01-25-2006, 07:10 PM
|
#17
|
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 10,665
|
Re: My Responses:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Chapel-Hill-Coug
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by SeattleUte
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Chapel-Hill-Coug
Adam and Eve: 5 -nice etiology, but factually incorrect in many ways, mostly due to its reliance on ancient views about the cosmos (eg the firmament).
Cain and Abel: 6 -Another etiology, to explain the origin of the Kenites.
Noah and the Ark: 6 -I don't see how anyone can think this really happened. Probably etiological.
Lot's wife: 5
Plagues: 6
Red Sea: 4, maybe 5.
Jericho: 6
Jonah: 5
Job: 4 mainly because it is one of my favorite books along with Ecclesiastes both examples of "Skeptical wisdom" literature
Daniel: 5
|
These seem pretty close to me; I would adopt them as my own with the following exceptions. Red Sea too high. It's a great story but why we must cast around for natural phenomena to explain something like that is beyond me. I'd give it a 5. Jericho gets a 4, certainly not a 6 in my book. We know the Israelites conquered the Canaanites at some point, right? What evidence is there that the conquest by the Israelites of a Canaanite city named Jericho (by whatever means) is purely fictional? Much of the Bible appears fanciful, but it's the best history we have about much that it covers. Why not just as easily assume that Herodotus' story about the battle of Thermpylae is purely fictional? Claiming there were almost a million Persians attacking the pass is as as patently fanciful as that horn blasts brought down the walls of Jericho.
I agree 100% that Job is one of the finest parts of the the OT, even in the Western Canon. |
The reason I gave Jericho a 6 is because I believe that the archaeological evidence indicates that the "conquest" was not really a conquest, but more of a gradual infiltration or settlement if you will, of disaffected Canaanites who appropriated the Canaanite God El, and then *possibly* merged at some point with a group which had some connection with Egypt. This contact eventually led to the emergence of YHWH as the national God of Israel. I therefore think that the Jericho story is both nationalistic propaganda, and while the ex post facto rationalization of wholesale slaughter might hint at a historical kernel, I just don't think it has value for me.
As for the Red Sea incident, I think this may reflect a legitimate tradition based on much less dramatic events in the life of a small group of settlers from Egypt. In other words, it didn't happen just like the Bible account, but is based in a highly amplified historical kernel.
These are my opinions, based on how I feel the evidence makes the most sense to me.
CHC. |
I will defer to you then. Very interesting. In this field you are certainly the master here. Thanks for taking time to enlighten! Glad to see you found this place.
__________________
Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be.
—Paul Auster
|
|
|