Contradictions in the flood narrative

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You still did not get to my central point.

If a post-Aaron priest put this story together, with the intention of lessening the importance of one part of the story while inflating the importance of his priestly class, as the author of the article points out in the conclusion, then it would have been nonsensical to keep the jahwist version. That is not illogical, however you may have felt I left out necessary details.

You haven’t a clue concerning my knowledge of the subject matter.
 
the author of the article states that the priest/author wanted to inflate their own importance. None of the Gospels attempt to do that
 
hoping4more said:
You still did not get to my central point.
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Oh I get it. It just doesn’t make sense.
If a post-Aaron priest put this story together, with the intention of lessening the importance of one part of the story while inflating the importance of his priestly class, as the author of the article points out in the conclusion, then it would have been nonsensical to keep the jahwist version. That is not illogical, however you may have felt I left out necessary details.
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There is nothing logical about what you are trying to say.

If I have a library and I have one version of the play “Faust” I can acquire another version (with variations that make it different from the first) and place it next to the first one on the shelf. There is no way that logic dictates that I must discard the first version entirely just because I now have a different one next to it, even if I like the second version much better That’s not “logic” that’s absurd. Yet, that’s exactly what you claim. Simply substitute the word “Noah” for the word “Faust.” It does not make any sense either way.

You aren’t talking logic, you’re talking nonsense.
You haven’t a clue concerning my knowledge of the subject matter.
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You’ve given quite enough clues for me to know that you don’t understand Catholic scripture scholarship.
 
hoping4more said:
the author of the article states that the priest/author wanted to inflate their own importance. None of the Gospels attempt to do that
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Not true.

Compare the two genealogies of Christ.

The genealogy in Matthew represents his spiritual priorities.

The genealogy in Luke represents his spiritual priorities.

The two lists contradict each other.
 
hoping4more said:
false equivalency
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Nonsense.

I doubt you know what the term means.

You said that a thing does not exist.

I show you where it does exist.

That’s not a false equivalency. It’s simply direct proof, by giving an example, that what you said is wrong.
 
hoping4more said:
Do you read English? You previously hadn’t addressed it.
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Yes, I do, and I know nonsense when I read it.

I did in fact address it. It was a nonsensical and foolish statement the first time you said it and it remains nonsensical and foolish.
 
The Epic of Gilgamesh is older than the Hebrew texts and speaks of a flood as well.

Actually most ancient cultures have a flood story. It isn’t unique to Judaism and is worldwide. Something is historical about it.
 
Agreed and I haven’t ever had pause to doubt that it has a basis in literal history. The pre-flood, nonreligious references in other cultures lend too much to it.

FrDavid96 is of course correct on the matter of Catholic scholarship. So that’s at rest here, in my opinion.

All in all, differing stories abound throughout ancient history. I have missed entire details out of sitrep’s before or remembered prominent details in a different way. And those were mere weeks ago. I can’t begin to fathom the difficulty in clarity of this event, given the context.
 
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hoping4more said:
the author of the article states that the priest/author wanted to inflate their own importance.
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Hmm… that was the “Paths to Knowledge” article that @WiggBuggie1 linked?

I didn’t see the assertion that “the priest wanted to inflate his own importance”.

In any case, if you’re reading that somewhere, all you’re reading is a guess that a scholar is making about an unknown source. In fact, since there is no real signature or attribution for the source, the JEDP theory simply looks at the data (i.e., the text of the Bible), and based on clues in the text, attempts to determine when and from whom the material arrives in the Scriptural narrative.

Now, I would assert that the scholars have a pretty good grasp on textual analysis, and so, if they say that it’s a ‘priestly’ source, that’s not a bad call. However, when they attempt to derive motives, they’re getting farther from the text and closer to an educated guess.

What I’m driving at is that what you’re having issues with – namely, that a priestly source wants to inflate his own importance, and does so by massaging the Scriptural material – is just a scholar’s guess. It isn’t anything that the Church would state as revealed truth. So… on its own, this kind of assertion doesn’t really invalidate the multiple-source theory.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks gorgias, I am actually not disagreeing with you…


““P” would not want to admit that Noah or anyone else before Aaron could offer a valid sacrifice.” I guess this is the line that bug me. It is the end of the second point under Comparison
 
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hoping4more said:
Thanks gorgias, I am actually not disagreeing with you…

““P” would not want to admit that Noah or anyone else before Aaron could offer a valid sacrifice.” I guess this is the line that bug me. It is the end of the second point under Comparison
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It makes perfect sense because the sacrifice happens in the J narrative, not in the P narrative.

In the P narrative, just as the writer explains, there is no sacrifice.
 
Seems to me it’s circular.

Oh look it says x in some places. I bet that x was written by person x. Oh look at all the places x is. These are all places person x wrote. The places that say y instead of x aren’t written by person x. I mean, look at the places it says x and where it doesn’t!
 
FrDavid96 said:
I’m concerned that you aren’t making a distinction between outdated understandings of Sacred Scripture and modern scholarly ones.
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Truth doesn’t depend on what the current year is.
Yes, the JEPD method of reading Scripture (at least the Pentateuch) is considered to be both legitimate and is now taken as a “given” among Catholic scholars.
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Lots of things are taken as givens among modern scholars that are nonsensical. Go to your nearest gender studies department if you want examples.

The claim that “we know better” would have more (any) credibility, if:
  1. We actually had made some new discovery demonstrating that the old view was wrong.
We haven’t found any new information, all the information we have has been known for two thousand years.
  1. It weren’t obviously ridiculous.
The claim that a late kingdom era editor took several different sources and incoherently combined them together (often going from one “source” to another mid-sentence according to standard JEDP theory), and then tricked people into believing that Moses wrote it, is silly.
One cannot live in the past.
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One wishes that historians (and similar professions) would.
I can assure you that anyone who would deny the JEPD method (I mean outright deny it, not offer some refinements) would not be taken seriously among Catholic scholars today.
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The professor who taught my Intro to Scripture class (at a respected Catholic university in the United States) was an adherent of the traditional view.

That said, you don’t need to prove to me that adherents of JEDP are arrogantly dismissive of anything that contradicts their own narrow view of things. I’m well aware of that.
 
Truth might not change but interpretation and level of understanding of it often IS bound by the momoment or time period. It’s obvious that study progresses chronologically.

I’m still failing to understand why so many of you can’t manage to post without some form of veiled insult.

Saying that lots of things are ‘common’ between scholars is as redundant as saying ‘police often arrest people’. Ofcourse it’s a given and yes evolving standards can be changed, inaccurate or subject to change.

Yet they are also ‘standard’ for a reason.

To indirectly imply that those who focus most on a topic are, for all intents and purposes, clueless; really seems to defy the logic of studying a discipline at all.

It would be nice if people could ironically ‘stick to the narrative’ here, with pure evidence and explanation. Let’s stick the snark in the bin.
 
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People who study a topic for a living almost invariably know more about it than the common man. The problem is that some disciplines don’t tell people information about reality. As an example, there are a lot of gender studies professors who know a lot more than I do about various gender theories. The problem is that those theories don’t actually describe reality. I consider JEDP scholarship to be in the same boat.

When someone challenges the correspondence of a system of information with reality, it means nothing to point out that most people who are well studied in the system of information in question believe in it. There are many conspiracy theorists on the internet who know a lot more about conspiracy theories than any of us do, that doesn’t mean their theories accurately describe reality.

It’s also worth pointing out, as far as the argument from authority goes, that the greater weight of expertise (i.e. all pre-modern scholarship) favors the traditional view. The argument that we know better now is of no value, since no new evidence has been obtained.
 
Arkansan said:
Truth doesn’t depend on what the current year is.

Lots of things are taken as givens among modern scholars that are nonsensical. Go to your nearest gender studies department if you want examples.

The claim that “we know better” would have more (any) credibility, if:
  1. We actually had made some new discovery demonstrating that the old view was wrong.
We haven’t found any new information, all the information we have has been known for two thousand years.
  1. It weren’t obviously ridiculous.
The claim that a late kingdom era editor took several different sources and incoherently combined them together (often going from one “source” to another mid-sentence according to standard JEDP theory), and then tricked people into believing that Moses wrote it, is silly.

One wishes that historians (and similar professions) would.

The professor who taught my Intro to Scripture class (at a respected Catholic university in the United States) was an adherent of the traditional view.

That said, you don’t need to prove to me that adherents of JEDP are arrogantly dismissive of anything that contradicts their own narrow view of things. I’m well aware of that.
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The story of Noah began as an oral tradition. It was transmitted orally for a very long time before it was ever committed to writing.

Which is more “obviously ridiculous” here?

1 The notion that a story that was told orally for generations before being committed to writing might have 2 slightly different variations as to details.

or

2 The notion that a man built a boat and put 14, or at least 2, of every single species of animal on the face of the earth into that boat, and then waited things out for 40 or more days while the entire earth was covered in a flood? Afterwards, those animals and people started the whole process of re-populating the entire planet.

Really now, which one is more "obviously ridiculous" (to use your own term)?
 
Does the text actually say that every animal all around the globe came or that every animal in the land did?

But regardless, when it comes to God and miracles, what is out of His power?
 
The JEPD theory or method, called the “Documentary Hypothesis” originated in 1780. That’s right 1780.
It is as old as the United States of America.

The Catholic Church has spent well over 200 years, more than two complete centuries, contemplating this theory.

The Church accepts this method as legitimate. Indeed, the Catholic Church teaches this method of Scripture analysis. Not just individuals within the Church, but the Church as such, teaches this method.

This method is hardly the “modern novelty” falsely characterized in some posts I read in this thread.

I saddens me, it truly does, to see such lack of understanding among Catholics as to Sacred Scripture itself.

We are not superstitious fundamentalists. At least, the Church as such is not a superstitious fundamentalist.

After 240 years of contemplation, the Church accepts the Documentary method of studying the Pentateuch.
 
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