I have just finished reading for the 2nd time "Who Wrote The Bible" by Friedman and American Professor but first published in London. He gives solid evidence that the Pentateuch was written by 4 writers who are called J, E, P and D --- and so on -- traditionally of course written by Moses. My question is 2-fold

1) Has anyone else read this book and/ or similar - and what did you think of it -- did it (or other) shake your faith - help make you agnostic?

2) What is your favored reading material of a religious/historical/philosophical nature now that you do not trust what the WTBTS publishes?

Earthling men.

Frannie B

Tanks I'll look it up.

II woulkd add Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls  by Norman Golb -- interesting but a much more academic and difficult read -- Who Wrote The Bible is a much easier "racier' read -- very compelling just like COC --- one of these days I will do a  post with my Top 20 reads but I am sure it has already been done

I'm currently reading Forgery in Christianity: A Documented Record of the Foundations of the Christian Religion by Joseph Wheless

Devon

Everybody and his brother.

ft

I read that book a long time ago.  I'm going to have to re-read it now.  I remember thinking it was a good book.  But I don't remember much else that was in it.

I'm also going to have to go to the library to check out some of those other titles that Gamaliel mentioned.  Thanks.

 

...by a phsyicist named Ark, whose wife channels "Cassiopaens" via the Ouija board. Ark's article (the beginnings of a book, as I recall) is quite interesting, but too alien to JW thinking for me to get very far with it - by which I mean that the only material to which I was exposed as a JW was either totally pro-Bible-as-God's-Word, or filtered by the WTS, which amounts to the same thing; any statements to the contrary being quoted basicaly in summary so that they could turn around and (try to) effectively rip it to shreds. So Ark's ideas and sources might as well have been from Sirua and Orion, and untranslated from the original lnguages as well. And I encountered this article after I had left the JWs, and had no strong vested interest in the Bible being what the JWs and other fundamentalistically-oriented Christian sects believe it to be.

Okay... here's the link: http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/biblewho1.htm Maybe I was wrong, and it was Laura the channeler who actually penned the article, rather than her husband. Someday when I have Internet access at home again, I will undertake to re-read this piece.

And thanks for the recommendation of Friedman's book. I'll see if the liebury [sic] here has it, altho Christians are notorious for stealing and destroying spiritual books that undermine their ideas or pull people in a different direction, as my friend who works in the liebury system will verify. Okay, no, they don't often catch Christians doing it red-handed, but who else do you think it would be causing the anti-Christian and non-Christian-favorable books to disappear?

Cruithne

Still,

That the Torah was a conglomeration of several schools of thought and eventually redacted has been a scholarly idea for several generations.  The J or Y source were those that used Yahweh or Jehovah (if you prefer) in their writing...The P source is said to have presented the Priestly writings, etc etc.

Isaiah was written by at least two different guys...one before and one after the exile..and so on.

Not earth shattering news unless you're one of those folks that though Moses really did record his own death.

Yerusalyim -- there are lots of things that troubled me -- Moses saying he was the meeket man on earth - -tha account of his own death -- the mix and match of verses -- but as aJW it was absolutely banged into my head that "where else is there for us to go " etc.. I found a way of ignoring these questions -- all I can say is -- I never will again until the day I die