The Documentary Hypothesis

The Documentary Hypothesis is something I have known about for some time as a phrase, although I have not previously been inclined to read anything on the subject, however it has recently been brought to my attention with the book "Who Wrote the Bible?" by Richard Elliott Friedman.

This week I have been reading this book to see if there is any validity to the arguments for multiple sources.  Reading this book as been an eye-opener to me.  That people would actually buy into this, is beyond me.  The author's of the Documentary Hypothesis don't believe Biblical history actually happened, they take a single story and document, split it up into four different documents, CHANGE IT so that they conflict with each other, and then they say that there was some mythical person long ago that took these mythical documents that they JUST CREATED, and did the exact opposite of what they just did to create a single harmonious document.

I have been told that the author's of the Document Hypothesis point out many contradictions in the text of the Torah, but as I have read about these contradictions, it has struck me that these contradictions don't exist in the Torah, they only exist in the mythical documents that they have created.  Documents that don't exist, never have existed, there is not evidence they have existed.  These atheists could not find a valid reason to do away with the Torah, so they created a set of "straw documents" they could tear apart to invalidate the Torah with.

That is my conclusion of the Documentary Hypothesis.

In short, total fabrication with no basis in reality.

Here is a link to a great article on the subject: Did Moses Write the Pentateuch?

The Karaites, etc.

Its been a while since I have posted here... it's not because I don't think of things to post, every once in a while -- while I am driving down the road for work -- I think of things that I would like to post... but then I never seem to have the time.  At any rate, as I have been studying the Torah it has been coming to my attention for some time now that the Karaites seem to be pretty much right on the truth...  and there seems to be a growing movement of people who are studying the Torah coming to the same conclusion. 

On an additional thought, there is this book out by A. J. Jacobs entitled "A Year of Living Biblically", while this is a fairly funny account of his trying to literally live by the Bible, I would say it is more like trying to live by the Talmud...  of coarse, he also includes the group of writings known as the New Testament in his quest for living.  Personally, I believe it is possible to live according to the Torah and the Tanach.  I am working towards that goal myself, and I believe that the Karaites pretty much achieve that goal... 

Anyway, that's all for now...

What is leavening in the Bible?

The subject has recently been raised as to what constitutes leavening (chametz) חמץ or seh-ore' (leaven) שׂאר according to the Biblical (tanak) definition.

We all agree that yeast is a leaven. But why is yeast a leaven? Well, if you look at the base definition of chametz, you will find that it has to do with fermentation, not with being a rising agent. This can also be seen with the word chometz חמץ, which is the Hebrew word for vinegar.

Now during the Passover, they were to be ready to move out at a moments notice, and the rising of bread with the fermentation process of yeast, was not a fast process, and it could also be argued that the fermentation represents sin, and so for these two reasons, the Israelites were told to only make unleavened bread (matzah).

So then, what about Baking Soda (and Baking Powder)? Well, Baking Soda, works by and completely different process (there is no fermentation involved) and it does so almost instantly, so by both of those attributes, it does not fall under chamatz or seh-ore'.

As an aside, to those of you who would point out that Baking Soda has aluminum in it, I would point out that you can get baking soda without aluminum, but I digress.

In any case, here is a link to a good article on the subject.

Religious inconsistancies in regular life

I came across this funny quote while browsing Slashdot:

We must believe that Unix is a part of Linux on faith alone. This is what we refer to as a "religious mystery," ala the Holy Trinity. Thus, to ask how can Unix and Linux be one in the same is equivalent to asking how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit can be one, yet distinct. I, for one, need no other proof than the Divinely Inspired testimony of McBride, and anticipate the coming day of His own Passion.

This is referring to the testimony of Darl McBride in court that Linux is Unix System V, which of course everybody with a half competency in programming knows isn't true, and even the other honchos in SCO admitted in court wasn't true.

In any case I thought I would include it here because it makes a valid point about the doctrine of the Trinity. A doctrine that is nowhere in the Tanak, or even the New Testament, and yet millions of people believe it to be true, based on nothing other than the word of the Pope, or their Pastor.

A New Blog --- Whoo Hooo!

I came across a blog entitled The Atheist Jew and the article was lambasting Dr. Carl Baugh with a lot of name calling and taking small bits of what Dr. Baugh had said and adding false hoods to it and then calling it a bunch of nonsense -- the classic create a straw horse and tear it down. He offered no scientific backing for his claims against Dr. Baugh, and all of the comments in his blog supported his point of view. I posted a comment pointing out that name calling is the last resort of those who do not have any facts to back up their views, but the comments are moderated by the blogster and I doubt that my comment will ever see the light of day...

However, in the process I ended up creating this blog...

P.S. The article that started this is here...