Welcome to the our class blog!
We will use the blog to interact with each other as we explore the text, language, culture, history, ethics, and social visions of the Hebrew Bible.
You will be able to post comments to readings, chat with fellow classmates, review results of class polls, explore news links to current events, and even look at some humorous videos!
Take a few minutes to explore the blog! I will be updating it each week, so log-on daily for updates!
I am looking forward to interacting with you this semester as we explore the Hebrew Bible together.
Any questions, send me an email at CharlesRix@gmail.com
Shalom!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Who Wrote the Bible?
ReplyDeleteI found the paper on the Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch to be very interesting. Cassuto presents a convincing argument to challenge the “reigning paradigm” that was championed by Wellhausen in his paper The Documentary Hypothesis. Wellhausen contends that the Pentateuch originated from four sources. These depictions of the first five books constitute the complete and consistent records of origin of Israel. Supporters of this hypothesis justify the many contradictions as mistakes by the authors of the four sources.
Cassuto contends that this is not the case. His position was based in large parts to extensive knowledge of the Near Eastern language and literature. The premise is, “What had been construed as contradiction, repetition, and variance were in fact literary tools succinctly conveying polyphonous meaning.
Cassuto was not necessarily denouncing the original mindset. He was actually seeking to expand the parameters for researching the origins of the Bible to the possibility that the stories were written with different goals in mind and the contradiction, repetition and the variations occur in the Bible as result of these goals.