Eidetic memory, another myth gone

[Willum]

It is claimed that the verbal tradition was infallible up until the first Bible was written in the 1200's.
Amazingly, it is claimed that the Dead Sea scrolls match this work 1300 years later.

Yet eidetic memory, or the ability to remember things perfectly has been studied and shown to be false, indeed, how would one know, or, why were the scholars who performed these prodigious and historic works of memory not recorded?

So if that ability does not exist, or exists so rarely as to be non-existent, how was the Old Testament reproduced faithfully?

Or is a shell game of some sort more likely. Or should we believe it was a miracle that Jews maintained that tradition?

Taking the position of reality, an accurate verbal tradition being impossible: Are there any possible debatable alternates?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 9 by JP Cusick]

The original book of the Bible - the J source - comes to us as a written document, even if some one had spoken the words before writing the text.

JP - this is actually my favorite line of reasoning.

However, it is easily re-interpreted to fit the facts.

The OT is an agglomeration of other peoples' fairy tales, placed into epic style for Jews, apparently.

So, you gather fragments of writings and stories from Mesopotamians, Akkadians, Arcadian, Sumerian, Egyptian, and others, put them in one place, replace the original deity's name with Yahwey, and call it the Old Testament.

I know this is intuitively repugnant, but I have looked into all the possible ways I can think of to disprove the premise, and have come up with nothing.

Since it is not my religion, I'll leave it up to you. I'll warrant, should you research the matter, you will discover the OT cannon being no more than 800 years old, and the Dead Sea scrolls will not meet up with the expectations that are normally claimed about them.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 3 by Bust Nak]Except that eidetic memory means to remember things perfectly.

The memories of prehistoric societies were not eidetic but based upon easily identified mnemonic principles.

[Willum]

Are there any possible debatable alternates?

The Jews: "We never saw the Bible as anything other than Jewish history. Never claimed it to be the perfectly infallible word of God."

The Christians:* "The Holy Spirit of God maintained the perfect verbal tradition via divine vision and inspiration. The holy scriptures cannot be broken."

The Muslims: "The original Hebrew Bible was indeed fraught with errors and fallacies. This is why God had to have it all corrected by Muhammad via the Qur'an."

Aren't these often given as the standard apologies for these religions?

* Note: Many modern day Christians no longer hold that the Bible is infallible, literal, or even remotely correct. Most modern day Christians take a totally abstract freelance position on this religion. Many of them even renounce churches and orthodox Christian theology. Instead they prefer to have a "Personal Walk with Jesus". A Jesus that they imagine to exist in their own mind. Of course, they don't think of him in that way, but since he's always in agreement with their views one has to wonder.

So, if it isn't infallible, and can't even be reasonably expected to be accurate, and there are so many other accurate records of the people who became Jewish - what good is it? It hardly states anything profound, and one is left with a big "so what," especially if you have read the Book. That is to say even, so what if such a deity exists.

I think we've demonstrated divine inspiration is has not yielded an accurate account of anything within the text...

The Muslin approach is interesting, but if the first earliest version was wrong, how could any "improvement" be right?
Wouldn't you need to start over to get it right?

(I know these aren't your arguments, per se.)

[JP Cusick]

So, you gather fragments of writings and stories from Mesopotamians, Akkadians, Arcadian, Sumerian, Egyptian, and others, put them in one place, replace the original deity's name with Yahwey, and call it the Old Testament.

I know this is intuitively repugnant, but I have looked into all the possible ways I can think of to disprove the premise, and have come up with nothing.

We took the same writings and changed the whole thing into the English language, even changed the names for the God(s) into English.

As such there is nothing to disprove - that is the process - nothing repugnant about it - otherwise it would all be lost to us.

My view is that the older cultures would have a more compelling knowledge of God (by any name) and so that adds validity to the Hebrew scriptures.

I reject the notion that if the text comes from Babylon or from Egypt or from any other place then the text is thereby invalid or fraud - because that is baseless prejudice.

... should you research the matter, you will discover the OT cannon being no more than 800 years old, and the Dead Sea scrolls will not meet up with the expectations that are normally claimed about them.

I can only guess that you mean 800 BCE (or B.C.) and yet you might mean 1300 CE (or A.D.) which would be absurd, but stranger things have been said in some of the discussion on this forum.

The Dead Sea scrolls date from 225 BCE to 50 CE.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 14 by JP Cusick]

I have always been fond of this approach.

It does seem that were there gods, the further back in history you went , the more pure the truth would be - were there any divine truth to be had. Though I have no idea why one would think the Hebrew spin would be better than the originals.

I reject the notion that if the text comes from Babylon or from Egypt or from any other place then the text is thereby invalid or fraud - because that is baseless prejudice.

It isa corruption, however, and you can never know exactly how much it was tweaked. A tool that works sometimes is far more dangerous than one that doesn't work at all.

1300 CE. I was startled to discover it myself. The New Testament is older than the Old Testament.

Strange but true... Don't take my word for it, look it up.

[Mithrae]

1300 CE. I was startled to discover it myself. The New Testament is older than the Old Testament.

Strange but true... Don't take my word for it, look it up.

You're presumably talking about the date of surviving manuscripts, though you are also incorrect on that point: For example Codex Orientales 4445 contains most of the Torah (Genesis 39 through to Deuteronomy 1:33, missing some verses in Numbers 7 and 9-10) dated to the 900s CE, while Codex Cairensis dates itself to c. 895CE and contains the entire Prophets section of the Hebrew canon.

Various smaller fragments have been dated earlier still (eg. the full text of Isaiah and fragments of Song of Songs and Deuteronomy in the Dead Sea Scrolls), along with quotations such as in the New Testament itself.

Imagining that the earliest surviving manuscripts represents the date of writing, you would have to assume that Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars was written in the 900s CE.

[Divine Insight]

Are there any possible debatable alternates?

The Jews: "We never saw the Bible as anything other than Jewish history. Never claimed it to be the perfectly infallible word of God."

The Christians:* "The Holy Spirit of God maintained the perfect verbal tradition via divine vision and inspiration. The holy scriptures cannot be broken."

The Muslims: "The original Hebrew Bible was indeed fraught with errors and fallacies. This is why God had to have it all corrected by Muhammad via the Qur'an."

Aren't these often given as the standard apologies for these religions?

* Note: Many modern day Christians no longer hold that the Bible is infallible, literal, or even remotely correct. Most modern day Christians take a totally abstract freelance position on this religion. Many of them even renounce churches and orthodox Christian theology. Instead they prefer to have a "Personal Walk with Jesus". A Jesus that they imagine to exist in their own mind. Of course, they don't think of him in that way, but since he's always in agreement with their views one has to wonder.

So, if it isn't infallible, and can't even be reasonably expected to be accurate, and there are so many other accurate records of the people who became Jewish - what good is it? It hardly states anything profound, and one is left with a big "so what," especially if you have read the Book. That is to say even, so what if such a deity exists.

I think we've demonstrated divine inspiration is has not yielded an accurate account of anything within the text...

The Muslin approach is interesting, but if the first earliest version was wrong, how could any "improvement" be right?
Wouldn't you need to start over to get it right?

(I know these aren't your arguments, per se.)

This is something that is currently being discussed in theology. Especially in Islamic theology.

Christian theology underwent a very long process of accepting a greater degree of abstraction and "non-literal interpretations" over many centuries. So Christian theologians, apologists, and clergy have grown to accept a "fallible text". In other words, for Christians the idea that the scriptures "cannot be broken" has itself become quite a vague idea. They don't think of this in terms of "literal scriptures".

This is why in our modern age Christian Fundamentalism and Literalism have actually become an extreme minority in Christian circles. Obviously there remain a few Christian Fundamentalists, but even the vast majority of Christians deem the fundamentalists to be the "extremists".

So Christianity has become a "watered-down" theology over many centuries. So much so, that to even argue for an infallible Bible has become something that most Christians reject as being an unrealistic expectation.

However, in Islamic countries this hasn't happened. Most likely precisely because Muhammad is seen as the chosen prophet of God to re-write the "Bible" as the "Qur'an" and insure that it is 100% free of any errors.

For this reason Islamic Fundamentalism is the overwhelming majority in mostly Muslim countries. And the Qur'an is accepted to be the infallible word of Allah. And most Muslims take this to mean the the Qur'an should indeed be taken "literally" even when things are clearly metaphors or parables, they should still be taken to mean what they say precisely without any need for apologetic interpretations that are intended to defend what Allah supposedly "really meant".

I mean, let's face it 99% of Christian apologetics is trying to come up with absurd re-interpretations of scriptures in an effort to try to make them out to be saying something dramatically different from what they actually said.

Fundamental Muslims prefer not to apologize for Allah, but instead just accept what is obviously written in the texts.

So this is why most Muslims will demand that the Qur'an is 100% error free and infallible as written.

Note: This may not apply to more liberal Muslims who have been living in countries that aren't majority Muslim, or even countries that are majority Christian. These Muslims see how quickly the Christians can make non-literal apologies for the Christian Bible so they are prepared to make non-literal apologies for the Qur'an.

~~~~~~~

However, this isn't just about the differences between Christians and Muslims. This argument over whether Muslims should tread the Qur'an as the infallible word of Allah, or start "re-interpreting" it in an effort to try to bring it up to the moral level of modern civilization is actually now becoming an argument that Muslim Theologians are having between themselves.

Remember that the vast majority of Muslim theologian and clergy (speaking worldwide) are hardcore fundamentalist, whilst the liberal interpretationists are the minority. This is precisely the opposite of what exist in Christianity. So liberal Muslims are having a hard time convincing Muslim Fundamentalists to get real.

It will be interesting to see how it all works out in the end.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 16 by Mithrae]

I'll concede a two centuries, because it makes no difference to the argument. My fowl.
Your serve.