Religion From An Evolutionary Perspective

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='MagiDragon' timestamp='1305903532' post='2243848']
It's not fair to continue to pretend that people were playing telephone. These people were making life altering decisions based on what people said and what they saw; they were risking their very lives and social status; do you really think they would do that for a non-credible situation like telephone? People haven't changed that much throughout the millennia; they would have needed to be convinced. You don't do that by having a guy come up and say "Jesus died and rose for you, you should become a Christian," and then move on. They would spend weeks discussing what Jesus' death and resurrection meant, how it happened, who was there, where it happened, and how this changes things for their life.

These were not linear conversations. Just as today you would ask for advice and do research to determine what college, profession, job, city, and benefits would be the best match for you, you would talk with all available resources before changing your way of life permanently. The early Christians would write letters and ask questions of more than just the person who they initially heard about Christianity. It's also worth noting that the early evangelists were sent out in groups of two. If one didn't know the answer, the other probably would.[/quote]

You're twisting this situation to mean that I'm implying that they were playing a game with no regards for consequences and gambling their lives and statuses. I meant no such thing. The telephone game is a description of what happens, and in this case, a telephone game separated by both space and time if based on the orally passing down of stories and memories.
If mistakes and distortions are made, then those mistakes are also passed on and more mistakes added or the message further distorted, which is basically what the telephone game shows. When things are written down, for instance, if there's a divergence the you can always go back to the original and check.

The telephone game is not about distortion occuring and not which parts are distorted. Since without eye-witness neutrally motivated originals we can't know what was changed, it could just be a collection of minor variations which have little influence on the whole and core beliefs but it can also mean that things that were not originally in the originals were added with each copy and translation which change the stories a bit.

Human perceptual and memory flaws are a very real thing, based on fact and [i]nobody[/i] is immune to them, not even the most intelligent among us. And the worst thing about this is that people aren't even aware that their perceptions are limited and that their memories are selective and filled in with false memories all the time. If we were aware of these, then they wouldn't happen as much...

Like I said, I see legitimate reasons to be skeptical because of what I know, and I know that people make mistakes whether they want to or not, so that's why I'm asking for evidence as close as the source as possible and possibly from atheist agnostic scholars who aren't looking to validate already held beliefs.

[quote]Well, there were three different Gospels that substantially match on most points, but with slight variation due to the point of view of the story teller. There doesn't seem to be much anything that substantially contradicts it except that it *seems* unbelievable.[/quote]

I'm looking into these in more detail.

[quote]You'd need to give me an example of a believable contradiction. Saying that Nazareth didn't exist is a pretty silly idea since people said that Jesus was a Nazarene. (And He wasn't born in Nazareth, but Bethlehem. He then moved to Egypt until the death of Herod, at which point He moved to Nazareth.) Indubitably, the people from the time of Jesus knew their local world better than we know a world that is separated by both time and distance from us. I see no point in exploring whether Nazareth existed or not; neither side could possibly come up with a logically convincing argument: From your perspective, if there was a lie being created, they would have made it credible; from ours, if it was not a town of the time, why did everyone of the time seem to think it was?[/quote]

Well this is based on the fact that people don't really know when the historical Jesus was born. Herod, it seems, died in the year 3 B.C.E, two years before what most people place as Jesus' birth year. But this is of minor importance.



[quote]You'd have to give an example of what you mean. [/quote]

I did a quick search on Josephus, and it seems that even biblical scholars don't use him as strong evidence because the Christus he referenced was not specifically that of Christianity. He also mentioned a few other messiahs that existed at the time. Also there are claims that the paragraph that apologists use was added by later Christian scribes. If Josephus was really writing about a hstorical Jesus and highlighting his divine properties, then why didn't he convert himself?
I'm going to have to do a more detailed search, the name escapes me.


[quote]Be careful claiming that atheists base things on fact; most people don't share your definition of atheist. Agnostics might be more objective, but the average atheist (I'm using the dictionary definition, not the HAF definition) feels a need to rebel, feels oppressed, or has an axe to grind; there can be no logical proof of the position that no god exists, thus atheists are decidedly not logical thinkers. Of course, agnostics are a completely different story.

Peace,
Joe
[/quote]

Outspoken atheists, you mean. As it goes if most feel the need to let others know that they're atheists it's to protest against something. The real average atheist is one that you wouldn't even know as an atheist.

I use the definition of atheist and agnostic based on their root words and not what their common usage has become (definitely an act of rebellion ). One can be an agnostic atheist just as one can be a an agnostic theist. Agnosticism (gnosis is Greek for 'knowledge') is about what a person knows whereas atheism is about beliefs. I'm agnostic towards the existence of pink unicorns but I don't believe in them.

Most atheists consider themselves to be also agnostic as to the existence of many versions of gods so far put forward.

As someone who is a complete layperson in this subject, I prefer agnostic atheist scholars to theistic ones because I know that the odds of them being biased towards Christianity are much less and so are more objective when analysing historical evidence. You have to remember that a lot of historical evidence is also down to interpretation and educated inferences and not cold hard facts, especially where ancient history is concerned, where, like as in the bible, the originals have been lost and what we have are copies of copies and translations of translations.

Edited May 20, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[xSilverPhinx]

Just to add to the last paragraph about being non biased: if you were to research an account on one of Julius Caesar's victories for example, you would want to know if it was written by a Roman spin-doctor, would you?

[xSilverPhinx]

Just to edit this paragraph (the 'edit' option could be avaliable for more time ) :

[u]The telephone game is not about which parts are distorted but to highlight the fact that distortion occurs. [/u]Since without eye-witness neutrally motivated originals we can't know what was changed, it could just be a collection of minor variations which have little influence on the whole and core beliefs but it can also mean that things that were not originally in the originals were added with each copy and translation which change the stories a bit.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305934896' post='2244001']
Just to edit this paragraph (the 'edit' option could be avaliable for more time ) :

[u]The telephone game is not about which parts are distorted but to highlight the fact that distortion occurs. [/u]Since without eye-witness neutrally motivated originals we can't know what was changed, it could just be a collection of minor variations which have little influence on the whole and core beliefs but it can also mean that things that were not originally in the originals were added with each copy and translation which change the stories a bit.
[/quote]
If I am having a phone conversation, I can paraphrase a conversation I had with someone else. When I am dealing with something that affects my mortal soul, I get the details exactly right. You also seem to forget that in a time without widespread literacy, people memorized whole books of scriptures to pass them on. I can't even remember a phone munber.
And kindly don't forget that unlike telephone game, there were many people as witnesses who could act as factcheckers in they event of an error. We are not dealing with the butterfly effect here

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305926457' post='2243958']
As someone who is a complete layperson in this subject, I prefer agnostic atheist scholars to theistic ones because I know that the odds of them being biased towards Christianity are much less and so are more objective when analysing historical evidence. You have to remember that a lot of historical evidence is also down to interpretation and educated inferences and not cold hard facts, especially where ancient history is concerned, where, like as in the bible, the originals have been lost and what we have are copies of copies and translations of translations.
[/quote]

The concept of objectivity only applies to mathematics, not to history. What would you define as original? the scrolls written by Moses? We actually have more information on Scripture than we do for much accepted history.

[Don John of Austria]

Silverphinx...did you read the first century pagan references to christians.

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305756632' post='2243340']
Socrates, one thing you're doing repeatedly is equating what I'm saying with 'darwinistic materialism' when I've repeatably said that this topic has nothing to do with natural sciences and biological evolution. Another is that you keep bringing it to specifically religious beliefs, when this is about any idea belief in general, not limited to religions which cause people to do certain things that can in turn be beneficial for the group. I'm putting an emphasis on beliefs because this is a religious forum and I thought it would be interesting. This is a topic of non materialistic social science: cultural evolution. You said that you see social sciences as BS, and so we have nothing more to talk about there. I'm assuming you haven't even watched any of the videos or read the links I've posted for you to keep attacking a straw man position.

Once more, I'm going to try to clarify why you're confusing cultural evolution with people being more able to propagate their genes.
This is not about propagating genes or having a good life, but about keeping group (whatever group with an ideology or beliefs that influence behavior) alive in human culture. It's [i]analogous [/i]to darwinian biological evolution, but genes are not the topic being discussed here. Much less about individual people striving.

Where this topic gets especially nebulous IMO is in trying to determine which memes are 'in for the ride' as part of a structured ideology or belief system. There are some that seem to be pointless, just as we have genes that are part of the biological historical record of our species, inactivated but still there.[/quote]
It's nothing more than an analogy, which proves nothing about the origin or the rightness or wrongness of religious beliefs.

[quote]To use the example Sloan presented in the first video:

[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sTCM7sEz3Bw/SVnC8gCuoeI/AAAAAAAAAFk/uPceps7QzeA/S150/Holy+Man+at+Jain+Temple,+Kolkata.jpg[/img]

This man (vehicle of group memes) belongs to the religion of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism"]Jainism[/url] and the action he takes in wilfully almost starving himself to death is due to a belief (meme) linked to his religion (group). What he does is he only takes a small bit of food from Jainist houses where and only accepts it if he observes that all the rituals have been observed. If he comes to the conclusion that the house and the people who prepared and gave him food are 'pure' he eats a small bit. If not, then he doesn't.

Given that people have their personal reasons for holding some beliefs and that they don't want to help a man starve to death, they will adhere to the strict rituals so that he would accept their food. Add the belief that he is somehow sacred and that it's an blessing to have him accept food from their households and you have some strong memes which directly help keep the religious group of memes alive.

The function this starving man has as a vehicle part of a group[u] for the group[/u] (not for himself) is that he polices the group and helps keep it on track and not go astray into disintegration and possible subsequent extinction. At some point that belief and the practice it spawned [i]appeared[/i] and was [i]beneficial[/i] and so [i]selected for the religion[/i], even though not beneficial for this particular individual who is the vehicle.

To contrast it with a hypothetical simplistic counterpart, maybe a belief system similar to Jainism in every way except without this kind of individual would not have prospered since it lacked this self-check element in its system.


Notice that not once darwinism or genes came up here.[/quote]
I found the "explanation" of religious asceticism here very strained. (Obviously, I don't believe in Jainism, but found this attempt to "explain away" this practice in pseudo-darwinist terms rather weak.) Obviously, there are plenty of means of policing that don't involve willingly starving oneself to death. And this explanation simply does not work for Christian asceticism, which serves no such "policing" function. (Think the voluntary poverty, chastity and obedience practiced by cloistered monks or nuns, who do not even interact with the outside world, but spend their lives praying for the rest of us.) Their self-denial has no material benefits to either themselves or others from an atheistic standpoint. The benefits are purely spiritual.

To quote Saint Paul, if the Christian Faith is not true, "we are among men most to be pitied."




[quote]I don't think it's off topic at all. Things the bible says that were accepted in the past are not accepted today such as owning slaves, stoning people to death etc. Culture has evolved and in order for a religion to survive it has to evolve with it. [/quote]
I don't get the impression from your posts that you've actually even read the Bible (other than perhaps out-of-context snippets on atheist websites).
After all, it was Christ Himself who said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." The reasons for this are theological, rather than social, and involve Christ's redemptive mission - replacing the Old Law of absolute justice with the New Law of forgiveness and mercy. (Only by Christ's redemptive sacrifice can sins be forgiven.)

The slavery found in the Bible was a form of indentured servitude, rather than chattel slavery, and was a universal practice in the ancient world. For a nomadic desert tribe such as the ancient Hebrews, slavery was the only means of subduing enemies conquered in warfare. What the Bible introduced was admonitions to treat slaves kindly and with respect, rather than like animals. ([url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9907fea2.asp"]Here's a good article on the Church and slavery[/url].)

[quote]I doubt that the Christians of 1500 years ago or even 1000 years ago would recognise you as Christians and the other way round.[/quote]
If so, only because of my own laxity in following the Christian Faith. You're statement may indeed be true of many protestants and liberal "Catholics," but my beliefs as an orthodox Catholic Christian regarding doctrines of Faith and morals are exactly the same as the Church taught 1000, 1500, or 2000 years ago when Christ founded His Church.


[quote]Well the parasitical idea of religious evolution is just one in the debate, and not one that I strongly subscribe to because parasites by definition cause harm. It it doesn't cause harm in some way, then it isn't a parasite.

I think that the multi-level selection theory is a better explanation. [/quote]
Whatever that means.


[quote]I use the word 'persecution' sparingly, even in regards to atheists and other minority groups, since I don't consider being offended as persecuted. Christianity can't [i]really[/i] persecute anymore because we live in secular societies. They're not allowed to.

The main difference between Christianity (western world) and Islam is that the cultures the two are embedded in are very different. Islam is in what looks like a modern medieval dark ages. When compared to the western world the middle east is very disynchronistic and their sharia law looks a lot like some parts of the old testament.

The Jews don't still stone people to death...Christians in Africa still do. [/quote]
And atheists in North Korea still put dissenters in gulags. Your point being?
I'm really not aware of the stonings in Africa, but I seriously doubt it was a practice introduced by Christianity. There's a lot of savage pagan practices continuing in much of Africa, which long pre-existed the preaching of the Faith there, and many local practices (such as the persistence of witchcraft) are in conflict with Christian orthodoxy. But that's another discussion. It seems you're just grasping at any straws you can find to portray Christians as the "bad guys."


[quote]I apologise for the error. It seems things are not as bad as I initially thought...good thing

I doubt you'd be able to see why atheists 'whine' without actually being in our position[/quote]I'm sure your pain and suffering is beyond my comprehension.




[quote]If you're talking about both Spanish and Italian inquisitions, in countries that were previously fragmented as in the case of Spain and still fragmented in the case of Italy?

Who was trying to save people, the high clergy? [/quote]
Not defending the Inquisitions, but the historical truth is that the vast majority of the people brought before the Inquisitions were cleared and allowed to go free. Having an actual trial was a step up at this time in history. Otherwise those accused could be easily put to death without a real trial at the hands of kings, nobles, and lynch mobs. Thus, accused persons preferred the Inquisition to secular courts.

[quote]Yes, the those dark ages, in which the church preserved knowledge not for knowledge's sake but to gain more power and validate their religious theology. The same churches that vehemently opposed and tried to combat the influx of new knowledge that opposed their worldview after the crusades (which planted the seeds for the renaissance) where the Arabs were already practicing science and over turning thinkers that the church couldn't let go of such as Aristotle. Those Dark Ages precisely.[/quote]
You know your anti-religious propaganda well, but your vitriolic statements betray a serious ignorance of real history. For your education and reading pleasure, I suggest: [url="http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason-Christianity-Freedom-Capitalism/dp/0812972333/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306261413&sr=1-3"][i]The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success[/i][/url], by Rodney Stark, as well as[url="http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Church-Built-Western-Civilization/dp/0895260387/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306261585&sr=1-1"][i] How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization[/i][/url], by Thomas Woods, Jr.

[quote]Stalin turned Communism into a personality cult of Stalin, nobody kills another person for atheism.[/quote]
It appears you don't know much about the history of Communism either. Atheism and antagonism towards religion was part-and-parcel of the dogma of Marxist-Leninist Communism, and countless Christian clergy and religious were imprisoned, tortured, and murdered by Communists simply on account of their religious position. This occurred not only in the USSR under Stalin, but in Maoist China, Vietnam, North Korea, and other countries. While the persecution was not always as blatant as in the times of WWII (the murderous persecution of all priests and religious by Communists in Poland and then-Czechoslovakia at that time was particularly brutal), religion has been (and remains) tightly suppressed and regulated by the state in all Communist countries.

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union"]Treatment of Christians in the Soviet Union[/url] [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_of_Christians_in_Communist_Bloc_countries"]Treatment of Christians in Communist Bloc countries[/url]

It's historical fact that atheistic Communist regimes have been responsible for more bloodshed and oppression than any other governments in human history, so don't even try to play that "horrible bloodthirsty Christians vs. nice peace-loving atheists" game. It's pure garbage.

[sixpence]

this looks like a fun, interesting topic... someday I will read it... at first glance it reminds of Daniel Quinn's books...

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305761917' post='2243362']
These things aren't always consciously selected as in some people gather and decide to create a religion (well, except in the case of Scientology, which is a good example to look at when taking into consideration why some people might find some things to be believable to the point of donating very large sums of money to sustain it.)

Circumstance and predicaments play a role, coupled with the human propensity to look for certain things based on psychology and biology and also the more coercive side such as forced conversions.

I don't know that much about the spread of early Islam but isn't it more accurate to say that once Islam started settling down, people were forced to accept Islamic rule but could practice their own religions?[/quote]
I guess if you mean by "settling down," once the Muslims had conquered the Christians by violent force. Christians and Jews were allowed to practice their religion, but could not evangelize others, and were basically forced to live in ghettos as kind of second-class citizens and pay a tributary jizya tax. How harshly they were treated varied by location. The penalty for a Muslim converting to Christianity was usually death.



[quote]You guys make a strong point of early Christians being persecuted, is it too much of a stretch to say that the fact that they were persecuted makes your beliefs stronger?[/quote]
Not too much of a stretch. The fact that so many of the early Christians (including leaders of the Church who knew Christ) were willing to give up their very life rather than renounce Christ speaks against the story of Christ being a fraud or mere fiction.
Maybe not proof in a strict scientific sense, but definitely powerful testimony, and something to consider.



[quote]Well the reason I asked is because I noticed that you're making it about truth versus false which is unproductive for this discussion because I already know that if you believe in Christianity and therefore see Islam as false. I redirected the question to Islam so that it would be easier to take a more neutral stance in order to more clearly understand the points I'm trying to make.[/quote]
As I said before, I don't think your hypothesis can fully account for Islam either. I believe Islam is a false religion, but I believe the human religious urge in general cannot be fully accounted for or explained away by evolutionary theory.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I wish I had time to read and participate in this thread. Looks interesting. Just wanted to say, Socrates, dude, I thought you were me for a second. Sweet avatar bro.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1306278149' post='2245510']
Just wanted to say, Socrates, dude, I thought you were me for a second. Sweet avatar bro.
[/quote]
Thanks, Don John, I'm flattered.

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305845445' post='2243690']
First off, I'm really wondering who you choose to call 'reputable historians' here, because a quick internet search can turn up a lot of theologians and biblical scholars (far from internet pop-atheists that lack any scholarly credibility) who say that either there was no historical Jesus or that he is part real and part myth. I myself can't discern between who are more credible with that much confidence...are you aware of any atheist biblical scholars that support the Jesus being one person hypothesis?[/quote]
People (including those with PhDs) write books claiming all sorts of crazy things, but there's certainly no credible case that I've seen for Jesus Christ being multiple persons, or for not having existed at all. Most scholars, atheist or otherwise, admit to the existence of a historical Jesus Christ, though obviously, atheists will dismiss all the miraculous aspects of His life, and those regarding His divinity as being myth. But this is due to an a priori philosophical bias against anything miraculous, or the existence of God, not from the historical record itself. (If you deny the possibility of God becoming man, or of miracles, then you will dismiss any testimony of such as a lie or myth, no matter how otherwise historically compelling the source may be.)

As for the "Jesus being one person hypothesis," that's about as silly as talking about the "George Washington being one person hypothesis," or the "Julius Caesar being one person hypothesis." All the early references speak of Jesus Christ as being one person, and take this fact for granted. I've seen no historically compelling case for Jesus being more than one person, and to my knowledge no one has even suggested such until 1900 or so years after His life on earth. That claim is just bizarre. What other persons exactly was Jesus?
If you're going to dismiss everything recorded about Jesus as false, and claim that He was in fact multiple persons, or never existed, the burden of proof is on you to prove that hypotheses.

Besides, there was a lot of hostility to Christianity in its early years. Surely, if the man Jesus Christ never actually lived in the first place, some of the new Faith's opponents would have brought that up at some point, yet we have no record of such an objection.

[quote]I ask for an atheist scholar because then I know that his motivations are clearly not faith based and more fact based.[/quote]
I don't share your starry-eyed naivete concerning atheists being unbiased and pure and "fact based" in their motivations.
Many atheists writing about the Christian Faith have a very active, and often quite visible, hatred and contempt for the Christian religion, and write with the motivation of tearing the Faith down, rather than with unbiased objectivity.
I think I can safely say that most of those denying the very existence of a historical Jesus would fall in that category.


[quote]What strong extra-biblical references are there? Using the bible to say that the bible is true without good external support isn't a strong argument. On Josephus, who most commonly brought up, it seems like he didn't reference the Jesus Christ of Christianity particularly. I never read any of his works so I may be wrong here, but there are plenty of biblical scholars who no longer use Josephus for their arguments. There are also claims that Josephus never referenced him at all.[/quote]
Of course, the best, most extensive records of Jesus we have are found in the Bible. The Bible was not written as a single book, but is a collection of books by different authors, including the four Gospel accounts by different authors of the life of Christ. And there's really no solid reason to believe that the passages referring to Him in Josephus are false.
The Gospel accounts are the earliest and most reliable accounts of Christ we have, and were likely written within living memory of the events recorded. Dismissing the accounts because they are biblical canon is a circular argument. Obviously, Jesus' followers would have the most interest in writing down accounts of His life.

[quote]I'm going to have to look up physical historical evidence such as acheological digs and escavations. This is going to take some time...



If they have faith, they might. Faith might not be based on real things. As for the underlined bit, do you have an extra biblical source for this?[/quote]
If the Gospels were lies, why would they bother recording so many objections to Christ's teachings? Not exactly the stuff of mythology.

I don't have the source with me, but I've read that there are Talmudic Jewish traditions of belittling Christ, claiming that He was not the son of God, but the bastard son of Roman soldier, etc. However, the Jews never denied the existence of Jesus as a real person.


[quote]I don't rule out any of it lightly in accepting that Jesus was [i]one [/i]historical figure, but I don't accept them so quickly either. These ponts are based largely on persuasive appeals.[/quote]
I guess I shouldn't accept so quickly that Napoleon Bonaparte was [i]one[/i] historical figure either.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1306175301' post='2244953']
Silverphinx...did you read the first century pagan references to christians.
[/quote]

Roman pagans?

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306355282' post='2245919']
Roman pagans?
[/quote]
yes Roman pagans.


What Romans don't get called pagans anymore?

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' timestamp='1306120014' post='2244709']
If I am having a phone conversation, I can paraphrase a conversation I had with someone else. When I am dealing with something that affects my mortal soul, I get the details exactly right. You also seem to forget that in a time without widespread literacy, people memorized whole books of scriptures to pass them on. I can't even remember a phone munber.
And kindly don't forget that unlike telephone game, there were many people as witnesses who could act as factcheckers in they event of an error. We are not dealing with the butterfly effect here

The concept of objectivity only applies to mathematics, not to history. What would you define as original? the scrolls written by Moses? We actually have more information on Scripture than we do for much accepted history.[/quote]

I don't doubt that we have more info on the scriptures than many other things, given that there's a world-wide religious phenomena surrounding it that uses it as a foundation, but those who study it know a few things that it seems the average believer doesn't: that is, it was put together by mankind during different periods in time to serve different political purposes, that who the authors were are unknown, and that the people who wrote the first copies gospels were not eye-witnesses, which means that there were already somewhere along the telephone line separated by space (they were written in Greek) and time (the earliest was placed at around 70 C.E.)

And that's why I'm bringing up the telephone game. Apparently the accounts have changed from Paul's letters to each gospel, following a succession of time. They differ slightly in their descriptions, including added supernaturality to Jesus with each one.

Which details do you mean?

By 'objective' I meant the least likely to look for things to validate their beliefs and least likely to adopt an apologetic view which can distort something to favour their beliefs. An agnostic (theistic or atheistic) stance can give you a clearer picture and ability to evaluate facts better. Most serious scholars do seem to have that stance.

Did Moses write the scrolls?