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

[Brian2]

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?

Yes sorry I was wrong about the Kenyon dating, but the site below shows where I get the 1400BC dating from.

Biblical Sites: Three Ways to Date the Destruction at Jericho

 

[Brian2]

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?

http://www.ancientdigger.com/2011/12/walls-of-jericho-archaeology-that.html

That's OK. For someone like me who believes the Bible stories I don't need all the scholars to agree. If some say that the Bible is correct that is the ones I believe and it seems the same with you except you believe the ones that say the Bible is not correct.
And with things that I have seen some of the evidence and realise the blatant ignoring of evidence in order to justify the minimalist position at times, I realise that some archaeologists have their set views and are willing to turn a blind eye to evidence for the contrary.

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.

What Joshua said about the conquest was confusing but then people started realising that when it said that a city was destroyed it did not mean that the town was wiped out and burnt, it meant that the city was militarily defeated. When it said that a town was dedicated to the Lord it meant that all the people were killed and the town was burnt.
Once the archaeology was seen with that in mind it was noticed that the archaeology fitted what was written in Joshua for a 1400 to 1350 conquest approx.
The town that were just conquered were used by the Israelites to live in and so it would look as if the Canaanites were still using the sites.
Many of the Canaanites were still left in Canaan to test the Israelites and so that the wild animals and weeds did not just go nuts for lack of people.
Israel after Joshua started worship of the Canaanite Gods.
The thing is that all the big stories about YHWH and Canaan that modern archaeologists say they have discovered are just things they could have got just from reading the Bible.
Even those proto Israelite houses outside of Canaan could probably be explained by the fact that the Bible says that the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh made their home on the East side of the Jordan bordering Moab.
The whole thing is just so mixed up with scholars going against the Bible and saying 1200 and not reading Joshua as it was meant to be read and not finding evidence of conquest and so ending up with a peaceful settlement hypothesis. And the Jericho debacle tops it off.

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.

It always amazes me that people make up their own ideas of what happened instead of reading the Bible to find out what happened. But I guess if you don't want to believe the Bible that is what you have to do.
All people need do is read the Bible to find out about the mixing of YHWH worship with Baal worship by ancient Israel, there is no need for any special theory of what happened, it's all there for us to read.

 

[Brian2]

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.

First you say that hasn't happened and they you go on to show that it does happen. In science anecdotes are not good enough, iow the scripture stories are not good enough to show the supernatural and so are rejected as evidence.
That's fine for science I guess but it is a lie to then go on and say that history has discovered that for example the gospels must have been written after 70AD because the prophecy of the Temple destruction is BS. It is a presumption that the supernatural stories etc are not true and any conclusion based on that is a presumption. It does not matter what I might personally think of the supernatural in the Islamic or Hindu texts.

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 would say that Abraham is real or a definite possibility and that modern histories making up the idea that he is an origins myth that was made up by Israel hundreds of years later. This actually is an example of myth making by people who need the history they write to support their ideas of reality. "Israel had to have made up Abraham etc because we can't find someone named Abraham and because we think that there was no Israel in Egypt and no conquest of Canaan and anyway the prophecies from the Pentateuch are BS and so the Pentateuch had to have been written after the so called fulfilments of the prophecies."
The modern historians don't write that but that is the thinking.

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

It's pretty radical I guess and may be wrong or right. I don't think Rohl's chronology is needed for the Bible to be correct. It does help with anomalies in Greek history it seems and with fitting certain things in other records into the Bible stories.
Rohl does seem to have had some insight into other archaeological finds and where they fit into the Bible, where minimalists interpret these finds completely differently.
I found this to be an interesting interview with David Rohl.

 

[YoursTrue]

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

Scholars can be wrong. First of all, Abraham preceded Moses. After Jesus came the invitation to worship the God of Israel was extended to -- the nations. Beyond the Israelites. There's a message there. (Have a nice day.)

 

[YoursTrue]

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).

As far as I see, there's a difference in textual content (and history within the text) among the various religions.

 

[joelr]

That's OK. For someone like me who believes the Bible stories I don't need all the scholars to agree. If some say that the Bible is correct that is the ones I believe and it seems the same with you except you believe the ones that say the Bible is not correct.
And with things that I have seen some of the evidence and realise the blatant ignoring of evidence in order to justify the minimalist position at times, I realise that some archaeologists have their set views and are willing to turn a blind eye to evidence for the contrary.

In historicity the consensus is the the stories are myth. Moses is considered a myth. Archaeology cannot prove or disprove to the same degree. It shows that the Israelites came from Cannan and many stories were enlarged. But archaeologists are not ignoring evidence? There is some evidence that some history is correct. There is no evidence that any supernatural stories are real. Genesis is a later re-working of Mesopotamian myths. That is not disputed in historicity.
Archaeology shows Solomon was a much smaller kingdom, Ashera was worshipped by the majority at one point, why would one just read the Bible when your job is an archaeologist?

- 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.

What Joshua said about the conquest was confusing but then people started realising that when it said that a city was destroyed it did not mean that the town was wiped out and burnt, it meant that the city was militarily defeated. When it said that a town was dedicated to the Lord it meant that all the people were killed and the town was burnt.
Once the archaeology was seen with that in mind it was noticed that the archaeology fitted what was written in Joshua for a 1400 to 1350 conquest approx.
The town that were just conquered were used by the Israelites to live in and so it would look as if the Canaanites were still using the sites.
Many of the Canaanites were still left in Canaan to test the Israelites and so that the wild animals and weeds did not just go nuts for lack of people.
Israel after Joshua started worship of the Canaanite Gods.
The thing is that all the big stories about YHWH and Canaan that modern archaeologists say they have discovered are just things they could have got just from reading the Bible.
Even those proto Israelite houses outside of Canaan could probably be explained by the fact that the Bible says that the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh made their home on the East side of the Jordan bordering Moab.
The whole thing is just so mixed up with scholars going against the Bible and saying 1200 and not reading Joshua as it was meant to be read and not finding evidence of conquest and so ending up with a peaceful settlement hypothesis. And the Jericho debacle tops it off.

The narrative is they came from Egypt and conquered the Canaanites. That isn't what happened. Israel emerged from Canaan. Exodus is a national foundation myth and Genesis was written later using popular legends just to give then a creation narrative like all other cultures. Archaeology helped show this was the case.

It always amazes me that people make up their own ideas of what happened instead of reading the Bible to find out what happened. But I guess if you don't want to believe the Bible that is what you have to do.
All people need do is read the Bible to find out about the mixing of YHWH worship with Baal worship by ancient Israel, there is no need for any special theory of what happened, it's all there for us to read.

That makes no sense. Through comparative mythology we know Genesis is Mesopotamian, the flood story is also from them, Job is a Babylonian story. They were not writing history. Biblical text certainly won't tell you about the influences of the Greeks and Persians during the 2nd Temple Period. The Bible is their theology not history.

 

[joelr]

First you say that hasn't happened and they you go on to show that it does happen. In science anecdotes are not good enough, iow the scripture stories are not good enough to show the supernatural and so are rejected as evidence.
That's fine for science I guess but it is a lie to then go on and say that history has discovered that for example the gospels must have been written after 70AD because the prophecy of the Temple destruction is BS. It is a presumption that the supernatural stories etc are not true and any conclusion based on that is a presumption. It does not matter what I might personally think of the supernatural in the Islamic or Hindu texts.

What I'm saying never happens is something in your original statement.
No, the miracles and supernatural beings in religious myths are 100% not real. No other culture or historian EVER wrote about any supernatural events that other religions claimed happen. Saints leaving their gravesites in one of the crucifion stories is not written about in histories of the time. The same miracles appear in every religion, the mystery religions and so on, so does the same theology. 2nd century apologist Justin Martyr actually said the unique passions of Jesus are no different than Dionysis or any other common demigods.

Mark is written around 70AD based on events known about in the text. He knew the temple was destroyed. You don't assume people can predict the future unless they demonstrate they can predict the future?
This idea about "assumptions" and supernatural events is ridiculous. If all scholarship about Hindu, Islam and every religious text assumed supernatural events were all real and they
"proved" Krishna was real (because they said so) you would lose faith in academia. This is a ridiculous standard. There has never ever been proof of anything supernatural. The gospels are written in a Greek fictive style. They are written exactly in the Greek style being taught and they use all the popular literary fiction devices, Ring structure, triadic inversions, events nestled in between events, improbable events. use of parables, having the main character explain he's using parables (this is Mark explaining the entire story is a parable). And the theology is Hellenism and Persian mixed with Judaism. Those are all myths.
Savior demigods are Greek/Persian, revelations is taken from the much older Persian revelations, "the word made flesh" is a Platonic concept. Fallen souls that can return to heaven is Greek, and many other changes.

I would say that Abraham is real or a definite possibility and that modern histories making up the idea that he is an origins myth that was made up by Israel hundreds of years later. This actually is an example of myth making by people who need the history they write to support their ideas of reality. "Israel had to have made up Abraham etc because we can't find someone named Abraham and because we think that there was no Israel in Egypt and no conquest of Canaan and anyway the prophecies from the Pentateuch are BS and so the Pentateuch had to have been written after the so called fulfilments of the prophecies."
The modern historians don't write that but that is the thinking.

Abraham may have been an early leader. Like Joe Smith or Prince Arjuna he did not speak with a God

It's pretty radical I guess and may be wrong or right. I don't think Rohl's chronology is needed for the Bible to be correct. It does help with anomalies in Greek history it seems and with fitting certain things in other records into the Bible stories.
Rohl does seem to have had some insight into other archaeological finds and where they fit into the Bible, where minimalists interpret these finds completely differently.
I found this to be an interesting interview with David Rohl.

Most scholars are skeptical of his work. There is some history in the Bible. But the Gods and angels and such, those are never going to be real. That is fiction.

 

[joelr]

Scholars can be wrong. First of all, Abraham preceded Moses. After Jesus came the invitation to worship the God of Israel was extended to -- the nations. Beyond the Israelites. There's a message there. (Have a nice day.)

Yeah scholars can be wrong. What is your point? Thomas Thompsons work came out in the 1970's. It's since become completely accepted and the work stands as absolute proof that these are mythical characters.
But also, the Moses stories are all older Egyptian stories used on older leaders. Even if there was a leader named Moses who inspired the stories the OT narratives are mythical version of his life.

I don't understand how hard this is? Christianity is a blend of Hellenism with Judaism. One of the aspects of Hellenistic religions was being cosmopolitan. All nations were invited.

"
his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.


-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.


-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme"


and fallen souls can be redeemed and go to an afterlife, through belief and baptism of a savior
and national gods become Supreme, Yahweh did do that

 

[joelr]

As far as I see, there's a difference in textual content (and history within the text) among the various religions.

I don't see how that is a response. That post gave the far older version of Revelations from the Persians showing what the Hebrews eventually developed into the CHristian Revelations.

Yeah they write slightly different? But IT"S LITERALLY REVELATIONS?????? They have all the same concepts, last judgment, fire, end times resurrection into new body, paradise on Earth.


That is where they got the idea. What you see is the myth that the Hebrews took the idea of end times literature from. Yes it's borrowed mythology.

 

[YoursTrue]

I don't see how that is a response. That post gave the far older version of Revelations from the Persians showing what the Hebrews eventually developed into the CHristian Revelations.

Yeah they write slightly different? But IT"S LITERALLY REVELATIONS?????? They have all the same concepts, last judgment, fire, end times resurrection into new body, paradise on Earth.


That is where they got the idea. What you see is the myth that the Hebrews took the idea of end times literature from. Yes it's borrowed mythology.

Here's what I mean: do you know of any other religious text that goes over in pretty big detail about the history of their country especially from 1500 BCE until the 1st century (C.E.)? Maybe there is one, I just don't know about it.

 

[YoursTrue]

Yeah scholars can be wrong. What is your point? Thomas Thompsons work came out in the 1970's. It's since become completely accepted and the work stands as absolute proof that these are mythical characters.
But also, the Moses stories are all older Egyptian stories used on older leaders. Even if there was a leader named Moses who inspired the stories the OT narratives are mythical version of his life.

I don't understand how hard this is? Christianity is a blend of Hellenism with Judaism. One of the aspects of Hellenistic religions was being cosmopolitan. All nations were invited.

"
his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.


-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.


-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme"


and fallen souls can be redeemed and go to an afterlife, through belief and baptism of a savior
and national gods become Supreme, Yahweh did do that

Can you give me the name of the book you are speaking of by Thomas Thompson (above)? I tried looking for this particular book, there is a biography about him on wikipedia, but nothing about Biblical myths. Maybe it's not the same Thomas Thompson? So if you can find the name of the book you are speaking of I would appreciate it. Thanks. (OK, got it - I think it's called "The Mythic Past," I will look for it if I can get it.

 

[YoursTrue]

I don't see how that is a response. That post gave the far older version of Revelations from the Persians showing what the Hebrews eventually developed into the CHristian Revelations.

Yeah they write slightly different? But IT"S LITERALLY REVELATIONS?????? They have all the same concepts, last judgment, fire, end times resurrection into new body, paradise on Earth.


That is where they got the idea. What you see is the myth that the Hebrews took the idea of end times literature from. Yes it's borrowed mythology.

ok, do me a favor. What religious books other than the Bible has a detailed (even if you don't agree with it) history stemming over 1500 years in the making?

 

[Brian2]

Mark is written around 70AD based on events known about in the text. He knew the temple was destroyed. You don't assume people can predict the future unless they demonstrate they can predict the future?
This idea about "assumptions" and supernatural events is ridiculous. If all scholarship about Hindu, Islam and every religious text assumed supernatural events were all real and they
"proved" Krishna was real (because they said so) you would lose faith in academia. This is a ridiculous standard. There has never ever been proof of anything supernatural.

Scholars don't have to assume supernatural such as prophecy is true, they just have to not assume it is false.
With the gospels, if that approach is taken the evidence points to pre 70AD writing.
It is circular reasoning to presume that prophecy is BS and from that stance to date the writing of the gospels and give an opinion of the authorship of the gospels and historicity of the gospels.
Do you realise what you are saying when you say that Jesus has not demonstrated that He can predict the future?
How can Jesus do that with people who make the presumption that prophecy is false?
The presumption ends up destroying evidence that Jesus or any one else in scripture prophesied anything, because the date of authorship is always put after the event,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,or, in the case of Jesus, the Jesus story is said to have been made up to fit prophecies.
I'm afraid that I have lost faith in much of academia already because of the presumption that the supernatural is not real and the inability to see the stupidity of that move in relation to spiritual texts.

 

[joelr]

Here's what I mean: do you know of any other religious text that goes over in pretty big detail about the history of their country especially from 1500 BCE until the 1st century (C.E.)? Maybe there is one, I just don't know about it.

All myths document rituals, beliefs, Gods, wars, politics, bloodlines. Like the Greek myths we don't know if for example the trojan horse was actually used as a battle tactic. Or which hero is real. Moses is not considered real, Daniel is definitely a forgery, Solomon was a much smaller empire, Juda was a small town. Every culture uses stories that contain some truth and some legend. And always made-up deities.
so these histories are not literal, they contain elements of truth.
Exodus says 2 million people left Egypt and defeated Canaan. Many lines of evidence and lack of evidence show this did not happen. They came from Canaan peacefully. So it isn't history. It's a story made to unify a struggling people.

There is a debate on Exodus here with 2 scholars against a Biblical scholar and an apologist. The evidence favors the scholars by far.

 

[joelr]

Can you give me the name of the book you are speaking of by Thomas Thompson (above)? I tried looking for this particular book, there is a biography about him on wikipedia, but nothing about Biblical myths. Maybe it's not the same Thomas Thompson? So if you can find the name of the book you are speaking of I would appreciate it. Thanks. (OK, got it - I think it's called "The Mythic Past," I will look for it if I can get it.

That was another book by him. The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives was the first big work

The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives - Wikipedia

 

[joelr]

ok, do me a favor. What religious books other than the Bible has a detailed (even if you don't agree with it) history stemming over 1500 years in the making?

The Hindu scriptures are divided into many books and Advaita Vedanta is the most popular, books are Vedas, the Upanishads, the Purānas, the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyana, and the Āgamas.[
Egyptian and Greek religions also span long amounts of time


The religions that were similar to the OT were the religions that were influenced by Mesopotamian, Egyptian and similar sources. There were several and they all had similar laws to Deuteronomy and similar theologies (probably multiple Gods however). Dr Josh Bowen says the Deuteronical laws were not advanced for the time, they were standard.

They all went through a change when they encountered Hellenism, including Judaism. Judaism plus Hellenism/Persian ideas is Christianity. Phonecian + Hellenism = Baccic mysteries,
Persin + Hellenism - Mysteries of Mithras, and so on. Those became the Mystery religions, there are many others. Christianity is also a mystery religion, it has the same Hellenistic elements.

Point is the pre-Hellenistic forms of the religions and the Mystery religion forms of the religions have been erased from existence by the church. Only scraps and bits and pieces remain. Religions competing with Judaism directly are gone.
The Persain religion still remains and is where Revelations, world saviors virgin born and Satan/end of times/general resurrection is from. I don't know if there scripture is online.


Dr Carrier talks about the Mystery religions here:

 

[joelr]

Scholars don't have to assume supernatural such as prophecy is true, they just have to not assume it is false.
With the gospels, if that approach is taken the evidence points to pre 70AD writing.
It is circular reasoning to presume that prophecy is BS and from that stance to date the writing of the gospels and give an opinion of the authorship of the gospels and historicity of the gospels.

Did you just accuse someone of circular reasoning, a logical fallacy, then suggest we should consider a fictional demigod character might have really been predicting the future??????????? Instead of realizing Mark is writing about a person who is predicting something? If this was done in any other situation, if a history book said Hercules predicted the future and the book was dated by that you would think they were crazy?

There is no evidence gospel Jesus is real. There is no historical accounts of supernatural events. There are thousands of supernatural events written in fiction. There is no evidence that any of that is real or possible. This story is written exactly like fiction. Historians are not trying to decide how magical Jesus was. They are trying to decide if a real man existed who the fictional narratives were based on.
If the Jesus story contained all sorts of literal predictions like E=Mc2 and explained calculus, the universe, germs, atoms, maybe that line of thinking would be used. But dying/rising demigods who undergo a passion and get baptized members into an afterlife are older myths already used many times by the Jewish version. Then, he does the same miracles already done in myths. This is fiction. Mark knew the temple was destroyed.

Also Mark is not an eyewitness. He is not talking to Jesus. When you take out the obvious uses of making earthly versions of Pauls letters, Jesus Ben Damius, Psalms, Kings..there isn'y even an oral tradition here.

Do you realise what you are saying when you say that Jesus has not demonstrated that He can predict the future?
How can Jesus do that with people who make the presumption that prophecy is false?

Wow so every time in ancient legends when a non-eyewitness is recalling a demigod predicting the future, they are ALL TRUE???? This story is not special, it's just Hellenism, Persian myths mixed with Judaism. Scholars do not think it's a true story?

The presumption ends up destroying evidence that Jesus or any one else in scripture prophesied anything, because the date of authorship is always put after the event,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,or, in the case of Jesus, the Jesus story is said to have been made up to fit prophecies.
I'm afraid that I have lost faith in much of academia already because of the presumption that the supernatural is not real and the inability to see the stupidity of that move in relation to spiritual texts.

This is the worst cognitive dissonance ever. Not only are the myths mundane and copies of older myths. There are ZERO historians who can even say for sure there was a physical Jesus. Tacitus says they were "harmless superstition".
In NO PLACE in these writings are there prophecies that are impressive. He could have said, "the universe is 13 billion light years and we are in 1 galaxy surrounded by a local cluster. There are super clusters and more. Black holes will be discovered as well as atoms which are weird because they are waves and particles."

Yes, Mark wrote the story to make savior messianic prophecies come true. There were at least 6 other resurrected sons/daughters of a supreme God who was "the word became flesh" (more Greek myth) and got people into their afterlife. Yet historians are supposed to go, "hey y'know this version is probably true, am I right?...."

But then if your supernatural story is true on crap evidence why can't Islam be true? So now Muhammad can tell the future! So now every religion has characters who can tell the future? Wow great, now we live in a world where no one really cares about what is true. You can pretend it's true all day. You don't need scholars to make obvious fallacies and destroy logic (just for you). You can believe whatever you want.

But this is mainstream historical scholarship.

The four canonical gospels were probably written between AD 66 and 110.[5][6][7] All four were anonymous (the modern names were added in the 2nd century), almost certainly none were by eyewitnesses, and all are the end-products of long oral and written transmission.[8] Mark was the first to be written, using a variety of sources;[9][10] the authors of Matthew and Luke, acting independently, used Mark for their narrative of Jesus's career, supplementing it with the collection of sayings called the Q document and additional material unique to each;[1


Not only that but Mark has Jesus teach in parables then he explains that he teaches in parables. This is how an author in this Greek style tells the reader that the story is a parable. Not literal. Literalism did not start until late 2nd century when sects began saying "no mine is literally true"....Now some people still think it's supposed to be taken literal?


Also Jesus predicts TWICE that revelations will happen in the lifetime of his followers. In Mark.

-Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
-And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.

That's clear in 13 that the sun/moon will turn off, angels will come down, stars will fall, this is Revelations in that generation. Butt still you think ANOTHER prophecy should be considered real???? Even by people who are NOT IN THE RELIGION???????????

 

[gnostic]

Scholars can be wrong. First of all, Abraham preceded Moses.

But both Genesis and Exodus, as well as book of Joshua are mythological narratives, not historical records.

Myths that started around the late 7th century BCE and later.

There are no Bronze Age version of these stories in the 15th century and 14th century BCE. There were no Moses to write these books, nor did the stone tablets (Ten commandments) or the gold box (Ark of Covenant) that supposedly housed the Ten Commandments. None of these supposedly exist.

And btw, if the original Ten Commandments were inscribed on the stone tablets in the 15th century BCE, IN WHAT LANGUAGE do think it was written?

Was in Egyptian hieroglyphs or hieratic? Or was in Canaanite cuneiform?

It couldn’t be Canaanite or Hebrew alphabet, because there are no evidence to support alphabet existed in the 15th century BCE.

The Proto-Canaanite alphabet (PCA) or “Phoenician alphabet” as it was called by 19th century and earlier 20th century historians, philologists and archaeologists, did not exist before 1200 BCE.

The oldest PCA inscriptions in southern Israel, were the 10th century BCE Gezer Calendar and the Zayit Stone (at discovered at Tell Zayit).

If god did inscribe on the original stone tablets, then it couldn’t be Hebrew alphabet, because the alphabet didn’t exist.

And as I told you before, if Moses had been a real historical person, then he should have known the name of the Egyptian princess, who had adopted him, and the name of her father, the pharaoh of the 16th century BCE. But they were nameless.

Also nameless are the pharaohs, whom Abraham and Joseph met.

These nameless Egyptians should have names, but they don’t in Genesis and Exodus. They are nameless because Moses didn’t write either books, and whoever did in the 6th century BCE, didn’t known history of Egypt in the Exodus myths.

You keep claiming that Moses exist, when he did not, and you keep claiming that Moses wrote those books, when he clearly did not.

All you have to show for, is what you believe, but your belief about Moses and these books are nothing more than confirmation bias.

 

[YoursTrue]

All myths document rituals, beliefs, Gods, wars, politics, bloodlines. Like the Greek myths we don't know if for example the trojan horse was actually used as a battle tactic. Or which hero is real. Moses is not considered real, Daniel is definitely a forgery, Solomon was a much smaller empire, Juda was a small town. Every culture uses stories that contain some truth and some legend. And always made-up deities.
so these histories are not literal, they contain elements of truth.
Exodus says 2 million people left Egypt and defeated Canaan. Many lines of evidence and lack of evidence show this did not happen. They came from Canaan peacefully. So it isn't history. It's a story made to unify a struggling people.

There is a debate on Exodus here with 2 scholars against a Biblical scholar and an apologist. The evidence favors the scholars by far.

You say these people (the Israelites) came from Canaan peacefully. Where are you getting your information from?

 

[YoursTrue]

The Hindu scriptures are divided into many books and Advaita Vedanta is the most popular, books are Vedas, the Upanishads, the Purānas, the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyana, and the Āgamas.[
Egyptian and Greek religions also span long amounts of time


The religions that were similar to the OT were the religions that were influenced by Mesopotamian, Egyptian and similar sources. There were several and they all had similar laws to Deuteronomy and similar theologies (probably multiple Gods however). Dr Josh Bowen says the Deuteronical laws were not advanced for the time, they were standard.

They all went through a change when they encountered Hellenism, including Judaism. Judaism plus Hellenism/Persian ideas is Christianity. Phonecian + Hellenism = Baccic mysteries,
Persin + Hellenism - Mysteries of Mithras, and so on. Those became the Mystery religions, there are many others. Christianity is also a mystery religion, it has the same Hellenistic elements.

Point is the pre-Hellenistic forms of the religions and the Mystery religion forms of the religions have been erased from existence by the church. Only scraps and bits and pieces remain. Religions competing with Judaism directly are gone.
The Persain religion still remains and is where Revelations, world saviors virgin born and Satan/end of times/general resurrection is from. I don't know if there scripture is online.


Dr Carrier talks about the Mystery religions here:

I think I asked if you know of any books, compendium of books, said to have been written by residents or members of their religious culture over 1500 years speaking of their particular .history.