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’?
and
Luke 24:27 (NAS20S) Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures.

Actually there are references where not even Moses and Prophets are used to refer to the scrolls. That is because some synagogues just had a collection in a box, and it was called the scrolls. See Heb 10.

 

[prism]

That term provides a timestamp, but there are others in vs2+. Several things show a duration in them.

Yes, like the geneologies, otherwise vs2 is speculated widely by 'gap theorists' reading between the verses.
Pure speculation,... a poor hermeneutic.

 

[EarlyActs]

Yes, like the geneologies, otherwise vs2 is speculated widely by 'gap theorists' reading between the verses.
Pure speculation,... a poor hermeneutic.

Do you think that gap theories do not see duration in v2?

I don't know what connection you mean to genealogies. I simply meant there are grammatical and astrophysical things that show a duration of time. There is also literary form; if you compare with other 'background' lines, they almost always show duration . Before the new action. And as Dr. Lennox says, each of the days does start with 'And God said,...' so we dont have that in v2, meaning v2 are pre-existing conditions (which I think show that they are from a 'spreading out' that was random and lifeless; perhaps a 'controlled detonation.')

 

[EarlyActs]

Yes, like the geneologies, otherwise vs2 is speculated widely by 'gap theorists' reading between the verses.
Pure speculation,... a poor hermeneutic.

I don't know if gap believers meant a pause of activity, because I don't. There's also 2 places a gap could go, and I don't know which they meant. (Right after the title line, which breaks the meaning of the passage, or right after the conditions of v2, but there does not need to be a gap).

As is often the case, the accusations of a belief just confuse the issues.

 

[prism]

I don't know what connection you mean to genealogies.

e.g. Genesis 4:17-22, 5:1-32, 10:1-32, 11:10-32, 25:12-28, 36:1-43, and 46:8-27

I simply meant there are grammatical and astrophysical things that show a duration of time. There is also literary form; if you compare with other 'background' lines,

If grammar is askew, we as Christians are all in big trouble, as we rely on the grammatical precision of words, due to the inspiration of Scripture.

And as Dr. Lennox says, each of the days does start with 'And God said,...' so we dont have that in v2, meaning v2 are pre-existing conditions (which I think show that they are from a 'spreading out' that was random and lifeless; perhaps a 'controlled detonation.')

Sorry, but I didn't realize a renown mathematician was also a Hebrew scholar.

 

[Sereni-tea]

The evidence of Joseph was that he was trained in the limited glyphs of the Egyptians but could draw, write, compute. The Hittite idea of using 3 consonant sounds in unlimited combination was circulating at his time. A stone from the time found near Jericho is engraved in a proto Hebrew that instructs readers to go to Memphis for food.

There is still along leap to justify Joseph did this or that there is a chain of custody from Adam to Joseph and then to Moses.

What’s this business of not conferring with scholars? Your views are down to them.

You misunderstand. I don't have a problem with you conferring to scholars. What I want is for you not just to say "see the the work of this person or that person" in your posts, but to actually tell me what the evidence is. I don't have the time to track down all the resources you quote, nor do I care to. I am interested in having a conversation.

But they are all post-dated, meaning, you have taken 19th cent. Conclusions about when things happened and this makes the Torah a very late product, as late as the temple.

The traditional view of Moses as author of Genesis is dated back to Jewish times and since Jesus also mentioned Moses as author, I really don't see why you would claim I have taken it from the 19th century, except to justify your own ideas.

However even if we assumed for argument sake that the material was handed down from Adam, to support your view you would still need to prove that it was not laid down word for word.

You need to work out when the Hebrew alphabet started and the custody of the text.

I don't need to prove any such thing. You are the one claiming the text was handed down from Adam, therefore you need to prove it.
I have no problem with the traditional view of Moses writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Sereni-tea]

My intro to Hebrew was under Dr Waltke at Regent College (Canada) and he had us read some of Cassuto.

I have read some of Waltke's work and his views are a long way from what you are saying here.

 

[Sereni-tea]

What matters about Genesis here is that the authentic view of Genesis was some 2000 years before Egypt was an issue to the text (the period of exile there). Our friends who argue that it is 'speaking against Egyptian theology' should realize it was already a very ordinary-stated cosmology before Ra was a twinkle in a pagan priest's eyes. Genesis was not written because Israel needed to launch an identity.

You are right that this is where we differ. You believe that Genesis was the original account of creation and I believe it is a polemic against the views of Israel's neighbours, correcting their theology. I also believe it is describing the God ordering creation as His cosmic temple (but that is another topic). I believe the literary structure and context supports this view.

 

[EarlyActs]

e.g. Genesis 4:17-22, 5:1-32, 10:1-32, 11:10-32, 25:12-28, 36:1-43, and 46:8-27

If grammar is askew, we as Christians are all in big trouble, as we rely on the grammatical precision of words, due to the inspiration of Scripture.

Sorry, but I didn't realize a renown mathematician was also a Hebrew scholar.

On Lennox, it is common sense not commonly pointed out. Look for yourself: each days activity starts with 'And God said...' It does not start with pre-existing conditions. Therefore v2 is before Day 1 and each pre-existing condition contains/exhibits duration.

 

[EarlyActs]

e.g. Genesis 4:17-22, 5:1-32, 10:1-32, 11:10-32, 25:12-28, 36:1-43, and 46:8-27

If grammar is askew, we as Christians are all in big trouble, as we rely on the grammatical precision of words, due to the inspiration of Scripture.

Sorry, but I didn't realize a renown mathematician was also a Hebrew scholar.

re genealogies
I know what genealogies are; I don't know what you meant to say about them.