(June 3, 2026 at 9:55 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: It is the majority view that the jahwist -and- priestly sources did believe in a literal creation of mankind as a historical fact, with the characters of adam and eve as narrative stand-ins for all mankind.  That it became the religious view that there was a literal adam and eve as individual people happened when the redactive source compiled the other two sources together as a document foundational to law and political authority for two thousand years.  It remains the orthodox jewish view.  It remains the official view of the rcc.  It's hardly just some minor spattering of conservative christians who believe this.....even though they can no longer kill people for suggesting it's a myth.

What j and p were referring to as Adam and Eve is not clear from the text. The tradition of the time didn't make such a distinction explicit and so what j and p specifically meant is unknown. They were certainly capable of employing metonymy. What is not clear is whether Adam and Eve were metonymical references. I suspect that if you were to ask j if Adam and Eve referred to real persons or to mankind, their answer would be, "yes, they refer to real persons and mankind," as like modern authors, they were fully capable of writing multidimensional narratives with more than one interpretation. If I were to guess, they'd find the whole question rather strange.

A true author shouldn't have to explain himself, but a reader should also have enough common sense to differentiate reality from fantasy.

(June 3, 2026 at 11:59 am)Paraselene Wrote: A true author shouldn't have to explain himself, but a reader should also have enough common sense to differentiate reality from fantasy.

How does one distinguish fantasy from reality when the fantastic elements themselves are supposed to be reality?

What the texts and underlying sources say is, ultimately, beside the point. It’s as plain as Canby that a majority of the world’s Christians believe in and worship a decidedly anthropomorphic god.

-God is love.

-God is merciful.

-God is vengeful.

-God made the walls come a-tumblin’ down.

-God speaks to people.

-God listens to people.

-God loves some things and hates some things.

And many more. Rank and file Christians sincerely believe that God is human-like and has human qualities. I don’t much care what Bloom or Augustine or Aquinas have to say about it, because they’re not the ones trying to take rights away from people who don’t believe properly.

Boru

(June 3, 2026 at 12:20 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(June 3, 2026 at 11:59 am)Paraselene Wrote: A true author shouldn't have to explain himself, but a reader should also have enough common sense to differentiate reality from fantasy.

How does one distinguish fantasy from reality when the fantastic elements themselves are supposed to be reality?

You just answered your own question with supposed to be.

(June 3, 2026 at 12:37 pm)Paraselene Wrote:

(June 3, 2026 at 12:20 pm)Angrboda Wrote: How does one distinguish fantasy from reality when the fantastic elements themselves are supposed to be reality?

You just answered your own question with supposed to be.

If the weapons go *clang*, it’s fantasy. If the weapons go *zzz*, it’s science fiction. If the weapons go *bang*, it’s reality.

Boru

(June 3, 2026 at 11:34 am)Angrboda Wrote: What j and p were referring to as Adam and Eve is not clear from the text.  The tradition of the time didn't make such a distinction explicit and so what j and p specifically meant is unknown.  They were certainly capable of employing metonymy.  What is not clear is whether Adam and Eve were metonymical references.  I suspect that if you were to ask j if Adam and Eve referred to real persons or to mankind, their answer would be, "yes, they refer to real persons and mankind," as like modern authors, they were fully capable of writing multidimensional narratives with more than one interpretation.  If I were to guess, they'd find the whole question rather strange.

I think we largely agree.  The compilers have metonymical chops.  That doesn't mean they didn't believe in a literal adam or eve, or the anthropomorphic gods they describe.   If they didn't.......the people they got their stories from as secular folklorists certainly did.  We know this from a plain reading of those texts, archeological evidence, external and independent attestation, and the content of the analog ugaritic texts.  I would suspect that the compilers came from that culture themselves and would thus be more likely to answer...as you say...yes to both.  

The j source is anthropomorphic and gives intimate detail, the p source is abstract and ambiguating.  That much is clear.  Between the two, the j source would be more likely to be writing about a literal adam and eve but also less likely to murder you over a dispute in intimate detail.  It is the j source that tells us that it was two specific people but not all people, and what they were made out of, and why, and how the god interacts with them as a person and between persons.  The later P source takes these dual narratives and explicitly scrubs all of that, while positing an impersonal god and a concrete political authority.  Or maybe it's not the p source that does that, but what the even later redactors kept of the p source that produces the effect.

My own take is this:

J didn’t invent these stories out of thin air. These were oral traditions that were then preserved in writing later on. J is a collation of all these stories, without any intense consideration for how literally true they were. J was not some deep philosopher but one with invested interest in at least preserving these stories.

The Compiler (Final Editor) then came along and gathered all the J sources and combined them with other sources to tell the ultimate story of the Israelites and their relationship with YHWH (through different perspectives).

Did J (whether one individual or a school) think God was a physical super human being, albeit with incomprehensible powers and glory and being? I don’t have a reason to think otherwise. But there are multiple relevant layers here that do need to be considered when having this debate.

Its not just that we don't have a reason to think otherwise. We have every reason to think they did. That they might also have been good authors is not a competing hypothesis. What are we even contending, otherwise, that any person who writes beautifully and competently at multiple levels cannot be a believer? That their skill is evidence of a lack of faith? The idea of j as a secular folklorist is extremely fun for us as contemporary secularists and skeptics to think about. It has no basis in historical fact or available evidence.

(June 4, 2026 at 8:14 am)GrandizerII Wrote: there are multiple relevant layers here that do need to be considered when having this debate.

Bloom was an immensely erudite reader, who had a number of eccentric ideas. He never argues for something for ideological reasons, however -- everything comes from the text, and the texts that came before.

We don't have to accept all of his conclusions to benefit from his musings. For example, he argues throughout his book that J was a woman. He has no extra-textual evidence for this, so I see no reason to accept it as is. But he gives a number of interesting reasons why he thinks so, and reading them enriches our own reading of the text. 

Obviously, he does read J's God as being an anthropomorphic entity. Sometimes more than others. Though he argues that what J is really doing is giving a theomorphic depiction of humans, especially David. 

Bloom is a literature guy and not a theology guy. But one of the lessons of literature is also important for dealing with important writers like J. Authors may be inconsistent, they may write things that are puzzling, and they may leave us unsatisfied as to what it all means. There is a tendency among some atheists to imagine that if God inspired a sacred book, he would do it in a straightforward way with no puzzles. This is imagining that God wants to write a science book instead of literature. I see no reason why this must be so. Since I am neither omnipotent nor omniscient I can't say what kind of book such an entity would leave us. But if we take J's work as literature then the puzzles and inconsistencies are a part of its value and richness, and don't mean that we can just dismiss it. I mean, we CAN dismiss it if we want -- just as we can dismiss Dante and Shakespeare and Dostoevsky if we want. But that would be our loss.