60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The Era

[Secret Alias]

Secret, rabbinic tradition nowhere intimates that Ezra authored the Torah, not in Sanhedrin 21a or anywhere else for that matter.

Ummm. EVERYONE outside of the Israelites KNEW Ezra wrote the Torah. The fact that Sanhedrin 21 says Ezra COULD HAVE written the Torah is like my son admitting that the broken window COULD HAVE been due to him kicking a ball. For fuck's sake, learn to think.

[neilgodfrey]

For fuck's sake, learn to think.

Frustrated are we? It's only a debate about history. It's not really anything important.

[Secret Alias]

Well it's frustrating when a POV is disqualified merely because it isn't explicitly acknowledged by the source.

[Secret Alias]

Why would someone say 'Ezra could have received the Torah' in an age when the outside would was saying Ezra not Moses received the Torah.

[neilgodfrey]

Rhetorical questions are said to hide the cracks in ones own arguments. They tend to reduce everything to false dichotomies. I'm suspicious of arguments that sound like Trump rhetoric, of those that appear to fail to comprehend alternatives, of those that think alternative perspectives must be attacked before they are comprehended. Attack does little to facilitate discussion and understanding. It does serve to pose as a bully-boy style of winning.

[Nathan]

Secret, rabbinic tradition nowhere intimates that Ezra authored the Torah, not in Sanhedrin 21a or anywhere else for that matter.

Ummm. EVERYONE outside of the Israelites KNEW Ezra wrote the Torah. The fact that Sanhedrin 21 says Ezra COULD HAVE written the Torah is like my son admitting that the broken window COULD HAVE been due to him kicking a ball. For fuck's sake, learn to think.

You're a relentless bull-shitter, Secret Alias.

Everyone knew Ezra wrote the Torah?? Who's everyone? Clearly not the author of the Bava Batra passage.

Do words mean anything to you? When the Talmud says Moses authored the Torah and Ezra his book, it means that Ezra authored the Torah?? Really? When the Talmud says Ezra was worthy to have received the Torah had Moses not preceded him, it actually means that Ezra authored the Torah? How's that?

Ironic that you would demand I "learn to think," when plain words seem beyond your own comprehension.

[Secret Alias]

Neil,

Except when all my subsequent arguments develop from a simple understanding of the plain meaning of Deuteronomy 18:15. It is indisputable that the entire Pentateuch waits for the revelation of Moses and Deuteronomy goes on to make clear that another figure who is like Moses will be introduced in the future ('future' at least from the perspective of the narrative).

To this end, given that ALL Israelite societies in the Second Commonwealth period were built around a book which foreshadowed the coming of a Moses - that is 'leader of Israel' figure - in the future your entire question of the messianic tradition is reduced to silly quibbling. You don't like the word 'messiah.' Fine. You wonder why more references to this 'messiah' aren't mentioned in Jewish history. Fine. The facts are once you can't find an Israelite culture which isn't built around the Penateuch - that book which, in a 'Chekhov's gun' manner, makes clear that the entire narrative is just a foreshadowing of a future (or if you accept it as a self-identification on the part of Ezra as author).

The Pentateuch isn't constructed as a narrative of past events first and foremost. It is all a projection of present day institutions as recreations of things set in the sacred past. Indeed if Ezra wrote the text (or indeed anyone else in an era subsequent to Moses and the Exodus) the text itself is another institution. The tabernacle is another etc. etc.

But in light of this understanding (i.e. that everything set in the past is really an attempt to anchor things in the sacred past) surely Deuteronomy 18:15 and similar passages speak to contemporary events. In the age the text was authored, the Moses-like figure was undoubtedly identified with Ezra or whomever you think wrote the Pentateuch. But surely the onus is upon you and your theory to construct an Israelite community which saw Deuteronomy 18:15 as already fulfilled in the past.

[Secret Alias]

Everyone knew Ezra wrote the Torah?? Who's everyone? Clearly not the author of the Bava Batra passage.

Various pagans and Christians (Irenaeus just the earliest). In short everyone outside of the Israelite community. The obvious Persian references (if you don't know them fuck you) in Genesis and Deuteronomy assist this identification. The fact that the Torah tells the story of Moses's death means only an idiot could think Moses wrote the last verses of Deuteronomy. Sanhedrin 21 should certainly be read as echoing the contemporary environment in which Jews lived where Ezra was said to be the author of this earliest of pseudepigraphas.

[Secret Alias]

The Samaritan reading of 'Torah' in the Pentateuch is ONLY as a reference to the Ten Commandments. The earliest understanding of the 'God given' text revealed to Moses is that of the Ten Commandments. Only later did Jews understand the five books to have been given by God on Sinai. If Moses received only the Ten Commandments from heaven where does the Pentateuch make reference to Moses writing a second book after receiving the Ten from heaven? This is stupid. It is below retarded to imagine that Moses received a five book story which included his own death on Sinai. The Pentateuch is clearly and obviously a later author's attempt to frame the reception of the Ten Commandments within a cosmic chronology (that foreshadows his eventual appearance if Deuteronomy 18:15 is a self-reference to the author which I think it is).

[neilgodfrey]

Except when all my subsequent arguments develop from a simple understanding of the plain meaning of Deuteronomy 18:15. It is indisputable that the entire Pentateuch waits for the revelation of Moses and Deuteronomy goes on to make clear that another figure who is like Moses will be introduced in the future ('future' at least from the perspective of the narrative). . . . .

Sounds like you are saying that only you understand the "plain meaning" of the text and that that "plain meaning" is determinative for all future applications of the text --- that only you understand the plain common sense of everything and the rest of us are just idiots. I guess if I was as assured as you in my understanding then I'd think everyone else was an idiot too.

. . . . But surely the onus is upon you and your theory to construct an Israelite community which saw Deuteronomy 18:15 as already fulfilled in the past.

That's what I love about so many arguments here: they set up the either-or boxes for others and others have to tick one; no alternatives allowed.