ONCE AGAIN! Facts in the Bible is supported by archaeology.

[joelr]

See, I am arguing two different things with two different people.
1 - Hard science tells you to say "We have no evidence for Moses, make of that what you will."
2- And soft-headed skeptics will say, "Scientists have shown there's no Moses."
3 - Thoughtful people will say, "There has to be some truth to the claims as the Bronze Age
cultural accounts correlate roughly with modern archeology. And the Hebrews DID burst
onto Canaan in the 12th Century BC... from somewhere."

Which of the three statement do you think is the stupid one?

You're also totally ignoring #4 which is huge.
After the Persians enter Judea only then do we see certain things in the OT, which were originally Persian Zoroastrianism ideas.

good vs evil - god vs satan
burn in hell
world destroyed by river of fire
new and better world created
all good people live in the new world


6:16

then the Greeks conquer Judea, the Romans, and we get the savior cults
The Jewish element was blood sacrifice, Issiac, Passover, Yom Kippur, yearly sin cleansing blood sacrifice of lambs then a one-time savior sacrifice.

 

[joelr]

Okay, so Pontius Pilate existed...........

Was Pontius Pilate’s Ring Discovered at Herodium? - Biblical Archaeology Society

Not likely his ring.
I think there is some evidence that there really was a Pontius Pilate governor in Rome.
When you craft a myth meant to be a real event writers would place the mythical characters in a realistic setting.

Joe Smith adds historical details to his supernatural adventures in Mormon town.

 

[PruePhillip]

You're also totally ignoring #4 which is huge.
After the Persians enter Judea only then do we see certain things in the OT, which were originally Persian Zoroastrianism ideas.

good vs evil - god vs satan
burn in hell
world destroyed by river of fire
new and better world created
all good people live in the new world


6:16

then the Greeks conquer Judea, the Romans, and we get the savior cults
The Jewish element was blood sacrifice, Issiac, Passover, Yom Kippur, yearly sin cleansing blood sacrifice of lambs then a one-time savior sacrifice.

Oh, so what you are saying is that the whole bible is FAKE.
At which point all bets are off. All truth is relative and good luck with that and
just read my tag line underneath.
Or is it?

The New Testament was sealed in the 1st Century. Okay? Nothing to be added or
deleted. It became THE CANNON.
At the time of Daniel, ie Babylon, the Old Testament was also sealed. It became
the OT CANNON. That why you don't read later works about the Greeks and
Romans, ie Maccabees is in the apocrypha, separate to the bible.
What some "scholars" employ to EXPLAIN AWAY the bible is the argument that
ALL our OT was written in Babylon to Greek times.
They can't accommodate the cannon bit, so they ignore it.
And things don't add up. The scholars (read scribes) explain away Daniel, for
instance, by saying he wasn't in Babylon but in Grecian times. That's how he
"predicts" the Greeks. All neat and tidy, huh? But Daniel speaks of the Romans,
the Christ and the fall of the temple. So when was Daniel really written then?
Let's not go there, say the scribes.
You see this cropping up all over the place in the Old Testament. Secularism
explains away as much as it can, and simply ignores the rest.
I am not convinced. You are. I am not.

 

[PruePhillip]

ps I can say when the Old and New Testament were crafted. In 1967 the Jews
took control of Jerusalem for the first time since Jesus. And Jesus, plus Isaiah,
Ezekiel and others said the Jews would come back to Israel in the latter days
and take back their country. Someone, claiming to be "Jesus" said Jerusalem
shall be trampled of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. So the
New Testament was written after 1967, about the time when the rot set in with
the ""Christian" West.

 

[PruePhillip]

Was Pontius Pilate’s Ring Discovered at Herodium? - Biblical Archaeology Society

Not likely his ring.
I think there is some evidence that there really was a Pontius Pilate governor in Rome.
When you craft a myth meant to be a real event writers would place the mythical characters in a realistic setting.

Joe Smith adds historical details to his supernatural adventures in Mormon town.

Could have been his ring. It was designed for Imperial seals, wasn't it?
This is how the argument goes
1 - There's no evidence for King David
2 - therefor there was no King David

but later, the House of David turns up.
3 - gets ignored "for further study"
4 - new statement, The fact there was a King David doesn't mean the bible is correct.

How many logical fallacies and acts of intellectual dishonesty did I cover here?

 

[joelr]

Oh, so what you are saying is that the whole bible is FAKE.
At which point all bets are off. All truth is relative and good luck with that and
just read my tag line underneath.
Or is it?

Not the whole bible, the supernatural stories are fake. It's the same with Odin, the truth may be relative but none of us are going to take his scripture literal.
But wait, the bible is historical...nope, we have covered this.
So there is nothing there to believe except nice parables.

All this stuff about relative truth and so on seems like a smoke screen. We have excellent evidence Jesus is a pagan copy. We know the gospels all copy Mark and use high level mythic literary structure.
Later Acts is all a forgery and Revelations is one big Zoroastrian rip-off.
Sermon on the Mount is a Greek creation and it's chiasmic structure is literary devices at their finest.

There are Greek mistakes in Mark that end up in all other gospels. Among many other clues. This is one way to tell they are copying Mark.

Much of the history (besides the gospels), no basically ALL of any history was destroyed by the church - Rome and later the RCC.
So we have no historical information about people who were trying to explain it was all a Jewish myth.

But some of the lost gospels does have talk of sects who had different beliefs, Jesus as a man and many others.

The New Testament was sealed in the 1st Century. Okay? Nothing to be added or
deleted. It became THE CANNON.

No the current bible was put together at the Nicean council in 313 by Constantine.
It's clear by reading the Gnostic gospels that in the 1st century there were disputes about which interpretation to use.
At any rate, the Greek writers had already had plenty of time to craft a savior god narrative following the Moses and Elija story, borrowing some Jewish angelology about gods favorite firstborn angel named Jesus and predictions of a coming messiah.

The 3 other gospels are demonstrated to have been re-writes of Mark, each adding more outlandish tales

Where do you get this SEALED in the 1st century?

At the time of Daniel, ie Babylon, the Old Testament was also sealed. It became
the OT CANNON. That why you don't read later works about the Greeks and

You see this cropping up all over the place in the Old Testament. Secularism
explains away as much as it can, and simply ignores the rest.
I am not convinced. You are. I am not.

Yeah but you think that the large number of resurrected savior gods is somehow "infantile".

Daniel:


It is generally accepted that Daniel originated as a collection of Aramaic court tales later expanded by the Hebrew revelations.[31] The court tales may have originally circulated independently, but the edited collection was probably composed in the third or early second century BC.[32] Chapter 1 was composed (in Aramaic) at this time as a brief introduction of to provide historical context, introduce the characters of the tales, and explain how Daniel and his friends came to Babylon.[33] The visions of chapters 7–12 were added and chapter 1 translated into Hebrew at the third stage when the final book was being drawn together.[33]

Authorship
Daniel is one of a large number of Jewish apocalypses, all of them pseudonymous.[34] The stories of the first half are considered legendary in origin, and the visions of the second the product of anonymous authors in the Maccabean period (2nd century BC).[5]

Although the entire book is traditionally ascribed to Daniel the seer, chapters 1–6 are in the voice of an anonymous narrator, except for chapter 4 which is in the form of a letter from king Nebuchadnezzar; only the second half (chapters 7–12) is presented by Daniel himself, introduced by the anonymous narrator in chapters 7 and 10.[35] The real author/editor of Daniel was probably an educated Jew, knowledgeable in Greek learning, and of high standing in his own community. The book is a product of "Wisdom" circles, but the type of wisdom is mantic (the discovery of heavenly secrets from earthly signs) rather than the wisdom of learning—the main source of wisdom in Daniel is God's revelation.[36][37]



Again, no mention that the Jewish theology is just a big borrow from Persian influence?
We know that the Persian concepts appeared in the OT only after Persia invaded Judea.

 

[PruePhillip]

Quote - It is generally accepted .... later expanded... may have originally...probably composed ...chapters 7–12 were added ... considered legendary... product of anonymous authors in the Maccabean period (2nd century BC).[5]

Note the language:
Maccabean authors gave us the suffering Messiah, cut off by the Romans
and while the temple still stands.
1 - Only, a few Romans, who hated the Greeks, weren't a problem
2- and the Jewish Messiah doesn't suffer, he causes His enemies to suffer
3 - and how can He be be cut off?
4 - and the Lord's Temple will stand always.
etc..

Maybe we should posit a later date again for Daniel, ie 2nd Century AD.

 

[PruePhillip]

No the current bible was put together at the Nicean council in 313 by Constantine.

Where do you get this SEALED in the 1st century?

What was considered to be authentic Gospels was fairly well established by the
Foundation Church in the 1se Century. Quite some time before we see the Roman
Catholic Church breaking away, or other variants.
People instinctively knew what was fraudulent long before there were any RCC Fathers.
ie Gospel of Thomas. The later "Fathers" (apostate from the Christian doctrine delivered
from the first church) did not directly chose what books were to form the NT - they were
authenticating what was generally agreed.
The OT was sealed with the return from Babylon, and the NT was sealed at the end of the
1st Century with the book of Revelations.

 

[joelr]

Could have been his ring. It was designed for Imperial seals, wasn't it?
This is how the argument goes
1 - There's no evidence for King David
2 - therefor there was no King David

If you read the article you will see why the biblical society believes it was possibly the ring of one of his subordinates, like an administrator.

Why do you insist on going over and over issues already dealt with.
Will the outcome be different the 15th time?

"The stories of Solomon are larger than life. According to the stories, Solomon imported 100,000 workers from what is now Lebanon. Well, the whole population of Israel probably wasn't 100,000 in the 10th century. Everything Solomon touched turned to gold. In the minds of the biblical writers, of course, David and Solomon are ideal kings chosen by Yahweh. So they glorify them.

Now, archeology can't either prove or disprove the stories. But I think most archeologists today would argue that the United Monarchy was not much more than a kind of hill-country chiefdom. It was very small-scale."

You're going in circles. Nowhere. There are always some historical figures in all mythology. In Hinduism Krishna consorts with an actual Prince. Same thing, this is how religions were made up.
Egyptain gods consorted with known pharaohs of the time.
Should we now mummify our dead?

but later, the House of David turns up.
3 - gets ignored "for further study"
4 - new statement, The fact there was a King David doesn't mean the bible is correct.
How many logical fallacies and acts of intellectual dishonesty did I cover here?

Well you pointed out one you keep trying to make. That a historical King was placed in stories of mythical god-communications and that means that all the supernatural stories are real. Without proof. And the most important character Moses is clearly not supported?

But a historical King means Abrahams "revelations" about a new god, something a bit improved from the tired old solar deities, is total real??

Even if Moses wasn't already ruled out, we could never get to the mythical stories as being real?
There are so many archeological aspects of the OT that have turned up vastly different than what the OT says, we know it can't be true.

William Dever: From the beginnings of what we call biblical archeology, perhaps 150 years ago, scholars, mostly western scholars, have attempted to use archeological data to prove the Bible. And for a long time it was thought to work. [William Foxwell] Albright, the great father of our discipline, often spoke of the "archeological revolution." Well, the revolution has come but not in the way that Albright thought. The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people.


The fact is that archeology can never prove any of the theological suppositions of the Bible. Archeologists can often tell you what happened and when and where and how and even why. No archeologists can tell anyone what it means, and most of us don't try.

We have no direct archeological evidence. "Moses" is an Egyptian name. Some of the other names in the narratives are Egyptian, and there are genuine Egyptian elements. But no one has found a text or an artifact in Egypt itself or even in the Sinai that has any direct connection. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. But I think it does mean what happened was rather more modest. And the biblical writers have enlarged the story.

No Egyptian text mentions the Israelites except the famous inscription of Merneptah dated to about 1206 B.C.E. But those Israelites were in Canaan; they are not in Egypt, and nothing is said about them escaping from Egypt.

The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others.

So gradually the old conquest model [based on the accounts of Joshua's conquests in the Bible] began to lose favor amongst scholars. Many scholars now think that most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites, displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically.

Does archeology in Jerusalem itself reveal anything about the Kingdom of David and Solomon?
We haven't had much of an opportunity to excavate in Jerusalem. It's a living city, not an archeological site. But we have a growing collection of evidence—monumental buildings that most of us would date to the 10th century, including the new so-called Palace of David. Having seen it with the excavator, it is certainly monumental. Whether it's a palace or an administrative center or a combination of both or a kind of citadel remains to be seen.

 

[PruePhillip]

So we have no historical information about people who were trying to explain it was all a Jewish myth.

This is funny.

 

[joelr]

Could have been his ring. It was designed for Imperial seals, wasn't it?
This is how the argument goes
1 - There's no evidence for King David
2 - therefor there was no King David

but later, the House of David turns up.
3 - gets ignored "for further study"
4 - new statement, The fact there was a King David doesn't mean the bible is correct.

How many logical fallacies and acts of intellectual dishonesty did I cover here?

We also know that they commonly worshipped a Goddess along with Yahweh.
So along with Kind David we have polytheism.

The portrait of Israelite religion in the Hebrew Bible is the ideal, the ideal in the minds of those few who wrote the Bible—the elites, the Yahwists, the monotheists. But it's not the ideal for most people. And archeology deals with the ordinary, forgotten folk of ancient Israel who have no voice in the Bible. There is a wonderful phrase in Daniel Chapter 12: "For all those who sleep in the dust." Archeology brings them to light and allows them to speak. And most of them were not orthodox believers.

However, we should have guessed already that polytheism was the norm and not monotheism from the biblical denunciations of it. It was real and a threat as far as those who wrote the Bible were concerned. And today archeology has illuminated what we could call "folk religion" in an astonishing manner.

In 1968, I discovered an inscription in a cemetery west of Hebron, in the hill country, at the site of Khirbet el-Qôm, a Hebrew inscription of the 8th century B.C.E. It gives the name of the deceased, and it says "blessed may he be by Yahweh"—that's good biblical Hebrew—but it says "by Yahweh and his Asherah."

Asherah is the name of the old Canaanite Mother Goddess, the consort of El, the principal deity of the Canaanite pantheon. So why is a Hebrew inscription mentioning Yahweh in connection with the Canaanite Mother Goddess? Well, in popular religion they were a pair.

The Israelite prophets and reformers denounce the Mother Goddess and all the other gods and goddesses of Canaan. But I think Asherah was widely venerated in ancient Israel. If you look at Second Kings 23, which describes the reforms of King Josiah in the late 7th century, he talks about purging the Temple of all the cult paraphernalia of Asherah. So the so-called folk religion even penetrated the Temple in Jerusalem.

Is there other evidence linking Asherah to Yahweh?
In the 1970s, Israeli archeologists digging in Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai found a little desert fort of the same period, and lo and behold, we have "Yahweh and Asherah" all over the place in the Hebrew inscriptions.

Are there any images of Asherah?
For a hundred years now we have known of little terracotta female figurines. They show a nude female; the sexual organs are not represented but the breasts are. They are found in tombs, they are found in households, they are found everywhere. There are thousands of them. They date all the way from the 10th century to the early 6th century.

They have long been connected with one goddess or another, but many scholars are still hesitant to come to a conclusion. I think they are representations of Asherah, so I call them Asherah figurines.

 

[joelr]

What was considered to be authentic Gospels was fairly well established by the
Foundation Church in the 1se Century. Quite some time before we see the Roman
Catholic Church breaking away, or other variants.
People instinctively knew what was fraudulent long before there were any RCC Fathers.
ie Gospel of Thomas. The later "Fathers" (apostate from the Christian doctrine delivered
from the first church) did not directly chose what books were to form the NT - they were
authenticating what was generally agreed.
The OT was sealed with the return from Babylon, and the NT was sealed at the end of the
1st Century with the book of Revelations.

Yes and the Gnostics were calling Bishop Ireneaus heretics in the first century. Many groups were saying the resurrection story was a metaphor.

The bishop clearly wanted power because he wanted only the bloodline to be able to teach and read the gospels.

Elaine Pagels - The Gnostic Gospels.

All this is largely irrevelant? We know the sources of the Jesus mythology. So who wanted what scripture, who cares?

 

[joelr]

This is funny.

There is a vaccum of information. There are always naysayers, in this case the church destroyed all counter facts.
The lost gospels were numerous, why do you think we even found one small copy?? Because they were hidden in a pot in a cave. But now we know early Christianity was nothing like what the church today teaches it was.
It's a shocking read.
There were competing gospels and all sorts of non-supernatural ideas about Jesus.
Missing. In other words destroyed.
Except for Jewish writings, which there are many, that Jesus is a false prophet.

 

[PruePhillip]

Yes and the Gnostics were calling Bishop Ireneaus heretics in the first century. Many groups were saying the resurrection story was a metaphor.

The bishop clearly wanted power because he wanted only the bloodline to be able to teach and read the gospels.

Elaine Pagels - The Gnostic Gospels.

All this is largely irrevelant? We know the sources of the Jesus mythology. So who wanted what scripture, who cares?

It doesn't really matter what any church group thought. These groups generally were breakaways
from the foundation church and held all sorts of ideas that were condemned by the Apostles.
It's best to read the Epistles, Acts and Gospels rather than read second hand religious tracts.
This early church was no accident, it wasn't going to be stopped by Rome. Jacob ca 2000 BC
spoke of all the Gentile world obeying the Messiah. That's marvelous, no?

 

[joelr]

It doesn't really matter what any church group thought. These groups generally were breakaways
from the foundation church and held all sorts of ideas that were condemned by the Apostles.
It's best to read the Epistles, Acts and Gospels rather than read second hand religious tracts.
This early church was no accident, it wasn't going to be stopped by Rome. Jacob ca 2000 BC
spoke of all the Gentile world obeying the Messiah. That's marvelous, no?

Not true.
The growth rate of Christianity was similar to that of Mormonism.

Constantine united Rome in a civil war but needed something to continue to unify Rome.
He considered Mithriasim because the Roman army were Mithras worshippers but Constantines mentor was Christian. Christian churches were already set up and making money so he went with that.

Then made it law. Had he chosen Mithras you'd be here preaching about the savior messiah Mithras after some Greek writers gave him the proper mythological writings and made it family-friendly.

Church leaders had to make stories up about why Jesus was so much like all the other savior deities but of course - the devil did it!
Worked for them.
Today Christians just pretend like Jesus isn't pagan.
They ignore scholarship or call it infantile.

Whatever works for you.

 

[joelr]

It doesn't really matter what any church group thought. These groups generally were breakaways
from the foundation church and held all sorts of ideas that were condemned by the Apostles.

Condemned in your gospels. There were about 40 different gospels.

 

[joelr]

. Jacob ca 2000 BC
spoke of all the Gentile world obeying the Messiah. That's marvelous, no?

When you cherry pick myths, sure it's fun for everyone.


God promises to bring Jacob safely back from Egypt, but Jacob dies in Egypt.

God promises Abram and his descendants all of the land of Canaan. But both history and the bible show that God's promise to Abram was not fulfilled.

God promises to make Isaac's descendents as numerous as "the stars of heaven", which, of course, never happened. The Jews have always been, and will always be, a small minority.


God promises to give Joshua all of the land that his "foot shall tread upon." He says that none of the people he encounters will be able to resist him. But later we find that God didn't keep his promise, and that many tribes withstood Joshua's attempt to steal their land.

"Thy kingdom shall be established for ever."
God says that Davids's kingdom will last forever. It didn't of course. It was entirely destroyed about 400 years after Solomon's death, never to be rebuilt.

This verse prophesies that Damascus will be completely destroyed and no longer be inhabited. Yet Damascus has never been completely destroyed and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities. 17:1


"The land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt." Judah never invaded Egypt and was never a military threat to Egypt. [URL='https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/is/19.html#17']19:17[/URL]
[URL='https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/is/19.html#17'][/URL]
[URL='https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/is/19.html#17']

1. This verse predicts that there shall be five cities in Egypt that speak the Canaanite language. But that language was never spoken in Egypt, and it is extinct now. [URL='https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/is/19.html#18']19:18

1. These verses predict that the Egyptians will worship the Lord (Yahweh) with sacrifices and offerings. But Judaism has never been an important religion in Egypt. 19:18-21
2. These verses predict that there will be an alliance between Egypt, Israel, and Assyria. But there has never been any such alliance, and it's unlikely that it ever will since Assyria no longer exists. 19:23-24

[/URL][/URL]

 

[joelr]

It doesn't really matter what any church group thought. These groups generally were breakaways
from the foundation church and held all sorts of ideas that were condemned by the Apostles.
It's best to read the Epistles, Acts and Gospels rather than read second hand religious tracts.
This early church was no accident, it wasn't going to be stopped by Rome. Jacob ca 2000 BC
spoke of all the Gentile world obeying the Messiah. That's marvelous, no?

Scholarship shows many Pauline epistles to be forgery. Authentic letters only know of a resurrected Jesus from scripture or revelation.

Acts is considered a forgery.
See Acts as Historical Fiction by Richard Purvoe for starters

Mark is written by a unnamed (Kata Markion) "as told to me by" high level Greek myth writer who understood mythical construct, Markan sandwiches, Ring structure, and many other devices only used in myth (never in history). About a Jewish version of the savior deity myth based on OT passages, Moses, Elija, Jewish Angelology and the other 3 are copies with added supernatural stories.

 

[PruePhillip]

When you cherry pick myths, sure it's fun for everyone...

Jacob speaking to Judah, ca 2000 BC


Gen 49:10
"The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler's staff from between
his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

The scepter - a monarchy, meaning a kingdom, meaning a nation
shall not depart from Judah - a line of kings from Judah
Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet - the law, protected by monarchy
Until - meaning an end, an end of nation, monarchy and law
Shiloh comes - the Messiah comes at the end of this nation
And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples - peoples, all peoples (Gentiles
obviously because the Jews have their nation taken from them.)

It's symbolic language. And Judah was the symbol of the brother who offered
himself for his brethren. A picture thus of the Christ.

 

[PruePhillip]

Scholarship shows many Pauline epistles to be forgery. Authentic letters only know of a resurrected Jesus from scripture or revelation.

Acts is considered a forgery.
See Acts as Historical Fiction by Richard Purvoe for starters

Mark is written by a unnamed (Kata Markion) "as told to me by" high level Greek myth writer who understood mythical construct, Markan sandwiches, Ring structure, and many other devices only used in myth (never in history). About a Jewish version of the savior deity myth based on OT passages, Moses, Elija, Jewish Angelology and the other 3 are copies with added supernatural stories.

Sigh. Is Caesar a forgery? Maybe he was just a Senator who had this myth
written around him? Maybe he existed but some Roman Shakeespear just
liked his gorgeous name!
Why can't you take things at face value? Please don't say it's about "facts"
because you're dealing in "selective facts."