Funny how you won't address the ideas that (1) all Israelite societies are founded on the Pentateuch and (2) the Pentateuch is fundamentally set on the expectation (or claim) that SOMEONE LIKE MOSES is to arrive in contemporary history and want to focus on this stupid argument.
Simpleton version of argument (by analogy as all 'simpleton versions' are explained this way):
Mother away at work comes home to find broken ping pong paddle on the floor. The new table tennis set was bought for their daughter the night before. Asks doting father to explain. He says 'our daughter had a fit when the paddle wasn't working so she smashed it on the ground. Did you punish her, the mother asked. Oh no, he responds, she said the paddle was already broken out of the package.
You set up either-or scenarios. You don't allow for alternative perspectives. One either agrees with you or you swear at them. Attempts to examine your methods are met with hostility.
Does your hostility go back to the time I attempted to explain why I had difficulties with your way of doing history and way of examining the evidence? You made some comment at that time to being surprised because you kinda liked me otherwise. Your comment baffled me. I could not understand why discussing disagreements meant we could not otherwise like each other personally. But it was apparently a problem for you. Disagreement in your books appears to mean one must be a personal enemy.
vridar.orgMusings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
I think the author/s of Isaiah are part and parcel of what might loosely be called the "Israelite religion" but I don't accept that their religion was "centred around the revealing of a leader" of any kind.
This is what you referred me to? WTF is this? An assertion without any supporting evidence. You just keep sidestepping the underlying foundation of the other side. If you can provide an example of a Jewish or Samaritan community which wasn't built around the Pentateuch maybe you'd have a chance. But you steadfastly refuse to explain away around Deuteronomy 18:15. So what do you do? Bury yourself in a patchwork of your 'kooky book references' and ignoring the implication of the role of the Pentateuch and its repeated reference to a coming (at least from the perspective of the time of the Exodus, the purported era the Pentateuch is supposed to have been written) revealed figure who is 'like Moses.'
Unlike you I consistently exhibit open-mindedness with the material. I am not arguing for the primacy of a 'messiah' specifically. The Ta'eb is not an 'anointed one.' He isn't necessarily a warrior. He doesn't have the trappings of a bloodthirsty ruler in the mold of David. So what I am willing to admit is that the Jewish 'anointed one' is one of at least a few possibilities for Deuteronomy 18:15. I am willing to acknowledge that the Pentateuch was a pseudepigraphal work etc. etc.
The reason I am so open-minded is that I couldn't give a fuck where the evidence points. I just want to follow where the evidence leads not the other way around. I am not out to venerate or destroy this tradition. I just want to know what it is or was. But your consistent dishonesty with Deuteronomy 18:15 and various other references (the star, Shilo etc) only points to a general trend in your 'research.' You start by questioning whether or not there is supporting evidence for 'messianic expectation' rather than asking yourself what is a less contentious (and perhaps less interesting) question - given that the Israelite communities of the second commonwealth period were built around the Pentateuch and the Pentateuch foretells the coming of 'one like Moses' what are the range of possibilities for 'one like Moses'?
Clement of Alexandria identifies the passage as pointing to a heavenly being. The Pseudo-Clementines to a prophetic figure. The text was used to justify a number of figures but surely given the important of a revealed figure from the Pentateuch it is hardly surprising - indeed it is almost certain - that many Jews in the period expected a Davidic figure. Since the Pentateuch points to a revealed figure and the Jews tended to frame that figure in 'messianic' terms specifically (i.e. a Davidic figure) odds are that there was a widespread 'messianic expectation' at the turn of the era. It's up to you to disprove the expected result not the other way around.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
I think the author/s of Isaiah are part and parcel of what might loosely be called the "Israelite religion" but I don't accept that their religion was "centred around the revealing of a leader" of any kind.
This is what you referred me to? WTF is this? An assertion without any supporting evidence. You just keep sidestepping the underlying foundation of the other side. . . . .
I didn't read beyond this point, Stephan, because you consistently confuse WTF etc with cerebral debate. No, I make no assertion there -- WTF, you cannot even read with minimal comprehension of the English language. I do nothing more here than simply state that I do not embrace your assertion and that is why I see no room for discussing your specific question. I proposed no alternative scenario. I chose not to bother discussing my alternative views because you are evidently not interested in them. You really do come across as so blinded by hostility and WTFness that you cannot even grasp the simplest attempts at minimal communication with you.
But whatever turns you on.....
I used to like you too, but no more. You are a complete jerk, and no doubt that pleases you. Just trying to make you happy....
vridar.orgMusings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Of course you didn't read beyond that because your sole purpose in doing research is to find 'evidence' for fringe theories. The facts are that the Israelite cultures of the second commonwealth period no less than subsequent periods were formed around a narrative text purportedly set in the distant past which establishes an expectation for a future redeemer/prophet/king - whatever or however you want to define what Moses - in the future (relative to the Exodus). I have gone out of my way to allow you to take 'like him' or like Moses. There are certainly a range of possibilities for what this figure might have been imagined to look like. I've argued that Ezra is likely the original 'fulfillment' of this expectation but I am certainly open to other possibilities in other ages. In this way the Pentateuch resembles a lost ur-gospel written by Paul where Paul is identified as Paraclete heralded by his sock-puppet Jesus. Indeed the Patristic identification of Jesus as Ishu (viz. the fiery man in the burning bush and SInai and various other scenes in the narrative) help edify this second 'self-reference' revelation framework.
The point isn't that we agree with all the permutations and combinations which might have resulted from the 'like Moses' paradigm. The first step is to get you to agree to play by the rules. Instead you show a pattern - championed I might add by your friend Doherty with respect to the text of Hebrews - where bits and pieces of marginalia from other studies and articles are cobbled together to manufacture bizarre 'possibilities' for what Judaism or Christianity 'might have believed.' This sort of gamesmanship is wasting everyone's time except for bored men addicted to the internet and needing breaks in their recreational masturbation activities.
There have to be rules laid down for what is and isn't possible in Judaism and early Christianity. In the case of Judaism from the second commonwealth period you have to demonstrate that there were Jewish cultures which WEREN'T built around the Pentateuch and its central expectation of another figure 'like Moses' appearing 'in the future' (again relative to the age of the Exodus). If you can't or refuse to do that you should stop wasting everyone's time with your misuse of scholarly marginalia.
And just a note beyond my habitual calling out of your basic dishonesty. On the Samaritan interpretation of the one like Moses. The Hebrew verb shin-vav-bet https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/hebrew/07725.html The Aramaic equivalent is tav-vav-bet. The participle of the Aramaic verb is Ta’eb. This is the usual Samaritan theological equivalent of the Hebrew shin-vav-bet when writing in Aramaic. The word Ta’eb does not mean someone that repents. It means someone that comes back again. It is used in the the extant texts in the sense of someone that makes something come back again, the Tabernacle or the Ruuta. That is grammatically impossible. In that meaning the af‘al participle would be needed (=Hebrew hif‘il), i.e. metib. This means the original meaning of the return of Moses has been deliberately obscured. In Judaism the one like Moses figure has been consistently identified as the messiah. But it is interesting that in both cultures the full implication of expecting another Moses has been transformed in different ways.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
And you see there are so many interesting and enlightening conversations about the actual origins of Judaism and Christians that could be had at this forum if everyone agreed to 'play by the rules' - meaning, if we all adhered to the strongest evidence, the evidence that points back to the actual 'rules' or principles of the ancient Israelite culture we are supposedly studying or trying to figure out. For instance, given that the Samaritan culture is so Moses-centered and the Jewish culture less so coupled with the obvious geographic centering of the Pentateuch narrative in Samaritan locales (and the early Qumran texts acknowledging Gerizim as the mountain of God and echoes of the Samaritan text of Exodus 'incorporating Deuteronomy' - how is that Samaritanism can be viewed as anything than the more original Israelite culture (when compared with their Jewish cousins).
What I mean is that the Pentateuch says 'wait for the one like Moses' and the Samaritans only wait for the one like Moses while the Jews by contrast branch off to other texts and other expectations (i.e an 'anointed one'). How can Judaism be thought to represent or preserve the original Israelite culture (when, as I often note 'Jerusalem' the supposed 'sacred city' of the Jews isn't even mentioned in the Pentateuch too)?
But if we are to liken our time spent here as a gathering of musicians or poets (historians don't need to gather together to do their work) we all - as the allegory demands - have to agree to find some 'common key' to play in. You can't just make shit up and posit an 'exclusive Isaian culture' in the second commonwealth period which didn't adhere to the Torah without producing some sort of evidence for such a culture existing. This sort of nonsense is counterproductive. It only shows the person engaging in this sort of stuff is going beyond the evidence to deny central tenets of religions and traditions he doesn't like or wants to depreciate. Real research doesn't proceed like this.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Umm. It's a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 18:15. yaqim = hence the 'wait' in my paraphrase.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
There are certainly a range of possibilities for what this figure [like Moses] might have been imagined to look like. I've argued that Ezra is likely the original 'fulfillment' of this expectation but I am certainly open to other possibilities in other ages.
My understanding is that Dt. 18:15 refers to more than one prophet, i.e., all the "true" prophets that came after Moses, given the verses that follow it.
Dt. 18:17-22:
The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”
You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
This is supported by Jer. 14:14-16:
Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds. Therefore this is what the Lord says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them, yet they are saying, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ Those same prophets will perish by sword and famine. And the people they are prophesying to will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them, their wives, their sons and their daughters. I will pour out on them the calamity they deserve.
And Jer. 26:11-16:
Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and all the people, “This man should be sentenced to death because he has prophesied against this city. You have heard it with your own ears!”
Then Jeremiah said to all the officials and all the people: “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the things you have heard. Now reform your ways and your actions and obey the Lord your God. Then the Lord will relent and not bring the disaster he has pronounced against you. As for me, I am in your hands; do with me whatever you think is good and right. Be assured, however, that if you put me to death, you will bring the guilt of innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on those who live in it, for in truth the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing.”
Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man should not be sentenced to death! He has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.”
Last edited by John2 on Wed Mar 08, 2017 9:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
Bullshit. The Hebrew speaks only of one. Surely if God meant 'many' he would have used the plural.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
