(continued)

The D, or Deuteronomist, source; written c. 621 BCE in Jerusalem during a period of religious reform.
The P, or Priestly, source; written c. 450 BCE by Aaronid priests.
The editor who combined the sources into the final Pentateuch is known as R, for redactor.

Wellhausen was preceded by Jean Astruc (a Christian of Jewish ancestry, Sauves, Auvergne, March 19, 1684 - Paris, May 5, 1766) who was a famous professor of medicine at Montpellier and Paris. He wrote the first great treatise on syphilis and venereal diseases, and also, with a small anonymously published book, played a fundamental part in the origins of critical textual analysis of works of scripture. Astruc was the first to demonstrate—using the techniques of textual analysis that were commonplace in studying the secular classics — the theory that Genesis was composed based on several sources or manuscript traditions, an approach that is called the documentary hypothesis.

Before Astruc there were rabbis in the eleventh century who made critical examinations of the Bible. In the twelfth century Abraham Ibn Ezra suggested that there were additions to the Torah or the Five Books of Moses after Moses died. Moses ibn Gikatilla suggested that the author of the first thirty nine chapters of Isaiah was not the author of chapters 40-66. In the fifteenth century Isaac Abravenel attempted the first scientific study of the Bible, to be continued two hundred years later by Baruch Spinoza.

Before the ancient Hebrews the Sumerians had many of the same legends repeated in the Bible. Samuel Noah Kramer, a Sumerologist at the University of Pennsylvania, translated many of the Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets. Kramer wrote “It happened in Sumer: Twenty-seven "Firsts" in Man's Recorded History.” Law Codes like the laws of Moses, Moral ideals, proverbs and sayings, a flood story, a tale of resurrection, an Eden and other legends similar to what appear in the Bible. Not only is the Bible an account of Jewish tribal legends, but many of these legends were taken from earlier peoples and contemporaneous neighbouring peoples.

Op2,

You wrote: "Sympneology: I think on the whole you could see Jesus as a pragmatist but then there are those bits that davidf has pointed out. Did Jesus realise what the churches might do with God's alleged word? I refer you back to Luke 19: 11-27 - I doubt that was pragmatic!"

Yes, the Parable of the Pounds, hasn't that been worked to death by the social Darwinists of capitalism?

Contrary to what Peter the Gullible asserts, the Gospels are not a set of rules, they are records of the history of the beginnings of Christianity. The parables are written in a way that looks like a morality story, but for the cognoscenti they are a record of the political developments in Palestine and the Diaspora.

The pound given to each of the servants was to cover his travelling expenses to go to his station in the Diaspora. Each of the Diaspora Jews paid a half shekel for admission to the New Covenant, which the missionary was to pass on to Jerusalem.

Peter, appointed to City 10, Rome, was required to return 10 pounds to Jerusalem. Apollos, appointed to City 5, Pontus, was required to return 5 pounds. Simon Magus was appointed to the mission on Tiber Island, but being politically opposed to the Chief Therapeut, Matthew Annas, wrapped his money in his headcloth and stored it in his own vault. He should have brought it to the main council and placed it on the table for the sacred meal. Therefore Matthew Annas ordered that Peter's mission in Rome should take over the Tiber Island mission. "The pound that he had was given to him who had 10."

Each of the parables in Luke and Mark tell a similar chapter in the history of the period, but in a way privy only to the initiated. The tragedy is that, as the secret knowledge became lost over the centuries, the clergy who grew rich in power and wealth assumed the privilege of interpreting the scripture in any way that served their own interests, while the laity were condemned to ignorance.

Not many people are aware that the King James Bible was actually a political document intended specifically to reassert "the Divine Right of Kings" and to remove certain contentious passages that James (in particular) felt threatened by in the previous Geneva Bible.

King James himself was a notorious pedophile, sadist and homosexual - just the sort of person the Church damned during his bloody and vicious reign.

The Bible and truth?

To quote from the good Rabbi,

"It is true even when it is inaccurate, because there are many ways of being true. When I was a boy, movie theatrers would show a newsreel and a cartoon before the main feature. At one level, the newsreel (typically political speeches, beauty contests, and new car debuts) was true and the feature film was fiction. But at another level, if the movie was a good one, it was truer than the newsreel, because it said something true and valid about the human spirit (how different people respond to a crisis, how people are changed by love) while the newsreel did not."

"Shakespeare's plays are true at that level, because they portray human beings accurately and perceptively, even if the people by those names never lived and never spoke the words Shakespeare puts in their mouths. And the bible is truer than Shakespeare. No document ever written has understood the needs of the human soul as has the Bible."

From 'To Life' by Harold S Kushner;

I like the way he thinks.

Foxy,

TY for your comment.

See what happens when people dare to unshackle themselves from the teachings of the Churches using selective biblical texts & verses?

Many knowledgeable people prepared to share so much, often restricted, because they are howled down by the people who can't step outside the book.

Many atheists/non-believers often know so much because they walked the Christian journey and found the flaws. They dared to question, often, to their own detriment. Many preachers are very bigoted, angry wolves under their sheeps clothing, hanging on to false teachings like an insecure child clutching a teddy bear.

In Genesis 3:4 the snake allegedly told the truth, "man didn’t die", and yet Genesis 2:8 God allegedly fibbed … "if you eat…you will die the same day"! Why did God knowingly give us a questioning mind?

Are religious books men's rules designed to oppress free thinking?

Why does the Bible blame women for everything?

Adam couldn't say no?... of course he could, but it suits men to blame women and for men to rule churches.

Why can’t a woman, become the Pope?

Did the churches trample on Mary Magdalene's name calling her a prostitute? The fact that it had no biblical evidence to ever suggest she was a one didn't stop them.

So much for biblical scholarship! What would Jesus say about that?

So when Paul says "women can't teach and should be quiet" in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 the churches (who if they follow Jesus' teachings can't discriminate) use this to restrict women in their jouneys of faith.

Why would God condone Paul oppressing a whole gender?

I used to ask "How does a woman who reads this rubbish" stay a Christian?

It seems their faiths are much stronger, and, their determinations much more intense, to overcome such an obstacle and still believe.

I'm sure, men wouldn't have coped if the shoe was on the other foot.

Men in many churches are still controlled by this old, bigoted energy.

Faith is not based on flawed teachings and fibs if you have it, it based on your spirituality and love!

Opinionated2

You forgot something. Supposedly the first person Jesus met after resurection was supposed to be Bishop of the new church. Paul claimed to be the founder (second hand after Simon.) Of course Mary Magdalene didn't count. If there been any equality Mary Magdalene would have been the first Bishop of Christianity. I think we should have gone with Mary rather than Paul. The results could not have been worse.