(January 10, 2022 at 8:33 am)Ahriman Wrote:(January 9, 2022 at 10:33 pm)Paleophyte Wrote: What? Like it originally said "demons" throughout the story but some Greek who actually knew what epilepsy was inserted it to try and give the tale some credence? And then the entire mess of rubbish never saw an editor to fix the bugger up? The pious would never commit such fraud!Well if it isn't allegory, and it isn't literal, what exactly is it?
One more reason that the Bible isn't allegory. It isn't coherent enough.
I would say it is a mix.
Ancient man asked the big questions of life:
“What am I?”
“Why do I exist?”
“What happens when I die?”
and so on.
Someone answered those questions with Genesis 1 and 2 and some other parts of the Tanakh. As time goes by, the previous leader priest dies and new ones take over. Probably they modify the creation myth a bit (Evolution of religion).
Eventually, they also insert some real history into it. Real wars, real locations, real cultures and they insert their gods and angels into it, possibly to give the soldiers and people some hope.
The ancient jews don’t seem to have historians. It looks like all their ancient texts has been written by priests.
Is there any text that predates 1 CE and that can be classified as jewish history?
I would say that the majority of their priests and people didn’t take these stories as allegory.
Perhaps the initial author took it as allegory or maybe he was trying to do his best to provide answers to his followers or give them hope. I don’t think that the initial author is going to tell the people “I making this part up to give you guys hope.” If he (George) did that, the stories would lose their value. People would be asking “Did Moses really talk to our god or is this a fabrication by George?”
“You know, that George, he really has a wild imagination.”
