Ancient Near East and Bible thoughts

[enki]

Biblical authority is tied to the author's intentions. God rested his authority in a human author so we should consider what the human author intended to communicate if we want to understand God's message. The human author is our doorway into the room of God's meaning and message. That means that when we read Genesis, we are reading an ancient document and should begin by using only the assumptions that would be appropriate for the ancient world. We should understand how ancient thought and what ideas underlay their communication. So what we can see is that the active communication is accomplished by various degrees of accommodation on the part of the communicator, but only for the sake of the audience that he or she has in mind. Accommodation must bridge the gap if communicator and audience do not share the same language, the same command of language, the same culture or the same experiences, but we do not expect communicator to accommodate an audience that he or she does not know or anticipate. High context communications are communications that take place between insiders and situations in which the communicator and audience share much in common. In such situations, less accommodation is necessary for effective communication to take place so much might be left unsaid that an outsider might need in order to fully understand the communication. The God of the Bible has accommodated the communicator and immediate audience, employing the communicator in a high context communication appropriate to the audience.

A prophet and his audience share history, a culture, a language and the experiences of other contemporaneous lives. When you read the Bible, we enter the context of that communication as low context outsiders who need to use our inferential tools to discern the nature of the communicator’s illocution and meaning. We have to use research to fill all the information that would have been said by the prophet in his high context communication to his audience. This is how we, as modern readers, should interact with an ancient text. Those who take the Bible seriously believe that God has inspired the locutions and that the communicator has used to accomplish their joint illocution (God and human author's) but that the foundational locution's are tied to the communicator’s world. That is, God has made an accommodation to the high context communication between the implied communicators and their implied audience so as to optimize and facilitate the transmission of meaning via an authoritative illocution. To clarify the intended audience of the biblical text may or may not understand where the author is coming from, because the author makes claim that his words are inspired by God. However the argument could be made that such inspiration is simply a claim and no more than a claim. We see many stories of the biblical text that have inferences to ancient near East literature deriving from cuneiform texts.

For example you can find plenty of references to Abraham being in the land of Egypt in the book of Genesis, however if you were to do a search on the word pyramid in the Bible you may not find the word pyramid. However it is widely accepted that in Egypt there are pyramids. The comparison of the pyramid would be to the ziggurat. However there is a difference, we need to clarify that though they could resemble a pyramid, then nothing like them in function. There is no inside of a ziggurat. The structure was framed in mud brick, and then the core was packed with dirt. It was then completed with kiln-fired brick. Also they were dedicated to particular deities (ziggurat) whereas a pyramid was most likely dedicated to a Pharaoh. So these are just some of the differences that we see between the biblical stories and the ancient near East stories and structures.

In conclusion it would be very difficult to make a statement that biblical hero’ and that the Israelites are the monotheistic heroes that the Bible makes them out to be. These are just my thoughts on ancient near East and biblical comparisons, feel free to comment.

[2timothy316]

Biblical authority is tied to the author's intentions. God rested his authority in a human author....

Hello,

The above is not quite correct.

God is the author. God's words come through the person.

"For you know this first, that no prophecy of Scripture springs from any private interpretation. For prophecy was at no time brought by man’s will, but men spoke from God as they were moved by holy spirit." 2 Peter 1:20, 21

"The spirit of Jehovah spoke through me; His word was on my tongue." 2 Samuel 23:2

"Indeed, that is why we also thank God unceasingly, because when you received God’s word, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but, just as it truthfully is, as the word of God, which is also at work in you believers." 1 Thessalonians 2:13

... we should consider what the human author intended to communicate if we want to understand God's message.

This can lead to much speculation. The answer to what the intended message is in the Bible itself. No need to try and find what the writer 'meant' to say. 2 Timothy 3:16, 17 says that with the scriptures, a man of God is completely equipped for every good work. So to know the message all one needs is the Bible and to be a man of God.

[dio9]

[Replying to post 1 by enki]

Not sure what the question for discussion is but the ancient near east is certainly where the the story of Adam, Noah and Abraham originates. Its an intriguing topic for sure , but how does it connect to Jesus Paul John and Christianity?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 1 by enki]

Biblical authority is tied to the author's intentions. God rested his authority in a human author s....

People mistake their beliefs for facts at times.
Make sure that you don't make the same mistake.

I don't assume that you know the ACTUAL mental state of the Bible authors, do you?
Do you know the mental state of GOD?

Please, you go too far.

[enki]

[Replying to post 2 by 2timothy316]

Kind of hard to answer your reply as you only seem to have focused on one part of the or my original posting. I also added that "A prophet and his audience share history, a culture, a language and the experiences of other contemporaneous lives. When you read the Bible, we enter the context of that communication as low context outsiders who need to use our inferential tools to discern the nature of the communicator’s illocution and meaning. We have to use research to fill all the information that would have been said by the prophet in his high context communication to his audience."

This is actually true about how ancient culture's worked, versus how modern society work.

For example: in the biblical mythologies we see Jesus riding into town on a Donkey, Donkey's were a symbol of peace, while Horses used for war. Hence Jesus doesn't ride into the town on a Horse, but a Donkey.

In our modern society the Donkey and Horse doesn't really carry that same symbolism.

[enki]

[Replying to post 4 by Blastcat]

We aren't attempting to know the mental state of the author's, that isn't the point. The point is how the author's wrote, and what they wrote.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 6 by enki]

We aren't attempting to know the mental state of the author's, that isn't the point. The point is how the author's wrote, and what they wrote.

Then I'm having trouble understanding the quote:


"Biblical authority is tied to the author's intentions. God rested his authority in a human author s.... "

You seem to claim to know God's and the Bible authors intentions.
Do you?

[enki]

[Replying to post 7 by Blastcat]

Well, the Bible is clearly written by men, who claim to be inspired by God. Hence Biblical authority is tied to the author's intentions (because we do not know what God intended directly) so, the author claims his writing is vested authority by God to allow the human author to write.

If by intention you mean that the author was inspired by God and intended to write a Bible, then yes the intention is fulfilled as we have a Bible today.

We have to make the assumption the author was "told" by God to write Biblical mythologies.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 8 by enki]



[center]
An intention[/center]

Well, the Bible is clearly written by men, who claim to be inspired by God.

I'm not the Bible expert here, so I'd like to know just were you got that information. Where can I take a look at their claim?

Hence Biblical authority is tied to the author's intentions (because we do not know what God intended directly) so, the author claims his writing is vested authority by God to allow the human author to write.

I think the story goes in the Koran, that an angel dictated to Mohammad directly, but I'm not too sure about the Bible stories. I think that at least in the Bible.. the authors are transparent? As far as I know, there is no verse "And then the God told me to write this down.. so I did." or something like that.

Do you know of any such passage in the Bible?

If by intention you mean that the author was inspired by God and intended to write a Bible, then yes the intention is fulfilled as we have a Bible today.

I usually only write because of an intention.

Most authors INTEND to write stuff. I don't think that books happen accidentally, really. But that's not what I meant, of course.

I meant.. how can we establish WHY the authors wrote that down?
Were they just putting down a bunch of myths people believed in at one time or other and then attributed the telling of these tales to the God character they just invented up?

Was writing down these things a way of codifying their beliefs so that there could be more cohesion among similar believers? Was it like religious propaganda.. like a very elaborate sales brochure for a particular religion?

What were they THINKING?.. Why did they write it ?

We know the theory that God magiced them into writing all of it. The god of the Bible IS magical, if nothing else.

We have to make the assumption the author was "told" by God to write Biblical mythologies.

Maybe that IS part of the story.
But I don't know where it's spelled out, that's all.

I suppose if we want to discuss Harry Potter books, we have to assume that he is real within the STORIES. But we don't have to assume that Harry was ever a real kind of wizard boy with a lightning scar on his forehead. That's just a story.

Maybe the Bible author's intent was to ENTERTAIN with honking good tales of a psychopathic GOD of the universe. You know.. scary tales ( Edgar Allan Poe kind ) that kids really like to shudder to around camp fires.. Ever done that?

The Bible stories are REALLY something, aren't they?
Too bad we can't interview the authors.

Their intentions are lost to history.

[enki]

[Replying to post 9 by Blastcat]

Biblical Mythologies and its Intentions

This is probably one of the times where circular logic or reasoning can be used, and specifically for the purpose of the bible self proclaiming its inspiration from God.

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

The closest verse for clearly seeing that an author makes claim that God told the author to write something down is 2 Timothy 3:16 I am sure there are others.

Well, let's see here yes an author usually only does write a book for intention. The author's of Biblical Mythologies wrote according to what they were "inspired by God" to write.

Yes we can say they were codifying their beliefs, for example we see the story of Noah and Noahnic flood myth, but we see a much earlier epic in Sumerian (a polytheistic society) Cuneiform of Ziusudra and the flood epic.

So while Biblical author's are claiming their Bible is inspired by God, it's easy to annotate that the much older cuneiform for example already herald these stories.

I am only stating that this is the claim of the Biblical authors that they were inspired by God, but there for example over 300 flood epics. So we know that the author's of the Bible got their inspirations from other epics, but we aren't discussing that. We are discussing their false claim that they were inspired by God. Which essentially is a false claim, because the text goes on about how the author connected with people in the author's day, not necessarily the modern world.

Harry Potter for example we know is not a real person, we do know Harry Potter exists on paper. Of course we also know that the author of the Harry Potter books is not intending for Harry Potter to be a real person, we know because it is fictional literature otherwise it would be sold as non-fiction.

The Bible is a bit different as it claims to be non-fiction. Hence, the idea is to look at what the author's wrote, and the culture surrounding at the time. Archaeology has done this, but archaeology has done this with other cultures.

I myself am a polytheist and in the Sumerian belief system, now taking myself out of that frame of mind or frame of belief, I could make claim that the Bible is the inspired word of God.

I propose a hypothetical; the Biblical author's intentions in the Old Testament are not much different than that of the Torah. So in the Torah the translation for God is El, and I claimed that El is God because of translation and that is how the transliteration of El comes about, too mean God.

However, history doesn't indicate this. The people of Canaan, and being a hypothetical Christian I would probably want to disassociate myself with Canaan. However, the people of Canaan nonetheless worshipped a deity called Ba'al who was essentially a storm God. What assyriologist and other researchers alike have found is that Ba'al from Canaan is El, as the Ancient Israelite's come from the land of Canaan. So when I as a hypothetical Christian say something like "I love God" through translation I am really saying "I love Ba'al".

In conclusion yes we could take the word of the Biblical author's that the Bible is inspired by God, but historically and culturally and even linguistically Ba'al is El and El is God in translation. Meaning as a Christian I would probably be distraught and upset over this finding.

BTW this is why we see a ruthless God figure; the Canaanite's often did human blood sacrifice.