this still is something i would classify as a curse, though. but it's irrelevant to my argument, which was that the outcomes (however you phrase it) are related to sexuality.
> Woman always had childbirth, and human childbirth would always be painful. Gn. 3.16 mentions only an "increase" in pain,
i don't think that necessarily gets the right sense of the verse. he's saying he will make great (הַרְבָּה) her pain, and describes ways he will do that. i don't think that implies she would have children before. i don't even think הַרְבָּה necessarily implies an increase in an existing status, at least that's not what the word seems to imply to me. it just implies something becoming great.
and functionally, the story seems to be an etiology. this is the first place childbirth is mentioned in the account, after the etiology of marriage. it makes sense for this to reflect the origin of childbirth.
> There is no notion she now had different knowledge or used that knowledge to gain a [son]. All she says is, "With the Lord I have brought forth a man." YHWH was recognized as responsible for granting her offspring.
i think the parity between this passage and the previous chapter where she steals knowledge from yahweh is pretty obvious, personally. "knowledge" is involved in making the son, and yahweh is credited somehow. she took "knowledge" from yahweh. and, as above, childbirth is linked in the punishments she given.
> Another strong disagreement here. I take Genesis 1-2 along the lines of Dr. John Walton: an account of God ordering the cosmos to function in a certain way (as His temple). It is not about material manufacture or an allegory.
gen 1 and gen 2-4 are distinct sources, though. i certainly agree that gen 1 (1:1-2:3) is neither allegory nor about material manufacture, but ordering. but gen 2 (2:4b-4:26) is a distinct narrative, which does bear many hallmarks of allegorical storytelling. this is, of course, completely backwards from the standard apologetic.
> > "The Jerusalem Temple was always unique." based on what?
> The role that the Temple played in the covenant, and how it was distinguished from neighboring temples. Neighboring temples were graced by idols; Solomon's was idol-free.
but that is precisely the point being debated here. you can't just beg the question and assert this conclusion as the premise supporting it. the things i pointed to above indicate the probable presence of asherah and nechushtan within the temple until hezekiah, though i admit that kings isn't all that specific about where they were removed from.
> YHWH didn't dwell in the Temple, or even in the Ark of the Covenant, but instead dwelt among His people.
why build him a seat on top of the ark?
> Even Jerusalem, through the ages, occupied a very different place in Israelite mentality than Shechem, Bethel, or Dan. Once those cities were destroyed, so was the temple mentality that accompanied them. But Jerusalem, even after its destruction, occupied a central place in Israelite theology—as did the Temple.
this seems to be a confluence of several factors, notably the concentration of judean political power in jerusalem, the campaigns by hezekiah and josiah eliminating other places of worship, and the assyrian invasion that destroyed basically everything but jerusalem. after it becomes the center of worship in the iron age, it's unsurprising that it retains this status and increases in importance in later periods.
> The Torah itself had no role apart from the Temple.
our oldest manuscripts of the torah all come from places other than jerusalem.
> All we have to go by is the "theological historiography" of the OT. There YHWH is clearly portrayed as an actual actor in this historical story. There YHWH abides no competitors and grants no equals.
that's not true, though; we have iron age archaeology, and other inscriptions and texts form the period. for instance, the mesha stele credits the defeat of judah and israel and their god yahweh to the god of moab, chemosh (2 kings 3). should we treat chemosh as an actual actor in the story too?
> While at times some people associated Him with Asherah, and obviously the cult of Asherah was widespread throughout Israel, the prophets are firm that this is apostasy and YHWH does not approve.
the problem is that you're saying one party was right. that their beliefs were correct, and true. we can't really say that historically. we can say who won battles and such. we can say which beliefs persisted, and what people believed at various times, and how it changed. but we can't just discard all this evidence of other belief because someone later came along and said it was wrong.
> > the text also depicts yahweh sanctioning the construction of nechushtan, and keruvim
> Yes, for their particular and immediate purposes, but not for what the people eventually did with them (some kind of worship).
how does the original purpose substantively differ from worship? academically, we look at this kind of thing as a cultic object -- a thing that was involved in religious ritual. it's no different from any other cultic object, really.
> The Numbers 21 reference to the serpent has no allusion to the heathen practice of snakes having healing properties. And though serpents were worshipped, there is no command to worship in Num. 21.
the serpent literally heals people, though? and we have no evidence that serpents were worshiped -- again, we have objects with a ritual association. they are cultic objects.
> I'm not aware of ANY text even seemingly commanding a sacrfice to Azazel. He appears in Lev. 16, where both goats are sacrificed, one as a burnt offering and one as a scapegoat.
"scapegoat" = azazel, as "az" means goat, and "azel" means "go away". the passage in hebrew reads:
וְנָתַן אַהֲרֹן עַל-שְׁנֵי הַשְּׂעִירִם, גֹּרָלוֹת-- גּוֹרָל אֶחָד לַיהוָה, וְגוֹרָל אֶחָד לַעֲזָאזֵל
and he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for the Lord and the other marked for Azazel.
you can see that "yahweh" and "azazel" are given in parallel here, which identifies them as having similar roles.
> The scapegoat is not sacrificed to Azazel, but instead is released to Azazel—the wilderness, thought to be the abode of demons (A Hellenistic thought but not an ancient Hebrew one).
it is not clear who or what azazel is meant to be, other than he is in the wilderness, and the sacrifice to him is paralleled with a sacrifice to yahweh. azazel takes on demonic connotations later, of course.
> But this still tells us nothing. Possibly the tradition was solidified because it was truly Mosaic. Who's to know? My only point is that the authorship and dating of Deuteronomy is too tentative for you to make the arguments you are making and draw the conclusions you are drawing.
i think it is less tentative than you arguing. certainly identifying the author as jeremiah is, but identifying him as anyone other than moses isn't, really. as i mentioned above, the tradition cannot be terribly accurate, as the narrative gets the entire geopolitical context wrong.
> Again, this is unproved. I think there is strong evidence supporting the historical context of the exodus,
there is not. there are some hints of egyptian contexts -- like a higher degree of egyptian etymologies for levitical names -- but many of those are also quite easily explained by the overwhelming evidence that all of canaan's city states were egyptian vassal states until about 1100 BCE. this causes some pretty big problems for the exodus narrative.
> I believe there are several justifiable reasons why we find no evidence of the wandering Israelites, why Israelites are not mentioned by name in Egyptian records, and why no large exodus appears in artifacts.
israelites are mentioned in egyptian records -- they're listed among the conquered people of canaan in 1208 BCE by mernepteh, ramesses ii's son. again, this isn't a problem of a lack of evidence; it's a problem with the evidence we do have not fitting.
> Part of this, of course, is the fun of interaction and debate.
sure; for the record i think the exodus is probably a distortion of several historical events, notable the egyptian withdrawal from canaan and the chaos of the bronze age collapse, but also potential a kernel of truth, in something like a gradual migration of asiatic populations back to canaan following the hyksos expulsion ~1480 BCE.