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Thu 3 Sep 98 13:16
With the utterly insane nut Creationist Laurie Appleton

CURTIS JOHNSON:
CJ> Just where are you receiving your notion that Moses
CJ> transcribed these clay tablets? (Clay tablets that
CJ> you have no notion of their language, age, location,
CJ> etc.)

DAVID RICE: The UFOs told him.

CURTIS JOHNSON:
CJ> There's nothing within the first five books of the OT
CJ> that says they're written or transcribed Moses, and
CJ> even in Jewish tradition the Torah pre-existed the
CJ> world.

DAVID RICE: Dating the Hebrew Testament's two versions of Genesis and the creation of human beings, one finds several groups of authors, spanning many centuries. The oldest group are known as The Yahwists, dated at 950BCE. The chief author, or instigator, of the Yahwist account is thought to be someone named Ebjathar. The account found in Genesis 2:22 (i.e. Eve from Adam's rib) is the Yahwist account, and is thus the oldest of the written sources of the creation accounts in Genesis. The Yahwists may have taken the account from Babylonian or Sumerian creation myths: this is a near certainty because the later account in Genesis of "Noah's Flood" (Genesis 7) is Sumerian and / or Babylonian Uta-Napishtim is the hero with the ark, and Enlil is the angry God that sends the flood. (Remind Fundamentalist Christians of this when they insist that their version of Creationism being taught in public schools as "fact.")

The Yahwist account of creation is considered "the most patriarchal." Following the Yahwists were the Elohist(s), who lived 200 years later in Northern Israel. They were in turn followed by the Deuteronomist(s) around 620BCE (at the time of King Josiah). In 440BCE the Priestly Codex contributed to the creation account. By the time of Ezra, the four sources, spanning roughly 500 years, was unified into what we know of as Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. The Priestly Codex yielded the creation account of male and female humans being created at the same time (Genesis 1:27).

No "Moses" involved.

... "Auuuugggghhh! We've got Fundy sign! We've got Fundy sign!" -- SQ

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