Anachronisms in Genesis

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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stephan happy huller
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Re: Anachronisms in Genesis

Post by stephan happy huller »

The Zohar's point is mystical. When Abraham is still uncircumcised, God speaks to him in Aramaic in order to hide what He is saying from the angels. The angels would apparently object to God revealing himself to an uncircumcised heathen. Once God commands Abraham to be circumcised, He reveals Himself more openly, not in Aramaic but in Hebrew so he can converse with the angels.
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semiopen2
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Re: Anachronisms in Genesis

Post by semiopen2 »

I looked up the famous reference in Genesis 36 to the Kings of Edom and found this,

Just What Was Meant by "Israel"?
by Stephen Van Eck

http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/001what.html
In response to my article "Not Wholly Moses" in the issue of TSR cited above, Roger Hutchinson has written a "reply" entitled "A King over Israel." I had presented a wealth of information that seriously undermined any claim of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, both in my article and in a personal follow-up to Mr. Hutchinson. His article addressed only one of my points, the one where he apparently felt he had found a loophole and had a decent chance to do some damage to my premise.
I haven't read Hutchison's article yet, but I was a little surprised that Van Eck thought it deserved as much respect as he gives it.

Anyway, the OP on FRDB was supposedly designed to destroy literalists in debates.

I asked a religious friend about the Kings and her take was that this could have been a prophecy... seems feeble and absurd but indicates the difficulty discussing anachronisms with literalists. The opposing side to the argument acts like an imbecile, in this case, my friend has a PhD in mathematics, so she isn't stupid... strange. Anyway not so easy to clearly win such a debate.

I was interested enough to look up Van Eck's original article - I think this might be it

The Pentateuch:
Not Wholly Moses or Even Partially
by Stephen Van Eck

http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/995moses.html

This seems to be more appropriate to the real issue, which is whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch.

I once discussed the strange furnishings of the first temple with another religious person, I might have one that argument, but I think the guy hated me for it.

The standard Jewish line is that David couldn't build the temple because of some technical moral deficiencies so Solomon had to do it. However Solomon was no big angel. For example,
Solomon had the first temple constructed, as described in 1 Kings 6-7, but neither he nor the priests seemed to have any awareness of the second commandment's prohibition against making "any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath" (Ex. 20:4), for the text describes images of oxen, lions, flowers, palm trees, and cherubim (6:23-36; 7:23-50) without any condemnation. Zealous religionists going to the trouble and expense of constructing the central temple for the entire faith would have made certain to build it in conformity with their most important precepts. That these precepts did not yet exist is the likeliest explanation of why they were ignored.


This is hard for a lay person to answer, probably even for a Rabbi.
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