The Naked Bible

Posted By MSH on February 13, 2012

Some readers know that my employer, Logos Bible Software, has been working on a new translation of the Bible for some time. The New Testament of the LEB (Lexham English Bible) has been available since 2010. Logos announced today that the LEB-OT is now available for download. The OT follows the Masoretic Text. The translation has a lot of footnotes as well with respect to literal readings and textual issues. I contributed to the translation (Genesis, 1-2 Chronicles, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah). Check it out!

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Category: Announcement, Bible Translations | 4 Comments »
Tags: Bible, Lexham English Bible, Logos Bible software, translation

Posted By MSH on February 6, 2012

In my last post on the Mosaic authorship issue, my goal was to produce data from the text that explains why the idea that Moses may not have written all or even most of the Pentateuch could be coherent. I haven’t laid out my thoughts on Mosaic authorship yet; I’m just laying the groundwork for establishing the fact that a view that departs from a traditional “Moses wrote everything in the Pentateuch” view can indeed be text-based, even apart from the JEDP (Documentarian) model (which I largely don’t buy — we’ll eventually get to why).

More specifically, in the last post we saw where Moses was described in the Pentateuch as the subject of a 3rd masc singular verbs (“Moses did XYZ”) vs. when the 1st person singular was used, as though Moses himself was writing (“I did XYZ”). The ratio was 7:1, with the 3rd person instances far outnumbering the 1st person. The conclusion was that it is reasonable to suppose that someone other than Moses wrote some of that third person material — i.e., they are not all self-referential. Put more bluntly: Why would Moses use the third person in a self-referential way seven times more often than using the simpler first person to indicate he was the author? I think that’s not only a fair question; it’s a good one.

In this post I want to explore person and number a bit more precisely (stop yawning).

Think of the book of Acts. The book is addressed to someone named Theophilus (Acts 1:1), just as the Gospel of Luke (1:3). There is therefore virtually unanimous agreement that Luke was the author of both. However, Luke was apparently only an eyewitness for the events of the book of Acts. This conclusion derives from the fact that he was Paul’s traveling companion, as indicated by Paul’s notes in Col 4:14; 2 Tim 4:11; and Philemon 24, as well as the author of Acts’ use of “we” when recalling events in Paul’s missionary journeys. It is this first person use that draws my attention at this point.

Under the assumption that Luke wrote Acts, one would expect there to be a number of 1st person usages in Acts 13-28, the space devoted to Paul’s ministry. If we do a search for the 1st person plural (“we did XYZ”) verb forms in Acts …

… we learn that there are roughly 82 instances in Acts 13-28 (110 overall). Here are the results. However, these 1cpl forms do not all read as though Luke is including himself in the group (e.g., the “we” may refer to conversation in another group Luke is writing about, such as Gentiles or Jews). If one looks through the search results, there are close to 50 instances where the writer uses the 1cpl verb form to include himself. (See the underlined instances in yellow highlighting). So, to put things in general terms, we have 50 good indications in sixteen chapters of Acts that are consistent with Luke as author of the book.

One wonders how many of these we might find in the Pentateuch — a much larger corpus.  I decided to look through the books of Exod-Deuteronomy, the books that encompass the lifetime of Moses — and, more specifically, the travels of Israel out of Egypt to Canaan under the leadership of Moses.  Here’s what the search looked like (I just changed the title of the book in the search range for each search):

The results are interesting. The numbers below represent the total number of occurrences of 1cpl verb forms in these four books — but remember, we’ll have to look through all of them to see which ones *specifically* show us the writer (presumably Moses in context) is including himself.

1cpl verb (total) in Exodus: 35
1cpl verb (total) in Leviticus: 3
1cpl verb (total) in Numbers: 64
1cpl verb (total) in Deuteronomy: 59

Here are the results in another PDF.  Once again I have gone through them and used yellow highlighting to mark the ones that clearly have the writer including himself in what is being written. Be advised that I exclude instances that are introduced by the THIRD person, as that reads like someone else is writing ABOUT Moses and then has Moses saying something in the first person. What we’re looking for is the kind of thing we saw in Acts with Luke — that is what we should expect from a known author’s narrative — first person and use of the first person to include himself since he was present. In other words, can we find 1st person self-references that aren’t introduced by the third person? I looked through these quickly, so if you want to make an argument for others, let me know.

Cutting to the chase, it was very difficult to find anything like we saw in Luke. It only happens when you get to Deuteronomy, and those “hits” are made somewhat questionable by Deut 1:1 (see my notes in the file).

So, I propose again — in view of the data, it seems reasonable to think that a lot of the Pentateuch was not composed by Moses. For me though (as you will see in the second PDF), there is evidence that suggests an original body of Mosaic first person narrative that was later woven into the larger book of Deuteronomy. And, as I noted at the very beginning of this series, the phrase “law of Moses” need not work only one way (as Moses being the author). The phrase seems entirely appropriate of the Pentateuch (or Exod-Deut) as meaning that the work is about Moses or intimately associated with him, so I don’t see any scriptural inconsistency in its use (only our own misuse). The fact that we moderns have misunderstood the phrase “law of Moses” does not mean it is an “errant” or illegitimate one. The problem is with our lack of precision, not the phrase.

Technorati Tags: authorship, documentary, JEDP, Mosaic, Moses, Torah

Category: Bibliology, Book of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Pentateuch | 9 Comments »
Tags: authorship, documentary, JEDP, Mosaic, Moses, Torah

Posted By MSH on January 30, 2012

Just thought I’d give readers a heads up on some things in which they might have an interest. I’m being interviewed on three shows in the next week or so. I’ve been trying to say no to interviews for the last year, but I got hit with all three requests last week, so I’m taking that as a sign! Two are new to me, so I’m not sure what to expect. They are both Christian shows, so I try to do those when asked (I’m still in single digits with Christian radio shows, so I try to say yes). They are, respectively, Friday (2/3) with Brian Wilson of the Liberty Broadcasting Network, and next Tuesday on Off the Grid Radio (2/7). Both hosts say they want to talk divine council.

The third show is Coast to Coast AM, the world’s most-listened-to late-night talk show (close to five million listeners a night). I’m on this Thursday night. I’ve been on that show many times. It’s always fun and unpredictable. It’s also off-the-charts strange with respect to subject matter on most nights. On Coast you might here anything from a world-renowned theoretical physicist from MIT to someone who believes in a hollow earth. I’ll be trying to inject some sanity into the discussion of “ancient astronauts.” (I was hoping for a show on the recent lead codices hoax, but no dice on that yet; maybe later). If any of you follow my PaleoBabble blog, you know I’m the guy who tries to convince people there is nothing to the “mystery” of ancient alien visitation, along with believing UFOs can be found in the Bible. However, I’ve been on Coast before for topics like the Bible Code, the Jesus Tomb, the DaVinci Code, etc. We may get to those topics, along with divine council stuff, but who knows? It’s up to the host, and it’s live and unscreened (11p-2am Pacific). If you want to know what (literally) millions of people out there believe (some of whom are in your churches), tune in. And prayer is always appreciated.

Category: Announcement | 16 Comments »
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Posted By MSH on January 26, 2012

[Note: In the last post I presumed this post would be about the New Testament; I'm putting that off just a bit. For the first two posts on this topic, see here and here.]

In my last post concerning the authorship of the Pentateuch, I listed two observations that led me to propose what for me is a fundamental question. Here is a summary of those observations and the question:

1. There isn’t a single verse in the OT where the “law” references anything in the book of Genesis. For sure the patriarchal stories are known in Exodus through Deuteronomy, but they are never associated with the “law of Moses.”

2. There is no verse in the OT that (key word) unambiguously uses the phrase “law of Moses” comprehensively — i.e., referring to the five books of the Pentateuch. The same is true for other references to the law in connection with Moses.

Question: The above raises the possibility that at least some (many scholars would say “the entirety”) of the Pentateuch was written by someone other than Moses, and that the final form of the Pentateuch was referred to as the “law of Moses” mainly because so much of it (Exodus through Deuteronomy) has Moses as the central character.

In this post I want to draw your attention to some other features of the text of the Pentateuch that also suggest an author besides Moses.

If we assume Moses wrote the Pentateuch, it would be natural to assume that he would use the 1st person most of the time (e.g., “I said”).  While an author writing about history in which he participated could certainly use the 3rd person (e.g., “he said”) as self reference, it is far more natural to not do so. So, while I do not disallow the use of the 3rd person by an author as self reference, and don’t think it is an argument against Mosaic authorship per se, I would expect that to occur a minority of times in a historical narrative, and that the 1st person would predominate. This seems completely reasonable. So what do we find in the Pentateuch?

The Verbs of the Pentateuch: Grammatical Person and Number

This is the most basic search we could do for 3rd person references. The author would (normally) use the 3rd person to refer to someone other than himself doing something. Here is the search using the Andersen-Forbes syntactical database in Logos (Libronix) Bible software (the older version, 3.0):

The results are striking — 6,631 instances.

If we subtract the number of occurrences in Genesis (2,087), isolating the 3rd person verb references to only Exodus through Deuteronomy, the material covering the lifetime of Moses, we are down to 4,544.

When we search for 1st person verb forms, the results are dramatically less:  994 total 1st person verbs in the Pentateuch.

If we subtract the number of occurrences in Genesis (383), isolating the 1st person verb references to only Exodus through Deuteronomy, the material covering the lifetime of Moses, we are down to 611 occurrences of first person verbs.:

Consequently, we have the following proportions:

3rd person: 1st person verbs in all the Pentateuch: 6,631 to 994 (just under 7:1).
3rd person: 1st person verbs in Exodus-Deuteronomy: 4,544 to 611 (just over 7:1).

I think it’s reasonable to say that’s disproportional to what an author would do when writing historical narrative about events through which he lived.

We can be a little more focused, though.

Here is a search that asks for the number of instances where a 3rd person verb has Moses himself as the subject. That is, instance of where the author writes “and Moses did XYZ.”

The search informs us that there are 282 instances where Moses is the subject of a 3rd person verb in the Pentateuch — where the writer refers to Moses in the 3rd person as doing or saying something. All of them are naturally in Exodus through Deuteronomy.

Another search we can do is to look for instances where the subject of a 3rd person verb (any subject) does or says something with respect to Moses (i.e., Moses is the indirect object or the focus of address). These instances would have the writer saying something was done or said to Moses — as opposed to something being done or said “to me” (first person) if Moses was the author.

Again, it is obvious that the results will only range from Exodus through Deuteronomy. There are 187 occurrences where something is said or done to Moses (third person) — that is, where the writer saying something was done or said to Moses — as opposed to something being done or said “to me” (first person) if Moses was the author.

The Point

Now, you might be asking, “Why does Mike take the opportunity on his blog to bore people with things like grammatical person and number?” It’s pretty simple, actually. I want readers to realize four things:

1. It is reasonable to think that at least some of the Pentateuch, perhaps substantial portions of it, were written by someone other than Moses.

2. It is unreasonable to think that it’s “unbiblical” to think the above thought.

3. If we are going to discuss who wrote the text of the Pentateuch, then we ought to derive our arguments from the text of the Pentateuch.

4. The authorship of the Pentateuch is a whole lot more complex than saying, “Hey, I know this Bible verse over here that uses the phrase ‘law of Moses’ so that settles it.”

Not even close.

Stay tuned!

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Category: Deuteronomy, Hebrew Bible, Numbers, Pentateuch | 16 Comments »
Tags: authorship, JEDP, Mosaic, Pentateuch, Torah

Posted By MSH on January 21, 2012

For those interested in the Talmud, here is a link to the Soncino edition translated into English in various PDF files. Some people are overly enthusiastic about the Talmudic material, but I post this anyway. The worldview of rabbinic Judaism is not to be considered synonymous with the worldview of the Bible (either testament). Sure, the rabbis have some good insights, especially into the laws, but even there they can literally just make things up. As many readers will know, my view is that one needs to understand the OT in its ANE context, then take that understanding to the Second Temple period material, and then take both of those to the NT to inform exegesis of that material. The OT isn’t informed by a Judaism that came centuries later (or by Greco-Roman paganism). Both have some value, but it is far more limited than the other contexts.

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Category: Bible Study, New Testament, Research Tools | 4 Comments »
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