onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
In the form that they knew--Egyptian. The consensus of four authors works well with this. When alphabetic methods were available, the stories were converted.
J
In the Beginning...
- Thread starter Berzerker
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In the form that they knew--Egyptian. The consensus of four authors works well with this. When alphabetic methods were available, the stories were converted.
J
It's mostly a matter of faith. Some people really really want to worship a god that tortured a bunch of peasants in order to sway the mind of a tyrant, even if there's negative evidence against the event having taken place.
So the poor, persecuted, dispossessed Hebrew slaves were literate? How many Egyptian scribes did they take with them?
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Wait, Jesus visited North America AND Britain?
How about Poland?
How about Poland?
Lexicus
Deity
Jesus cannot into polan
Well, obviously. Don't you know the words to Jerusalem off by heart by now?
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Lexicus
Deity
Once again, there is no evidence that that one existed or that the Hebrews were ever enslaved in Egypt.
Jay, you're doing the typical apologist thing, and you're trying to streamline the story to be sensical. It's a natural action. But what we're discussing is whether the story is true, not whether it is plausible.
It's very easy to alter the Old Testament so that it operates (partially) according to known naturalistic phenomena. Well, not 'easy' easy, but it can be done (fer ex, airburst nukes to explain Sodom and Gamorah). But if you want to discuss evidence that the events actually occurred, you need to move past mere plausbility into hypotheses.
It's very easy to alter the Old Testament so that it operates (partially) according to known naturalistic phenomena. Well, not 'easy' easy, but it can be done (fer ex, airburst nukes to explain Sodom and Gamorah). But if you want to discuss evidence that the events actually occurred, you need to move past mere plausbility into hypotheses.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Sure there is. What you mean is there is no corroborative evidence. It's a significant distinction.
J
Lexicus
Deity
The Bible is not evidence that the Bible is true, no more than the Harry Potter books are evidence of the existence of Voldemort. The Bible is just a book of myths.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Yes, it is.
You cannot be intellectually honest and ignore what a book/person/group say about themselves.
J
Lexicus
Deity
So, can you explain why you don't apply this principle to the Harry Potter books, the Quran, Greek mythology, The Aeneid, or any number of other fictional stories?
So, the one person presumably literate in hieroglyphics wrote down all five books of the Torah, at some point instructed other people how to read and write hieroglyphics and then expired at the grand age of 120, entrusting the first papyrus edition of the Torah to his disciples, who then spent the next 300-400 years passing on the sacred scripts, written in the language of their Egyptian oppressors, before switching over to Palaeo-Hebrew for some reason as yet unknown.
I'm not sure you've thought that one through particularly well.
Naw, the Bible is evidence. It's best evidence of what people thought was true in 500 BCE.
But the counter-evidence is strong enough that we can easily 'get' that a people can be wrong about their own history many centuries later.
Lexicus
Deity
Well, strictly speaking a rather small group of people in 500 BCE, not "people" in general. But I'm not disputing that. I am disputing that the Bible is evidence that anything in the Bible actually happened.
I think my previous posts in this thread should have made it clear I'm perfectly aware of the historical significance of the Bible as a source. The Bible is invaluable as a literary source in the same way that things like the Aeneid or Beowulf are. Not because anything that happened in these stories was actually true, but because they offer a window into how the people who produced them thought about themselves and the world.
timtofly
One Day
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- Sep 28, 2009
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The author of Harry Potter acknowledged the fictional account, and it was not based on anything that is actually happening currently. The Quran is remnants of the account that the editors of the OT threw out, along with the history of the followers of Mohammed. It could be argued that it was an effort to rewrite history to favor the "other" descendant of Abraham. Some Greek writings are fictional accounts of historical events. The Greeks were imaginative writers.
If you really want imaginative tales and exaggerated accounts read the writings of the Rabbis, and the Oral traditions. They produced the Gnostics.
The written Law And the added "news" worthy events, was redacted as the most accepted accounting of what happened. Now even it has been deemed mythical.
If I would place any criticism perhaps it "was" the "Forest Gump" rendition of history. If the movie was the only legacy of the USA found in 2000 years along with news accounts of how many people died from all the attacks the USA did, and that was all that was left, who are you going to believe. The "cuneiform" accounts of generals attacking foreign lands, or the movie "Forest Gump"?
Forest never made any outlandish claims, but yet in a mysterious way he may or may not have influenced a lot of history,and what people remembered had nothing to do with Forest at all.
What Biblical criticism gave us was an insight into the thoughts of 700 BC Israel, but that is because it was a part of their daily lives. That era is the closest they can admit, in a scholarly fashion, their acceptance of history. I am still not sure how they think that history at that point can just be made up. In fact even their argument is based internally in what the OT says, and nothing in archeology. So saying that the Bible cannot be a source of proof, is not intellectually honest, if that is the basis of even critical thought. It is based on the words used, and when they would have been used. One cannot write about history before it happens, with terms and usage that only appears after the fact. The problem though with that, is that the originals were re-wrote in the current usage, and may not have retained the exact wording, but the concept was there, and they believed that history actually developed that way, and the concept was passed on even if the details contradicted themselves. I think that every one now agrees, that there was not just one subset of Hebrews who kept the written tradition going, but that there were several sources, and each subset did not compare notes until later generations. There were prophets, priests, kings, and even a split kingdom. Even today there is a lot of thought put into genealogies and familial entities. We do not say that genealogist make up history based on what they can find. What point is there in lying about the past? The Law was even a legal concept that included a covenant that would put even more importance in keeping it in tact as well as could be expected and also add history as they saw it to the mix.
There is internal evidence that the Law had been around, and it was Joshua and Moses who saw to it that it was passed on in both an oral and written tradition. The written word being a form of an agreement in writing, just like any legal paper work today. It was not just written in stone, and forgotten about. It was part of everyday life for those who were charged to carry out the task, and that included more than one group, to assure that it would not be forgotten or left the memory of the people. And in certain cases it seemed that it did, as a written copy was found several times, and they were reminded once again of it's importance. Each time adding to the history of the work.
I would like to point out that the History of the Amorites even in the wiki article is dual in nature. There were two people groups who were referred to as Amorites. One was the descendants of Shem and Semites, and they lived in Mesopotamia. The other group were the descendants of Ham and were Canaanites. If you agree with the Biblical account, then Kush, and Put were the relatives of the Canaanite Amorites who originally settled in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt. The Amorites who settled in Syria were the original Phoenicians and settlers of Canaan. The Bible says that Abraham was "called" out of Mesopotamia and settled in Canaan. They were naturalized Canaanites, not indigenous. The Syrian Amorites settled in cities and were not nomadic while the Mesopotamian Amorites were recognized in history and even ruled over Babylonia for a while. I suppose there are some who argue that they are the same people group, but about all they shared was a similar name, and perhaps a language similarity, but the Syrian group were known for being giants, had control over city states, and where not as populous as the nomadic group, who lived in tents, and could be found all over the Middle East, including Egypt, Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the Levant. They may have had a home base, or cities even, but they moved around and never settled long enough to be considered nationalized. Until of course they did settle down, as they were never called Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, or Canaanites. They were always known by their original family name. The Hebrews being just one clan out of many.
If you want to say that they made up Abraham, would it have been their version of Hammurabi? Even one of the oral legends claimed that he defeated the Babylonian kingdoms in passing. It still could be true, because they may have been his descendants. Who knows? There was even an argument over whether the Amorite dynasty was actually familial or different clans contending who would rule, during the translating of the cuneiform texts.
The Hebrews were even more specific claiming they were just cousins to the Amorites. There is nothing in accepted History that indicates they had to be one people group or the other. The accepted history even lumps them in with the rest of the Canaanites, but it never says that they were not nomadic. If we can accept that the Amorites were nomadic, while at the same time have cities and rule over Babylonia, what makes a people group who seemed to keep better records albeit contradictory, and more than likely not being made up, while at the same time have a rich oral tradition that is very much made up, and way more contradictory. What is the reasoning behind having a written legal document and a family genealogy as being fabricated. It is such documents that we assume we know the rest of the history of most people groups.
Why not? Theys plays grampas guitars... Or is that they the Sweden?No makings fun of Poland!
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
You should count the assumptions you are making. It's a lot.
For example, it is not unreasonable for a single person to found a scholastic order. He may not have been alone. Scribes have servants. Regardless, Hebrews and Jews have been scholars literally as long as they can remember. The language is a good reason to convert to a script based writing. They may have wanted to distance themselves from Egypt and Egyptian things. Hieroglyphics suck for many purposes. The oldest known writings are 300 years later. You assume that they are the first such writings. It would not have been an easy transition but we have nothing transitional.
It is not unreasonable to think Moses had something to do with the Books of Moses. Wrote them?, Perhaps not. Ordered them compiled? Much more likely.
J
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