joelr
Well-Known Member
I just took it on face value, I didn't realize even that was silly apologetics based on wishful thinking?
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ONCE AGAIN! Facts in the Bible is supported by archaeology.
- Thread starter Kenny
- Start date
I just took it on face value, I didn't realize even that was silly apologetics based on wishful thinking?
joelr
Well-Known Member
But we can try to answer these questions. Hannibal and Troy are not being discussed. Nor worshiped right now as space-gods.
This writer poses some reality to the Moses myth:
“Moses himself has about as much historic reality as King Arthur,” British archaeologist Philip Davies famously concluded. A more moderate conclusion comes from the historian Tom Holland: “The likelihood that the biblical story records an actual event is fairly small.”
Cyprian Broodbank, the Disney professor of archaeology at Cambridge University, wrote in his recent history of the Mediterranean that the exodus was “at best a refracted folk memory of earlier expulsions of Levantine people” following the reconquest of the Nile delta by the Egyptian king Ahmose around 1530BC.
This date is about 900 years earlier than the period in which the Hebrew Bible is supposed to have been codified and written down, including its first five books that were supposedly written by Moses himself. There is no archaeological evidence for the biblical story, and certainly no extra-biblical evidence, in Egyptian inscriptions. Not even the Bible account claims that the Israelites were employed as slaves to build the pyramids as they are in Hollywood. They are simply slaves.
Yet there are tantalising glimpses in the story of something that may be more than mere folk tale. For a start there is the name “Moses” itself, which is undoubtedly Egyptian rather than Hebrew, suggesting the stories drew on memories of real interactions. There were times in the 16th and 17th centuries BC when tribal groups from the eastern Mediterranean were found in what is now northern Egypt. And the story of Moses has a strange echo in the life of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, the first monotheist known to history.
He reigned from 1352 to 1338BC, and proclaimed that there was only one true God, Aten, the sun disc. All others were false, their temples were closed, their images destroyed and their names erased. When Akhenaten died, the old religious system revived and then obliterated his memory and, had it not been for the chance discovery of his tomb in the 19th century, the experiment would have been forgotten. As the historian Jan Assmann puts it: “Moses is a figure of memory, not of history, whereas Akhenaten is a figure of history, but not of memory.”
common sense dictates that the Moses myth isn't just out of the blue but formed from older sources. This seems to give some actual names to that idea.
Personally I wish Roswell was true. I actually did look into it.
I am very disappointed to say it's 100% a myth.
I could have faith that it's true anyways and join all the Roswell people and try to get the government to show us the area 51 space craft. But I debunked it so I just can't get behind it anymore.
joelr
Well-Known Member
He did mention the angel as named Jesus.
That angel in Judaism was first born son of god, agent of creation and something. This is very likely a source for the NT stories. Or is Philo also another one of these prophets?
Oh - image of god also. He runs the "celestial temple" the heavenly version of the regular earth temple.
38:28
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gnostic
The Lost One
There is more to history than just writing some events.
Anyone can write anything he or she or they like, no matter how improbable or how impossible it is.
History is about finding any independent source that could verify about the who people are writing about or about the events that might have occurred to those people.
- These (independent) sources could be other “writings” or “inscriptions” found on the stelae, on the walls of palaces or more humble homes, or inside the tombs. Or it could be writings from different kingdoms, like royal annals or diplomatic letters between rulers. Hence written history are being verified, independently.
- Or the sources could be some objects or a very specific places, hence archaeology comes into play.
Ideally, you would have both independent written records and archaeological evidences that verify one’s historical writing, that can be compared against each other.
That’s how history is verified. That’s how modern historians and archaeologists verify the person was real, living person existed at that time, or that real events happened at that time.
The problems with Moses’ exodus and Joshua’s invasion of Canaan, are zero evidences that could have verified these stories.
For instance, in Exodus 1, it say that the Israelite slaves were forced to build two cities, Pithom and Rameses.
“Exodus 1:11” said:
According to 1 Kings 6:1, where in the 4th year of Solomon’s reign, he began building the temple, it say the Exodus out of Egypt (Exodus 12) occurred 480 years from Solomon’s time:
“1 Kings 6:1” said:
Based on the reigns of the kings of Judah, 1 & 2 Kings, and working backward from the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, I had calculated Solomon's reign to be 970-930 BCE.
And doing basic arithmetic with 967 BCE (Solomon's 4th year) and the 480 years, to get the date:
967 + 480 = 1447 BCE
And if the exodus occurred when Moses was 80, then the date of his birth would be 1527 BCE:
1447 + 80 = 1527 BCE
So the construction of Pithom and Rameses would have started around before 1527 BCE.
The PROBLEM here with this date of Moses' birth is that it would put the construction during the early 18 dynasty, which at that time was ruled by Ahmose I, the dynasty founder.
The Egyptian called the Biblical Rameses, Pi-Ramesses, which is translated as the "House of Ramesses".
Pi-Ramesses was constructed during Ramesses II's reign (1279 - 1213 BCE), from the 19th dynasty. The city was named after Ramesses II. There was one other Ramesses before the 2nd, but he was Ramesses II's grandfather, who ruled only for 2 years; too short to build anything.
Exodus 1 named one city that didn't exist at the time, if 1527 was time of Moses' birth. So the actual construction of the city (Pi-Ramesses) don't match with the OT claim (biblical Rameses).
As to Joshua's invasion of Canaan, after Moses' death, it would have occurred after 1407 BCE (1447 + 40 years wandering = 1407 BCE).
The problem with this date, the book of Joshua (6 to 12) listed 31 Canaanite cities had fallen to Joshua's forces. None of these cities showed evidences of violence and fire that normally occurred in sieges and capture of these cities, and some like Ai, unknown and probably don't exist.
But most people who read Joshua, tends to focus on Jericho. If Moses did die in 1407 BCE, then Jericho would have fallen around 1406 BCE.
Jericho is one of the oldest cities in the world, with the first settlement as early as 9600 BCE (eg 11,600 years ago), which coincide around the start of the Neolithic period.
If you recalled in my earlier posts, ancient cities in the Middle East, have the tendency to build one on top of the other, and there are over 20 layers of Jericho.
But Bronze Age Jericho in 2nd millennium BCE, the historical Canaan flourished from 1700 to 1550 BCE.
Back in 1930-1936, an archaeologist John Garstang was involved in the dig of Jericho, believed he found the biblical Canaan that showed signs of destruction that is normally associate with violent end during the siege.
I actually admired Garstang's works in Egypt, but with Jericho, he relied on the bible (Joshua) more than actual archaeological techniques. Had he properly dated the 2nd millennium BCE layer of Jericho, he would have realised that the site's destruction at least 150 years or 200 years earlier than the biblical destruction.
A more precise dating of Jericho, by Kathleen Kenyon, during the 1950s, put the date to about 1550 BCE, not the biblical 1406 BCE.
Even more precise radiocarbon dating in 1995 (by Bruins and van der Plicht), put the date between 1617 and 1530 BCE. So 1995's dating agreed more with Kenyon than with Garstang.
But that's not the biggest problem with the bible.
According to the bible, the city of Rameses was built before Jericho's destruction. But according to history and archaeology, the order is reversed, with Jericho's destruction (c 1550 BCE) occurring centuries before Pi-Ramesses construction (mid-1200s) in the reign of Ramesses II.
Just because the bible can named cities, doesn't mean the authors of Exodus and Joshua understand history and archaeology.
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I would like to recommend a Reference for Historical Methodology. It is a reasonable reading level and comprehensive. There are more expensive and more involved academically, but this is a very good reference.
The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide by Michael J. Salevouris (Author), Conal Furay (Contributor)
The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide by Michael J. Salevouris (Author), Conal Furay (Contributor)
One, your own in the above statement.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Is "Lack of specificity" a logic fallacy?
Lack of specificity????
First and foremost you lack an understanding of academic history and so far have not provided any academic references for your argument. The reference I provided is a beginning of how academic methods of history work.
Your statements represent false statements of examples and generalizations concerning what and how historian operate. Fundamentally a non-sequitur.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
er... you might need to be more specific, with concrete examples.
I chat to so many on this forum, with conversations going over
extended periods of time - that I tend to forget the fine details.
Wasn't it about camels or Moses or something? Sorry. Getting
old.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Why don't we show two more things
1 - where the bible is right
2 - where people thought the bible was wrong but found out it was right.
As far as the camel issue I consider it trivial as to the over all historicity of the Bible. I acknowledged that the domestication of the camel could have happened several times in Middle East history, and there is evidence that camels may have been domesticated earlier than some claim. The main genetic line of the dominant domesticated camels today is from the Copper mines in the Eastern Arabian Peninsula about the ~900 1000 BCE.
The problem with Moses, exodus, Noah and the flood, and the dating of events, facts and people in Middle East history according to the Bible as noted by @gnostic and @joelr are very real based on actual archaeological and geologic evidence.
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The problem with this request is highlighted. It is a part of your fallacy of generalization and misinformation of the academic history view of the Bible. Historians and scientists do not attempt to demonstrate nor prove what is wrong nor false as far as hypothesis.they propose in their research.
Historians, archaeologists, and other scientists only deal with the positive objective verifiable evidence for positive determinations as what can be considered historical facts, people and events.
Shad
Veteran Member
This was due to a lack of contemporary sources. The sources for Pilate were decades after the events.
Possibly statements made by individuals. There were a lot of archaeologists prior to the 60s that didn't believe Pilate existed due to lack of Roman sources. There were also a lot that believe he did as they considered the older sources authentic and reliable. I believe the post in question was one of hyperbole.
I think this is the case.
No. At best Biblical minimalist (archaeology reference to the Bible not being reliable historical) would say that. Biblical maximalist (a reliable document historically) obviously would not.
*The views referenced are not those regarding the supernatural. However those of the max camp happen to be far more religious than those in the min camp.*
Sure there was no referenced record used to support the claim. Problematic to be sure.
More so archaeology itself does not consider the supernatural portions at all as true due to methodology. However this thread is one of religion not strictly academic.
Anecdotal evidence is not reliable anyways.
Audie
Veteran Member
A somewhat detailed way of saying that the following
actually is not true. It is being stated for effect, trying
to imply far more than can be delivered.
Christians were told it was a total made up name, since no record of a prefect of that name could be found in Roman documentation of the time
Shad
Veteran Member
It is possible someone has done this but this is far different some sort of statement of authority. I myself have used lack of evidence to argue against Biblical literalism so I could see such a statement being made in a discussion.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Look, I come from a science background. Science is actually my main hobby.
Somewhere in amongst my favorite topics is biblical archaeology (and oddly,
fossil hominins!)
My issue is the ABUSE OF SCIENCE.
See that auction last week of Einstein's "God letter" ?
That's what I mean by something which can abuse science.
Einstein didn't believe in God (he might now, but that's another story) and
that's important to many people. Why? Because Einstein is probably the
second greatest scientist that ever lived, and if he doesn't believe in God,
why should we? Except that Newton, the greatest, did believe. These two
men didn't base their God notions on their science, but on their culture and
generation.
Some scientist will say "There's no evidence" and will deliberately mean
that to say, "It doesn't exist."
And some scientist will say "If we have call upon God to explain something
we aren't doing our job." And people will think God is redundant as a spiritual
entity because He is not required to explain the physical universe (in fact the
bible couldn't care less how the universe operated.)
A hobby is most definitely not a background in science. If you had a back ground in science you would cite more specific scientific peer reviewed publications, and not determine our history based on a Biblical bias, which is NOT science.
Your view so far in this thread is a ABUSE OF SCIENCE. For example; Your objections to radiometric dating despite the universal support of the dating methods by scientists world wide regardless of religious belief is clearly an abuse of science.
Einstein's religious beliefs do not abuse science.
What you fail to comprehend is the independence of science from the perspective of a religious belief and agenda. The religious belief of scientists like Einstein and Newton have nothing to do with their contributions to science Many scientists of many different beliefs have more than confirmed the foundation of Einstein's Discoveries and research, which by the way is the foundation for radiometric dating based on the atomic behavior of atomic science..
No, our religious beliefs should not be determined by the many diverse religious beliefs of different scientists. My belief is NOT determined by the beliefs of Einstein nor Newton.
This view persists despite my detailed description of the view of science from a scientist, my self, and a distinct anti-science agenda.
I believe in God, and the problem arises when you reject the overwhelming scientific evidence to assert that the interpretation of ancient scripture takes presidence over the objective verifiable evidence your creating a conflict and contradiction between the objective reality of our physical existence and what is the nature of God's Creation.
The very real problems with the Biblical accounts of Moses, exodus, Noah and the flood, and the dating of events, facts and people in Middle East history according to the Bible as noted by @gnostic and @joelr are very real based on actual archaeological and geologic evidence.
You have failed to respond objectively to their references, and only provided non-scientific assertions.
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PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
I have an Adventist friend who objects to radiometric dating.
I *** try *** to explain that the universe itself is a huge clock,
and within it it has many clocks, ie the passage of the moon,
sediment in lakes, erosion, drifting continents, shifting genes
etc.. The biggest clock of all is simply space because space
and time are one.
You might have me confused with another poster.