Update XXI: "Scientific Facts Are Not Hard And Fast Rules."

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'You ever notice how guys with mustaches always look like they just fingered a little girl?'--One of the guards from Orange is the New Black.

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Bushie: Professional Call Center Trainee

They have a name:  Call Center Gypsy.

That's kind of racist.

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     I wonder if Bushie also thinks the Pentateuch had a single author.

He doesn't think that. He knows. It's fact that Moses wrote all five books except for the part where he dies.

     Except for the three different writing styles and characterizations that pervade most of it, though maybe Moses was just schizophrenic. Also, I've heard it said that Moses did write the part where he died as well.

Except the rest of the Bible conforms that Moses wrote those books.

Isn't it a pretty much accepted that a woman wrote Genesis 2?

Richard Elliott Friedman says that it's possible that either the J source or the E source was a noblewoman rather than a priest, but I forget which and I'm not sure where my copy of Who Wrote the Bible? is to look it up. It's whichever one isn't the one he associates with the Shiloh priesthood.

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I'd be interested to know where in the world The Obamanation studied the Old Testament. I go to a theologically moderate seminary and none of my professors would dream of claiming that Moses literally wrote any but possibly a very few short passages of the Pentateuch.

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I do believe Moses wrote all of the Pentateuch except for Deuteronomy 34.  I believe Joshua wrote that chapter as that's the chapter Moses dies.  It would make sense since the next book is Joshua and it was written by Joshua.

Interestingly, in Joshua's private memoirs, he says that it was Moses' physician who provided the finishing touches to Deuteronomy.

I'll concede the final chapter of Deuteronomy could be either one.  I've always though it to be Joshua since he wrote the entire next book.  I've never heard of Moses' physician.  He is not mentioned anywhere in Scripture.  I'm not saying he didn't exist, but I don't know if he's an important enough figure to have written that last chapter.  It certainly is possible, though.

Who writes a book is not based on who is a subjectively important figure within the book's narrative, Bushie. Also, Ebowed was joking.

Bushie, are these Wikipedia pages interesting to you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_authorship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

They are intellectually fascinating to me, and I don't really even care about the Bible that much. I can't imagine someone as interested in the Bible as you are wouldn't be even more interested in this subject.

And yet ... I suspect this subject is going to get you all bent out of shape and defensive. You'll insist that you believe that Moses wrote the books and that you will never, ever consider anything otherwise.

Why is that? Nothing in any of these articles implies the untruth of the Bible, so that's out, and you yourself agree that one's salvation is not in danger simply by using literary analysis to challenge the traditional (ie, Man-defined) authorship of certain books. Do you just have loyalty to the pastor who originally told you that it's a 100% fact that Moses wrote the first 5 books and you don't want to consider that he might be wrong?

I've always believed Moses wrote all five books of the Pentateuch.  I don't really see how it could be anybody else, except for the aforementioned Deuteronomy 34.  The writing styles are very similar in all five books.  I've always grown up with the that belief.  I guess it is possible, just like John, but I don't see how it could be anybody else in either scenario.  Mind you, I come from a very conservative theological background.  Perhaps the difference in opinion comes in with the conservative vs. liberal viewpoints.  I'm not saying I'm 100% correct, but you shouldn't be saying you're 100% correct, either.  If you expect me to at least ponder your viewpoint, you have to at least ponder my viewpoint.

The writing style within the Pentateuch is not even remotely consistent. There are parts of the Flood narrative that are so distinct in style from other parts that scholars have been able to reconstruct two separate, parallel, complete Flood stories that alternate almost literally verse-by-verse. The same is, more famously, true of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3. Some chapters were obviously written by somebody who liked Aaron whereas others were by somebody who hated him. The Korah story seems to be constructed similarly to the Flood story. Deuteronomy appears to be largely by the same person as Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and possibly some or all of Jeremiah, but not the four books before it.

Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope are closer to each other in writing style than the Pentateuch is to itself.

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Guys, please keep actual Biblical scholar debate to a minimum. It's boring as h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

All Biblical talk should be centered around ODF's beliefs, which are actually entertaining.

Yeah, but, see, the hope is that by throwing real Biblical scholar talk at ODF, we can get him to elaborate on his own beliefs more.

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THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORIES WERE WRITTEN BY JEREMIAH OR ONE OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES

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HockeyDude side note:

I must say Madeleine.  The way you portray yourself as so intellectually superior when it comes to matters Biblical is astounding in many ways.

Uh, sorry. I'm not actively trying to come across as a know-it-all, I'm just worn ragged about a variety of things right now and taking it out on Bushie's terrible exegesis.

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If Bushie hits 666 pounds, would that be the seventh trumpet, or would he only have to make it to 616?

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I managed to discover an interesting old Bushie post from a deleted thread (RIP) that was preserved by Fundies Say The Darndest Thing.

Needless to say, I demand a flashback of this:

http://fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=39256

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...what the [Inks].

The problems with this start with the fact that 'pleasure' is not a legitimate theological category (and is creepy to bring up in this context) and just get worse from there.

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Explicitly setting hierarchies of priority between loved ones  ('[his] woman'--what a gross way to put it, incidentally!--'above' his mother) is also creepy. And un-Christian. And vaguely antisocial, in all honesty.

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They'll be 'melting roads', but you anticipate that they'll be 'mostly dry'?

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On the subject of 'being washed clean with His blood', here's a lit-crit question for Update regulars.

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Is Bushie the hippo or the Church?

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Is this idea that any old soul in Heaven is 'in charge of' helping run the place an Evangelical thing? I mean, I know about patron saints, obviously, but that doesn't seem to be the sort of function that Bushie is anticipating for himself.

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Bushie, your answer to my question brings up another thing I've been legitimately, honestly curious about for a while now. What does Evangelical theology do with ideas like beatific vision?

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Jeff, did you enjoy Fly Me To The Moon? I'm not really sure how a grown man could sit through that (at least without drinking heavily). 

I think we ended up seeing a different movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth".  It's been 6 1/2 years so it's a little fuzzy, but I remember Journey, but not the other.

It's a Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary miracle!

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Incidentally, it seems the day Bushie and his girlfriend of the hour narrowly dodged the bullet of seeing Fly Me to the Moon as a date movie was the same day I started college. I'm not sure how to feel about this.

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Bushie Gets a Tumblr needs to happen.

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He also views divorce as more immoral and unforgivable as a sin than premartial sex, which is still sinful but redeemable.

Guess which of those two sins Bushie accidentally committed.

Wait wait wait, I guess this was before my time: How did Bushie accidentally have sex?

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In other news, I think I found someone who is more energetic about Christmas than I am.  The City of Tulsa.  We are still 10 months from Christmas 2015, but the City is already planning the 2015 Christmas Parade going so far as to setting a date - December 12.  I'm early, but I'm still at least 3-4 months from starting Christmas, but these guys take the cake...

Uh no, for a large city that kind of municipal event planning so far ahead is necessary.

I guess it is.  Still, though, even the thought of Christmas in late February seems awfully early.  As an individual with no big event to plan for, I start Christmas between Mother's Day and Memorial Day.  Usually around graduation season in Oklahoma.

They are not 'thinking of Christmas' in the same sense that you do. They are thinking of schedules, of timetables, of logistics, of balance sheets, of a multitude of other things of that sort that many high school students understand better than you do.

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I'm amazed that somebody who's been to college can be as downright uncomfortable with pot smokers as Bushie apparently is, regardless of whether he personally approves of it or not.

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Bushie, the issue is that your tastes--id est, 'what you like'--are, for the most part, maladaptive. Nobody's saying you can't like what you like, but you really should force yourself to do things that you don't like but know are good for you more often. 'He who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted', remember?

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Bushie, the issue is that your tastes--id est, 'what you like'--are, for the most part, maladaptive. Nobody's saying you can't like what you like, but you really should force yourself to do things that you don't like but know are good for you more often. 'He who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted', remember?

Code for you can like what you like, just don't eat it.

It's not code. I'm openly saying that. You can like what you like, and you could eat it okay if your personality (and, frankly, physiology) were way different, but you have shown yourself to be patently incapable of eating it responsibly.

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15% is customary as a base expectation. 15% is what you tip somebody who's clearly just going through the motions. Somebody who's pleasant and prompt and puts on a good show of caring whether you live or die is good for at least 17% or 18%, if you really truly can't spare more.

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15% is customary as a base expectation. 15% is what you tip somebody who's clearly just going through the motions. Somebody who's pleasant and prompt and puts on a good show of caring whether you live or die is good for at least 17% or 18%, if you really truly can't spare more.

I am a little more generous than my parents are.  I realize that the waiters rely on the tips due to very low wages, so I rarely ever give 10% unless they did an absolute pathetic job.  Usually it's 15-20% based on merit.

Eh, that's a little low for comfort for my liking, but reasonable. Guess this is one thing we shouldn't really be hassling you about.