Elohist text?

[HumbleSiPilot77]

I was challenged with a statement like this;

Did you even know that Christians use a deferent text version of the Bible than the Jews do ? The Jews use Yahwist text that does not use word "Elohim" to refer to G-d, whereas Christians use a text called the elohist text which uses the word to refer G-d. The Yahwist text predates the Elohist text. If you run for cover to the term "elohim" to support the Trinity rather than the plural of majesty, then she can come back with the Tanakh that does not use "elohim" that predates it.

What would be the response?

 

[filosofer]

Well, the problems are several. That is only conjecture about E or J texts. There is no manuscript that contains an E edition or a J edition of the text. The person is confusing manuscript evidence with redaction/literary features (JEDP, or some other conjecture). In other words, show a manuscript that has only J or E: can't be done.

Regarding the Trinity, the reference is probably to Deut. 6:4 (The Great Shema text). While that text certainly does support the doctrine of the Trinity, it is not the only text in the Hebrew Scriptures that does. Remember, though, that sometimes a text will specify that the reference is to God, and sometimes the text will present qualities or attributes that do the same without assigning a name or title. Thus, while a specific text supporting the Trinity (like Matthew 28:18-19) does not exist in the Hebrew Scriptures, many essential texts provide a quality or attribute of the Trinity or one of the members of the Trinity.

 

[TrevorL]

Howdy Bushmaster,

Greetings.

Genesis - the first book of Moses
The idea of a number of authors or sources to Genesis and other books is sometimes called the "Documentary Hypothesis". I found the following statement with book references and brief reviews, and thought it of value. There could be many other valuable references, some more recent. I believe in the full inspiration of the Scriptures, the unity of the whole Bible, in the literal Creation narrative, Adam and Eve being our first humans, and Adam created from the dust of the earth.

F.T. Pearce (1965) wrote:

"It would be a great mistake to imagine that no defence of the Mosaic authorships in thorough-going terms has been undertaken. The defence has always been there, but learned critics have usually ignored it, regarding the authors as "prejudiced", ignoring equally the fact that they are themselves just as prejudiced in the opposite direction in favour of an evolutionary theory. One reason for the lack of influence of the undoubtedly competent works written in defence of the Mosaic authorship is that the reply to the critics involves the examination and answering of a number of separate points, a rather tedious matter and one requiring a great deal of careful attention. As usual in the discussion of the Bible, it is much easier to be sensationally destructive than to expound constructively. The work of constructive defence has, however, gone steadily on, and the interested student would find the following books of help:
Moller, Are the Critics Right? (1890).
W. H. Green, The Unity of the Book of Genesis and The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch (both 1895).
Griffiths, The Problem of Deuteronomy, 1910.
Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament, 1917 (good for the general reader).
Finn, The Unity of the Pentateuch, 1917 (a detailed masterpiece).
Aalders, A Short Introduction to the Pentateuch, 1948 (excellent summary).
Allis, The Five Books of Moses, 1948, distributed by the Baker House, Grand Rapids, U.S.A. (an excellent modern reply).
Manley, The Book of the Law, 1950 (Tyndale), a detailed and convincing examination of the characteristics of Deuteronomy."

Kind regards
Trevor

 

[StAnselm]

Did you even know that Christians use a deferent text version of the Bible than the Jews do?

Well, I don't. I use the Masoretic Text. The Eastern Orthodox use the Septuagint Greek translation, but most modern English versions are based laregly on the MT.

If you run for cover to the term "elohim" to support the Trinity rather than the plural of majesty, then she can come back with the Tanakh that does not use "elohim" that predates it.

I certainly don't believe the term elohim can be used to support the Trinity. I believe in the Trinity, of course, but you can't prove it from a grammatical construction.

But of course, she wouldn't be able to actaully point to a text that shows that the Tanakh never uses "elohim".

 

[greeker57married]

TrevorL

Genesis - the first book of Moses
The idea of a number of authors or sources to Genesis and other books is sometimes called the "Documentary Hypothesis". I found the following statement with book references and brief reviews, and thought it of value. There could be many other valuable references, some more recent. I believe in the full inspiration of the Scriptures, the unity of the whole Bible, in the literal Creation narrative, Adam and Eve being our first humans, and Adam created from the dust of the earth.

You are certainly on the right track. The "Documentary Hypothesis" is a theory only. It is not fact. It cannot accept the truth of Scripture so it says that different writers or editors wrote the Old Testament. JEPD Scholars did not accept the supernatural in the Bible. I set under a JEPD professor when I first attended a Southern Baptist College. He did not believe in the historicity of Genesis 1-11. He believed that these chapters contained mythical stories that brought out a religous point of view. He did not believe in a historical Jonah or Ark. He did not believe in a personal Devil. He did not believe in a God of wrath. He believed tha Sodom and Gomorah being destroyed was a natural catastraphie, not an act of God. He did not believe the prophets had the ability to predict future events in the Old Testament. This is why the German Critcs gave late dates to Old Testametn books. I thank God when I left that College, I when to a Bible believing evangelistic College, that believed the whole Bible.

God Bless
Greeker

 

[Dmckay]

I find it hard to believe that there are so many of you here who are even aware of the Documentary Hypothesis or JEPD. I haven't heard those terms in years. I was sure that the whole Liberal German approach to redactionary form criticism had died out long ago. The long-standing fact that Jesus quoted, and attributed to Moses large portions of the text picked apart by these vultures, should be sufficient proof that the theory belongs in the scrape heap of shipwrecked ideas.

 

[greeker57married]

Dmckay

I find it hard to believe that there are so many of you here who are even aware of the Documentary Hypothesis or JEPD. I haven't heard those terms in years. I was sure that the whole Liberal German approach to redactionary form criticism had died out long ago. The long-standing fact that Jesus quoted, and attributed to Moses large portions of the text picked apart by these vultures, should be sufficient proof that the theory belongs in the scrape heap of shipwrecked ideas.

Sad to say it has been taught in watered down form for several years in many schools and seminaries. The Historical- Critical approach today is a desendant of German Higher Criticism along with Neo-Orthodoxy. This is why you have seminariy graduates and pastors who think they are conservative, but do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.

God Bless
Greeker

 

[TrevorL]

I was encouraged by reading D Kidner's brief comments on the Documentary Hypothesis in his book on Genesis. Evidently the theory uses the flood and Joseph narratives as major examples to claim two or three sources JEP. Perhaps this has been modified by more recent advocates of this theory. I believe that the story of Joseph is one of the most important and moving narratives in the OT, Divinely providential and the record in Genesis inspired, and is a pattern of the sufferings and exaltation of Christ.

The following are his conclusions to the four sections of D Kidner's reply to the theory.

With the study of Genesis on its own terms,that is, as a living whole, not a body to be dissected, the impression becomes inescapable that its characters are people of flesh and blood, its events actual, and the book itself a unity. (p.22 Introduction D Kidner Genesis TP 1st Edn 1967)

To turn from these elaborate exercises to the narrative itself is, we may suggest, to move from the realm of the ingeniously improbable into the fresh air of simplicity and truth. (p.100 Genesis 6-8, flood narrative)

A theory which insists on altering its primary datum the text, repeatedly, drastically and without the support of a single ancient version, may be well intentioned; it can hardly be true. (p.186 Genesis 37 Joseph sold into Egypt narrative)

The reader may well ask himself which view of the text requires the less elaborate justification or accounts more convincingly for the power and vitality of the story. (p.203 Genesis 42 Joseph and his brethren in Egypt narrative)

Another aspect of this subject, as already mentioned by Dmckay is that Jesus stated that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. A few examples:
Mark 10:3-5 (KJV): "3 And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you ? 4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. 5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept."
Mark 12:26 (KJV): "26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ?"
Luke 24:27,44 (KJV): "27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. 44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me."

Perhaps I cannot prove this, but "beginning with Moses" seems to suggest that Jesus would refer to Genesis, and there are many lessons concerning the sufferings of the Christ in Genesis, eg Genesis 3:15.

Kind regards
Trevor