Textual additions:
Sayings like "Israel has not had such a great prophet [as Moses] down to this very day" and “there were Canaanites in the land then,”
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Deuteronomy 1:1 relates that God spoke to Moses on the “other side of the Jordan.” This implies that the writer wrote from the eastern side of the Jordan, but Moses never crossed the Jordan.
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Deuteronomy 3:11 states that the bed of Og, king of Bashan, was nine cubits long and four cubits wide. Since the bed was probably not discovered until the city of Rabbath, where it was located, was conquered by David, it could not have been written before the Davidic era.
--- Where does it say it was discovered?
Good reply. I think it's helpful to our discussion. I hope this reply is also.
So just to reiterate, the issue I was talking about was reading into the text. Reading over your previous posts, I am reminded that you don't read only the text, as you understand that to be the most honest form of interpreting scripture, and I'll touch on that later (I'll mark where*). But I would like to point out how a worldview has been inserted into the understanding of each text that was given.
1) - "Not Josiah specifically"?
Why not? Because it's not in the text. So any argument to that end is going to be outside of the Bible and will even have to ignore what the Bible says.
2) - "Deut 34:10 says: “And there arose not a prophet since in
Israel like unto Moses.” This verse speaks of Moses as in the distant past and the kingdom of Israel in the present, neither of which is consistent with authorship by Moses (or Joshua)."
It has to be read into the text that it's referring to the kingdom of Israel, as opposed to the tribe of Israel. This understanding is highly improbable because not only was Josiah of the kingdom of Judah (as you note in point 3 below), but after David Israel and Judah were often referred to as different kingdoms, so references to the kingdom of Israel would not be used to describe all of Israel as this passage after the North/South split.
3) - "A key prophecy of the Exile of Judah culminating in 586 BCE. The generation of Moses had no reason to anticipate an exile."
How do you know? The prophets would for 2 reasons, they had the Torah (hence why they were quoted), and because God spoke to them. As an illustration, Jeremiah begins during the time of Josiah and yet there are references to the destruction of Judah by the end of Chapter 4. Why? Because they were stiff-necked and rebellious and that was the basis for anticipating an exile.
So, to actually address your point, Deut 31:27-30 says
27 "For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you have been rebellious against the LORD while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die!
28 Assemble before me all the elders of your tribes and all your officials, so that I can speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to testify against them.
29 For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come, disaster will fall upon you because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD and provoke him to anger by what your hands have made."
30 And Moses recited the words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel:" (NIV)
4) This is not your 4th point, but I'll put it here.
- "Deuteronomy 27:1 reports that the Torah was written on stones and the rabbis explain that there were twelve stones. If Moses wrote all of the material that we consider the Torah today, it could not be placed on only twelve stones."
I looked up what you meant in my Jewish Study Bible and it referenced Joshua 4, and that's where the 12 stones came from. Again, this is not in the text but rather read into it as Joshua 4 doesn't say that they wrote on them, that they coated the stones in plaster, nor that this was done as a remembrance of God's laws but was for them to remember God parting the Jordan (Joshua 4:6-7). So Joshua 4 has nothing to do with Deut 27.
5) - "Sayings like "Israel has not had such a great prophet [as Moses] down
to this very day" and “there were Canaanites in the land
then,”"
- "The narration describes not only the death, burial and mourning of Moses, but also compares him to all the prophets who came after him; refers to places not by the names that they bore in Moses’s time but by names that they acquired only much later; and continues beyond the death of Moses."
- "Deuteronomy 3:11 states that the bed of Og, king of Bashan, was nine cubits long and four cubits wide. Since the bed was probably not discovered until the city of Rabbath, where it was located, was conquered by David, it could not have been written before the Davidic era."
- "The narration describes not only the death, burial and mourning of Moses, but also compares him to all the prophets who came after him; refers to places not by the names that they bore in Moses’s time but by names that they acquired only much later; and continues beyond the death of Moses."
I've put all these together because they're the same argument. So where's the reading into the text? All of these seem to suggest that Moses did not write them. For example, Moses writing posthumously about his death... probably wasn't written by him. So I'll agree that these were insertions into the text after the writer (Except for maybe Deut 3:11 but I'm not being picky here). So where's the reading into the text?
Implied in this is that since this one verse here and there was inserted into the text, that means all of it was inserted. However it is valid to say that a scribe inserted his comments into a text, rather than wrote an entire text, maybe even moreso when believes that the Torah was compiled by 4 authors. There is also evidence that what was written in Deuteronomy was from Moses. For example, Deut 31 was written in the first person, that should at least be strong evidence that he wrote it, especially when taking into account verse 22 "So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites."
The reason why I wanted to reply to all this was to argue interpretations, but to show how easy it is to read our own perspective into the text; and that reading into the text can change our understanding of the text away from what it actually is intending to say.
What is the cure? Encountering counter perspectives that cause study. I'm not sure whether you knew of everything I had already said, but in case you hadn't I wanted to provide a different interpretation. That tends to help me, and whichever interpretation made most sense of the text, that's the one I followed.
But which makes the most sense?
Implicit in my reply is the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, that The Bible is the highest infallible authority.
Some necessary consequences of this is that (1) Scripture has the last say on what actually is true and so Scripture interprets scripture, not culture. So I once heard an interpretation that the lost sheep has nothing to do with God searching for people, but rather the Pharisees looking for people. The author of this interpretation used on only Luke 15. It seemed convincing to me, until I read the parallel passage in Matthew 18:13-14:
13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.
14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
(2) *Another consequence is that there are other authorities out there (which is what I've had in the back of my mind as you have been responding) but they don't trump the teachings of the highest authority which is what Scripture teaches about itself. It's honest to get all the facts before making your judgment, but it's not honest to reinterpret someone based on what someone else said or events that are unconnected to that statement. I'm sure we could go back and forth on which is more honest in regards to the Bible, but the idea of Sola Scriptura is based on honesty also, and I would argue leads to a more consistent interpretation of the whole of Scripture.
The idea of Sola Scriptura, then, is against Rabbinic and Roman Catholic, man made, doctrines which are not only fallible but also tend to override Biblical teaching. I say this because what I'm saying to you now is how you can effectively debate a Protestant, but not so much a Roman Catholic or a Jew. For that I think the style you are currently using to debate is justifiable under their worldview.
I hope this reply has been helpful and worthy of reflection.
Blessings
