The Case Against the Mythists

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

A recent post over on Robert Price’s blog, author of The Christ Myth Theory and Its Problems, critiquing Bart Ehrman’s recent book, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, in which he defends the historical existence of Jesus, got me thinking about the topic.

Currently unfamiliar with both of these books, I nonetheless offer up these points for consideration. At first glance, here is the evidence as it stands stacked up against those who would claim that Jesus is but a myth, that no historical Jesus ever existed.

1) There are frankly speaking no mythic elements in the Jesus story/stories preserved in the gospels. There are no talking serpents, no anthropomorphic deities, no allusions to agricultural myths, no presentation of a primordial or pre-historical time-frame, no description of a decent and ascent from the underworld, no personified rivers, trees, magical palm leaves, etc. The only … Read more

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The Scientific Study of the Bible

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

In attempting to contribute to a larger cultural dialogue that promotes thinking and the elevation of rational discourse, I am convinced that any sort of meaningful conversation between theists of all denominations, atheists, and biblical scholars must start from the text, where the biblical text serves as the meeting ground. Can the scientific study of the Bible achieve such a goal?

I am also deeply disappointed by the the low level of public knowledge and education about the Bible. Both the word “Bible” and the biblical texts are so riddled with personal and cultural presuppositions, misuse, abuse, and misunderstanding, that it is even hard to have an intelligent and informed conversation on the topic. Additionally, many automatically invoke ideas of what the Bible is based on preconditioned cultural norms, the authority of long-standing interpretive traditions, what such-and-such faith community says the Bible is, personal theological agendas, etc., rather than really … Read more

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The Yahwist

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

The textual tradition know as the Yahwist (J) was so named by academics because of its consistent and unequivocal use of the god of Israel’s name, Yahweh. Even though the divine name appears approximately 1,800 times in the Pentateuch alone, the other Pentateuchal sources (Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly) restrain from using it prior to its revelation to Moses in Exodus: at 3:14-15 in the Elohist tradition and at 6:2-8 in the Priestly tradition. Only the Yahwist text, in other words, affirms and acknowledges—in contradiction to the claims of the later Priestly source—that the name Yahweh was known to and frequently invoked by the patriarchs prior to its revelation. Indeed, it is for this reason that the Yahwist tradition does not narrate a revelation of the divine name. According to this tradition, it was known right from the first generation of mortals (Gen 4:26). This is merely one of dozens of … Read more

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Whose Bible is it anyway?

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

If you’re following the latest Yahoo news feed [here], then you know that another modernized translation (more appropriately aberration) of the best-loved, best-selling classic “the Bible” has apparently squeezed itself onto bookshelves across America right next to the already densely populated and voluminous (and worthless it might be added) collection of modernized versions of the Bible, written specifically for: the modern man, the modern women, the teen, the pre-teen, the pre-pre-teen, the pregnant mom, the knife-flaying chef, the chicken-soup soul seeker, the manly man’s group huddle in their basement man-cave, grandpa and grandma, and even the dandy across the street. How blessed are we to have such an extensive proliferation of the Almighty’s word!, extracted and personally sculpted to fit the needs of every American on this plant. Or more so, what a lucrative business this has all become!

This latest version fancies itself “The Voice” and attempts … Read more

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Literary Form of Deuteronomy

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

Concerning its literary form, Deuteronomy presents itself as a set of orations or farewell speeches delivered by Moses on the plans of Moab shortly before he dies. That is to say, the Deuteronomist uses speeches as a literary device to disseminate, and even authorize, his message. Historiography in the ancient world largely entailed crafting speeches and placing them in the mouths of great personalities and ancestors of the past. This literary technique was used to lend authority to the particular ideology and aims of an author by placing that ideology on the lips of a heroic ancestor, even a deity. The speech form thus allowed the Deuteronomist to express his own ideology and beliefs by making Moses the mouthpiece for them. Indeed, the Deuteronomist presents Moses as authoring the very text he is writing. We will see that the Priestly writer does the same thing when he sets out to … Read more

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History and Structure of Deuteronomy

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

The book of Deuteronomy, like many of the Bible’s books, was composed in stages and by different authors living in different historical eras. Despite this fact, Deuteronomy displays a remarkable unity in its style, theology, and message. This is largely because the various revisions, additions, and rewritings that the book of Deuteronomy underwent were done by a specific scribal school, which we shall label as the Deuteronomic school, and its authors the Deuteronomists. This scribal guild and its redactional activity spanned a lengthy period of time, from the late monarchal period of the 7th century BC, through the exilic period of the first half of the 6th century BC, to the Persian period of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Thus the making of the book of Deuteronomy was an accumulative process of ever increasing redactional activity that transpired over three centuries. Because these three centuries witnessed radically different historical … Read more

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How well do you know the book of Deuteronomy?

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

I am currently working through the book of Deuteronomy and will soon post about it. So if you’re interested in studying Deuteronomy with me, pick up a Bible and join in. I’m particularly interested in when and why this text was composed, and how the author uses, or misuses as the case may be, his sources—the older ‘Elohist’ traditions that now make up Exodus 19-24 and passages from Numbers. What do you already know, or would like to know, about the book of Deuteronomy? Do you think the author has the hutzpa to contradict these earlier traditions?… Read more

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The Documentary Hypothesis: How Scholars Discovered J, E, D, and P (3)

Posted on June 23, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

This posts is part 3 of the ‘Did Moses Write the Torah?’ series. It too has been excerpted from my writing.

Nineteenth century scholarship: post-Mosaic by centuries

The observable textual data collected over the centuries leading up to and including the nineteenth century no longer supported the long-standing traditional and pre-critical claim that the Pentateuch was written by Moses—a traditional view, moreover, that the text never claimed to begin with and which only came into existence through culturally conditioned theological and ideological interpretive agendas of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. By the nineteenth century the large majority of biblical scholars realized that the Pentateuch was composed out of a variety of sources, all of which postdate Moses by centuries. It was the work of Wilhelm de Wette (1780-1849) that ushered in this new paradigm.

Previously commentators had claimed that the textual data suggested that much of the Pentateuch’s narrative … Read more

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Did Moses Write the Torah? (2)

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

This and the forthcoming post outline the centuries-long discovery that led careful readers, professors, and clergymen alike to conclude from the accruing textual data that the Torah was composed out of, primarily, 4 once separate sources which were later redacted together. This centuries-long discovery culminated in the 19th century with the Documentary Hypothesis, which is still the most reliable hypothesis that explains, and continues to explain with its variations, the textual data observed. The following is again excerpted from my Introduction. It follows directly from Part 1.

Early evidence of post-Mosaic authorship: anachronisms

Not only was the account of Moses’ death to continuously resurface, implying, as the text itself does, that it was written by a later author—“no man has knowledge of his burial place to this day” (Deut 34:6)—but as early as the eleventh century, educated readers of the Bible, Jewish rabbis, and Christian clergy alike, began … Read more

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Did Moses Write the Torah? (1)

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Steven DiMattei

The traditional view held in both Jewish and Christian circles was that the Pentateuch, the Torah, was penned by Moses under divine inspiration. This traditional claim, however, should be tempered by a couple of initial observations. First, the Torah as a whole makes no such claim. Nowhere does the Pentateuch claim to have been written by Moses, or anyone else for that matter. In fact, the sparse references to Moses writing in the Pentateuch are rather specific in nature. For example certain passages, that is certain authors, claim: that Moses writes a memorial reminding later generations that the Amalekites must be exterminated (Ex 17:14); that Moses writes “the words of Yahweh” (Ex 24:4), which contextually could refer to the Covenant Code of Exodus 21-23 or merely the Ten Commandments (there are various traditions combined in this section of Exodus); that Moses is instructed to write “these words” (Ex 34:27) which … Read more

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