Syro-Palestinian Archaeology

[Minimalist]

Seems unlikely that a family of grunts would have a "seal" at all. Of course, that presumes the reliability of bible stories which I am not at all prepared to grant.

[kbs2244]

It is kind of like being one of the family that is the hereditary butlers at the White House. They are “only butlers,” but they have been for, I believe, four generations.
As a family, they have respect and money.

[Minimalist]

The prophets were rarely Priests. They were most often "rasied up" from the common people.

Really, how likely is that? It was the priests who codified the various books into the NT when they got around to it. I rather doubt that there was much in there that they did not approve of.

[kbs2244]

Min:

The Council of Nicaea is generally considered the start of the NT.
But it was a 1000 years later. (325 AD)
And the Jewish influence at it was only in regard to the OT cannon.
(After all, why would they be considered on something that replaced them?)
No priests, only “Rabbis”
The Council was mostly an argument over the Trinity, something the Jews were way out of their depth on. They were not consulted at all.
And by that time the concept of “ We can be sure of how true it was because we show our faults as well a our good side” was well established within the Jewish Community.
The lack of a traceable priesthood blood line was accepted, as was the collective guilt complex they exhibit even today.
Those guys were set up, but they did the best they could under the rules and circumstances.
Going back to the origin of the OT prophets:
If you think about it, it would be necessary for a prophet that was going to be talking against the Status Quo to be raised up from outside that Status Quo.
It was a “back to basics” message they preached.
It would be hard to find a guy that was experiencing the good side of the Status Quo, to preach very creditably against it.

[Ishtar]

In my efforts to decode the mythology of Exodus (which will probably take me 40 years!), I came across this:

The name of the wilderness the Israelites purportedly spent 40 years wandering around in circles was called the Wilderness of Sin.

(From Wiki - my bolding)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_of_Sin

The Wilderness of Sin/Desert of Sin (Hebrew: מִדְבַּר סִין, Midbar Sin) is a geographic area mentioned by the Bible as lying between Elim and Mount Sinai. Sin does not refer to sinfulness, but is an untranslated word which would translate as the moon; biblical scholars suspect that the name Sin here refers to the semitic moon-deity Sin, who was worshipped widely around the entire periphery of pre-Islamic Arabia, the Levant, and Mesopotamia.

Seems he was also worshipped by Jewish priests too!

[Minimalist]

Typo, kb. Should have read "OT" not "NT."

[kbs2244]

You got my point Ish.
This is what makes this artifact so interesting. It dates to a time when the Prophets, as “True Believers” were complaining about the conduct of the Priests in that they were “Profaning” the Temple with “False Worship.”
Although the Temaec’s were not priests, they were tied into the whole Temple procedures pretty close. We can be sure they were not sporting “Pagan” symbols without some approval, or at least indifference, on the part of the priests they served.

Interesting concept on the “Wilderness of Sin.” Maybe not a literal, physical wandering around some piece of real estate, but a metaphysical wandering, while not worshiping correctly.

Min:
I did some quick research on the accepted writers of the OT. It doesn’t seem any of them were priests.
The OT is broken down into 3 basic parts. The Law or Pentateuch; The Prophets; and The Writings.
The Law, written by Moses, was what the priests were supposed to be reading and explaining to the people. It was intended to be their full time job.
The Prophets are just that. The books written by non-priestly men “called up.” Usually to complain about the priests and people “falling away from true worship,” and the consequences.
The Writings are the poetry, inspirational stories., and moral building histories.
Ezra , with the help of Nehemiah, is credited with collecting the traditional Hebrew Cannon around 400 BC. It ended with the writings of Nehemiah and Malachi. His collection was the accepted one from then on.
There are some Apocryphal Hebrew books that are recognized as good sources of information, Maccabees for one, but they are not recognized as “inspired.”

[Minimalist]

This is really too long to go into....I can refer you to Philip R. Davies' "In Search of Ancient Israel" where he goes into the derivation of literacy and its use in that time frame.

In a nutshell, primitive societies which developed writing did so for at first mundane purposes of record-keeping. Only later did the idea of 'literature' develop. Unlike today when anyone can have a blog, literate scribes served to advance the agenda of their patrons. This could be a king or a temple as only these institutions would have the ability to hire people to perform these tasks. Moreover, a point which Davies makes convincingly, there was no market for literature of any kind. 99% of the population was illiterate. If you write something, you write for others in your own group who can read it. True, a priest might stand up and recite or read a document to a crowd of people, but most would be ignorant farmers who did not have a clue what was being talked about. Oddly, this kind of social disconnect is mentioned in the bible. Under the guise of "backsliding" to paganism there are many references to having the king abolish the "high places" and concentrate worship in the temple...WHERE THE PRIESTS WERE! Those kings who did what the priests wanted were invariably written up as good and those who did not were written up as "doing evil in the sight of the lord." Well, the lord had nothing to do with it and it was the priests pushing their own agenda to solidify their position within the social hierarchy. (See William Dever's, "Did God Have A Wife, for a full discussion.) In Dever's view, the countryside clung to the old Canaanite ways while the priests in Jerusalem were pushing their new Yahweh agenda.

Anyway, to suggest that the priests wrote the bible does not mean that they picked up a pen themselves to do it...they may well have considered such work beneath them. But they sure as hell employed the scribes who did the writing and you can bet your butt that it said what they wanted it to say. Then, as now, the guy who signs the check gets 51% of the vote...at least.

[Beagle]

primitive societies which developed writing did so for at first mundane purposes of record-keeping.

This is certainly true in the Middle East and has been known for many years. We don't have any evidence that this is the case worldwide though. Actually I doubt that it is the case.

[Ishtar]

Oddly, this kind of social disconnect is mentioned in the bible. Under the guise of "backsliding" to paganism there are many references to having the king abolish the "high places" and concentrate worship in the temple...WHERE THE PRIESTS WERE! Those kings who did what the priests wanted were invariably written up as good and those who did not were written up as "doing evil in the sight of the lord." Well, the lord had nothing to do with it and it was the priests pushing their own agenda to solidify their position within the social hierarchy. (See William Dever's, "Did God Have A Wife, for a full discussion.) In Dever's view, the countryside clung to the old Canaanite ways while the priests in Jerusalem were pushing their new Yahweh agenda.

According to Friedman, all references to the Tabernacle and that all worship had to be conducted there and nowhere else was from the source P (standing for Priest). All the P material is very priestly in nature in that it seeks to lay down rules for worship.

"The Tabernacle is mentioned more than 200 times by P. It receives more attention than any other subject. It is the only permitted site of sacrifice. It is the place where major and ceremonies and laws must be carried out. It is the place where all revelation takes place after Sinai. But is it never so much as mentioned by J or D and only three times by E.

[J, D and E are the only other contributors to the OT]

In P, the Urim and Tummin are kept in the HIgh Priest's breastplate and are used in apparent divine consultations in judgment. But they are never mentioned in J, D or E.

In E, miracles are performed with Moses's staff. But in P, it is Aaron's staff that is used for performing miracles.

In P, access to the divine is limited to the Aaronid priests.....As for human leaders, the word "prophet" and "prophesy" occur 13 times in E and D, but not once in P (or J). [Incidentally, J is the Yahwehist source writing in Jerusalam]....

In P, only the Aaronid priests have accss to the Urim and Tummin....In P, atonement for sin is to be achieved only by means of sacrifices that are brought to the Aaronid priests.....

[and so on]

P's contribution to the OT is thought to be a few hundred years after R(the Redactor) had brought J and E's material into what is known as RJE.

[Minimalist]

The only problem I have with Freidman is the timing. Things may have been a bit later than he suggests which would solve all the problems.

(Arch, btw, thinks Friedman is dead wrong and the OT was dictated to Moses, as is, in KJV English I suppose!, and there are no mistakes or doublets or contradictions at all. He thinks of Friedman as just as bad as Finkelstein. Perhaps Arch doesn't like Jews?)

That's a fair point, Beags, except what do we really know about the derivation of written languages from other parts of the world? In the M/E we are able to trace them because they either wrote on materials which had some staying power, i.e. baked clay tablets or ostraka, or they wrote on papyrus which in Egypt had great staying power because of the dry climate. Tax records and inventory lists were not meant to be saved and if we have them today it is an accident, not that anyone thought they were worth saving for a couple of hundred years. Someone writing on more perishable materials is not going to make a blip on our radar.

[Ishtar]

The only problem I have with Freidman is the timing. Things may have been a bit later than he suggests which would solve all the problems.

(Arch, btw, thinks Friedman is dead wrong and the OT was dictated to Moses, as is, in KJV English I suppose!, and there are no mistakes or doublets or contradictions at all. He thinks of Friedman as just as bad as Finkelstein. Perhaps Arch doesn't like Jews?)

Yes....well, Arch thinks anyone is dead wrong who doesn't accept the Bible as literal truth whether they be Jew or Gentile!

I take your point about the timing. You mean, if the whole thing was put together in Babylon during the Exile, I assume? But what I've gathered from Friedman is how and where P differs from J and E, and it looks pretty obvious that P was inserted after J and E, or rather RJE, even if it was only a few weeks after!

[Beagle]

I agree Min. There just isn't any proof as there is in the Middle East. I'm just expressing my doubt with no way to back up the point.

The evolution is very clear in the M/E, as you say.

[Minimalist]

Davies, et al, suggest that the canonization of the various works which now comprise the OT took place as a reaction to the ideas of the Greeks which were pouring through the area in an almost unstoppable wave. He seems to see it as a necessary step to support the Maccabaean revolt against Antiochus by giving the Jews their own doctrine to fight for...one which had a long history in the area.

It's a complex idea. Davies is not a master of brevity....although the book is fairly short.

Of course, that puts the OT in the Second Century, BC.

[Minimalist]

I agree Min. There just isn't any proof as there is in the Middle East. I'm just expressing my doubt with no way to back up the point.

The evolution is very clear in the M/E, as you say.

Frustrating, ain't it?