Reddit reviews The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures
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The Old Testament A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures
>The more familiar translation of the opening words—"In the beginning God created"—is influenced by the beginning of the Fourth Gospel (Jn 1.1: "In the beginning was the word") but is incorrect according to a strict grammatical interpretation of the original Hebrew, which should be translated "When God began to create" or, more literally, "In the beginning of God's creating." The verse thus does not describe "creation out of nothing," a later theological notion, nor does it address such abstract questions as the ultimate origins of matter; rather, it deals with the formation of a cosmos, an ordered universe, out of preexisting but chaotic matter— an unformed earth and an unruly sea over which a wind from God (see Gen 8.1) swoops like a large bird (see Deut. 32.11). (Michael Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, pp. 33-34, my emphasis).
No, it does not actually say that God created the earth or the water. According to Genesis, the earth and the water already existed when God began to create.
If you check the annotations in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, it says:
>...the text does not describe creation out of nothing (contrast 2 Macc 7.28). Instead, the story emphasizes how God creates order from a watery chaos. (p. 11, my emphasis).
The scholarly consensus is that Genesis 1 does not describe God creating the universe out of nothing. It describes God shaping the world out of pre-existing materials.
>Then onto what you said about having multiple causes. It may be possible but then it goes back to the whole infinite regress problem. Let’s say x causes the universe then what causes x? And what caused the cause of x?
Funny how theists never bother to ask these questions when someone suggests that an anthropomorphic spiritual entity caused the universe. What caused God?
"God is, by definition, uncaused!"
Very well, then. I could just as easily say that the universe was caused by multiple things, none of which resemble a human being in any way, shape or form, and all of these impersonal 'causes' are uncaused by definition. Why couldn't the universe have 3, 7, 10, or 300 uncaused causes? Why does an uncaused cause have to resemble a human being? Why does it have to be a thinking, feeling, planning, walking, talking entity?
There is no rational reason to suppose that the "uncaused cause(s)" of the universe would resemble a member of the human species. It seems far more likely that the "uncaused cause(s)" would not resemble any species on Earth, at all. Does the construction crew resemble a building? No. Does the watchmaker look like a giant watch? No.
I'll recommend Michael Coogan's The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures for anyone wanting to learn more. There is also a Yale Open Course on the OT/Hebrew Bible for free for anyone who wants a more traditional online learning environment and lectures.
\>>> Many Christian scholars are not the ignorant kind, who believe things like this: <<<
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Really? Yarin is one of Israel's 2 greatest archeologists and he said the evidence shows for the accuracy of the Joshua Conquest.
https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/8/2/2
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The evidence for Jericho is very pronounced.
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The only two major disputes were the pottery, which when originally studied didn't have a full understanding of pottery dating and that has now came over to the Biblical history side.
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The other is C14 dating and that still is debated, because the eruption of Thera may have thrown off the dating.
Ultimately, nothing anyone says will convince you to accept the other view, because it violates your worldview. That is fine, but to act like you are impartial in this, you aren't, just as I am not.
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\>>> Here's what The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures by Michael Coogan has to say: <<<
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He is a theologian and not an archaeologist. Again, I point to Yarin and he and others disagree with that view. Just as there is a minor (but growing) view that Israelites provided writing to Phoenicia and not the other way around that is the common claim.
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\>>> No laws of war? Sorry, that is ridiculous. Look up Deuteronomy 20. The heading is "Rules of Warfare." Yahweh gave the Israelites clear instructions re: war. <<<
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I didn't say God didn't place limits on war, He did, but the surrounding societies didn't have rules. Even then, so God placed limits on them and they should be followed, but when he removed the limits, they were immoral. That is contradictory.
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Israel was adopted by Yahweh: "I will take you as my people, and I will be your God" (Exodus 6:7).
Moses was adopted: "When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son" (Exodus 2:10).<<<
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Egyptian were not the same as Jewish.
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You're link gives Esther as an example, but that again doesn't say adoption, but that she was raised as if a daughter.
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Israel wasn't described as adopted till the NT, it was that God chose them, but again nothing indicating adoption.
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Sarai giving a slave to fulfill the promise is quite a stretch, it wasn't adoption.
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The concept of legal adoption didn't come till after the Exile and seems mostly to come from outside of Israel (Roman and Greek).
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\>>> Re: Ezekiel 20 -- <<<
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What were the "statutes" that God gave the Israelites that "were not good," then? What were these "ordinances"? According to the Oxford Study Bible:
>The people may have been using the "law of the firstborn" (Exodus 22:29; 34:29) to legitimate child sacrifice (16:20-22). The notion that God's law may be an occasion of punishment, unique in the Hebrew Bible, recurs in Romans 7:7-13.<<<
None of that nullifies what I am saying and what 2000+ years of Theology has said. Not that He ordered it, but that he turned them over to the rules of the evil religions they turned to.
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From Bible.org
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20:25 "I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live" This verse has been a great concern to many commentators because it seems to impugn God's character.
1. Rashi says that YHWH let their inner evil loose (cf. Ps. 81:12; Isa. 66:4; Rom. 1:24, 26, 28).
2. Kimchi, another Jewish expositor, says that they were given over to the enemy (i.e., Canaanite tribes) and they tried to live by their standards (i.e., worship of Molech, cf. v. 26).
3. This may be sarcasm, like vv. 29 and 39; they were using His guidelines (cf. vv. 11-13,16,19-21,24) in Canaanite ways (one example, Genesis 22 became a model for child sacrifice, cf. v. 26). These people had the appearance of being faithful worshipers (like the elders of vv. 1-4), but in reality were idolaters.
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So again, despite you repeatedly denying it, the text does not show that he ordered it or gave the orders. To create that reading you literally have to ignore all the other statements against child sacrifice.
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Jeremiah 19:5 — “and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind.”
You haven’t told me: why would Jeremiah be pointing this out, if nobody in Israel was under the impression that God did command or decree child sacrifice?<<<
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It's a simple explanation and one that has been repeated by me and theologians.
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Jeremiah was written to an apostate people. That means they were people who stood against and refused to follow God's commandments. Even Wikipedia (which is far from the bastion of conservative theology) states that the book was written to an apostate people.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Jeremiah
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Simply put, these people turned their backs on God and decided to follow another religion. In practicing that faith, God points out he never commanded child sacrifice. At best they maybe miss read Genesis 22:2, but that requires them to ignore literally the entire second half of the text and to ignore the prohibitions in the rest of the Pentateuch.
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Ultimately, we are going to go back and forth, no evidence will convince you and I doubt anything will convince me, even thought specifically on your quoting of text, I have 2000 years of theology and you have a random non-Christian ignoring all the other text, except about 5 verses.
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I find it interesting that you believe in nothing past this life, but you are willing to spend the few precious moments you have in this one and only life to what I can only imagine is a waste of time. I don't believe in unicorns, but you don't find me going around spending time. to tell people they are idiots to believe in it. I would find that a waste of time.
Or Michael Coogan's The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures.
Old testament, here.
New testament, here.
hmmm, it depends, do you have any background in philosophy? If so I would recommend some more academic theological work like Kathryn Tanner, Leonardo Boff, Borden Bowne, Edgar Brightman, Jurgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Karl Barth, etc... if not I would recommend a book like this to help you understand the philosophical framework most theologians use.
As for Biblical studies, Michael Coogan has a really good intro to the Hebrew Bible and Mark Powell has a great intro to the New Testament you can supplement those readings with work focused on the historical context like Richard Horsely's work Jesus and Empire I haven't found a good book that offers a comprehensive overview of the context of the Hebrew Bible, mostly because that covers a large span of history. From there you can go on to read people like E.P. Sanders, William Herzog, Richard Bauckham, Jon Levenson, John Collins, Adela Collins, Carol Meyers, etc.
There is a ton of great academic work out there, unfortunately many seem to shy away from it because its 1) intimidating or 2) challenges embedded theological assumptions or 3) they buy into the myth that learning about theology and biblical studies only causes people to lose faith.