Class Summary For 9/15/09

Sorry it took me a day to get these up!

• Sources of the Pentateuch (The Torah, the first 5 books)
• J - (Yahwist) - Storyteller
• Has a vivid, concrete style, anthropomorphic view of the deity. Wrote the story about Mt. Sinai.
• E - (Elohist) - "Elohim" for God.
• Located somewhere (in terms of writing style) between P and J. Uses Elohim (divine powers) for God. Begins with the story of Abraham.
  
• D - (Deuteronomist) - Wrote Deuteronomy. 
• Reflects the literary style and religious attitudes of Josiah's reform (621 BCE); insists that only one central sanctuary acceptable to Yahweh.
  
• P - (Priestly) - The statistics, rules, and ritual guy.
• R - (Redactor) - Came in and changed stuff.
  
• Once again, the documentary hypothesis rears its ugly head.
• Harold Bloom's points in the Book of J:
• Essientially a comic writer. (25)
• An "ironist" (disassembler). (25)
• King James version is "one of the handful of truly sublime styles in English".  (27)
• Her stories are not holy tales. (31)
• No heroes. Only heroines. (32)
• Talking animals, lustful Elohim, deceitful patriarchs, murder, drinking, etc. The stuff shrugged off by rabbis. (35)
• When script becomes scripture, reading is numbed by taboo and inhibition. (35)
• WTF? God's attempt to kill Moses in Exodus?
• J has no explaination.
• Etiology: Why things happen! The investigation of why things happen, from a mythological or religious standpoint.
• Mythos: "story", a net of experience.