CHAPTER 2

The meta-textual history of the Old Testament and "Yahwism"

Introduction

Chapter 8 of the thesis starts with a number of questions (p.351):

Just what exactly is the nature of this body of texts called the "Old Testament" that has been the object of the devil's advocate's concern all along? How was it created and what are the origins and processes out of which it came into being? Where did the belief in the god Yahweh come from anyway, and how did it change throughout history? Just what exactly is Yahweh? What is the relation between Yahweh and "God"? Does anybody living in the post-biblical period really believe in the god Yahweh-as-depicted in the text?

The aim of this chapter is to answer some of these questions from the perspective of somebody who find his own experience of the reality of the God as described in the Bible (both Old and New Testament) too real to deny. The idea of revelation and inspiration of Scripture as given by the biblical texts themselves, are considered. This is in contrast to the typical (but not universal) fundamentalist view that starts with the simple assumption of biblical inerrancy and verbal inspiration. It is also in contrast to the typical critical view of Scripture that denies even the possibility of inspiration/revelation and would exclude any investigation of the possible method(s) of inspiration as illegitimate.

Before looking at the alternative, let us recap the concluding arguments from the meta-textual history of the Old Testament as found on p.425 of the thesis:

1. All we know about Yahweh we either learn from the Old Testament or, alternatively, from attempting to make sense of nature and psychological experiences from the perspective of scriptural God-talk.
2. It was once thought that the text is nothing less than divine revelation but historical- and ideological-critical types of analysis have shown that both the text and the religion it propagates are all-too-human religious discourse with no more ontological priority than the myths of other peoples.
3. From this it may be concluded that the texts are not accounts of divine revelation at all nor even human words about God; rather they are human fictions about an allegedly existing deity.
4. Since all reason for belief in the existence of Yahweh is thus dependent on the veracity of the Old Testament text and since this supposed veracity has become impossible to maintain, all grounds for realism have ceased to exist.
5. From this and the fact of a history of repressed anti-realism pertaining to the ontological status of Yahweh-as-depicted in the text it follows that Yahweh himself must be considered to be a character of fiction.
6. It is therefore concluded that Yahweh is no more real that any other ancient deity and therefore does not exist except inside the text and in the imaginations of those who read it.

Considering the points of the argument one by one:

Let us then consider the specific problems as mentioned by Dr. Gericke. Because revelation by God is fundamental to all the other questions raised by the thesis, we will begin there (cf. 8.2.4 on p.365 of the thesis). After all, if the Bible itself didn't make any claim to be the inspired Word of God revealing Him, we would definitely be missing the point by ascribing inerrancy to the Scriptures.

The problem of the Old Testament as a record of revelation in history

What is revelation? Before we can even consider the probability of the Old Testament being revelation, we will need to define what constitutes "revelation". From a traditional Christian perspective, the term implies that God cannot be known through "common sense" or by human logic. He has to reveal Himself. Concurrent with revelation, is the biblical idea that no human can see Him and live (In the thesis this is said to be contradicted by other parts of the Bible (p. 82-84); a claim that we will show later to be misleading). He can reveal Himself in different ways, through nature and the laws of nature, through dreams, visions, prophetic utterances, wonders (deeds of power), history etc. According to the New Testament (Hebr.1:1) the Old Testament is simply the written account of "God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways". "Revelation" is therefore a general term indication God making Himself known to people in different ways (but with the implicit assumption that people would not be able (or willing) to know Him without His initiative).

Connected to the idea of revelation, is the idea of "inspiration" of the Scripture. "All Scripture is breathed out by God" (2 Tim.3:16) But how did the authors of the Old Testament themselves see this process? I think it is clear that just as the Old Testament consists of different genres, the method of inspiration will also differ. For this reason, I find the debates in conservative circles about the method of inspiration rather senseless. It seems fairly certain that when a prophet said: "thus says the LORD" (Ko amar YAHWEH), he meant that the words following that statement was pretty directly inspired as the Word of God. When the Torah says: "Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel."(Deut.31:9), and all through Torah we have the same formula "The Lord said to Moses...", I have to conclude that what we have in these parts of the Pentateuch claims to be the direct words of YAHWEH. Moreover, the signs that God did through Moses in saving the people of Israel from Egypt, was seen as confirmation that it was really God who sent Moses in the first place. On the other hand, the Psalms are prayers written under the direction of the Holy Spirit (since we know from 1 Sam. 16:13 & Ps. 51:11 that David was filled with the Spirit of YAHWEH), but doesn't claim to be the direct words of YAHWEH, while the historical books tell of what God did rather than what He said (but also gave the all-important context within which He said certain things). And interestingly, the "historical" scriptures repeatedly claimed that their accuracy could be checked in other sources (e.g. the book of the wars of the Lord, the book of Yashar etc.), which even if not available today, at least tells us that the accuracy of their accounts mattered to these writers. However, I do not find in these writings any claim to being inspired in the same way as the prophetic writings. The thesis really only addresses this method of inspiration, and not the prophetic or Spirit-inspired prayers/wisdom literature.

The revelation of God through history is not simply a historical review and after-the-fact "finding" of YAHWEH in the course of history (as the thesis mentions, this is also found in most of the ANE religions), but rather the fact that YAHWEH can shape the future and tells what He will do in future through His prophets. In contrast to the Moabite (Mesha) stone, for example, that simply claims that Kemosh was angry with the land (for no particular reason), the Torah of YAHWEH has a specific moral/ethical component (just as YAHWEH Himself had a specific moral character compared to the other "gods" of the ANE). And it was exactly in relation to their obedience to these teachings that the non-prophetical writers of the histories of Israel could judge and interpret the events of history. The wonders that He did in saving His people from Egypt and later through the judges and kings (when they were obedient to Him) as well as the promised punishment of exile because of their faithlessness and their return to the land of Israel because of His faithfulness, are all seen as evidence of Him being true to the promises in His Word, rather than simply being random occurrences. However, history was not the primary way through which Israel got to know YAHWEH, just as creation did not suffice as a way to get to know Him. Rather it was through His prophets and the prophetic word, that He revealed Himself, first through Moses (and the signs and wonders He did through Moses) and then through the later prophets who were to be tested by two things: 1. were they true to YAHWEH as revealed in Torah (did they prophesy in His Name)? 2. Did the word that they spoke in the Name of YHWH come to pass? (Deut.18:15-22) It is the fulfilment of prophecy and the wonders He did in saving them repeatedly, that revealed YAHWEH working in history, rather than simply the normal course of history. It appears to me that the late dating of the Pentateuch (which implies a non-Mosaic authorship of the Torah, but does not necessarily follow from a non-Mosaic authorship point of view) as well as the late dating of many of the prophets by liberal scholars, is the result of the preconceived notion that prophecy doesn't really exist and that all apparent prophecy must have been written after the fact. We will address the issue of prophecy later.

To a large extend, Moses is simply the ideal prophet (cf. Deut.18) and the revelation through Moses is not really qualitatively different from the later prophets. However, the subject of the revelation through Moses is unique in giving the Torah as a covenant to be kept by Israel (the later prophets mostly call Israel back to this same covenant, but never replace Torah with something new - although there are some indications of a future "New Covenant" [e.g. Jer.31:31-34, Ese.36:24-27]). Torah is also said to be unique in YAHWEH speaking to Moses "face to face", implying a real, continuous dialogue rather than simply prophetic utterances. But the working of the Spirit of YAHWEH (that rested on Moses and which was then given to Joshua when Moses laid his hands on him Deut.34:9) also caused other people to prophesy (Num.11:25). Even for the prophets, the revelation of YAHWEH happened in different ways. Most commonly the "Word of YAHWEH" "came" to them, (probably an internal knowledge/"voice" - see for example 1 Kings 19 where "the word of the LORD" is not the same as a "voice" that came to Elijah), but there were also visions (e.g. Is. 6), heavenly "messengers" (angels - e.g. 1 Kings 19, Gen. 19), dreams (e.g. Joseph) and interpretation of special dreams (e.g. Joseph & Daniel), and sometimes an audible voice (e.g. Ex. 20, 1 Sam. 3, 1 Kings 19: 13). I am not here arguing for or against the reality of revelation, but simply establishing what the Old Testament itself says about the ways of God revealing Himself in Scripture.

In the New Testament there is the promise of the Holy Spirit for all believers (in contrast to the Old Testament where His work was confined to certain leaders and prophets) and even more, the promise that the Spirit will speak through them when they witness for Jesus (Acts 1:8, Mark.13: 11). This "inspiration" (theopneustos) by the Spirit can be considered as similar to the process by which the prophets in the Old Testament spoke, although, unlike Scripture, not giving any new revelation of God. (It is therefore interesting that when forming the New Testament canon, it was considered as not enough for a piece of Scripture to be "inspired"; there were scriptures that were considered as "inpired" that were excluded from the canon, because they were considered as being not "apostolic" (not written by either an apostle of Jesus or under the influence of an apostle) (cf. Tertullian). This view of scripture therefore saw the "canon" as a "measuring rod" by which any subsequent "revelation" could be measured rather than as being the collection of all "inspired" writings. This view seems to differ from the modern view held by most fundamentalists. The New Testament itself said: "Therefore, as for you, let that remain in you which you heard from the beginning. If that which you heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son, and in the Father."&"As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don't need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him."(1 Joh.2:24 & 27)). Why mention the New Testament? Because it seems as if the role of the Holy Spirit in the inspiration of the Old Testament is first made explicit in the New Testament, but also that the same Spirit that inspired the Old Testament are said to indwell all the believers in the New Testament. And from my own experience of the Spirit giving me the words to testify to Jesus, I could recognize something similar to how the Old Testament was inspired (cf. Appendix A). Some of the aspects of my experiences were: 1. Saying things without really understanding what it means at the time I say it (saying it as it is given me at that moment). 2. Being conscious of what I am saying (and being able to ponder on it afterwards) - i.e. not being in a "trance". 3. Still only fluent in the languages I know (this in contrast to the disciples' experience in Acts 2) and expressing the message in my own words and idioms. 4. Knowing things ("instinctively") about the person I was speaking to that I should not naturally know (but not everything, only things that were applicable to the conversation we were having). 5. Experiencing God's love (and disappointment/anger at sin) for the person I am speaking to... experiencing the emotions of what God meant while reading certain biblical texts. (This last point may sound like nothing much, but involved a real change in my innermost being: I never liked people very much before this, but now cared even for people that I didn't know).

Now, let us look at the problems mentioned by the thesis as it pertains to this idea of revelation. "Certain biblical theologians practised critical biblical research and disavowed supernaturalist understandings of Scripture that accepted miracle stories and references to direct divine causation at face value." (Thesis, p.365). Having experienced "direct divine causation" in my life, it is not so easy to see how one can read the bible in this manner. More-over, because faith leads to actions in which the faithfulness of God can be seen, unbelief will never put you in the place where you can experience "direct divine causation". (E.g. you will never see anybody being healed by God (or at least recognize it as such) if you never pray for the healing of sick people. This is not a presumptions "name it and claim it" theology where you try to force God to do your will by "having faith" [which is actually closer to magic, where you try to manipulate spiritual beings to do your bidding - and forbidden by the bible]. But you can simply never expect the Bible to be real in modern times if you are not expectantly obedient to what it commands... which you will not be if you already don't believe it is from God).

While accepting the laws of natural causation and the principle of uniformity in nature, they believed that it was nonetheless imperative to continue to speak of God “acting”. (Thesis, p.365) The origin of the idea of "laws of natural causation" and "the principle of uniformity in nature" is historically pretty much based on the believe in one Creator God. This is also the view of the Bible which sees God as the author of the "laws of nature" just as much as He is the Originator of the moral laws. Although He is not bound by the laws of nature, "the laws of natural causation" and "the principle of uniformity in nature" is just as much the work of God as any miracle (cf. Col.1:16-17, Hebr.1:3 , A God of Math and Order, The long shadow of David Hume). Atheist scientists (pleading Occam's razor as justification) have to assume that the fundamental scientific laws and forces of nature just exists without any cause or explanation. By contrast, according to the biblical view (not necessarily that of most fundamentalists) the very laws of nature and natural causation is the result of God's spoken word ("through the power of His Word" - Hebr.1:3). The fallacy of false dichotomy is thus committed when it is implied that God "acting" somehow excludes the laws of natural causation.

"It was claimed that, among the world's religions, Christianity seems to be the only one that takes history seriously, for it assumed that the knowledge of God is associated with events that really happened in human life (cf. Wright & Fuller 1960:07)."
I agree with this comparison of the Christian religion to other world religions, but not for the reasons later claimed. A simple comparison of the different world religions will make it clear that most are not interested in history. While the idea of interpreting history as the result of divine action is not unique to the biblical faith (as the thesis mentions on p.367), it is also true that this is not how the bible itself describes things (p.366 in the thesis). First of all, it is only some books (and even parts of books e.g. Jeremiah) that have a historical component. Secondly (as mentioned earlier), it is not primarily a reinterpretation of past historical events that reveals YAHWEH, but his moral law (Torah) and prophets that tell what He will do in future, as well as the actual events revealing His power (e.g. in his message to the Ammonite king, when Jephthah says, "Won't you possess that which Kemosh your god gives you to possess? So whoever the LORD our God has dispossessed from before us, them will we possess." he implies that the Ammonite "god" is not able to give them any land, unlike the God of Israel).

On p.368 of the thesis:

"The Israelite prophet of the exilic period (Deutero-Isaiah) attributes Cyrus's achievements to the leading of Yahweh, god of Israel (cf. Isa 45:1-6). But in his own description of the events, Cyrus assigns the credit to Marduk, god of Babylon, who was desirous of punishing his own people (cf. Pritchard 1959:315-316). The believer might well point to a verified event and say, 'Behold, the work of God!' but there seems to be nothing in the event itself which confirms such an assertion. The perception of the event as an act of God may still be an illusion."
On the other hand, the fact that the Biblical prophets before the event already declared that the Babylonians will be punished for their acts (e.g. Isa. 21, Jer.25 and Jer.29), is the confirmation of the assertion that it is the work of YAHWEH according to the Bible. That Cyrus gives the credit to Marduk made good political sense (he got the support of the Marduk priests in Babylon), but need not even mean that he believed it himself. Indeed, according to Isaiah he was used by YAHWEH even though he did not know Him.

And:

"Even if historians succeeded in establishing, beyond a doubt, that certain Old biblical scenarios have some historical counterpart, this proves nothing regarding the ontological status of the god Yahweh-as-depicted in the text. Thus, even if sometime in the late second millennium BC a group of slaves escaped from Egypt under the leadership of a man named Moses and eventually made their way to the land of Canaan, this does not prove that there is a god Yahweh who made this possible."
On the other hand, the bible describes a series of supernatural events done by Moses in obedience to YAHWEH that explains how it became possible for the Israelites to escape without pursuit by the Egyptians; something that seems difficult to explain otherwise. Indeed, the very existence of Israel as a people (and of the bible itself) seems difficult to explain otherwise.

On p.369 of the thesis:

"If realism is to be salvaged it is not to be via a confirmation of a bare minimum or something more or less like that recounted in the Bible. Rather, Yahweh-as-depicted can only be conceived of as real if the details of all the depictions of scenarios in which he was involved are factual. Unless the exact details of the Old Testament's stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, etc. are true, realism with regard to the depiction of Yahweh inextricably linked to those details remains problematic and so does the belief regarding supposed revelation in history. Since such confirmation of the detail in the text is not possible, opting for realism remains a choice based on non-rational reasoning."
Here the assumption seems to be that a historical event described in the bible is only true if it is confirmed by external evidence. This approach totally ignores the historical value of the bible itself! All the details of the biblical accounts of events need not be confirmed in order to accept them as true. Yes, multiple, independent accounts that can be harmonized with each other, obviously provide much more historical evidence for an event. However, the Bible itself can be considered as a collection of "reused archaeological artifacts" with the same historical value as any other archaeological artifact found outside its original context. In addition, a number of characters (e.g. Belshazzar in Daniel) or even peoples (e.g. the Hittites) that were previously found only in the Bible and therefore considered as non-historical by many historians, have afterwards been found to be historical. This would suggest at least some caution/humility before assuming the Bible as unhistorical in those cases where the historicity has not (yet) received independent confirmation. Indeed, it is unlikely for any other historical account of the "stories" of the Old Testament to have the same details as the biblical text and yet be independent. The kind of confirmation we are most likely to receive, would be something like the Mesha stone which gave a different account of the same events and were in some aspects (e.g. the kings of Israel) possibly less reliable than the biblical account. Or else something like the Siloam inscription, which gives a lot of detail not mentioned in the Bible, but mostly irrelevent to the Biblical report of Hezekiah's reign. It just doesn't make rational sense to expect confirmation for the Biblical "historical" accounts in all details! The reliability of biblical history will be discussed in the next chapter (Chapter 3).

The problem of human history of the Old Testament texts. Pious fraud?

From p.371 of the thesis:

"Subsequently, via source criticism, textual criticism, tradition criticism, redaction criticism and form criticism, it has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that most of the Old Testament books were composite compilations not written by their purported authors (cf. Coote 1990:01; Barton 1991:05)."
This is quite a statement to make! And it is "proved beyond a shadow of doubt"? So where is all the evidence for this statement? Simply put, the only evidence for all of these different "criticisms", is a single piece of literature: the Bible. No evidence from any archaeological discoveries. No fragments of the different sources that were allegedly put together to create the Biblical text as we have it today and as it already existed before the time of Jesus (cf. the Dead Sea Scrolls). On the contrary, the oldest bits of the Bible we do have (the Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls - dated circa 600 BC), have almost verbatum quotes from Numbers 6:24-26 as well as Deut.7:9 (See Barkay, G., 2009, Biblical Archaeology Review 35(4), The Riches of Ketef Hinnom). According to the JEDP(R) hypothesis, these are from the P source and the D source, and yet here we have them together at such an early date! There is simply no external evidence for the claim made here with so much certainty.

So let us turn the internal evidence supposedly found within the Bible itself. It is indeed true that the traditional views on the authorship of the Old Testament was challenged long before the rise of historical-critical analysis. Already by 1753 Jean Astruc proposed that Moses used two different sources, one using the name "Elohim" and the other the name "YHWH". (The more probable explanation for these names simply expressing different aspects of God's relation to humankind, is generally not considered by critical scholars; Elohim the generic creator God of everything and YHWH when he is seen in covenant relationship to people. Indeed it would appear from the compound name "YHWH Elohim" in Gen.2 that the writer of Genesis made it explicit that it was the same God. Moreover, other names were also used for this God: El Shaddai, El Elyon, YHWH Tzevaot, Adonai, Adonai YHWH, YHWH Yireh, YHWH Rophe, YHWH Nissi, etc.). The four JEPD sources (and up to 39 different fragments!) were already hypothesised by 1853. What Julius Wellhausen added in the 1870's, was to use an evolutionary (and pseudo-scientific) theory of the development from "primitive" animism to the more sophisticated monotheism of Judaism. (cf. Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, pp.81 - 113, Moody Publishers, 2007).

Before answering the main thrust of the argument against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, let us just clarify what the majority of conservative scholars mean by saying that Moses wrote the Torah. I have a book by Andrew Murray called "The key to the Missionary Problem". The edition I have, was printed in the 1980's. When discussing the "missionay problem", it talks about it using statistics from the end of the 20th century instead of the orginal statistics used by Andrew Murray in the orginal. Can I conclude that Andrew Murray is not the author of this book? Obviously we don't have the orginal documents of the Torah, only copies. Moreover, it is fairly certain that Torah was not written in the current "Hebrew" alphabet (square Aramaic), but (assuming Mosaic authorship) has had at least one change in alphabet. It is probable that in this copy process some of the older place names have been updated with the new names. It is only a very narrow view of what constitutes authorship that will deny Moses as author of the Torah on these grounds. It is also not the opinion of any fundamentalist scholar I know of that Moses wrote the last chapter of Deuteronomy. The traditional view is that it was probably Joshua (who might also have acted as scribe to Moses for parts of the Torah itself) who wrote Deuteronomy 34. So let us just get rid of the straw men on both sides of this argument. After answering the argument against Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch we will look at evidence for both the essential unity of the Torah (instead of being a combination of various sources) and Moses as author.

The arguments against the Mosaic authorship as mentioned by the thesis on pp.372-374...

The thesis then shows a source-critical delineation of Genesis (pp. 374-375). Interestingly, the original E (Elohist) source has been eliminated, mostly becoming part of the P (priestly) source. This might reflect the fact that even critical scholars are now recognising that the Names YAHWEH and Elohim are not semantically equivalent (even if referring to the same Person, they put emphasis on different aspects of His attributes). The history of Noah and the flood (Gen.6-8) is broken up between the J and P sources with some short bits by the Redactor (R). However, structurally the whole Flood narrative displays a chiastic structure indicating a single author and inexplicable when breaking it into bits:
flood.jpg (cf. Wenham, Gordon J., 1987, The Coherence of the Flood Narrative. Vetus Testamentum 28:336-348.) Similare structure has been shown for other parts of the Torah that are being broken into bits by various versions of the Documentary Hypothesis. The lack of consensus between the different versions of the Hypothesis, is a more serious flaw than Dr. Gericke admits, in my humble opinion (revealing both the subjectivity of the methodology and especially the lack of any external evidence for the Documentary Hypothesis).

The problem is that most of the original reasons for the Documentary Hypothesis have long since been shown to be invalid. The major contribution by Wellhausen has been the hypothesis that the Israelite religion evolved by a pseudo-Darwinian process and he was the first to assign relative dates to the various sources (JEDP). However, the concept that all early religion was animistic or naturistic and that belief in Monotheism was a late arrival, is seriously undermined by Rodney Stark's "The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief" (HarperOne, 2007). He writes: "Despite decades of faulty reports that early religions were crude muddles of superstition, it turns out that the primitive humans had surprisingly sophisticated notions about God and creation." A second presupposition contributing to the believe that Moses could not have written the Torah, namely the idea that writing was not developed (or known by the Israelites) before the time of Moses, has been thoroughly falsified by recent archaeological discoveries (e.g. the Wadi al Hol inscriptions dated to c. 1800 BC). Since the thesis does not use this as an argument, I'll refrain from attacking a straw man here, but there can be little doubt that the idea of a late development of the alphabet played a big role in the scholarly acceptance of the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis when it was first proposed. (cf. Schultz, Hermann (1898), Old Testament Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark), translated from the fourth edition by H. A. Patterson. pp. 25-26)

From the thesis on p.375:

"Whatever one makes of the innumerable variations in the text with regard to vocabulary, style, genre, details and perspectives, the basic problematic that gave rise to the various source-critical theories is more resistant to disposal than any theory constructed in response to it.
Having shown that most of the reasons for the non-Mosaic authorship doesn't really hold water, I will briefly state the case for the alternative theory to the "source-critical theories", namely that Moses wrote the Torah with some later scribal glosses and a few passages (the last chapter) added by later writers, probably Joshua (who might also have acted as Moses' scribe). One of the strongest arguments against the Documentary Hypothesis is that no other Ancient Near East (or modern, for that matter) text has ever been found (or even suggested) that might have been put together in the way postulated for the Torah by the JEDP hypothesis. That is simply not the way ancient texts were written, ever, by anybody! On the contrary, Old Egyptian texts have been found (e.g. the biography of Sinuhe, originally from around 1920 BCE), faithfully copied, but with some terms and names updated, centuries later (e.g. using "yam" in a 13th century BC manuscript of Sinuhe instead of the original "nwy" from earlier manuscripts of the 18th centure BC) (Kitchen, K.A., 2003, On the reliability of the Old Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, p.372). This would at least imply that a similar meta-textual history for the Torah is more likely than the imagined origin with its total lack of any external evidence as postulated by the Documentary Hypothesis. In conclusion, taking into account the evidence presented here, it seems to me much more reasonable to conclude that Moses originally wrote the Torah, while the text we have today includes some modernisations that were added during the centuries of transmission. While we did consider the opinions and analysis of different scholars, let me reiterate that the only real solid evidence for the hypothesis that Moses did not write the Torah, remains the biblical text itself. And when looking at the Biblical text, I don't think that a convincing case has been made for that hypothesis at all.

On p. 376 the Thesis claims that David did not write the Psalms attributed to him for a number of reasons. Since he doesn't give specific examples, it is difficult to answer this charge. Just a number of observations:

I will grant that if all the Davidic Psalms were the product of later hands, the conclusion of the thesis on pp. 376-377 seems justified. However, too little evidence is given to conclude as the thesis do that "Yahweh-as-depicted in the Davidic Psalms did not really, in the past, act in relation to the historical David as the texts claim. Therefore, whatever Yahweh or God might exist, the character Yahweh-as-depicted in the same texts is a literary construct and a character of fiction. In short, he does not exist.

Next, the case of the prophets are examined. Once again, the thesis itself provide little evidence for the claim that "In most cases only a small part of the books can be reasonably associated with the prophet once believed to have written the lot", except for a reference to a book by Blenkinsopp. I have to repeat myself again and reiterate that the only possible evidence for such a claim is still the text itself, unless some new manuscripts could be found to give it credence. Having read through the 12 minor prophets recently, I find little evidence for the kind of claims made. Instead, I have seen certain patterns repeatedly in these books (especially those with a pre-exilic setting): 1. Denouncement of the sin of the people - a description of the current situation from God's eyes. 2. Call to repentance. 3. Warning of coming judgement if they don't repent, 4. but mercy if they will repent. 5. Conclusion: Promise of the future restoration of His people because He remains faithful to His covenant (even if they did not). Obviously, there will be a change in the words and "feeling" of the text as it changes from one element to the other and each prophet also has his own unique elements, but this basic pattern simply jumped out at us as we read through the Twelve. This pattern would suggest the unity of the books, rather than having the hypothesized multiple sources. So imagine my surprise to see Micah broken into similar little pieces as is done by the Documentary Hypothesis to the Torah! Does this really constitute evidence of anything? The same methodology can be applied to any piece of modern literature, even those we know to be written by a single author, and similar results can be achieved. See for example Brower, James K. The Hebrew Origins of Superman. (Biblical Archaeology Review, May/Jun 1979, 23-26). Since no reasons are given for the specific scheme presented, I really don't know if it is worthwhile to try and refute the proposed divisions of Micah. Yes, it might consist of prophesies probably made by the prophet at different times throughout his career, but why would prophesies from other sources be added and ascribed to this same prophet when it could just as well be put in its own book (compare, for example, the later short prophecy of Nahum)?? This kind of "analysis" sees the whole message of Judgement and Restoration as evidence for different writers simply because the subject matter differs: "The same prophet could not possibly have warned of judgement and spoken of future restoration! It must have been somebody else that added the later bits that promise restoration." And if there are warnings of judgement after this, "it must have been another person who added that bit"! But there is no evidence for this whole proposal. Compare the pattern of blessings and curses (and restoration) already found as early as Deuteronomy.

More-over, if we go to the surrounding ANE nations, where prophecy of some kind was widely known, it is apparent that these prophesies were normally written down as soon as possible after being spoken by the "prophet" (cf. Mari - Kitchen, K.A., 2003, On the reliability of the Old Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, p.389-393). This was the normal procedure; the process hypothesised for the biblical prophets was simply unknown. Why would Israel be any different in this respect from all surrounding nations? A single piece of evidence for this process would do a lot to give it some semblance of being convincing. What it does instead, is to show that this method of source-critical analysis has so little rigour that it can be applied to any piece of literature you wish and still give a "result" that can seem convincing.

The same pattern is seen in Isaiah and the same interpretation is given by liberal scholars: it must have been different authors. In Isaiah there is the additional problem of prophesies mentioning Cyrus by name, making it impossible to accept by those who already believe that neither God nor true prophecy exist. However, a number of Persian leaders from before the exile with the same name is now known from archaeological sources. (Kitchen, K.A., 2003, On the reliability of the Old Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, p.380). Interestingly, the great Isaiah manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls has a dividing blank space at the end of chapter 33 (not end of 39 as the source-critics would have it!). From that it can be seen again that Isaiah shows typical ANE (and Hebrew) parallelism: 

			Isaiah format

Is. 1 - 33 (Uzziah - Ahaz)						Is. 34 - 66 (Hezekiah)
						1:1 Title
A. 1 - 5	Judgement & Restoration				A. 34 - 35 	Desolation & Restoration
B. 6 - 8	Biographical/Historical 			B. 36 - 39 	Historical/Biographical
			& Prophesies
C. 9 - 12	Words of blessing & Judgement			C. 40 - 45 	Words of blessing & Judgement
D. 13 - 23	On foreign nations (+Jerusalem)			D. 46 - 48 	On foreign nations (+Babylon)
E. 24 - 27	Destruction, restoration, 			E. 49 - 55 	Restoration, destruction,
		deliverance							deliverance
F. 28 - 31	Social & ethical justice			F. 56 - 59	Social & ethical justice
G. 32 - 33	Restoration of the nation			G. 60 - 66	Restoration of the nation

See W.H. Brownlee, The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible (1964, New York: OUP, pp.247-253) As far as the promises of the future return and repair of Israel in the second half of the book is concerned, the same kind of promises is also found in Jeremiah and Ezekiel which are actually dated, unlike the second half of Isaiah. But even if the second half of the book of Isaiah was not written by Isaiah, it doesn't concern the reality of the God who spoke the prophecies, since the name of the prophet does not occur once in this part of the book, unlike the first part.

The claims made about the book of Daniel on pages 377-378 of the thesis is too vague to respond to here. This will be addressed in the next chapter. But once again, I would agree with the conclusion that if the prophets are fictitious characters, then so is the God who supposedly inspired them to speak. But I don't think there is any evidence for the claim that the prophetic scriptures were not written by the writers who name themselves in the beginning of each prophetic book. On the other hand, when looking at the the archaeological evidence on ANE views of prophecy, it would rather seem much more likely that the prophecies were written down as soon as possible after they had been spoken. In some cases even written down before they were read publicly (cf. Jer. 29:1, 30:1, 36:2). Anybody could be a prophet, and thus there is no reason for (or evidence of) "pious fraud". There is simply no reason why any "word of YAHWEH" should be written under the name of anybody else. And to the extend that the Spirit of the LORD inspired them, we can still speak of the Bible as "the Word of God", a term that is used in Scripture itself (e.g. Ps. 119).

The problem of the Old Testament texts itself

What is problematic regarding any appeal to the autographs or “final form” of Old Testament texts is that, technically, neither of these things actually exist. (Thesis p.381) The short answer to this is that of course it exists: go to any Synagogue and you will find their hand-written Torah scroll. This is the final form of the Old Testament texts. I guess this answer might not satisfy Dr. Gericke... he would probably want to know which synagogue? The problem is really that there might be some differences between the scrolls found in the different synagogues. (Most actually does not have the whole Old Testament because of the high costs of the hand-written scrolls). There might even be a scribal error in any specific scroll in spite of all the care taken to avoid it. And this still doesn't tell us how close the specific scroll is to the original autographs. This is basically the "problem of the Old Testament texts itself". My first reaction was to ask the question: does it really matter? Is there any difference between Yahweh as depicted in the text, in His character and in His relationship to us or His expectations from us? Does it change anything of what He did, who He is or what He is saying to us in His Word? In other words: is there any significant difference? On the other hand, here we have finally an argument that seems to stand on some solid evidence. I find it significant that not one example of the "thousands of differences" are actually shown in the thesis (in most modern translations some of the more significant textual variants are indicated; however, - except to the "King James only" faction - it has very little significance).

Om pp.381-383 of the thesis a list is given of the findings of textual criticism that supposedly undermine the value of the Old Testament as God's revelation.

Then on p.384 of the thesis the conclusion is drawn: If the text is not fixed, then neither can the characterisation of Yahweh-as-depicted therein be fixed. However, this conclusion doesn't necessarily follow. How will changes in spelling or updates of grammar or newer synonyms for archaic words have any influence on the characterisation of "Yahweh-as-depicted" in the text? It is rather the kind of textual variants that could potentially make this difference, but no specific example is given in the thesis that would demonstrate this kind of textual variant that might change the character of YHWH as revealed in the text.

One aspect of the text that the thesis didn't really touch on, but which are also of significance is the transmission from the original autographs until the earliest manuscripts. The reason why this question is ignored, is probably because Dr. Gericke doesn't believe that there were any original autographs. However, I believe it is important to also see that period of transmission against its background in the Ancient Near East (ANE) in order to make the case that the text of the Old Testament is trustworthy. In this regard W.F. Albright already mentioned in 1957 : "A principle which must never be lost sight of in dealing with documents of the ancient Near East is that instead of leaving obvious archaisms in spelling and grammar as later became the fashion in Greece and Rome, the scribes generally revised ancient literary and other documents periodically. This practice was followed with particular regularity by cuneiform scribes." (From the Stone Age to Christianity, 2nd ed. Baltimore, John Hopkins Press, p. 79) (See also Kitchen, K.A., 2003, On the reliability of the Old Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, p.372 for some ANE examples). In short, we will expect a certain type of updating during this period (until the text became statically fixed after the destruction of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem) which will not change the meaning of the text, but might still cause some textual variation. These kind of insignificant changes have no influence on the status of the Bible as the Word of God or on its reliability.

The problem of the "origin" of YAHWEH and Yahwism

This argument consists of 4 separate, but connected arguments as summarized on p.353 of the thesis:
1. The (supposed) origin of Yahweh (i.e. "what" was Yahweh?);
2. The (supposed) origin of Yahwism per se (i.e. where, how, why and when did the belief in the god Yahweh first develop?);
3. The (supposed) origin of Yahwism in Israel (i.e. where, how, why and when did the people of Israel first came to believe in Yahweh?);
4. The (supposed) origin of YHWH (i.e. what was the original meaning of the tetragrammaton?).

On pp.355 - 356 of the thesis, after a whole list of alternative "origins for Yahweh" Dr. Gericke says: "According to those who hold these theories, some of which admittedly seem rather far-fetched, Yahweh was not always considered to be humanoid type of sky god and uncaused first cause that later Judaeo-Christian traditions claimed had always the case. To be sure, for all we know, maybe initially at least, the deity Yahweh was conceived of as something far less "user-friendly" than most modern biblical theists would like to believe." On this statement, just 2 remarks: 1. The term "humanoid type of sky god" is not how I (and most Judaeo-Christian traditions I know) think of God/YHWH. To me "humanoid" implies a bi-pedal material being of flesh and blood. This is manifestly not how traditional Jews or Christians think about God. 2. For most of these far-fetched "origins" of Yahweh to be even considered, the Old Testament text (which gives a totally different account) must first be assumed unreliable. As has been shown already, this assumption is all but proven. Of course, the idea that YHVH might have revealed Himself in Scripture also has to be discounted. Scripture itself assumes from the very first verse that He existed before creation and brought into being everything that exists (Gen.1:1).

Next the development of the worship of YHWH is considered. After again mentioning a whole range of theories or speculations on how people/Israel first started to worship YHWH the following statement is made on p.357: "Whatever one choose to make of such theories and no matter how far-fetched or preposterous some may prima facie appear to be, most imply that the god Yahweh used to be divinity worshipped (maybe under another name) by pagan peoples before he was adopted and adapted by the Hebrew people." Quite frankly, I don't see the problem with this statement or its implication for the reality of God's existence. That people would worship Him under different names before He revealed Himself more fully is totally consistent with the biblical narrative and in my opinion counts as a point in favour of His reality rather than against it. That pagans worshipped other "gods" in addition to Him can be expected from the biblical account of the human condition (cf. Gen.6:5 - "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.") In most pagan pantheons the idea of an original creator God persisted even if He was subsequently subverted by lesser "gods" that became the more important objects of worship in pagan religion. The development of saint veneration and Mariolatry in the Roman Catholic Church (which I believe is idolatry according to the Bible) doesn't cause me to reject the reality of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, Son of God and Lord of lords or to doubt His existence. Once again, according to the Bible He was known (possibly by the Name YHWH - Gen.4:26) since the time of Adam.

The origin of the tetragrammaton ("YHWH") is next considered and various other languages mentioned as possible sources for the Name. Whatever other origins the use of this Name may have had prior to Moses, the Bible does make it clear that He has not revealed Himself by that Name before. The Name YHWH itself would seem to imply Somebody that can not be described simplistically, but could mean either "He is" or "He cause to be" ... the Name YHWH itself appears to capture some of the mystery of the Person revealed through it.

The problem of the development in religious believe and no (single) 'Old Testament view' of God

On pp.384-389 of the thesis the issue of development in religious believe is discussed. Now for the sake of using an "angel's argument" (vs the devil's advocate), let us assume for the moment that God actually exists. Would we expect anything else rather than development of religious believe if He revealed Himself? The very fact that revelation is needed if we are to know God implies that there also needs to be a process. If YHWH is God and the Bible's description of the human heart is true, is there any other possible way for Him to reveal Himself? I submit that if we wanted a neatly-packaged, well-behaved god, dogmatically well-defined and explained, it might indeed be possible to have a once-off, complete and single revelation explaining everything he is and what he expects of us right from the start. But if anything, such a "god" would not be real or even worthy of the Name "God" and definitely could not be the author of the majestic and complex creation we see around us.

On p.385 the thesis says: "As noted earlier, in the Old Testament one encounters the god Yahweh who at one time believes that there are other gods and on another occasion denies the reality of these entities. One finds the belief in creation by theomachy and creation without theomachy. There is the belief that children will be punished for the sins of their forefathers and the belief that such a morality is abhorrent. According to certain texts there is life after death in relation to Yahweh whilst other texts denies that the dead and Yahweh have anything in common. Some passages suggest that Yahweh is only the god of Israel whilst others are more universal in outlook. There are texts implying that Yahweh cannot be seen, that he knows the future, that he does not cause evil. Then there are those texts implying that all the aforementioned beliefs are wrong. One could go on forever in this fashion showing the contradictions in what the Old Testament supposedly says on just about any topic (cf. Montague.1976:02)"

This issue is addressed more fully in Chapter 8. But let us just consider the claims made here. The first one stating that Yahweh believes there are other gods and at other times denies their reality, commits the logical fallacy of equivocation. That "gods" exists as objects of worship by people is true, but it is not true that they are really equal to "God" as the term is used of YHWH Himself.

For the claim that creation by theomachy is found in the bible, I could find no evidence (and I had to look up the term :-) ). Although creation by theomachy was a common believe in the ANE religions, I could not find any evidence of it in the Bible. The following terms could possibly be connected to such an idea:
Leviathan: Ps. 74:14 ("You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters ("taninim") on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.") , 104:26 ("There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it."), Is.27:1 ("In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent ("nachash"), Leviathan the twisting serpent ("nachash"), and he will slay the dragon ("tanin") that is in the sea.") ;
Serpent: Job 26:13 ("By his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he shattered Rahab. By his wind (=Spirit) the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent ("nachash").") , Is.51:9 ("Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, that pierced the dragon ("tanin")? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?"), Jer.46:22? ("She makes a sound like a serpent ("nachash") gliding away; for her enemies march in force and come against her with axes like those who fell trees."), Amos 9:3 ("If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent ("nachash"), and it shall bite them.");
Dragon: Jes.14:29 ("Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent's ("nachash") root will come forth an adder ("tzef'a"), and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent ("seraf")."), Eseg.29:3 ("speak, and say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon ("tanim") that lies in the midst of his streams, that says, ‘My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.’"), 32:2 ("Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: You consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon ("tanim") in the seas; you burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet, and foul their rivers."). If you actually read the verses, in not one of these are creation mentioned in connection to the destruction of the "Leviathan/Serpent/Dragon". All of these are found in poetic passages and speak of Yahweh's triumph over Egypt when He split the sea during the Exodus, or speak of future judgement, or simply speak of ordinary large sea creatures (e.g. Ps.104). It should also be noted that "nachash" (serpent) is the same word that is used for the serpent who deceived man into sin (i.e. the devil according to Rev.12).

"There is the belief that children will be punished for the sins of their forefathers and the belief that such a morality is abhorrent." Once again, no specific examples are given, so I'll just make a few comments. The Torah specifically states that children are not to be punished for the sins of their fathers, or fathers for the sins of their children. I have not found anywhere that it says children will be punished for their forefathers' sins. In the 10 commandments it is said that the sins of the fathers will be "visited" on their children (up to 4 generations), but this does not simply mean that the children will be punished (even if they are innocent). There is rather the idea of them being specifically examined for these same sins. A dictionary definition of the word PaKaD (translated as "visit"):

In the (few) cases where children were punished with the parents in the bible, it was because they had participated with their parent(s) in the sin (or at least approved of it).

"According to certain texts there is life after death in relation to Yahweh whilst other texts denies that the dead and Yahweh have anything in common." Once again, it is difficult to comment on a vague statement like this without some examples. Throughout the bible, death is the punishment for sin; the result of the first man's sin and that of everybody since. In this sense Yahweh cannot relate to death, since He cannot relate to sin. On the other hand, there is the promise of future redemption, from one of the oldest books (Job, according to many scholars) to the post-exilic prophets. I think that different terms or meanings of the same word, might also play a role.

That Yahweh is both the God of Israel and of all of creation (the whole universe), does not seem to me contradictory at all.

"There are texts implying that Yahweh cannot be seen, that he knows the future, that he does not cause evil. Then there are those texts implying that all the aforementioned beliefs are wrong." The texts actually say that no man may see Yahweh's (full) glory and live, not that He cannot be seen at all. If He fills the heavens and the earth (Jer.23:24), any visible manifestation of His presence must in a sense be "less" than His glory. The Old Testament text simply reflects this. "He" appears occasionally, but still "He" cannot be seen. This is in a certain sense also an example of equivocation. I know of just one text that might imply that He does not know the future and that is when the Bible says that it never even occurred to Him that the Israelites might burn their own children to "other gods". In the context of showing the sinfulness of Israel, this is more of a rhetorical device than being literal. Evil (ra') is another of those word with more than one meaning. Unpleasant things from a human perspective might be termed "bad", but morally wrong actions are also "bad". These two meanings are not the same, even though the same word is used. YHWH is the Author of the first kind of "bad", just as He is of good things, but He is never the direct cause of moral evil.

The idea of "development" or increasing revelation is therefore not strange and does not imply contradiction as Dr. Gericke appears to think. It is the hidden assumption by many "liberal" scholars that later writers were somehow ignorant of what was written earlier, that leads to the accusation of contradictions. Instead if the (perfectly logical) assumption is made that they were aware of what has been revealed before, it follows much more naturally that their own writings were seen as either complimentary to what was written before, or as confirming and reminding the people of it or as refining and explaining it in more detail or as applying it in new circumstances. However, this development was not seen as people simply getting new ideas about God, but rather as being the result of Him revealing more of Himself.

On p.388 of the thesis: "If these scholars were a little more consistent and objective, they would not speak of the Old Testament’s view of “God”. Instead, they would aim to be more precise by assuming that all the Old Testament provides us with is a people’s views of its own god called “Yahweh”. Like the Greek, Canaanite and other religious texts, the Old Testament discourse is concerned with a specific deity. " - The big difference though, is that the God of the Old Testament (YHWH) claims to be the eternal God and Creator of everything. This is different from any of the other "gods" who never made this claim and to the extend that these gods would share the attributes of the God of Israel, to that extend could they be considered the same. A better example would be the equivalence that were found between the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter. Even though they had different names, they were essentially the same "god". There doesn't exist any such equivalent for Yahweh which leads us to the conclusion that if He is truly the living God, the other "gods" are not, since they don't share the same attributes. This part of the thesis ends with the conclusion: "If Yahweh-as-depicted is not real then the god Yahweh does not exist – not even as “God”." And with this I agree. However, my claim is rather that Yahweh-as-depicted is God (=El/Elohim in Hebrew).

The problem of too-recent origins

The problem is basically stated in the first two paragraphs of the section on p.260 of the thesis:
"

According to Sagan (1996:11), the earth is about four and a half billion years old. The universe itself may be no younger than seventeen billion years. Moreover, if historians of primitive religion are to be believed, the worship of deities can be dated back tens of thousands of years BC (cf. Harwood 1992:01).

Then, of course, there is Yahwism. According to the Old Testament’s chronology of world history, the universe was created circa 4000 BC or roughly six thousand years ago. Taking a cue from Genesis, one might say that the worship of Yahweh began with Adam and Eve (i.e. circa 4000 BC). Then there is the text in Genesis 4:26 which seems to suggest that humans began to “call on the name of Yahweh” during the time when Adam’s son Seth begat Enosh. Since Genesis 5:3-6 informs us that Adam was 130 when Seth was born and that Seth was 105 when Enosh was born, it follows that the origin of a formalised cult of Yahweh had its beginnings at around 3765 BC.

"

As far as general chronology is concerned there are a number of questions that needs to be cleared up first. If the "Big Bang" is accepted as the most likely scenario leading to the current visible universe, the logical conclusion is that the earth is part of an expanding universe (this is currently the most likely hypothesis and also the one probably accepted by Sagan). In that case, given the high speeds of this event and the Laws of relativity, the question needs to be asked: four and a half billion years using which reference point? Exactly the same question can be asked concerning Genesis 1. Most Young Earth Creationists will argue that the frame of reference for Gen.1 is the earth, but with little reason, especially as it is written from the perspective of God ("Elohim") rather than from a human perspective. Moreover, there are some indications that Gen.1 is written in semi-poetic form which would make it rather meaningless to treat its time-frames as prosaic facts. It is well-known from other ANE texts that the genealogies regularly had gaps, sometimes huge. Therefore it is quite a jump to use Gen. 5 to pin-point the origin of a "formalised cult of Yahweh". In addition, there is very little even in the text itself (see also earlier in this chapter) to indicate any "formalised cult".

Next, the actual identity of Yahweh is again questioned: "Of course, once again, things turn out to be even more complicated. For when one reads through the stories of the Patriarchs, one will observe that, despite the references to a deity worshipped under the name Yahweh, it would appear that there are many other designations for him that seem to complicate matters considerably. " Why this would complicate matters is not really obvious. But the next paragraph finds the possible identification of Yahweh with El (head of the Canaanite pantheon) problematic. This issue will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5. Here it should be mentioned again that the word "El", the name of the "high god" of Canaan, is also simply the Hebrew word for "God". That Yahweh is so designated has little relevance to the question of His reality. That many people acknowledged the existence of a (most) high God, should be considered as a point in favour of His actual existence rather than against it. Most lies contain an element of truth. Just as the Roman Catholic reverence of Mary has little to do with reality of the historical Jesus of Nazareth as depicted in the New Testament, the addition of other "gods" in the pantheon of Canaan has little to do with the reality of the true God.

That the patriarchs would worship Him differently before the Torah was given to Moses than how He was worshipped after the covenant of Sinai can only be expected. However, the law given to Moses does not contradict the earlier revelation given to the patriarchs, but rather expands it. For example, some things that were permissible earlier, are no longer allowed because of the danger of idolatry. The Mosaic covenant was made with a whole people, rather than the covenant made with the individual patriarchs. We do not find that things that were forbidden to the patriarchs were now allowed. Nothing of the previous revelations were taken away, but more were added. This is a classical example of progressive revelation.

Jos.24:2 explicitly refers to Terah, the father of Abraham (and Nahor) as serving other gods. That his great-granddaughters, having grown up in Haran, would still have teraphim is therefore not strange at all (although later Jacob/Israel had them get rid of these as well). For Abraham to start serving the Most High God was a change from the custom of his ancestors. So how does this imply that the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) served any other gods?

It was already pointed out above that Ex.6:3 made no claim about Yahweh being worshipped, but simply that He had not revealed Himself by that Name before. The name of Jochebed is therefore irrelevant.

On pp.362-363 of the thesis a number of "scientific" dates are given (without any indication of where the dates come from or how accurate they are). Assuming that the dates are correct, it would still appear that the earliest archaeological evidence of religious activity (the Neanderthals) could easily be compatible with the biblical account of the 3rd generation from the first humans already praying to Yahweh. There is little indication of polytheism at this early stage, at least. " Yahweh stands unmasked as a human creation who has no idea of history before the second millennium BC. He is blissfully unaware of just how late an arrival his alleged revelations actually are." (p.363 of the thesis) This is simply wrong. There is little historical evidence from before the second millennium BC and therefore little to compare the Bible with. The little we do have (mostly from the Sumerians) tend to agree with the bible rather than contradict it. (Klein, Jacob. “The Birth of Kingship.” Archaeology Odyssey, Jan/Feb 2001, 16-25. http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSAO&Volume=4&Issue=1&ArticleID=9 (accessed 1/4/2012)) The patriarchal narratives also show a greater correspondence with the Bronze Age rather than the Iron Age as claimed in the thesis. E.g. it would appear that the ages of the pre-flood kings in the (Bronze Age) Sumerian king lists corresponds to the ages in the pre-flood genealogies, but using a base 60 numerical system instead of the base 10 system of the Hebrews (See John Walton, The Antediluvian Section of the Sumerian King List and Genesis 5, The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 207-208) Not only that, but the bible is actually fairly clear in identifying Nimrod, a non-semite (son of Cush) from the land of Shinar (Sumeria) as the first empire builder after the flood. This agrees with the known history of Sumer as the first "empire". But the main problem with the statement about Yahweh "who has no idea of history before the second millennium BC" is that silence is assumed to be ignorance. I have written very little on ecology or computer science so far in this "anti-thesis". It would be wrong to conclude from this that I am ignorant on ecology or computers.

Overall, the "problem of too-recent origins" is really a non-issue. That God revealed Himself before the covenants with the patriarchs is matter-of-factly assumed by the Biblical narrative (E.g. Enoch and Noah). That the universal "El"/"Elohim" is the same God as the personal "Yahweh" who revealed Himself to Moses is also assumed. That all of earlier history is not recorded is irrelevant to the reality or not of the revelation by Yahweh. These issues will be considered in more detail in Chapters 3 and 4 on the history and cosmology of the Bible.

The problem of too-local origins

The problem of repressed anti-realism

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