First, jmfcst, since you apparently think that my interpretation is a function of my lack of faith, here are commentaries on the first story in Gen 12 by Christian believers, both classical and modern, who do not regard Abraham's behavior as laudible at all in their interpretations on this story.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom01.xviii.i.html#xviii.i-p0.1
http://www.studylight.org/com/mhc-com/view.cgi?book=ge&chapter=012
http://www.studylight.org/com/acc/view.cgi?book=ge&chapter=012
http://www.biblestudytools.net/Commentaries/JamiesonFaussetBrown/jfb.cgi?book=ge&chapter=12
Or, how about Jewish interpretations of the story in Genesis 12?
http://urj.org/PrintItem/index.cfm?id=3125&type=Articles
One should look further into how the traditional Mishnah and Talmud
relate the significance of these stories. The book is after all in the
Hebrew Bible.
Secondly, I never said that scholars were always noble and disinterested readers. I said above that they do a lot of guesswork. I also said that the DH was not necessarily the right interpretation. The question was why some scholars favor multiple authorship hypotheses, and that's how this whole discussion arose.
Finally, if you want to find a hack and an ass, have a look in the nearest mirror, dude. I'm not the one bursting into adolescent temper tantrums and hurling insults at people or acting like he is the only authority on earth about Biblical literature. You represent yourself to me and all the readers in this forum as the grand authority on Christianity. But I don't think you are a Christian at heart at all, so I won't insult the many sincere Christians whom I respect by including you in their company. You are nothing but a rude, boorish punk who imagines that the Bible gives him the self-righteous privilege of condeming people who don't believe exactly as you do, and what's more, you take pride in all this, behavior that only proves how incredibly insecure you are in both your "faith" and your person. But these are your problems, not mine. These are the last words I am going to say to you; I have much better things to do with my time then talk with you. Go chase yourself.
Allow me to take this opportunity, as I have not yet done so, to welcome you to the forum, and to this board in particular.
I like what you wrote, and I agree with your points. Well reasoned. Well documented. Well argued.
I'll tell you this right now, though:
Whiel we all feel compelled to argue jmf, and his occasional ridiculousness, you shouldn't wrap yourself around a tree over him. The best approach for debating jmf is not to slug it out, but rather to drop in, make your point, demonstrate to others why he is wrong, and then make an exit, special forces style.
When I first starting debating jmf, I found him to be very knowledgeable, and a master arguer. With time, however, I soon realized that, while jmf has a ridiculous wealth of knowledge concerning direct reading of scripture, his knowledge is more savant-like than anything else. He is great at remembering it, and repeating it back, but the understanding is lacking. As my own knowledge of historical and literary context of scripture grew, I soon came to see his ability to remember every event recorded in the Bible as something that was less and less impressive.
If you try to debate him for too long, you will just become frustrated, because his standard debate tactic is simply to reject the premise of whatever you say, regardless of how well you argue, or how much information you have to back you up.
If you were to state that the sky is blue, jmf would not argue for a different color, and he would not argue scientific reasoning behind that...
rather would would reject the notion that there was a sky at all.
You have done well, but don;t expect to get anywhere.
