Bible written by different writers at different times for different people

me ^ | 12/6/01 | me

[Weatherman123]

Good morning folks. I came up with a new example that I think gives excellent evidence that different writers wrote different parts of the Bible. Tell me what you think. Like I could stop you! :)

Let's talk about just the first two chapters of Genesis, the creation story/myth. Gn 1:1-2:4a versus Gn 2:4b-25. Can you see two distinctly different stories here? Please go read them both. Here's one example:

Gn 1:1-2 In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.

Gn 2:4b-5 At the time when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, while as yet there was no field shurb on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the LORD God had sent no rain upon the earth...

Was there water in the beginning as the first account says, or no water as the second account says? Was there land as the second account says or just a formeless wasteland covered by water as the first says? Which is it?

If you go and read Gn 1:1-2:4a and then compare it to Gn 2:4b-25, I think you can see they are two totally different creation myths.

---In the first, the human creation is the final act of God. God creates man on the "6th day."

---In the second, the LORD, God, begins his work with man. The garden, trees, rivers and animals follow.

---In the first, God is called "God".

---In the second, God is called "the LORD".

---In the first, creation happens in an orderly fashion, over 7 days. Day 1: light. Day 2: sky. Day 3: earth and vegetation. Day 4: sun, moon and stars. Day 5: birds and fish. Day 6: animals and human. Day 7: God rests.

***Another minor discrepancy: Where did the light come from, created on the first day, if the sun, moon and stars were not created until the 4th day. If you read the Bible literally, how can this make sense?

---In the second, creation has no orderly fashion, but it's a vivid telling of creation, a good story. The LORD has already created the earth and the heavens, but there was no grass or fields, no rain, and his first act is to form man out of clay. Then he plants the garden of Eden, including the tree of knowledge. Then a river rises to water Eden and divides into 4 other rivers. Then the LORD decides it's not good for man to live alone and creates a succession of different creatures and parades them in front of man to name. But none of these animals were a suitable mate so the LORD put man into a deep sleep and built a woman out of one of his ribs.

The depiction of God is completely different in each section. In the first, God is orderly, transcendent, above the fray, able to bring order out of chaos. In the second, God is almost humanlike, forming man out of clay and breathing life into his nostrils, parading animals in front of man to name, reaching into the flesh of man and "building" a woman out of one of his ribs.

The literary style is completely different in each section. The first is an orderly, repetetive account. The second is a vivid story with great imagery.

Both creations myths are divinely inspired and neither can be ignored, nor is one more important than the other. But they were written by different writers.

The Priestly writer is responsible for the first creation myth. P was writing during the time of exile (550 BCE) and his main concern was keeping his people together during this difficult time of dispersion and making sense out their loss of power, land and their temple and ark in which they believed God dwelled. "And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst" (Ex 25:8). The P writer is not a storyteller, he likes lists, order and repetition. Notice how many times you read "Then God said" and "evening came, morning followed" and "God saw how good it was". The Priestly God was one who stood above the people, who was able to bring order out of chaos. This is the God the people in exile needed, one who could bring order back to the chaos of their lives in exile. Additionally, the first mention of Sabbath is in the first creation myth. The Priestly writer was concerned with cultic and priestly matters, such as Sabbath. Sabbath is not mentioned at all in the second account.

The Yahwist writer is responsible for the second creation myth. The Yahwist writer wrote during the time of David and Solomon (950 BCE), the good times when the Israelites had a land, a King, a temple and were a powerful nation. The God that the J (Yahwist) writer knew was a more personal God. His God was called Yahweh and we read that as the LORD in our bibles. Notice how often we see the word LORD in the second account and the fact that the word LORD is not mentioned once in the first account. His idea of God, the LORD, was a very human God, one who got down and molded man out of clay and breathed life into him. God is often represented with human characteristics, such as being a potter (Gn 2:7 The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground..)and a gardener (Gn 2:8 Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden..) The J writer is a vivid story teller and his writting is full of imagery.

Can anyone here see the two different literary styles? The two different theologies of God? The historical context in which the two different creation myths were written?

[Weatherman123]

But I'm hoping for honest discussion with prayerfully open hearts and minds.

ROFL. Best one today.

Are you a Christian? If so, why are you so nasty? Why can't you take me at face value? Why can't you discuss my post and it's theory instead of laughing at me or making false statements such as

You're hoping to impress like minded people with your sophistry.

You may think it's sophistry, but you won't explain why? What is so unplausible about this theory? Can you discuss that instead of being nasty? Or is it just that you are right and I'm wrong so it's not worth the effort?

In Genesis 1, my translations render "waters" as "the deep". Not a reference to an ocean, but to an expanse of nothingness. But you already knew that.

No I didn't. I don't know what version are you reading.

And that wasn't the ONLY point in my post. Why don't you address the other ones?

[RnMomof7]

" The intention of Moses in beginning his Book with the creation of the world, is, to render God, as it were, visible to us in his works. But here presumptuous men rise up, and scoffingly inquire, whence was this revealed to Moses? They therefore suppose him to be speaking fabulously of things unknown, because he was neither a spectator of the events he records, nor had learned the truth of them by reading.

Such is their reasoning; but their dishonesty is easily exposed. For if they can destroy the credit of this history, because it is traced back through a long series of past ages, let them also prove those prophecies to be false in which the same history predicts occurrences which did not take place till many centuries afterwards. Those things, I affirm, are clear and obvious, which Moses testifies concerning the vocation of the Gentiles, the accomplishment of which occurred nearly two thousand years after his death.

Was not he, who by the Spirit foresaw an event remotely future, and hidden at the time from the perception of mankind, capable of understanding whether the world was created by God, especially seeing that he was taught by a Divine Master? For he does not here put forward divinations of his own, but is the instrument of the Holy Spirit for the publication of those things which it was of importance for all men to know.

They greatly err in deeming it absurd that the order of the creation, which had been previously unknown, should at length have been described and explained by him. For he does not transmit to memory things before unheard of, but for the first time consigns to writing facts which the fathers had delivered as from hand to hand, through a long succession of years, to their children.

Can we conceive that man was so placed in the earth as to be ignorant of his own origin, and of the origin of those things which he enjoyed? No sane person doubts that Adam was well-instructed respecting them all. Was he indeed afterwards dumb?"

========================================================

I now return to the design of Moses, or rather of the Holy Spirit, who has spoken by his mouth. We know God, who is himself invisible, only through his works.

Therefore, the Apostle elegantly styles the worlds, ta< mhJ ek fainome>nwn blepo>mena, as if one should say, "the manifestation of things not apparent," 1 (Hebrews 11:3.) This is the reason why the Lord, that he may invite us to the knowledge of himself, places the fabric of heaven and earth before our eyes, rendering himself, in a certain manner, manifest in them. For his eternal power and Godhead (as Paul says) are there exhibited, (Romans 1:20.) And that declaration of David is most true, that the heavens, though without a tongue, are yet eloquent heralds of the glory of God, and that this most beautiful order of nature silently proclaims his admirable wisdom, (Psalm 19:1.)

This is the more diligently to be observed, because so few pursue the right method of knowing God, while the greater part adhere to the creatures without any consideration of the Creator himself. For men are commonly subject to these two extremes; namely, that some, forgetful of God, apply the whole force of their mind to the consideration of nature; and others, overlooking the works of God, aspire with a foolish and insane curiosity to inquire into his Essence. Both labor in vain. To be so occupied in the investigation of the secrets of nature, as never to turn the eyes to its Author, is a most perverted study; and to enjoy everything in nature without acknowledging the Author of the benefit, is the basest ingratitude.

Therefore, they who assume to be philosophers without Religion, and who, by speculating, so act as to remove God and all sense of piety far from them, will one day feel the force of the expression of Paul, related by Luke, that God has never left himself without witness, (Acts 14:17.) For they shall not be permitted to escape with impunity because they have been deaf and insensible to testimonies so illustrious.

And, in truth, it is the part of culpable ignorance, never to see God, who everywhere gives signs of his presence. But if mockers now escape by their cavils, hereafter their terrible destruction will bear witness that they were ignorant of God, only because they were willingly and maliciously blinded

Excerpts from John Calvin's introduction to his commentary of Genesis

Calvin's Commentary on Genesis

[Carol Roberts]

I've studied the Documentary Hypothesis is some detail. There's a lot of good scholarship behind it. Unfortunately for the DH, there's a lot of new information and had those who pushed for the DH in the early days had access to it, would most probably have dropped the theory a long time ago.

It's been awhile, but here is my $.02.

As for the different names for God, even Cassuto makes the point that the two names bring out different aspects of God. I won't go into detail, but to put it simply, Elohim is what God is and Yahweh is who he is. It's probably best to say the two names have semantic overlap.

The use of divine names as a source criterion is contrary to all Near Eastern analogies. K.A. Kitchen has documented many examples from Epyptian and Mesopotamian sources of a single god being called by several names in a single text. Kitchen also states that no Egyptologist would ever use divine names for source criterion.

As for parallel accounts, in an ancient text, the is no stronger indication that only a single document is present than parallel accounts. Doublets that closely parallel one another are the every stuff of ancient narrative. Simple repetition is common in ancient Near Eastern literature.

It's my opinion that had the DH proponents had access to current information, the DH theory would have waned many years ago.

That's all I have time for this morning.

[VRWC_minion]

I believe some books were written by more than one writer (for instance, Genesis) and edited by another.

I understand rub between what you have been taught and a literal reading required by the fundamentalists. I urge you though as an excersize to try a purely literal approach to the text and you will be richly rewarded by God. The Genesis story 1 and 2 are full of meaning when you try this.

Take one line of text per day. Go back and get the original hebrew for each word. Check out where each word was used before. For example, one of the words in the first line of Genesis uses a word that is translated "flutereth (sp?)". It is only used once anywhere else int he OT and it describes an eagle or other bird preparing its nest. Ever since then I have an image of God preparing like a bird preparing her nest before beginning his creation.

The danger in NOT reading with an open mind that the text may just be meant to be literal is that instead of you assume that any text you read that isn't readily understanble or reconciable to known facts must be a metaphor. By doing so you limit the potential of the text to cause you to dig deeper. You also avoid the very real trap that you are seeing what you want to see in scripture and not what is there.

To try and create a metaphor for what I am attempting to say I often liken the bible to a prism. If you stood on one side of the prism and I on the other we will both see different colors. The source of the light is the same but our perception is different. You will strongly argue that the red you see is the correct color while I will strongly argue the green I see is the correct color.

Even though we are both correct we both lose out by not taking a look from the other persons vantage point. Using this as my guide I use two general methods of interpeting scripture. One is basd on what you have been taught in your studies, the other is a pure literal reading. I must add that I am somewhat disapointed in that the fundamentalists often don't take some scripture (especially genesis) fully literal and they all have virtually the same explanation for apparent decrepancies without entertaining other possibilties. I am therefore mindfull that the fundamentalist view point may not actually be a literal reading either.

[Tribefan]

Remember that the word "myth" as used in the phrase "creation myth" is not at all a denial of God creating all. One definition of myth is "a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon". In a world where we can't get accurate reporting on things that took place yesterday, there are people who believe that oral traditions passed down over thousands of years are accurate down to the last letter. I will admit that it's much safer, much easier in fact, to take a literal translation of the Bible and run with it. Isn't it a sign of a deeper, more closely-held faith, when we attempt to learn as much as possible about those who have gone before us? Isn't God's story of creation even more incredible when we realize that our mere words cannot describe it accurately?

[Carol Roberts]

***Another minor discrepancy: Where did the light come from, created on the first day, if the sun, moon and stars were not created until the 4th day. If you read the Bible literally, how can this make sense?

I think I can help here... from where did the matter come that God used to create the universe?

[Weatherman123]

Hmmm, from the construction of your post it looks like your mind is already made up and not open. You start out saying it's a 'creation story/myth' and afterwards you simply refer to it as 'myth'.

My mind is made up on the subject of Genesis being science. It's not. We know scientific facts that were not understood when these stories were written.

You don't believe the creation stories are myths? I'm not saying the Bible is all myth, but parts of it are. Parts of it are poetry. Parts of it are historically based stories. Parts of it are parable. It's a library with many literary styles.

But that wasn't the point of my post. I'm talking about different writters being the author of the library of books we call the Bible. Some folks think it was all written by God himself. That's what I'm open to discussing.

It seems to me as if you're trying to construct a straw man here so you can knock it down.

See how open minded I am? You can go ahead and believe that, but it's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to give an example of why I think there were at least 4 different writters of the Torah. That's all.

[Texas Yellow Rose]

THE LINKED WORD to the Strong's Concordance

Genesis 1

---

1.  In the beginning God created * the heaven and the earth.

2.  And the earth was * without form,and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved * upon the face of the waters.

Isa 45:18 For thus saith [0559] (8804) the LORD [03068] that created [01254] (8802) the heavens [08064]; God [0430] himself that formed [03335] (8802) the earth [0776] and made [06213] (8802) it; he hath established [03559] (8790) it, he created [01254] (8804) it not in vain [08414], he formed [03335] (8804) it to be inhabited [03427] (8800):I [am] the LORD [03068]; and [there is] none else.

[Weatherman123]

Not two different stories

I stand corrected. Two different story tellers would be more accurate. Two different attempts to explain the beginning of the earth and humankind. Thanks for the clarification.

[unsnatchable]

You say that you are a Christian yet your post started out describing the creation account as a myth... Are you simply confused? And now I am having a really hard time figuring out what your point was to begin with. Either you are attempting to discredit the biblical account and therefore it's divine inspiration and authority or you are foolishly helping those that would. Christians will never win arguments like these. It takes faith to believe what you cannot see and cannot prove. The fact that people many different ones wrote that bible is a non factor in believing it to be truth. The "discrepancies" pointed out are not discrepancies at all unless one needs to see them to support unbelief.

[Penny1]

Okay, bear in mind I'm no expert on this stuff, but here's what I've sort of learned or heard explained over the years...

It is not an uncommon Hebrew literary device to tell the same story in different ways, from different points of view. These are not two creation stories, but rather two different ways of telling portions of the same story with different emphases. The first is a global recounting of the creation of the world--an overview, if you will. The second telling of the story gives the more specific relating of the story from the perspective of God's relationship to mankind through his creation of Adam and Eve. In Genesis 1, for example, we have the story being told as God creating human beings, "male and female he created them." In Genesis 2, the focus in brought down to the personal level as we are told exactly how God created them through the creation of Adam and Eve.

As far as the water, vs. no rain and formless, vs. land that you mention, it's clear, to me at least, that Genesis is pinpointing a specific moment within the creation story. Basically, Genesis 1 recounts the story leading up to the creation of man. Then Genesis 2 takes that creation of man and explores it in detail. Saying that there was no rain doesn't mean there was no water, only that there had been no rain.

That's just a rough outline of how I view those two chapters. There are not multiple writers, but rather varying literary devices being employed by the same writer. Saying that because the 2 chapters are not identical that means there were two different writers is kind of like saying that someone who writes prose couldn't possibly also write poetry. Or that someone who writes a biography about someone named "Mrs. Smith" couldn't also refer to her as "Joe's Mom" or "Elizabeth" depending on the context of the narrative. That's a bit silly, don't you think?

From a personal point of view, I think one of the things that the contrast between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 illustrates is that God is the almighty, all-powerful, creative God of Genesis 1, yet also the intensely personal God we see in Genesis 2 who personally created man for a relationship with Him. The two different names being used for God in these two different passages I believe are also meant to illustrate different aspects of God's character.

As for the question about where the "light" from Genesis 1 came from when the sun and moon had not yet been created, I have no clue, lol.... It is a great question that I've heard several different possible answers to, but I think the reality is no one knows for sure how that part is supposed to work.

-penny

[Weatherman123]

I use the word myth in relation to the creation story ONLY. I'm NOT saying the entire Bible is myth. Why can't you folks see that. I'm started to get frustrated. I think I'll take a break and go play with my little boy.

[hopespringseternal]

Are you a Christian? If so, why are you so nasty? Why can't you take me at face value? Why can't you discuss my post and it's theory instead of laughing at me or making false statements such as

Oh, yes, Christians are supposed to be doormats for everyone, especially those with crackpot, unsupported theories.

I addressed a couple of your "points", most are just too inane to give any time to.

[Weatherman123]

written by Moses.

Moses wrote of his own death?

[unsnatchable]

get frustrated but think about the reaction. words are powerful and you put out a very unclear "word" about God's word. If you value God's word as you say you do, you should consider your words used to describe it very carefully. You are influencing much more "thinkers" than just those who have an opinion formed about this. How is God honored and exalted by our words is a responsible Christians carry.

[delapaz]

Well I'm sorry, my post was directed at people who CAN understand sarcasm.

Since you obviously dont get it, feel free to disregard my post which made its point very- well-thank-you.

[Weatherman123]

Using the word myth with anything revealed in the Bible tells me where you are coming from. Now please go back there.

The fact that you won't even consider that some of the Bible might be myth and not fact tells me where you are coming from.

The fact that you tell me my thoughts and ideas are not welcome also tells me where you are coming from.

The fact that you use a close minded nasty tone of voice tells me you are either a) not a Christian or b) a hypocritcal Christian.

[Weatherman123]

I knew we would split on this one Mom, but that's ok with me. If we all thought the same, the world would be boring. If we all thought like liberals, the world would be unbearable! :)

Yes, kiddies excited. I have to log off soon. I keep trying but then there is one more post that grabs me.

[unsnatchable]

it's laughable as I read your responses to peoples discussion of your post. If they counter you on one point, you dig them about not getting the others ones. This you have done to several people who have all discussed different points. You really shouldn't post a discussion thread if you aren't ready to discuss.

[exmarine]

Where did you learn this - some liberal apostate so-called "seminary"??

Jesus clearly believed that Moses wrote the whole thing. I quote:

For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. [Jn 5:46]

Was Jesus wrong and you are right?

What about the theory of the three Isaiahs? Care to argue for that one too? Jesus quotes from every section of Isaiah clearly believing Isaiah wrote it.

It seems the best argument against your thesis is from Jesus himself.