From: watkins@uctvax.uct.ac.za
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Questions for Evolutionists
Date: 2 Oct 92 13:02:53 +0200
Organization: University of Cape Town

> |I would suggest a good textual criticism of the Bible.  I do believe that
> |Dr. Flanders of Baylor University has a good book on the subject.  In such
> |a book you would find evidence that Genesis is infact a compilation of at
> |least 2 if not more prior books (scrolls?).
> 
> The standard results of textual criticism are that the Torah (not just
> Genesis) is a conflation of at least *four* major sources, usually
> called J, E, D, and P.  In addition, there is, of course, the Redactor
> (or redactors) who squished them all together.
> 
> Genesis 1 is either by P or D (P, I think).  Genesis 2 is by J.

   Actually, Gen1 is E, for Elihoist; Gen2 is J, for Jahweist redactors.

> |Of course, using this explaination -- that Genesis is basically a badly done
> |splice job -- it make the whole inerrancy question moot.  If any volume of
> |the Bible is a splice job, then the accuracy of the whole text comes into
> |question.
> |
> Well, it certainly casts doubt upon the *literal* reading.  
> Stanley.
Wellhausen's JEPD theory arose during the late 1800's, based on the (now
questionable) assumption of the archaeological and historical failure of the
Old Testament. It postulated the compilation of the Old Testament from various
sources thru' out Israel's history - the Eliohist and Jahweist being the
earliest, then the Priestly redactor was added, then the Deutoronomist source
at the time of the Monarchy (I don't have exact dates but ca.680BC I think).The 
Deuteronomist redactor is the last in the line.

Since Wellhausen more and more suggested authors have been introduced. The way
you determine an author is to look at the text and try to seperate out
different styles of writing. This has resulted in the (silly) situation of
even single sentences being divided in several authors.

The idea behind the JEPD theory is that since the OT is factually unreliable (a
positon which has been over-turned since the 1800's) the 'history' of the OT is
Myth (a technical term for historical-fiction, i.e. there is a kernel of
truth). The result of this Higher Criticsm has been the denial of the
trustworthiness of the Bible generally today, your statements reflecting the
general manner of thinking. Logically, however the situation is ironically
absurd:-   General Assumption: The Bible Is Absolutely true;
           1st Step: I think that the absence of Archaeological evidence for
                     some of the historical places/people/events means the
                     Bible is NOT absolutely true.
           New Theory: I think the Bible is a composite of Tribal stories
                      (Wellhausen's Redactors hypothesis)
           Result: New General Assumption: The Bible is not Asolutely
                                           Trustworthy
           2nd Step: I discover the absent Archaeological evidence.
           Logical Result: Return to the original Assumption, since the basis
                           for rejecting it was in error.
           Illogical Result: Retain the NEW Assumption - inspite of the fact
                             that it is based on an incorrect assumption - just
                             adjust the New Theory to accomodate new data.

Guess what the General Assumption is Today!
Illogical? or not?
Gary