Picture of Mars vs. the earth. So how did Moses know?

[joelr]

Certainly historical works can be politically oriented, no doubt, just like news reporters today can be inclined one way or another in telling the truth one way or another.

Depends on what work and which historian you are talking about and if it has any bearing on the topic.

 

[joelr]

Either God created the universe and enabled the life within it, or...he did not. It really is an either/or situation. This does not mean that He created a person born with no legs. Maybe another time we can discuss that. So either God is the creator, or ..he is not. Anyway, hope you have a good night.

The Kalam Cosmological argument is being discussed by Dr Carrier with some of the latest thoughts on this argument

But it isn't an either/or situation. It isn't likely but it has literally zero bearing on what we are talking about. If you think God created the universe and enabled life does that mean that Krishna is real? Because 1 billion people do. Does it mean that Islam/Allah is that God? Over 1 billion people say it does. Yet you think they are all incorrect. Why? Because the stories are not actually true. Well neither are your stories. God creating the universe does not mean any myth is true.
But the idea of a personal God is 100% fiction. There is no evidence for this. Prayer studies done in academia show it's not effective. Mortality statistics show probabilities govern reality. If a disease has a 90% mortality rate and you look at enough cases, 90% will always die. The remaining 10% will claim it's a miracle despite the fact that it was predicted. The other 90% are begging for a healing, as are their family members, yet statistics always play out. No deity is helping people. If it were mortality rates would be impossible to track. That can be demonstrated.

 

[joelr]

Let's say for the discussion that you are right. What does it mean for those who take it as religious myth that more or less defines them as Jews? I mean, what lessons can be or should be learned from that information which people base their affiliation with, since at least one person here says it speaks for the deep aspects. (What does that mean?) What deep values can these mythical stories reveal since it centers around...the Jews and relationship with the God spoken of there, if you understand the question. (have people been misled -- ok wont use the words 'lied to' but instead mislead by the myths or metaphors therein? Again, it pertains in large part to one group of people.

Often when people leave a religion they get into philosophy. Secular humanism is a modern group dealing with morality and such. Joseph Campbells Power of Myth explains the meanings of many of the Jewish stories in a deep and understandable way. It relates to real life much more than "oh no, he ate the forbidden fruit so now God is mad". On face value this provides nothing of value. we don't have Eden with a God roaming around, our needs met, angry Gods kicking us out, its pure fiction. Campbell describes what it means in a metaphorical and spiritual way.
Rabbis generally also look for pearls of wisdom to help people with daily life in their sermons.

 

[joelr]

I don't think Mahoney says anything about Fomenco. I could be wrong but the new chronology, (which is not really new) seems to come from David Rohl.

Yes David Rohl, that stuff is crank. No scholars accept that model.

That is probably in the period of the judges (approx 1400 to 1350 BC) when there were no kings in Israel.

1206 BC is the first mention of Israelites

Is there mention of the Israelites anywhere in ancient Egyptian records?
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.
Tell us more about the Merneptah inscription. Why is it so famous?
It's the earliest reference we have to the Israelites. The victory stele of Pharaoh Merneptah, the son of Ramesses II, mentions a list of peoples and city-states in Canaan, and among them are the Israelites. And it's interesting that the other entities, the other ethnic groups, are described as nascent states, but the Israelites are described as "a people." They have not yet reached a level of state organization.

So the Egyptians, a little before 1200 B.C.E., know of a group of people somewhere in the central highlands—a loosely affiliated tribal confederation, if you will—called "Israelites." These are our Israelites. So this is a priceless inscription.
Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

 

[joelr]

If you cannot see the presumption that the supernatural is wrong in what you wrote what can I say.

There has never been evidence for anything supernatural. Like most people, I'm sure you feel all the thousands of ancient stories of Gods and monsters are fiction.
Israelite scripture is no exception. They are using older myths and creating a religion for themselves.

Abraham was actually born about 2000 BC and possibly knew the stories around in the religions of the day.

Abraham is a myth. When the Israelites became a people they inserted fictional characters into the past who worshipped the same God and so on. It's not real.
The faith of Abraham
According to the Bible, the first person to form a covenant with God is Abraham. He is the great patriarch. Is there archeological evidence for Abraham?
One of the first efforts of biblical archeology in the last century was to prove the historicity of the patriarchs, to locate them in a particular period in the archeological history. Today I think most archeologists would argue that there is no direct archeological proof that Abraham, for instance, ever lived. We do know a lot about pastoral nomads, we know about the Amorites' migrations from Mesopotamia to Canaan, and it's possible to see in that an Abraham-like figure somewhere around 1800 B.C.E. But there's no direct connection.

"It disturbs some people that, for the very early periods, we archeologists haven't much to say."
Are we to become unbelievers if we can't prove that Abraham ever lived? What is the story about? It's a story about freedom and faith and risk. Does it matter exactly how Abraham and his clan left, and when they arrived in Canaan, or where they settled? What really matters is that Abraham is seen later by Jews and Christians as the father of the faithful.

Abraham moves out on faith to a land he has never seen. You have to think of how perilous the journey would have been had it really taken place. We are talking about a journey of several hundred miles around the fringes of the desert. So it's an astonishing story. Is it true? It is profoundly true, but it's not the kind of truth that archeology can directly illuminate.

Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

As I said, if the flood happened then you might expect those religions to know of it and write of it.

First of all, the stories use literally line by line verbatim at points, "released a dove, it returned" "God smelled a sweet savior", this goes on and on. It isn't an account of the same flood, it's the same story. The characters do and say similar things? Stop with the apologetics that make people lose critical thinking?
second, a world flood has been ruled out by modern flood geology from several different lines of evidence. It didn't happen? YOu will see this if you decide you care about what is actually true.

Modern geology, its sub-disciplines and other scientific disciplines utilize the scientific method to analyze the geology of the earth. The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community.[5][6][7][8][9] Modern geology relies on a number of established principles, one of the most important of which is Charles Lyell's principle of uniformitarianism. In relation to geological forces it states that the shaping of the Earth has occurred by means of mostly slow-acting forces that can be seen in operation today. By applying these principles, geologists have determined that the Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old. They study the lithosphere of the Earth to gain information on the history of the planet. Geologists divide Earth's history into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and faunal stages characterized by well-defined breaks in the fossil record (see Geologic time scale).[110][111] In general, there is a lack of any evidence for any of the above effects proposed by flood geologists and their claims of fossil layering are not taken seriously by scientists.[112]
Erosion
Geochronology
Paleontology
Geochemistry
Sedimentary rock features

Similarly the story of the creation could have been known in that area since it is close to where Adam was created.

There are thousands of creation stories. There is also academic techniques for understanding if a story used older stories as a source. It isn't debated at all that the OT uses Mesopotamian myths? Again, when you care about what is actually true then look into it.

At 20:28
Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou Professor of Hebrew Bible touches on this

From the 19th century there has been, especially from German Theological Universities, the documentary hypothesis which worked it's way into Theology with the documentary hypothesis. This started because of lack of evidence of the Exodus and Conquest of Canaan, but since then there is plenty of evidence, but the hypothesis still persists and the evidence seems to get pushed aside.

Theology has no choice but to make up apologetics to rescue the religion when evidence looks bad. It's always debunked as crank.
Exodus is a national myth of the Israelites, it isn't debated except by fundamentalists. The evidence isn't "pushed aside" it's crank. The new chronology isn't credible work?
Carol Meyers archaeologist:


Meyers: Absolutely. The theme of the exodus is an archetype in not only the Bible but in western culture in general. Even though it may be rooted in some cultural memory experienced by only a few people, it became a way of looking at the world that would have great power for generations and millennia to come—the idea that human beings should be free to determine the course of their own lives, to be able to work and enjoy the rewards of the work of their own hands and their own minds.

These are very powerful ideas that resonate in the human spirit. And Exodus gives narrative reality to those ideas. It would be compelling for peoples all over the world, wherever people find themselves subjected to domination and would like to live their lives in some other kind of way.

I think it's no accident that the founders of our own country, the United States, identified very strongly with the story of the Israelite exodus from Egypt. They felt that, in crossing the Atlantic Ocean and leaving the oppressive conditions of various European countries, they were coming to a place where they would be free from domination, where they would have religious freedom especially. And in the mythology of the colonial period in the United States, the crossing of the Atlantic somehow merged with the idea of the crossing of the Red Sea or Reed Sea of the Israelites. I thinkt hat the first seal of the United States actually depicted that kind of crossing

NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS

 

[Brian2]

It is likely that God's representatives (faithful angels) spoke with Adam, explaining things any reasonable man would want to or need to know. Not technically, Adam didn't need to know that at that point.. Such as how he got here, what the order of events were.

God could have spoken many things to Adam before the fall. We just got part of the story.

 

[Brian2]

You are not thinking at all logically.

Have you ever being in flood-affected areas, before?

Only creationists would think that local flood would solve your problems.

No large local flood could put the ark on top of either two peak of Ararat.

First. The Greater Ararat has elevation of 5100 metres, and Lesser Ararat of nearly 3900 metres.

Second. There are no way for Ark to float upstream...gravity, do you remember? Also the Ark, has no propulsion (eg no sails, no oars, no motor engines), so if the Ark was in a large local flood, any slope in the terrains would have caused the Ark to float downwards, towards the Persian Gulf, and it will eventually end up in the Indian Ocean.

The Ark wouldn’t head towards the eastern Anatolian highland or Armenian highlands. And it definitely wouldn’t have ended up Ararat.

Even if there were tsunami, where water push the sea inlands, but the waves will lose their strength, the further the water go inlands, especially up the sloping terrains. Then waters will recede, draining back to the sea, and this mean everything will float towards the shoreline. Plus, tsunamis won’t flood areas for very long, certainly not for half-a-year, as Genesis 8 claimed.

You certainly don’t understand the cases of flooding. And you basing on a book written around 6th century BCE, in which the myth defied reality and science.

All you can do is make apologetic excuses that have no substance and no logic.

The story does not say the Ark ended up on top of any mountain.
Here is an article about local verses universal flood interpretation and in it has a section on where the Ark may have come to rest.
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Carol 1.pdf

 

[Brian2]

Yes David Rohl, that stuff is crank. No scholars accept that model.

David Rohl's ideas are not accepted by probably most scholars these days, but they are legitimate ideas and may become popular over time. In archaeology and subsequent history the truth is decided on the majority of scholars. It is not a good way to decide the truth.
For example if we look at the archaeology of the destruction of Jericho it is obvious that Jericho's walls fell around 1400BC, not 1200 BC as Kenyon says. Yet the vote of the scholars goes against the 1400BC date.
If the 1400BC date is accepted then the rest of the archaeology of Canaan matches the book of Joshua and the Conquest is pretty much shown to be correct.

1206 BC is the first mention of Israelites

Is there mention of the Israelites anywhere in ancient Egyptian records?
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.
Tell us more about the Merneptah inscription. Why is it so famous?
It's the earliest reference we have to the Israelites. The victory stele of Pharaoh Merneptah, the son of Ramesses II, mentions a list of peoples and city-states in Canaan, and among them are the Israelites. And it's interesting that the other entities, the other ethnic groups, are described as nascent states, but the Israelites are described as "a people." They have not yet reached a level of state organization.

So the Egyptians, a little before 1200 B.C.E., know of a group of people somewhere in the central highlands—a loosely affiliated tribal confederation, if you will—called "Israelites." These are our Israelites. So this is a priceless inscription.
Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

Sorry the Judges period was about 1350 to 1050 BC, which I have changed in my original post.
There is no reason to have had mention of Israel before 1200BC imo. They weren't a political entity with Kings. The Merneptha stele fits the Bible and the stories it gives as far as I know.
But what you (Dever) say about the Israelites is just a guess and what the Bible tells us is that they were more spread out over Canaan but had not conquered all the Canaanites.
They were even living in the town that they conquered. The archaeology would not know if there were Canaanites of Israelites there.
They started worshipping the Gods of the Canaanites, so the historians who deny the Bible end up saying that YHWH was initially associated with Asherah.
Crazy conclusions have been reached, and all they had to do was read the Bible to see why the archaeology was telling them what it was.

 

[Brian2]

There has never been evidence for anything supernatural. Like most people, I'm sure you feel all the thousands of ancient stories of Gods and monsters are fiction.
Israelite scripture is no exception. They are using older myths and creating a religion for themselves.

That's just the presumption that the scientists and modern historians use.
It can produce books which say that the scriptures are lies and that is all it is capable of doing. It is circular reasoning.

Abraham is a myth. When the Israelites became a people they inserted fictional characters into the past who worshipped the same God and so on. It's not real.
The faith of Abraham
According to the Bible, the first person to form a covenant with God is Abraham. He is the great patriarch. Is there archeological evidence for Abraham?
One of the first efforts of biblical archeology in the last century was to prove the historicity of the patriarchs, to locate them in a particular period in the archeological history. Today I think most archeologists would argue that there is no direct archeological proof that Abraham, for instance, ever lived. We do know a lot about pastoral nomads, we know about the Amorites' migrations from Mesopotamia to Canaan, and it's possible to see in that an Abraham-like figure somewhere around 1800 B.C.E. But there's no direct connection.

"It disturbs some people that, for the very early periods, we archeologists haven't much to say."
Are we to become unbelievers if we can't prove that Abraham ever lived? What is the story about? It's a story about freedom and faith and risk. Does it matter exactly how Abraham and his clan left, and when they arrived in Canaan, or where they settled? What really matters is that Abraham is seen later by Jews and Christians as the father of the faithful.

Abraham moves out on faith to a land he has never seen. You have to think of how perilous the journey would have been had it really taken place. We are talking about a journey of several hundred miles around the fringes of the desert. So it's an astonishing story. Is it true? It is profoundly true, but it's not the kind of truth that archeology can directly illuminate.

Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/archeology-hebrew-bible/

As your quote says, the story of Abraham is not the kind of story that Archaeology can directly illuminate. The author sees no reason to say the story is wrong because of that. But sceptics grab anything and make it worse than it is, especially if you are the sort of person who says it is not true unless it has been verified.
Who know, maybe one day something will be found that confirms the story of Abraham.

First of all, the stories use literally line by line verbatim at points, "released a dove, it returned" "God smelled a sweet savior", this goes on and on. It isn't an account of the same flood, it's the same story. The characters do and say similar things? Stop with the apologetics that make people lose critical thinking?
second, a world flood has been ruled out by modern flood geology from several different lines of evidence. It didn't happen? YOu will see this if you decide you care about what is actually true.

I don't think it was a global flood, hence the same flood in the same location is known by all the people in the area.

There are thousands of creation stories. There is also academic techniques for understanding if a story used older stories as a source. It isn't debated at all that the OT uses Mesopotamian myths? Again, when you care about what is actually true then look into it.

At 20:28
Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou Professor of Hebrew Bible touches on this

"Academic techniques". Story A is older than story B and story B has some similarities to story A therefore story B was copied from story A.
Why do you think that the people in the same area would not know part of the creation story which was handed down from generation to generation. It is amazing how long these oral memories can be.

Theology has no choice but to make up apologetics to rescue the religion when evidence looks bad. It's always debunked as crank.
Exodus is a national myth of the Israelites, it isn't debated except by fundamentalists. The evidence isn't "pushed aside" it's crank. The new chronology isn't credible work?
Carol Meyers archaeologist:

David Rohl was not a Christian (I don't know what he is now) and he has some very good work as far as I can tell. He is not an amateur and others do agree with him as there are those who disagree.

 

[gnostic]

For example if we look at the archaeology of the destruction of Jericho it is obvious that Jericho's walls fell around 1400BC, not 1200 BC as Kenyon says. Yet the vote of the scholars goes against the 1400BC date.

No, Kenyon didn’t say Jericho was abandoned in 1200 BCE. She stated it was deserted around 1550 BCE, and more recent radiocarbon dating confirmed it was in the 16th century BCE, around 1570 BCE.

Where did you get 1200 BCE from? You certainly didn’t get this date from Kenyon.

And where you get 1400 BCE from?

 

[rational experiences]

The history man. Natural presence.

Science of man only I will theory where I came from. The crank is the scientist.

Natural human I believe I know where I came from yet I accept my life human.

Scientist I don't I want it I want my place changed. I will build a time shifting machine and put myself within it by atmospheric known changes and remove us from life.

My human mind vision seeing men humans thought design by human mind said exact you put us inside a time shift machine pyramid.

A loud voice man speaking satanic beast interference all nature attacked voice said don't tell your family.

AI status hence inferred the choice satanic...man's...combined human beast nature attacked. His want by designer. Possesses you.

Scientist the only crank.

Father one self. Original self same man father same DNA lots of him. Original.

Same as our mother one self just like a twin everyone looked the same.

Reason we came from the same place.

Transported by walking.

From the living eternal spirit living in eternal not by breath.

The difference in creation our life body converted was living by breathing. We die as we are not meant to be here.

Theme energy. When energy gets used it disappears. It becomes space.

If you transport mass in conversion to increased space by converting it can become a gas.

Convert a gas it becomes a hole empty space.

Convert a gas body in its heavens space increases so pressures change as heavens thins. How you reacted the tornado itself a cooling attack that lifts up then slams back ground mass.

You learnt you cannot transport life back to its origin already crank scientist.

If our brother never designed intelligence says no civilization or slavery of family to destructive invention would exist. Or ever have existed crank scientist.

It was your crank science choice. Mr leader I know everything I talk on behalf of all things I believe I created it myself by my thesis discussing.

You claim you knew all things so were a type of God owning all created parts inside your own man human body. You said inferred you were a God as a man yourself.

So you ought to scientist designer realise today that the moment you and your crank Brothers decided to agree to change natural life on earth was the beginning of our end.

You chose it yourselves Mr I am self infused as a God.

Scientist man. Leader by what leadership we never expressed naturally which was implemented as cult group as scientific thought.

Parents grand and great natural life.

The Baha'i message as a brother is the same ancient message. Your science answer was to kill the messenger. Who by bible status said no man is God at the end of summation of a review of man's choice named by men.

Using men's names as proof.

 

[rational experiences]

If a scientist claims eternal as how it is inferred doesn't exist. It is only an argument about where did creation as what form first.

If it says we are a God by defined the same substance. We would be a sun a star a planet or a gas.

Which we aren't.

So then you say after what you aren't where did you come from.

Eternal as a pre being seems correct.

If you ask secret sciences in some countries who fund phenomena studies. First phenomena in creation proves it has a spirit nature in its burnt created form.

The answer to science is a known yes.

The type of scientist you choose to be is arguing a moot point actually.

If science says look at volcanoes that blown tips looks like eye ark of RA...as a melted Ararat radiation mass hit ark history.

Then science already knew what science did.

Volcanic eruption in the time of ararats hit would prove science caused it.

As the last natural science caused star hit was Russia. Then it affected human conscious belief. Proven by themes of self status.

If your claim is humanity as a brother is involved in every nation as a themed I am one and special. You are living your own chosen man's proof daily.

As human genesis DNA separation changed our brains to speak Multii language and to be irradiated DNA separated.

The teaching.

Causes is man's chosen science hence infers each brothers national DNA is the one and superior.

I learnt as my parentage is Multi cultural. My land life country not my origin DNA family.

 

[YoursTrue]

The Kalam Cosmological argument is being discussed by Dr Carrier with some of the latest thoughts on this argument

But it isn't an either/or situation. It isn't likely but it has literally zero bearing on what we are talking about. If you think God created the universe and enabled life does that mean that Krishna is real? Because 1 billion people do. Does it mean that Islam/Allah is that God? Over 1 billion people say it does. Yet you think they are all incorrect. Why? Because the stories are not actually true. Well neither are your stories. God creating the universe does not mean any myth is true.
But the idea of a personal God is 100% fiction. There is no evidence for this. Prayer studies done in academia show it's not effective. Mortality statistics show probabilities govern reality. If a disease has a 90% mortality rate and you look at enough cases, 90% will always die. The remaining 10% will claim it's a miracle despite the fact that it was predicted. The other 90% are begging for a healing, as are their family members, yet statistics always play out. No deity is helping people. If it were mortality rates would be impossible to track. That can be demonstrated.

The Kalam Cosmological argument is being discussed by Dr Carrier with some of the latest thoughts on this argument

But it isn't an either/or situation. It isn't likely but it has literally zero bearing on what we are talking about. If you think God created the universe and enabled life does that mean that Krishna is real? Because 1 billion people do. Does it mean that Islam/Allah is that God? Over 1 billion people say it does. Yet you think they are all incorrect. Why? Because the stories are not actually true. Well neither are your stories. God creating the universe does not mean any myth is true.
But the idea of a personal God is 100% fiction. There is no evidence for this. Prayer studies done in academia show it's not effective. Mortality statistics show probabilities govern reality. If a disease has a 90% mortality rate and you look at enough cases, 90% will always die. The remaining 10% will claim it's a miracle despite the fact that it was predicted. The other 90% are begging for a healing, as are their family members, yet statistics always play out. No deity is helping people. If it were mortality rates would be impossible to track. That can be demonstrated.

It is an either/or situation in many ways. Either God exists or He does not. Either the earth was made right for humans to live there, or it was not. Etc. and etc. But going back to your thought about Krishna being real -- or not -- (whatever) -- whether you believe the Biblical account or not (I believe it), the Jewish nation was being directed by God through Moses for several decades, then a rather detailed history has been recorded and preserved of both the triumphs and failures of that nation throughout a long history.

 

[YoursTrue]

God could have spoken many things to Adam before the fall. We just got part of the story.

Can't disagree with that.

 

[YoursTrue]

There has never been evidence for anything supernatural. Like most people, I'm sure you feel all the thousands of ancient stories of Gods and monsters are fiction.
Israelite scripture is no exception. They are using older myths and creating a religion for themselves.

I'd like to stop there for a moment. Just curious as to your reasoning. When do you think the Israelites created this religion for themselves? By that I don't mean when the scrolls were written, but when would you say the Israelites created their religion? 800 BCE? 2500 BCE? 100 CE?

 

[rational experiences]

It is an either/or situation in many ways. Either God exists or He does not. Either the earth was made right for humans to live there, or it was not. Etc. and etc. But going back to your thought about Krishna being real -- or not -- (whatever) -- whether you believe the Biblical account or not (I believe it), the Jewish nation was being directed by God through Moses for several decades, then a rather detailed history has been recorded and preserved of both the triumphs and failures of that nation throughout a long history.

Men claim in and as science...theme god. God exists by his he him man being sexual status penis owner thesis. Status. Not true. Your thesis did not invent earth.

Planet.

A planet is men's science thesis I know.

Yet you don't.

Knowing is to live first as a man and scientist without a planet.

Instead by ego claim I will pretend earth doesn't exist. I however claim by star particles in earths upper gas heavens that those bodies formed earth.

The planets whole bodied presence. With maybe billions of O planetary mass variables claiming human self is sane. As a theist I know status.

Human aware innate consciousness is first psychic. By status natural living balances.

You have yourself formed a belief by earths atmospheric conditions only.

We were warned how a human theist conscious life lied in their awareness by living within a heavens.

A human is a human as the human named human anywhere on earth human.

Not named first.

National DNA is tribal only by genetic human chosen sex.

As you aren't having human sex by Moses you aren't telling a human truth.

A human claims my land rights are a named national place on a planet. Also not Moses. By DNA. Human only as the or a human.

The Moses theme a mountain gods law. No man is a mountain.

If once you gave a mountain a name then obviously you did. As men do.

Sin AI. You said Moses gained a scorched face. AI attack. It also was hot gas burnt veiled by clouds mass after a UFO strike hit Ararat.

As the UFO was burning circuit earth travelling first.

Sin is a sink hole in earths God ground body.

A mountain was also struck by sin. As men theoried volcanic beginnings O hole. Melt in science the thesis I will apply in conversion sciences.

Mohammad was another mountains name. As man originally owned the name first as man only. Second name human.

The attack sacrifice of gods fusion then changes to man. The taught reality science. By men as a man about the man.

Man changed by mountain changed the teachings.

 

[joelr]

David Rohl's ideas are not accepted by probably most scholars these days, but they are legitimate ideas and may become popular over time. In archaeology and subsequent history the truth is decided on the majority of scholars. It is not a good way to decide the truth.
For example if we look at the archaeology of the destruction of Jericho it is obvious that Jericho's walls fell around 1400BC, not 1200 BC as Kenyon says. Yet the vote of the scholars goes against the 1400BC date.
If the 1400BC date is accepted then the rest of the archaeology of Canaan matches the book of Joshua and the Conquest is pretty much shown to be correct.

I have a complete debunking of the new chronology by a Harvard professor online, I have to find it again. I don't see how this is going to become mainstream when it's been shown to be crank. I mean, the DVD's actualy said "what scholars don't want you to know" on them. That's a huge red flag.

There are 2 separate stories about the conquest. Some of the archaeological evidence is covered here by William Dever, but he also says "to put it bluntly the Book of Joshua is almost all fictitious"

3:43

Several archaeologists speak on some of the differences between the field on this issue -
"In conclusion, radicals date Jericho to 15th century and minimalists date it to 13th century. Kenyon dates it to 1550 B.C.E. based on the fact there were no walls at that time. Kathleen Kenyon never found pottery from Cyprus, but she failed to look for pottery of the Canaanites.
Wright decidedly believed that no such occupation was observed at Jericho from 1200 to 1500 B.C.E."
Ancient Digger Archaeology: Walls of Jericho: The Archaeology that Demolishes the Bible?

But what you (Dever) say about the Israelites is just a guess and what the Bible tells us is that they were more spread out over Canaan but had not conquered all the Canaanites.
They were even living in the town that they conquered. The archaeology would not know if there were Canaanites of Israelites there.

No it's not a guess? They have evidence? There are no signs of armed conflict. There are signs of "proto'Israelite" villages outside of Cannan. The Bible is not history and it was not written to be history. There is no Hebrew word for history. They were interested in creating stories and mythical narratives that defined the people and gave them something to unite under.
The origins of Israel
What have archeologists learned from these settlements about the early Israelites? Are there signs that the Israelites came in conquest, taking over the land from Canaanites?
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.

So what we are dealing with is a movement of peoples but not an invasion of an armed corps from the outside. A social and economic revolution, if you will, rather than a military revolution. And it begins a slow process in which the Israelites distinguish themselves from their Canaanite ancestors, particularly in religion—with a new deity, new religious laws and customs, new ethnic markers, as we would call them today.
If the Bible's story of Joshua's conquest isn't entirely historic, what is its meaning?
Why was it told? Well, it was told because there were probably armed conflicts here and there, and these become a part of the story glorifying the career of Joshua, commander in chief of the Israelite forces. I suspect that there is a historical kernel, and there are a few sites that may well have been destroyed by these Israelites, such as Hazor in Galilee, or perhaps a site or two in the south.

They started worshipping the Gods of the Canaanites, so the historians who deny the Bible end up saying that YHWH was initially associated with Asherah.
Crazy conclusions have been reached, and all they had to do was read the Bible to see why the archaeology was telling them what it was.

The Bible was canonized during the 2nd Temple Period 300BC-. This is after several defeats and exiles and the religious leaders decided to blame their problems on not being Yahweh centric enough. This is basically reading tea leaves. "Hey we are getting defeated like crazy, why hasn't Yahweh and Ashera helped us?" "Uh....because Yahweh wants us to only worship him!. Yeah that's it!"

That is what happened. professor Fransesca Stravopopolou talks about this in detail.
Before this period Ashera was the consort of Yahweh. She was a Canaanite Goddess and most cultures had multiple Gods and Goddesses. Israel was no different. The Bible only reflects more modern beliefs of Israel.
Just like 38 of the Gospels were not used in the canon made official in 313AD.

The Israelites' many gods
The Bible would have us think that all Israelites embraced monotheism relatively early, from Moses's time on. Is that contrary to what archeology has found?
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.

"The so-called folk religion even penetrated the Temple in Jerusalem."
One of the astonishing things is your discovery of Yahweh's connection to Asherah. Tell us about that.
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.

There aren't such representations of Yahweh, are there?
No. Now, why is it that you could model the female deity but not the male deity? Well, I think the First and Second Commandments by now were taken pretty seriously. You just don't portray Yahweh, the male deity, but the Mother Goddess is okay. But his consort is probably a lesser deity.

We found molds for making Asherah figurines, mass-producing them, in village shrines. So probably almost everybody had one of these figurines, and they surely have something to do with fertility. They were no doubt used to pray for conceiving a child and bearing the child safely and nursing it. It's interesting to me that the Israelite and Judean ones are rather more modest than the Canaanite ones, which are right in your face. The Israelite and Judean ones mostly show a nursing mother.

 

[joelr]

That's just the presumption that the scientists and modern historians use.
It can produce books which say that the scriptures are lies and that is all it is capable of doing. It is circular reasoning.

Except that isn't what happens. That hasn't happened ever? If you ever care about what is actually true enough to even study non-apologetics you will see there is always evidence. It could be sourced from older work and there are specific techniques to determine that. It could be a forgery like some of the Epistles, there are dedicated literary style analysis to demonstrate if a writing is a forgery.
I don't even know what you are talking about here?

The reason scholars presume supernatural stories are not real is because there has never been evidence for anything supernatural ever. There are stories and anecdotes. Do you assume all the miracles in the Koran are true? Or the miracles done by Krishna? NO? Well your religious stories also need proper evidence. The evidence suggests these are religious myths, taken from older religious myths.

As your quote says, the story of Abraham is not the kind of story that Archaeology can directly illuminate. The author sees no reason to say the story is wrong because of that. But sceptics grab anything and make it worse than it is, especially if you are the sort of person who says it is not true unless it has been verified.
Who know, maybe one day something will be found that confirms the story of Abraham.

Abraham may have been a person. Like all the other 10,000 characters who had dealings with Gods or supernatural creatures or messages from deities, that part would be fiction. Even the message given by God is just another common revelatory narrative similar to what was popular of the day. This is classic myth making.

I don't think it was a global flood, hence the same flood in the same location is known by all the people in the area.

People who live near water develop flood myths. They are global, America, Europe, Asia, Africa and more
List of flood myths - Wikipedia

"Academic techniques". Story A is older than story B and story B has some similarities to story A therefore story B was copied from story A.
Why do you think that the people in the same area would not know part of the creation story which was handed down from generation to generation. It is amazing how long these oral memories can be.

The Israelites did not orally transmit Mesopotamian myths among themselves. The authors of the literature wrote after the fact and used available writings to create their own versions Genesis is not history, it uses Mesopotamian and Egyptian myths to create the start of a religion. Every different culture did this same thing. In fact the Hammurabi code of laws, a collection of 282 rules was one of the Egyptain cultures law like Deuteronomy was for the Hebrew. It also came from a deity inscribed on rock.

David Rohl was not a Christian (I don't know what he is now) and he has some very good work as far as I can tell. He is not an amateur and others do agree with him as there are those who disagree.

Most scholars do not feel his work is accurate. Some science done on it also failed:
"In 2010, a series of corroborated radiocarbon dates were published for dynastic Egypt which suggest some minor revisions to the conventional chronology, but do not support Rohl's proposed revisions"
New Chronology (Rohl) - Wikipedia

 

[joelr]

It is an either/or situation in many ways. Either God exists or He does not. Either the earth was made right for humans to live there, or it was not. Etc. and etc. But going back to your thought about Krishna being real -- or not -- (whatever) -- whether you believe the Biblical account or not (I believe it), the Jewish nation was being directed by God through Moses for several decades, then a rather detailed history has been recorded and preserved of both the triumphs and failures of that nation throughout a long history.

Moses has been considered myth in scholarship fro some time now. Thomas Thompsons work was peer-reviewed and set the standard for modern historicity on Moses and the Patriarchs.
There is no evidence of any God.
But the idea that a God would be tribal and be like "only you guys are my people", is so archaic and ridiculous. Then they are invaded over and over?
Every nation had a national God and scripture similar to the OT until they were all influenced by Hellenism. Then they went through the same changes, got a savior, souls and an afterlife. God became supreme...
these are Iron Age myths.

Much of the books of the OT are fictional. Daniel is considered a forgery. Dr carrier has a written debate with apologist J Sheffield here:
Debating the Authenticity of Daniel: Methodological Analysis of Sheffield's Case • Richard Carrier

 

[joelr]

I'd like to stop there for a moment. Just curious as to your reasoning. When do you think the Israelites created this religion for themselves? By that I don't mean when the scrolls were written, but when would you say the Israelites created their religion? 800 BCE? 2500 BCE? 100 CE?

The same way every culture creates a religion. They come out of a society and borrow those ideas and combine them with societies they have moved closer to.
This is what we see. The monotheism was from Egypt. There were a few different Gods who for a time were the only supreme God. God vs. the Gods - The First Known Instance of Monotheism in History - The Vintage News

They moved near Canaan so they adopted some of their deities.

"
According to the current academic historical view, the origins of Judaism lie in the Bronze Age amidst polytheistic ancient Semitic religions, specifically evolving out of Ancient Canaanite polytheism, then co-existing with Babylonian religion, and syncretizing elements of Babylonian belief into the worship of Yahweh as reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible.

During the Iron Age I, the Israelite religion became distinct from the Canaanite polytheism out of which it evolved. This process began with the development of Yahwism, the monolatristic worship of Yahweh, one of the Canaanite gods, that gave acknowledgment to the existence, but suppressed the worship, of the other Canaanite gods. Later, this monolatristic belief cemented into a strict monotheistic belief and worship of Yahweh alone, with the rejection of the existence of all other gods, whether Canaanite or foreign."


The works you are familiar with are more modern 2nd Temple Period when they were changing to worship only Yahweh because they thought Yahweh was pissed about the other Gods and hence endless invasions -

"
During the Babylonian captivity of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE (Iron Age II), certain circles within the exiled Judahites in Babylon refined pre-existing ideas about their Yahweh-centric monolatrism, election, divine law, and Covenant into a strict monotheistic theology which came to dominate the former Kingdom of Judah in the following centuries.[1]

From the 5th century BCE until 70 CE, Israelite religion developed into the various theological schools of Second Temple Judaism, besides Hellenistic Judaism in the diaspora. Second Temple eschatology has similarities with Zoroastrianism.[2] The text of the Hebrew Bible was redacted into its extant form in this period and possibly also canonized as well.

Rabbinic Judaism developed during Late Antiquity, during the 3rd to 6th centuries CE; the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud were compiled in this period. "

Also as it mentions there they incorporated Persian Zoroastrianism in a big way.
A coming virgin born world savior was a Persian belief and Revelations and God at war with the devil were Persian myths first.

So that all makes sense and is how I would guess. Religous syncretism happens with every religion, Judaism is no exception. The information is from men writing stuff and sourcing other religions. Babylonain influence is the Mesopotamian stuff I think.

Revelations
the Persian Revelations that started this type of literature.

but Zoroaster taught that the blessed must wait for this culmination till Frashegird and the 'future body' (Pahlavi 'tan i pasen'), when the earth will give up the bones of the dead (Y 30.7). This general resurrection will be followed by the Last Judgment, which will divide all the righteous from the wicked, both those who have lived until that time and those who have been judged already. Then Airyaman, Yazata of friendship and healing, together with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, 'for him who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the • flesh through molten metal' (GBd XXXIV. r 8-r 9). In this great apocalyptic vision Zoroaster perhaps fused, unconsciously, tales of volcanic eruptions and streams of burning lava with his own experience of Iranian ordeals by molten metal; and according to his stern original teaching, strict justice will prevail then, as at each individual j udgment on earth by a fiery ordeal. So at this last ordeal of all the wicked will suffer a second death, and will perish off the face of the earth. The Daevas and legions of darkness will already have been annihilated in a last great battle with the Yazatas; and the river of metal will flow down into hell, slaying Angra Mainyu and burning up the last vestige of wickedness in the universe.

Ahura Mazda and the six Amesha Spentas will then solemnize a lt, spiritual yasna, offering up the last sacrifice (after which death wW be no more), and making a preparation of the mystical 'white haoma', which will confer immortality on the resurrected bodies of all the blessed, who will partake of it. Thereafter men will beome like the Immortals themselves, of one thought, word and deed, unaging, free from sickness, without corruption, forever joyful in the kingdom of God upon earth. For it is in this familiar and beloved world, restored to its original perfection, that, according to Zoroaster, eternity will be passed in bliss, and not in a remote insubstantial Paradise. So the time of Separation is a renewal of the time of Creation, except that no return is prophesied to the original uniqueness of living things. Mountain and valley will give place once more to level plain; but whereas in the beginning there was one plant, one animal, one man, the rich variety and number that have since issued from these will remain forever. Similarly the many divinities who were brought into being by Ahura Mazda will continue to have their separate existences. There is no prophecy of their re-absorption into the Godhead. As a Pahlavi text puts it, after Frashegird 'Ohrmaid and the Amahraspands and all Yazads and men will be together. .. ; every place will resemble a garden in spring, in which

there are all kinds of trees and flowers ... and it will be entirely the creation of Ohrrnazd' (Pahl.Riv.Dd. XLVIII, 99, lOO, l07).