OT Stories - Myths,Legends, Parables, or Real

pauljohntheskeptic
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OT Stories - Myths,Legends, Parables, or Real

In discussions with Caposkia on his thread regarding his recommended book (New Atheist Crusaders) we have mutually agreed to open a discussion on the OT discussing reality versus myth for stories in the OT. My position is that the OT is largely myths and legends with little basis in reality. There may be stories that may be considered literature as Rook has suggested though it still incorporates myths and legends as well in my opinion. The intent is to examine major stories and discuss the mythical components versus the interpretations by Christians and Jews that these events were real. Caposkia has indicated in many of his posts that he agrees that some of the stories are reality based and in those areas I'm interested in understanding his reasoning or any other believer for acceptance versus others where he does not consider them to be. It may be there are a few where we may find agreement as to a story being a myth or it being real though my inclination is little more is reality based other than kingdoms existed in Palestine that were called Israel and Judah and they interacted with other nations in some fashion.

Since the basis of Christian beliefs started with creation and the fall of man we'll begin there and attempt to progress through Genesis in some sort of logical order sort of like Sunday School for those of you that went. I’m not particularly concerned about each little bit of belief in these stories but I’m more interested in the mythology aspects. We could for pages argue over original sin or free will but that isn’t even necessary in my opinion as the text discredits itself with blatant assertions and impossibilities. Instead consider for example Eve is created in one version from Adam’s rib which can be directly compared to the Sumerian goddess of the rib called Nin-ti which Ninhursag gave birth to heal the god Enki. Other comparisons can be made to the Sumerian paradise called Dilmun to the Garden of Eden as well. These stories predate the OT by thousands of years and tell the tale of the ancient Annuna gods that supposedly created the world. Visit www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/# for more information and some of the translated stories, click on corpus content by number or category.

In order for salvation through Christ from our supposed sins against the God the events of Genesis must have occurred in some fashion. If the Genesis stories are largely mythical or they are simply a parable then this basis is poorly founded and weakens the entire structure of Christian belief. Caposkia claims I error at square one because I don't acknowledge a spiritual world. I suggest that he and other followers error by accepting that which there is no detectable basis. This is done by interpreting parables and myths by the ancients to be more than inadequate understanding by unknowing people that looked for an answer to why things were in the world they observed.

In Genesis 1 is the supposed creation of the world by God. In this account illogical explanations start immediately with the description of the Earth being without form and darkness was upon it. Light is then created and explained as day and night. Next God molded his creation into better detail by creating Heaven above meaning the sky and waters on the earth. He then caused dry land to appear calling it the Earth and the waters the Seas. On this same day he created vegetation with the requirement that it bring forth after its kind by duplication through seeds. The following day he created the heavenly bodies to divide day from night and to be signs for seasons and for years. He made the great light to rule the day and the lesser light the night as well as all the stars. On the 5th day he created all the life in the seas and air with the requirement they reproduce after their own kind. The 6th day he created all the land animals including man both male and female. The gods in this case made man after their image as male and female in their own likeness. He commanded them to multiply and replenish the earth.

Problems start with this account immediately. The Earth according to science is leftover material from the forming of our star, the Sun. This material would have been a glowing mass of molten material. The land in any event would emerge first before water could exist as a liquid upon it due to the extreme heat.  Light would already exist in the form of the Sun which according to current science is not as old as other stars in our galaxy not to mention in the Universe. The account mentions that day and night were made but this is not so except for a local event on the planet. An object not on the Earth would have no such condition or a different form of night and day. The account further errors in claiming the Sun, Moon, and stars were all formed following the creation of the Earth. In theories of planet formulation the star is formed first and planets afterwords. In the case of the moon multiple theories occur though not one where it zapped into the Universe suddenly. The statement that the heavenly bodies were created for signs and seasons is more evidence of a legend. The other planets and stars are purposeful in ways that aid in life existing or continuing to do so on Earth. Jupiter for example is a great big vacuum cleaner sucking into its gravitational field all sorts of debris that could eradicate life on Earth. Is this then a design by the god or just part of the situation that helped to allow life to progress as it did on the Earth? The observation of specific planets or stars in specific areas of the sky is just that, an observation no more and not placed there by a god to indicate the change of seasons.

One can also see some similarity between Genesis 1 and the Egyptian creation myth Ra and the serpent, see http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Resources/StudTxts/raSerpnt.html . In this myth Ra is the first on the scene and he creates all the creatures himself doing so before he made the wind or the rain. Ra does not create man but the gods he created gave birth to the people of Egypt who multiplied and flourished.

Some Jewish sects as well as Catholic belief allow for evolution to have been the method for creation of life on Earth. This however is in contradiction to Genesis in that all vegetation and animals were to reproduce only after their own kind. If this is so, then evolution is not compatible with the creation story. Simply put the life could not alter and produce different versions not after its kind. Since obvious examples exist for variation in species such as evolution even as simple as fish in caves without eyes or color versus those that are in streams outside there is obvious adaption thus discrediting this part of Genesis as myth.

The creation of man in Genesis 1 also suggests multiple gods as man was created in their likeness male and female thus following Canaanite gods such as Yahweh and his Asherah or Ba'al and Athirat that may be a reflection of an older tradition from either Egypt or Sumer. Genesis 2 on the other hand has a slightly different version from a variant I'll discuss in a later post.

I consider Genesis 1 to be a myth, legend or a parable based on all the problems discussed with basis in ancient stories from Sumer and Egypt. I leave it to Caposkia and other believers to indicate where they accept parts of Genesis 1 as reality and to indicate their reasoning if they do so.

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


pauljohntheskeptic
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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

We agree, there is little in history to support the earlier stories. We disagree that the storyline is supported by reality or as you suggest it is supported by the progression of the time line. I see it very differently, more a continuation of storytelling so far.

With the compilation of historical support for aspects of previous stories, it's getting harder and harder to just call it story telling.  It's one thing when with all the stories combined, you find a piece of historical support here and there, but each story seems to have a small chunk that is able to be studied, combined it starts looking more like a sufficient amount of history to start questioning any motif to deem them just stories. 

 

One can say this about the Sumerian stories as well. If you put them all together do they really form actual reality once upon a time long long ago?

We still have no proof of David, we have mention of his house, not anything from elsewhere that gives him substance.

And there is always the little fantasy magic episodes spread in the stories that detracts them from the reality we see.

 

 

If in fact the Sumerian stories had just as much support in history or more and the compilation of all the different unrelated stories from unrelated authors from different generations not only flowed as smoothly with a timeline, but also as a whole did not take place of another more credible timeline that could sit in the exact spot in history that their stories took place, then yes, they could form actual reality a long long time ago.  

I did not say if the Sumerian stories had as much support all I said was if you put them altogether do they really form a reality a long long time ago.

As we have discussed the OT stories, altogether they form a storytelling adventure, but they don't really reflect what actually occurred. We have discussed in detail how these stories are at odds with either history of other cultures or with archeology. Such as likely no Exodus just a 100 or less escapees if even that. Np invasion of Canaan as described, just a few settlers that were more warlike than the rest who settled in the area. I do not deny that the stories flow together, but if you took the time and started with the beginning of Sumerian or Egyptian stories they do a similar thing. If you read them haphazard, then it's harder to see. Even the Greek Myths/Storytelling do the same. Priests of all these ancient beliefs spent time in piecing together the storytelling. However, that does not make any of them to be actually based in the reality we occupy. IMHO.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


pauljohntheskeptic
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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I agree with you that these stories are not correct as presented.

I question the writer's available information in this case. He mentions 40 years and that is how long other books claimed David reigned. It doesn't come out very smooth.

These issues aren't just for you Cap, I know you see these problems too.

sure I see these "problems" but i don't see them as problems.  These stories and their "problems" are congruent with any other historical story from that time era and earlier.  Considering the source and the fact that most of the authors weren't there watching and recording the events, these "problems" don't shed any light on suspicion of these stories not actually taking place.   Only that they weren't eye witness accounts, as to which, most government based documents of the time weren't either, but they had more resources as far as recording date and time and logically so.  To question the validity of these stories based on these "problems" we'd have to question the validity of history in general from these time periods and prior.  
Just a note, say a well educated person made up a story during that time.  They'd likely get names and dates more accurate and/or made sure that any varience in those details would be so minute that there'd be no reason to question the validity.  If anything, the "problems" only further validate due to the manner at which stories were passed around during that time.  We can be assured that these stories were carefully passed down from generation to generation to even be as accurate as they are.  Otherwise, there wouldn't even be an effort at dating or genealogy, only that it happened.  The main reason why you see many many examples of who begot who in the OT is to further validate its place in history.  We're further out of place, but genealogy was extremely important to families back then and to claim a false genealogy would easily be refuted by the family it was claimed of. 

Other stories did not form the basis of 3 world religions that resulted in inter-religion warfare that has killed countless people and continues to do so today. All 3 Abe religions base much of their beliefs on these story episodes. All 3 use them to their own ends in killing others at one time or the other. I don recall anyone killing others based on the Gods of Sumer or Ugaritc lately, yet this still occurs with the god of Abe religions. And it matters little if it is from there lack of understanding of the supposed god or their use of it to ends it shouldn't be used.

The problem is the authors had inadequate information that was used and this formed some important point in the developing god belief of the Jews that is completely erroneous. For example, the god really was a mountain or volcano god, he became morphed into something else and was as real or not as any of the other created by mankind gods. This error is then causing issues to this day.

The motivation behind keeping government records (kings propaganda) as history and the religious storytelling are far different.

Just because the OT has a list of who begot who does not mean any of it is reality based, it can all be fiction just like the stories of Sumerian. Someone started the storytelling. As time goes by others add to it, keeping the flow going. After all the priests of Yahweh had a great deal, they all got something for their shaman activities.

As to creating a false genealogy, if you start it at the beginning of time, build it in the time of mists where few could read, and add more centuries later, who would ever know it was fiction?

 

caposkia wrote:

 

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

 

The civil war between David and his group and the followers of Absalom has one of those little episodes of magic and fantasy in it in regards to the woods killing more than David's servants did.

The numbers will always cause issues as to credibility of the writer. If he bloated that, what else did he fictionalize?

news gets information wrong all the time.. but no one questions the basis of the story due to their ignorance.  why should this be any different?

Some of us question the media especially when we are discussing talking heads that use the line, "some people say....."

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


caposkia
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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:I

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I did not say if the Sumerian stories had as much support all I said was if you put them altogether do they really form a reality a long long time ago.

I know what you said... I was giving you the criteria I'd need in order to accept that those stories had a possible place in history.  I took it that you were asking me if I would accept them as true if compiled.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

As we have discussed the OT stories, altogether they form a storytelling adventure, but they don't really reflect what actually occurred. We have discussed in detail how these stories are at odds with either history of other cultures or with archeology. Such as likely no Exodus just a 100 or less escapees if even that. Np invasion of Canaan as described, just a few settlers that were more warlike than the rest who settled in the area. I do not deny that the stories flow together, but if you took the time and started with the beginning of Sumerian or Egyptian stories they do a similar thing. If you read them haphazard, then it's harder to see. Even the Greek Myths/Storytelling do the same. Priests of all these ancient beliefs spent time in piecing together the storytelling. However, that does not make any of them to be actually based in the reality we occupy. IMHO.

 

The only parts we've agreed that don't reflect reality is likely quantity and sometimes location in history (date).  That in no way suggests that they don't reflect what actually occurred.  Sure the Exodus could have been more likely 100 or so escapees, but during that time, it was a significant number.  Even so, 100 escapees doesn't sound good enough to retell generation after generation.  I'm sure the number inflated as populations did through the generations before it was written down.  If it were still just verbally handed down today, we might say 3 million escaped, not to discredit the actual happening of the story, but to bring the same impact to the story that it did thousands of years ago.    

I've never discredited the Sumerian or Egyptian stories.  There is much evidence in Egyptian history of alternate histories being written to save face of their leaders, therefore careful research of each story is needed, but can assume to be true unless evidence suggests otherwise.  


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pauljohntheskeptic

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Other stories did not form the basis of 3 world religions that resulted in inter-religion warfare that has killed countless people and continues to do so today.

good to note... why did these succeed?

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

All 3 Abe religions base much of their beliefs on these story episodes. All 3 use them to their own ends in killing others at one time or the other.

..including Christianity, but each religion has their sects as to which the scholars would disagree with... to suggest that they used the OT stories alone to justify their killing is misinformation.   Each religion has their own "additions" if you will that would use OT sourcing to justify their own adjenda.  Anyone can take anything out of context including our government documents to justify their own adjenda.  The catch is when confronted, they cannot support their perspective, but only with their own writeup.   therefore, to blame these writings for such bloodshed is hardly justified.  

If anything, this would have to initiate a discussion into the NT, which we know is quite a long time from now.   To note, it is impossible to find such justification in the NT of the Bible and any sects that have justified justified their actions through their own books or doctrine, which is again their own interpretation of the Bible stories in specific points.  Today we don't have bloodshed, but each religion still has their own books or doctrine as interpretation to suggest that the other is wrong.  An analyzation of each would clarify where they were mislead if at all.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I don recall anyone killing others based on the Gods of Sumer or Ugaritc lately, yet this still occurs with the god of Abe religions. And it matters little if it is from there lack of understanding of the supposed god or their use of it to ends it shouldn't be used.

Again, no justification from the Christian Bible can be found for such action.   If one claims the justification is in the OT, my question to them would then be why is it that the Jews of today are not a more aggressive violent people?    My answer would be again that there is no justification despite what you might read out of context.  Any violence taken by Gods people in the OT had context to the reasoning.  Some more vague than others and some details are just not given, but in all cases it is noted that an injustice had been served from the other side so severe that it was justified to take such action.   This of course can be up to interpretation, but so can the action of our country going to war.  yet Americans would stand behind us fighting and killing Taliban.    

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The problem is the authors had inadequate information that was used and this formed some important point in the developing god belief of the Jews that is completely erroneous. For example, the god really was a mountain or volcano god, he became morphed into something else and was as real or not as any of the other created by mankind gods. This error is then causing issues to this day.

The problem with this is that every God that was associated with say a mountain or a volcano from what I can tell in history is known to be associated with it still to this day.  the Christian God is not associated with anything through history except to be the God of all gods.  Any attempt to show otherwise has been refuted from what I've seen presented so far.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The motivation behind keeping government records (kings propaganda) as history and the religious storytelling are far different.

of course, but our motivation of painting our past with both documents is the same.   

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Just because the OT has a list of who begot who does not mean any of it is reality based, it can all be fiction just like the stories of Sumerian. Someone started the storytelling. As time goes by others add to it, keeping the flow going. After all the priests of Yahweh had a great deal, they all got something for their shaman activities.

As to creating a false genealogy, if you start it at the beginning of time, build it in the time of mists where few could read, and add more centuries later, who would ever know it was fiction?

One thing is I've never seen such a detailed genealogy for a fictional story.  Second, it seems to me that it would be such a waste of time and effort be it that these stories held on their own without the genealogies through the years and would not have needed a genealogy to be further validated.  To paint such a detailed genealogy would also leave open the opportunity for our educated world today to reveal the flaw in the historical timeline easily, yet though genealogies have been traced back to this period in history and before, no one has come out to say that the Chronicles or other has been flawed or has no place in history.   in fact.... I have no source to back this up, but I believe they've found that these genealogies do hold true to history.   I could be wrong.

 

 

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Some of us question the media especially when we are discussing talking heads that use the line, "some people say....."

Some of us do, most don't.  Point and case, the Bible stories were always questioned throughout history just as much if not more by any and all opposing or following a different God, none have debunked it.   I'd figure 1000's of years is enough time for mankind who is actively questioning the validity of a specific claim such as these stories are to debunk thoroughly and effectively.    The Bible brings to light in many places a few of these attempts to debunk the God of the Bible.  


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I did not say if the Sumerian stories had as much support all I said was if you put them altogether do they really form a reality a long long time ago.

I know what you said... I was giving you the criteria I'd need in order to accept that those stories had a possible place in history.  I took it that you were asking me if I would accept them as true if compiled. 

 

OK, I get what you mean. These stories do form a place in history as they were meticulously recorded a long long time ago for some point. When taken together they show the entire belief system of the ancient Sumerians between 3000 BCE and 2000 BCE. Whatever reason for documenting the stories they do provide an insight into that time period whether or not the stories were pure conjecture or misunderstanding of the world. But, that does not mean that any of it actually happened in the way as described. The same thing is just as likely with the far newer stories in the OT. They were written for a purpose but it may only have been as a basis for the belief system and very little is actually based in the reality we know. As we have seen there has been much expansion by the writers in making the Hebrews seem to be of far more glorious and plentiful in numbers. That's one of the reasons I see it as largely propaganda.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

As we have discussed the OT stories, altogether they form a storytelling adventure, but they don't really reflect what actually occurred. We have discussed in detail how these stories are at odds with either history of other cultures or with archeology. Such as likely no Exodus just a 100 or less escapees if even that. Np invasion of Canaan as described, just a few settlers that were more warlike than the rest who settled in the area. I do not deny that the stories flow together, but if you took the time and started with the beginning of Sumerian or Egyptian stories they do a similar thing. If you read them haphazard, then it's harder to see. Even the Greek Myths/Storytelling do the same. Priests of all these ancient beliefs spent time in piecing together the storytelling. However, that does not make any of them to be actually based in the reality we occupy. IMHO.

 

The only parts we've agreed that don't reflect reality is likely quantity and sometimes location in history (date).  That in no way suggests that they don't reflect what actually occurred.  Sure the Exodus could have been more likely 100 or so escapees, but during that time, it was a significant number.  Even so, 100 escapees doesn't sound good enough to retell generation after generation.  I'm sure the number inflated as populations did through the generations before it was written down.  If it were still just verbally handed down today, we might say 3 million escaped, not to discredit the actual happening of the story, but to bring the same impact to the story that it did thousands of years ago.    

I've never discredited the Sumerian or Egyptian stories.  There is much evidence in Egyptian history of alternate histories being written to save face of their leaders, therefore careful research of each story is needed, but can assume to be true unless evidence suggests otherwise.  

100 are not 600,000 men plus women and children is the point. The idea of the writers was to show how great the Hebrew ancestors were in order to build a glorious history. That it is largely exaggerated numbers and contains events such as Ai and Jericho that did not happen adds fuel to the view it was largely what I call propaganda. This was not unusual at the time, other nations built up fantastic stories how the gods were involved in the lives of their country, as in the stories of Greece and Sumer.

We have already agreed that the Exodus story did not happen as written. There is really no way to actually know what really happened. Were these Hebrews some of the Hyskos? Were they others who had been captured in battle. Or just other Asiatics similar to the others generally called Canaanites in the OT. As I pointed out to you, it appears that those living in Judah and Israel were really no different than any of the others that settled in the highlands and moved into the valleys. See the references I previously gave you. More on this as we progress into the storytelling of the great Solomon, who is unknown in history outside of Judah.

 

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


pauljohntheskeptic
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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

 

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

 

Other stories did not form the basis of 3 world religions that resulted in inter-religion warfare that has killed countless people and continues to do so today.

 

 

good to note... why did these succeed?

 

The Jews were nearly eradicated by Hadrian. Many fled to other parts of the world. Today Judaism is a very small number of believers compared to others - 14-18 million.

Christians are around 2 billion plus.

Islam has over 1.5 billion believers

Hindus are around a billion.

Buddhists are about a billion.

No religion or atheists are about a billion.China has about a billion folk religion believers.

And there are many smaller groups.

As you well know, Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. In the following centuries non-believers were persecuted, forced to convert, maligned, and killed.

Ambrose, Augustine, and John Chryostom helped by providing basis for the church to ridicule, justify and validate these actions. See Ambrose's works The Correction of Donatists and The City of God for example.

Islam was no better, they fought their way from Arabia forcing conversions and executing many.

Jews did none of this and their numbers reflect it.

So why did Islam and Christianity succeed? Seems fairly obvious that to be different from others brought about adverse circumstances upon oneself. The persecutions by both speak for themselves.

 

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:
All 3 Abe religions base much of their beliefs on these story episodes. All 3 use them to their own ends in killing others at one time or the other.

..including Christianity, but each religion has their sects as to which the scholars would disagree with... to suggest that they used the OT stories alone to justify their killing is misinformation.   Each religion has their own "additions" if you will that would use OT sourcing to justify their own adjenda.  Anyone can take anything out of context including our government documents to justify their own adjenda.  The catch is when confronted, they cannot support their perspective, but only with their own writeup.   therefore, to blame these writings for such bloodshed is hardly justified. 

If anything, this would have to initiate a discussion into the NT, which we know is quite a long time from now.   To note, it is impossible to find such justification in the NT of the Bible and any sects that have justified justified their actions through their own books or doctrine, which is again their own interpretation of the Bible stories in specific points.  Today we don't have bloodshed, but each religion still has their own books or doctrine as interpretation to suggest that the other is wrong.  An analyzation of each would clarify where they were mislead if at all.

Religious fanatics of all groups take pieces of the storytelling and interpret to their own ends, this we agree on. You are bordering on the '"No True Scotsman fallacy" here. What is correct? Is none correct? Are all correct? Just because you see them as wrongly interpreting the storytelling, makes you the "true believer" and them the heretic, is that what you suggest?

How do you know this?

These multiple interpretations to their own ends suggest to me the evil nature of man, to gain power and control over others. If for no other reason, to be the center of attention in the church and to push one's will upon others.

If the god of Abe religions had all perished, man would still have found a way to kill one another to take the other's shit. However, if you can say, "God wills it", as in the movie Kingdom of Heaven, it sounds much more legitimate.

All Christians carry the genes in their inheritance using an analogy, as they are all descended from the same source material, and I don't mean St Peter here. They have inherited the early church fathers' views such as Ambrose and Augustine, which have been used by all in one way or the other. As is still being done today with bullshit laws based in Biblical interpretation. Though, the Bible itself speaks volumes on crime and punishment does it not. It's a good thing that neither Jews nor Christians follow the laws of Moses, and I don';t mean the 10 commandments, I mean all the other laws. 

And to say today we don't have bloodshed seems to overlook 9/11, Northern Ireland for most of the 20th century, and Kosovo. And of course the Mid East.

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I don't recall anyone killing others based on the Gods of Sumer or Ugaritc lately, yet this still occurs with the god of Abe religions. And it matters little if it is from there lack of understanding of the supposed god or their use of it to ends it shouldn't be used.

Again, no justification from the Christian Bible can be found for such action.   If one claims the justification is in the OT, my question to them would then be why is it that the Jews of today are not a more aggressive violent people?    My answer would be again that there is no justification despite what you might read out of context.  Any violence taken by Gods people in the OT had context to the reasoning.  Some more vague than others and some details are just not given, but in all cases it is noted that an injustice had been served from the other side so severe that it was justified to take such action.   This of course can be up to interpretation, but so can the action of our country going to war.  yet Americans would stand behind us fighting and killing Taliban.   

 

Anonymouse would beg to differ with you on the Jews, see his threads, he sees them as worse than Nazis.

I see the violence in the OT as largely fiction, propaganda and sometimes the "God wills it" justification for taking someone else's shit.

I would have supported whatever to get or kill Bin Ladin.  Bush in one of his few statements said it best. If you harbor terrorists you will be considered a terrorist. We could have gone to extremes to get Bin Ladin, we didn't, it took 10 years.  Fighting the Taliban, is pointless, it is a religious war. Killing Bin Ladin was justified, fighting in Afghanistan is not.

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:
The problem is the authors had inadequate information that was used and this formed some important point in the developing god belief of the Jews that is completely erroneous. For example, the god really was a mountain or volcano god, he became morphed into something else and was as real or not as any of the other created by mankind gods. This error is then causing issues to this day.

The problem with this is that every God that was associated with say a mountain or a volcano from what I can tell in history is known to be associated with it still to this day.  the Christian God is not associated with anything through history except to be the God of all gods.  Any attempt to show otherwise has been refuted from what I've seen presented so far.

 

You should research the gods of Canaan, such as El and the various Ba'als. El was the god of all gods, he was a Canaanite god. Funny El is the name Abe used for his god. And Asherah is supposedly Yahweh's consort and/or Ba'al's depending on the story.

As I always say, Read more, kill less.

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The motivation behind keeping government records (kings propaganda) as history and the religious storytelling are far different.

of course, but our motivation of painting our past with both documents is the same.  

 

Propaganda perhaps? One to make the kings look glorious and the other to show how great the god of the Judahites was?

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Just because the OT has a list of who begot who does not mean any of it is reality based, it can all be fiction just like the stories of Sumerian. Someone started the storytelling. As time goes by others add to it, keeping the flow going. After all the priests of Yahweh had a great deal, they all got something for their shaman activities.

As to creating a false genealogy, if you start it at the beginning of time, build it in the time of mists where few could read, and add more centuries later, who would ever know it was fiction?

One thing is I've never seen such a detailed genealogy for a fictional story.  Second, it seems to me that it would be such a waste of time and effort be it that these stories held on their own without the genealogies through the years and would not have needed a genealogy to be further validated.  To paint such a detailed genealogy would also leave open the opportunity for our educated world today to reveal the flaw in the historical timeline easily, yet though genealogies have been traced back to this period in history and before, no one has come out to say that the Chronicles or other has been flawed or has no place in history.   in fact.... I have no source to back this up, but I believe they've found that these genealogies do hold true to history.   I could be wrong.

 

Have you read the Sumerian kings list? It goes on for 100s of thousands of years. Though the kings are not always related.

As I remember, the Dune series by Frank Herbert involved bloodlines and genealogy to bring out their messiah. The Dune series was science fiction was it not?

 

As the OT goes back to the mythical Adam, it would be very difficult to validate. It goes through the characters Abraham, Joseph and others that have no standing in history that can be proved. Somewhere around 700 BCE the kings can be documented. As to all the rest, you are going to have to prove to me they were real, as I have nothing that does that I have ever seen.

 

caposkia wrote:

 

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Some of us question the media especially when we are discussing talking heads that use the line, "some people say....."

Some of us do, most don't.  Point and case, the Bible stories were always questioned throughout history just as much if not more by any and all opposing or following a different God, none have debunked it.   I'd figure 1000's of years is enough time for mankind who is actively questioning the validity of a specific claim such as these stories are to debunk thoroughly and effectively.    The Bible brings to light in many places a few of these attempts to debunk the God of the Bible. 

Were the stories questioned? And what did they say on the stand? Just funning ya.

The NT especially was argued against and most of that writing has been destroyed except the defense by the Christians, such as the discussion with a Jew, Trypho, which may or may not have been a real discussion. As the mainstream Christians forced beliefs on others as with the Donatists, the Cathars, the Jeseans, and the gnostics, their writing was ordered destroyed in the eradication of the heresies. Some has survived, as has some of the books written that did not make the canon of the NT. All are interesting to see the differing views of Jesus beliefs.

As we continue in our journey we can go into the holes in the Judah/Israel stories. Something to ponder though, there is nothing I have ever seen that in any way documents what either the people of Israel in the North or the people in the South, Judah actually believed. Artifacts have not brought to light who or what was really worshiped. Pot shards do not tell you who were the gods. Asherah statues do though and they have been found throughout Palestine in what was Israel and what was considered Judah. I so love how a scrap of an artifact is used by believers to make a claim that everything is true, however all it is usually is some vague unrelated word that can mean anything. As for instance the Mesha Stele and the Moabite stone indicate far different events as reported in the OT, but what do believers get out of it? They only grasp that David is mentioned and see it as validation of all. The artifacts do not tell anything in regard to what any of these ancient people held for religious beliefs at all, but the believer interpolates and validates his deeply held convictions with a scrap. This is hardly justified from such minute pieces of artifacts.

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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2 Samuel Continued

2 Samuel 19

This chapter begins with a report that David is in mourning for his son Absalom. Despite the fact Absalom rebelled and was attempting to have David killed, he mourns. Joab, went to David and informed him that he mourns for the man who would have killed him and all of his family. He told him if he did not get himself together by nightfall he'd have no army left and no support. David then went out to his men to address them.

Those of Israel that had supported the rebellion under Absalom all fled to their homes.

David begins his return to Jerusalem with all the support of Judah. Meanwhile many who had taken the side of the rebellion come to David to ask for forgiveness, which he gives.

The men of Israel and the men of Judah both make claims of how much they support David, with Israel saying they lay 10 times the claim as Judah. Judah says they were closely related to David so they took him across the Jordan.

Typical after a rebellion, all kiss butt.

2 Samuel 20

This chapter begins with a man of Belial, a Benjamite named Sheba who rejects David still. The men of Israel follow him in his rebellion while Judah stays on with David. David arrives back in Jerusalem and has the 10 concubines he had left there put under guard in a house where they are provided for but he never visits them again for sex and they all remain until death as widows.

David orders Amasa to have all the men of Judah assemble within 3 days and chase down Sheba. He however takes longer to do so than the king expected. As they are at the rock of Gibeon, Joab pulls out his dagger and stabs Amasa. After, they all converge on Abel Beth Maakah where Sheba is held up. Joab and the men begin to besiege the city. A wise woman comes forth to ask them to cease because Abel is a peaceful city a mother in Israel. Joab tells her they come for Sheba, if they hand him over they will cease the siege and depart. She told Joab his head would be thrown over the wall. The wise woman went to the people, who decided to cut off the head of Sheba. Once the head was thrown over the wall, Joab and the army departed.

And so ends another rebellion in the storytelling episodes of King David.

More unproved storytelling with nothing to substantiate it.

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


caposkia
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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:OK,

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

OK, I get what you mean. These stories do form a place in history as they were meticulously recorded a long long time ago for some point. When taken together they show the entire belief system of the ancient Sumerians between 3000 BCE and 2000 BCE. Whatever reason for documenting the stories they do provide an insight into that time period whether or not the stories were pure conjecture or misunderstanding of the world. But, that does not mean that any of it actually happened in the way as described. The same thing is just as likely with the far newer stories in the OT. They were written for a purpose but it may only have been as a basis for the belief system and very little is actually based in the reality we know. As we have seen there has been much expansion by the writers in making the Hebrews seem to be of far more glorious and plentiful in numbers. That's one of the reasons I see it as largely propaganda.

Inflating numbers or misrepresenting dates/locations is one thing, but changing the whole process of the story is another.  It sounded like you were claiming that it is in question to know whether what was actually happening in history is congruent with what the story said... This would not mean did 300 people or 3000 people go into battle, this would be more of whether there was a battle at all or not.   My case is there's nothing to suggest that these stories (the events unfolding) did not happen as said regardless of number or exact date, and a little support to suggest it did.  The only questions that have come up as far as whether they have or not for the Bible stories is the numbers and occasionally whether the dating was correct.  The events themselves have yet to be legitimately questioned. 

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

100 are not 600,000 men plus women and children is the point. The idea of the writers was to show how great the Hebrew ancestors were in order to build a glorious history. That it is largely exaggerated numbers and contains events such as Ai and Jericho that did not happen adds fuel to the view it was largely what I call propaganda. This was not unusual at the time, other nations built up fantastic stories how the gods were involved in the lives of their country, as in the stories of Greece and Sumer.

We have already agreed that the Exodus story did not happen as written. There is really no way to actually know what really happened. Were these Hebrews some of the Hyskos? Were they others who had been captured in battle. Or just other Asiatics similar to the others generally called Canaanites in the OT. As I pointed out to you, it appears that those living in Judah and Israel were really no different than any of the others that settled in the highlands and moved into the valleys. See the references I previously gave you. More on this as we progress into the storytelling of the great Solomon, who is unknown in history outside of Judah.

 

I remember where we've agreed and disagreed.  It seems though that your taking what we've agreed upon and are speculating from there that these stories are nothing compared to what really happened.   My take is they're still telling of the events that happened regardless of whether it was 10, 100, 1000, or 100,000.  To the generations of children of the survivors of the events in Exodus, that would be a big impact on the future even with just 300 be it that their numbers through the generations would multiply exponentially.  Keep in mind too these stories, especially the OT stories were not written down for their own information, but for the future generations to remember what had happened to get them where they are today


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:The

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The Jews were nearly eradicated by Hadrian. Many fled to other parts of the world. Today Judaism is a very small number of believers compared to others - 14-18 million.

Christians are around 2 billion plus.

Islam has over 1.5 billion believers

Hindus are around a billion.

Buddhists are about a billion.

No religion or atheists are about a billion.China has about a billion folk religion believers.

And there are many smaller groups.

As you well know, Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. In the following centuries non-believers were persecuted, forced to convert, maligned, and killed.

Ambrose, Augustine, and John Chryostom helped by providing basis for the church to ridicule, justify and validate these actions. See Ambrose's works The Correction of Donatists and The City of God for example.

Islam was no better, they fought their way from Arabia forcing conversions and executing many.

Jews did none of this and their numbers reflect it.

So why did Islam and Christianity succeed? Seems fairly obvious that to be different from others brought about adverse circumstances upon oneself. The persecutions by both speak for themselves.

If in fact it was true that it was the adverse circumstances that caused the success for these religions, it does not explain the generations of time in between (at least for Christianity) where no persecution was taking place and it definitely doesn't explain Christianity's success today be it that the greater persecution around the world is brought upon Christians over most other religions.    I'm sorry to say that despite the circumstances of the past and how forceful some select sects of Christianity might have been, it doesn't make logistic sense and at this point, i can't see how that would have made this religion as successful as it is unless the magnitude of persecution and threats to leave the religion were just as strong today if not stronger.    

I am also curious on your source for numbers... are they taking into consideration radical sects as well as true followers of each religion, or are they filtering out the neutral followers from the sects?  This would make a big difference in the numbers... also, are they taking into consideration (for Christianity at least) the number of followers of Christ vs. the number of those who call themselves Christians?  This would also make a difference in numbers be it that in many places around the world, it is forbidden to call yourself a Christian.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Religious fanatics of all groups take pieces of the storytelling and interpret to their own ends, this we agree on. You are bordering on the '"No True Scotsman fallacy" here. What is correct? Is none correct? Are all correct? Just because you see them as wrongly interpreting the storytelling, makes you the "true believer" and them the heretic, is that what you suggest?

I did not reference to what I agreed with specifically, only that I agree with scholars (those who dedicate their lives to understanding the writings)  For me to say I'm right and everyone else is wrong, that's the "no true Scotsman fallacy".  I never claimed that and never will

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

How do you know this?

I guess I make a bit of an assumption here, but I would assume that those who dedicate their lives to understanding the intentions of the writings from a neutral point of view would have the best understanding of what is being said and what should be understood vs any religion or denomination sect who has decided to make their own interpretation or come to their own conclusions regardless of how accurate they may be convinced that they are.  some of these people are my friends.  This may allow others who disagree with my perspective to throw out the bias card along with those who ultimately are believers, but I assure you my sources (those who I know personally anyway) are teaching and discussing from a neutral point of view.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

These multiple interpretations to their own ends suggest to me the evil nature of man, to gain power and control over others. If for no other reason, to be the center of attention in the church and to push one's will upon others.

which is why this separation of religion and churches is frowned upon in scripture... it's funny how those texts are conveniently forgotten within those communities.   

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

If the god of Abe religions had all perished, man would still have found a way to kill one another to take the other's shit. However, if you can say, "God wills it", as in the movie Kingdom of Heaven, it sounds much more legitimate.

If God is real and the god of Abe religions had all perished... I believe those religions would still exist in other forms.   People finding a way to kill one another has nothing to do with scripture.  Only what their own adjendas have decided.  Anyone can come up with any reason to do whatever they want... how justified that reasoning is is subjective to the observer.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

All Christians carry the genes in their inheritance using an analogy, as they are all descended from the same source material, and I don't mean St Peter here. They have inherited the early church fathers' views such as Ambrose and Augustine, which have been used by all in one way or the other. As is still being done today with bullshit laws based in Biblical interpretation. Though, the Bible itself speaks volumes on crime and punishment does it not. It's a good thing that neither Jews nor Christians follow the laws of Moses, and I don';t mean the 10 commandments, I mean all the other laws. 

The Bible does speak volumes on crime and punishment... but to interpret that as relevance to today, we'd again need to take into consideration the NT and how that "fulfilliment" of OT laws changes the expectations.  This does not mean that the laws were abolished, only that the punishment for the crimes has been paid in full therefore causing amendments in the crime and punishment executions.  

this always goes into the "so I can do anything and get away with it?"  which of course is not the case.  It comes down to accepting of the gift that Jesus gave and what that really means.  There's a lot more to it than "thanks for the free ride!"  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

And to say today we don't have bloodshed seems to overlook 9/11, Northern Ireland for most of the 20th century, and Kosovo. And of course the Mid East.

I realize now you were talking generally and I took it as specifically Christian caused bloodshed.    My mistake, I have not forgotten or overlooked the bloodshed other religions are causing all over the world, including the persecution of Christians around the world.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Anonymouse would beg to differ with you on the Jews, see his threads, he sees them as worse than Nazis.

maybe within themselves.  they are quite strict, but I don't see them taking it out on others.  I'll have to look into that.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I see the violence in the OT as largely fiction, propaganda and sometimes the "God wills it" justification for taking someone else's shit.

I would have supported whatever to get or kill Bin Ladin.  Bush in one of his few statements said it best. If you harbor terrorists you will be considered a terrorist. We could have gone to extremes to get Bin Ladin, we didn't, it took 10 years.  Fighting the Taliban, is pointless, it is a religious war. Killing Bin Ladin was justified, fighting in Afghanistan is not.

I agree and we could definitely go on a tangent with what was justified and not, but we don't need to go there.  The point is we have justified the killing of others due to their actions against us and thus the same with the Bible.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

You should research the gods of Canaan, such as El and the various Ba'als. El was the god of all gods, he was a Canaanite god. Funny El is the name Abe used for his god. And Asherah is supposedly Yahweh's consort and/or Ba'al's depending on the story.

As I always say, Read more, kill less.

I have done some research of all different gods.  It's funny to note that history seems to point to the Christian God for El in a round about way.  Any god who claims to be the god of all gods would likely have many peoples that they were a god of.  Abe used El as the name for his god because there were many gods that were followed in his community.  One being El the god of all gods.  No one knew until Moses asked what the name of our God is... Our God claimed to be the god of gods just as El did so it makes sense that he would call Him El despite the fact that others who followed El may not have been following the same God.  What people called their god and who they really followed in many cases were very different.  E.g. sects like the Jehovah's Witnesses claim to follow Jesus, yet they don't support his teachings and claim "the governing body" to be their source or connection to God.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Propaganda perhaps? One to make the kings look glorious and the other to show how great the god of the Judahites was?

 

perhaps

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Have you read the Sumerian kings list? It goes on for 100s of thousands of years. Though the kings are not always related.

As I remember, the Dune series by Frank Herbert involved bloodlines and genealogy to bring out their messiah. The Dune series was science fiction was it not?

100's of thousands of years?!  There must be hundreds of books on it!    Definitely haven't read that.   would lead me to believe though that those genealogies are legitimate.  

It'd be interesting to see if the Dune series had a source for their genealogy.  I'm willing to bet if it was detailed enough ti was.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

 

As the OT goes back to the mythical Adam, it would be very difficult to validate. It goes through the characters Abraham, Joseph and others that have no standing in history that can be proved. Somewhere around 700 BCE the kings can be documented. As to all the rest, you are going to have to prove to me they were real, as I have nothing that does that I have ever seen.

the fact that there is a little evidence that suggests the stories may have taken place and no evidence against their happening should suggest a likelihood of validity.  Also the support within themselves... We keep looking at the Bible as one book yet it is hundreds or even thousands of documents over many centuries that have been compiled into the neat compact book we have today.  The evidence would be in those sources... some Bibles like the Archaelogical study Bible would go into further detail.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Were the stories questioned? And what did they say on the stand? Just funning ya.

 

The NT especially was argued against and most of that writing has been destroyed except the defense by the Christians, such as the discussion with a Jew, Trypho, which may or may not have been a real discussion. As the mainstream Christians forced beliefs on others as with the Donatists, the Cathars, the Jeseans, and the gnostics, their writing was ordered destroyed in the eradication of the heresies. Some has survived, as has some of the books written that did not make the canon of the NT. All are interesting to see the differing views of Jesus beliefs.

As we continue in our journey we can go into the holes in the Judah/Israel stories. Something to ponder though, there is nothing I have ever seen that in any way documents what either the people of Israel in the North or the people in the South, Judah actually believed. Artifacts have not brought to light who or what was really worshiped. Pot shards do not tell you who were the gods. Asherah statues do though and they have been found throughout Palestine in what was Israel and what was considered Judah. I so love how a scrap of an artifact is used by believers to make a claim that everything is true, however all it is usually is some vague unrelated word that can mean anything. As for instance the Mesha Stele and the Moabite stone indicate far different events as reported in the OT, but what do believers get out of it? They only grasp that David is mentioned and see it as validation of all. The artifacts do not tell anything in regard to what any of these ancient people held for religious beliefs at all, but the believer interpolates and validates his deeply held convictions with a scrap. This is hardly justified from such minute pieces of artifacts.

I understand there were many many different beliefs within those groups.  

the thing with Christians is there is a lot of education required to become a minister or leader in any church.   If in fact evidences pointed against scripture or the lack of evidence in history suggested question, most who go in would come out non-believers and never get into the churches as a leader.  The contrary is true.


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:2

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

2 Samuel 19

This chapter begins with a report that David is in mourning for his son Absalom. Despite the fact Absalom rebelled and was attempting to have David killed, he mourns. Joab, went to David and informed him that he mourns for the man who would have killed him and all of his family. He told him if he did not get himself together by nightfall he'd have no army left and no support. David then went out to his men to address them.

Those of Israel that had supported the rebellion under Absalom all fled to their homes.

David begins his return to Jerusalem with all the support of Judah. Meanwhile many who had taken the side of the rebellion come to David to ask for forgiveness, which he gives.

The men of Israel and the men of Judah both make claims of how much they support David, with Israel saying they lay 10 times the claim as Judah. Judah says they were closely related to David so they took him across the Jordan.

Typical after a rebellion, all kiss butt.

2 Samuel 20

This chapter begins with a man of Belial, a Benjamite named Sheba who rejects David still. The men of Israel follow him in his rebellion while Judah stays on with David. David arrives back in Jerusalem and has the 10 concubines he had left there put under guard in a house where they are provided for but he never visits them again for sex and they all remain until death as widows.

David orders Amasa to have all the men of Judah assemble within 3 days and chase down Sheba. He however takes longer to do so than the king expected. As they are at the rock of Gibeon, Joab pulls out his dagger and stabs Amasa. After, they all converge on Abel Beth Maakah where Sheba is held up. Joab and the men begin to besiege the city. A wise woman comes forth to ask them to cease because Abel is a peaceful city a mother in Israel. Joab tells her they come for Sheba, if they hand him over they will cease the siege and depart. She told Joab his head would be thrown over the wall. The wise woman went to the people, who decided to cut off the head of Sheba. Once the head was thrown over the wall, Joab and the army departed.

And so ends another rebellion in the storytelling episodes of King David.

More unproved storytelling with nothing to substantiate it.

 

 

As we agreed, there is very little in the way of history on these stories in particular.... the earlier stories had more support in history so we have those to go on.  The flow in the timeline is congruent and again no evidence to consider in the way of proving that they do not have a place in history, especially seeing as there is bits of reasoning suggesting they could be congruent with history.


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

OK, I get what you mean. These stories do form a place in history as they were meticulously recorded a long long time ago for some point. When taken together they show the entire belief system of the ancient Sumerians between 3000 BCE and 2000 BCE. Whatever reason for documenting the stories they do provide an insight into that time period whether or not the stories were pure conjecture or misunderstanding of the world. But, that does not mean that any of it actually happened in the way as described. The same thing is just as likely with the far newer stories in the OT. They were written for a purpose but it may only have been as a basis for the belief system and very little is actually based in the reality we know. As we have seen there has been much expansion by the writers in making the Hebrews seem to be of far more glorious and plentiful in numbers. That's one of the reasons I see it as largely propaganda.

Inflating numbers or misrepresenting dates/locations is one thing, but changing the whole process of the story is another.  It sounded like you were claiming that it is in question to know whether what was actually happening in history is congruent with what the story said... This would not mean did 300 people or 3000 people go into battle, this would be more of whether there was a battle at all or not.   My case is there's nothing to suggest that these stories (the events unfolding) did not happen as said regardless of number or exact date, and a little support to suggest it did.  The only questions that have come up as far as whether they have or not for the Bible stories is the numbers and occasionally whether the dating was correct.  The events themselves have yet to be legitimately questioned.

In some cases the OT stories are in conflict with history and archeology. For example the invasion of Canaan by Joshua is at odds with both. Ai was ruins for 1000 years near the time period and Jericho had no walls at the time. The kingdom of Edom also did not exist at the time.

So in these cases there was no battle at all.

In the case of the Exodus, Egypt does not record anything in regard to the OT story, and there is nothing to be found in support in the Sinai. One can find the Egyptian forts from the period, evidence of nomadic wanderers and such, but nothing in regard to the 60 to 600,000 supposed escapees.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

100 are not 600,000 men plus women and children is the point. The idea of the writers was to show how great the Hebrew ancestors were in order to build a glorious history. That it is largely exaggerated numbers and contains events such as Ai and Jericho that did not happen adds fuel to the view it was largely what I call propaganda. This was not unusual at the time, other nations built up fantastic stories how the gods were involved in the lives of their country, as in the stories of Greece and Sumer.

We have already agreed that the Exodus story did not happen as written. There is really no way to actually know what really happened. Were these Hebrews some of the Hyskos? Were they others who had been captured in battle. Or just other Asiatics similar to the others generally called Canaanites in the OT. As I pointed out to you, it appears that those living in Judah and Israel were really no different than any of the others that settled in the highlands and moved into the valleys. See the references I previously gave you. More on this as we progress into the storytelling of the great Solomon, who is unknown in history outside of Judah.

 

I remember where we've agreed and disagreed.  It seems though that your taking what we've agreed upon and are speculating from there that these stories are nothing compared to what really happened.   My take is they're still telling of the events that happened regardless of whether it was 10, 100, 1000, or 100,000.  To the generations of children of the survivors of the events in Exodus, that would be a big impact on the future even with just 300 be it that their numbers through the generations would multiply exponentially.  Keep in mind too these stories, especially the OT stories were not written down for their own information, but for the future generations to remember what had happened to get them where they are today

I don't know what inspired the Exodus tale and neither do you for sure. I know these stories were not written down when they supposedly happened. Over time some one with a pimple in Egypt can easily become the whole nation was affected with boils. Raining debris from Thera exploding can become the fiery hail of the plagues of Moses. Red mud washing down the Nile can become a river of blood.

Insignificant numbers of a few escapees do not sound as good as 600,000 that were enslaved for 100s of years. That they did not invade Canaan as described seems to go against the tale that is being described. And the archeology goes against the massive invasion of Hebrews, instead they were no different than the others settling in the area from a prior nomadic past.

What did not happen was 600,000 escapees from 100s of years of enslavement did not wander for 40 years in the Sinai. This massive group did not skirt around the kingdom of Edom that did not exist at the time. They did not siege the city of Ai that was ruins for 1000 years. They did not blow down walls that did not exist at Jericho. Hundreds of thousands of Hebrews did not invade Canaan as claimed.

There were not battles where 4 times the population of the area was killed, multiple times as claimed in Judges and 1 and 2 Samuel.

Taken together all of this expansion of numbers to bloated excess suggests there was much storytelling and fiction as well as creative writing added.

So seriously now, how can one ever know where there may be truth in these stories with all of that going on?

So how does that compare to the OT claims? They aren't at all the same

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


The Jews were nearly eradicated by Hadrian. Many fled to other parts of the world. Today Judaism is a very small number of believers compared to others - 14-18 million.

Christians are around 2 billion plus.

Islam has over 1.5 billion believers

Hindus are around a billion.

Buddhists are about a billion.

No religion or atheists are about a billion.China has about a billion folk religion believers.

And there are many smaller groups.

As you well know, Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. In the following centuries non-believers were persecuted, forced to convert, maligned, and killed.

Ambrose, Augustine, and John Chryostom helped by providing basis for the church to ridicule, justify and validate these actions. See Ambrose's works The Correction of Donatists and The City of God for example.

Islam was no better, they fought their way from Arabia forcing conversions and executing many.

Jews did none of this and their numbers reflect it.

So why did Islam and Christianity succeed? Seems fairly obvious that to be different from others brought about adverse circumstances upon oneself. The persecutions by both speak for themselves.



If in fact it was true that it was the adverse circumstances that caused the success for these religions, it does not explain the generations of time in between (at least for Christianity) where no persecution was taking place and it definitely doesn't explain Christianity's success today be it that the greater persecution around the world is brought upon Christians over most other religions.    I'm sorry to say that despite the circumstances of the past and how forceful some select sects of Christianity might have been, it doesn't make logistic sense and at this point, i can't see how that would have made this religion as successful as it is unless the magnitude of persecution and threats to leave the religion were just as strong today if not stronger.   


Why do you think there was no persecution? Marcion and his followers were persecuted by Christians. Jewish Jesus believers were as well. Other supposed heresies were suppressed during the period. Read the 2nd and 3rd century accounts of the Church fathers for more. Even the NT has discussions in regard to other gospels circulating. Whether or not you choose to accept any of those matters not, they were eventually suppressed by what morphs into mainstream.

As to Christianity being so successful today in all of its 100s of variations.

My parents were Lutheran. I had it passed on to me as a result. I became a Catholic for convenience. I become an atheist far later on. I too had passed on Christian beliefs to my children. Fortunately for them they doubted as I was a poor Catholic and did as little as possible.

Another thing I inherited, my parents were Republicans. I was a Republican as well until 1996 when I finally saw that the Republicans of today are not something that was in my interest.

What is occurring throughout the world is Christianity is losing its influence, Christian Europe is not so much Christian as it once was. Even Ireland, Spain and Italy have drifted away.

When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Empire the force of government then is used to suppress all other beliefs.

 

caposkia wrote:


I am also curious on your source for numbers... are they taking into consideration radical sects as well as true followers of each religion, or are they filtering out the neutral followers from the sects?  This would make a big difference in the numbers... also, are they taking into consideration (for Christianity at least) the number of followers of Christ vs. the number of those who call themselves Christians?  This would also make a difference in numbers be it that in many places around the world, it is forbidden to call yourself a Christian. 


My source of numbers was a simple Google search.

see wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups
The Christian group is obviously anyone that believes in the Jesus character.
The Moslems are all variations of Islam.
The Jews are all variations of Judaism
Etc.
I also found some other sources as well but don't recall them right now. See the table, it has most of what I listed.

 

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Religious fanatics of all groups take pieces of the storytelling and interpret to their own ends, this we agree on. You are bordering on the '"No True Scotsman fallacy" here. What is correct? Is none correct? Are all correct? Just because you see them as wrongly interpreting the storytelling, makes you the "true believer" and them the heretic, is that what you suggest?



I did not reference to what I agreed with specifically, only that I agree with scholars (those who dedicate their lives to understanding the writings)  For me to say I'm right and everyone else is wrong, that's the "no true Scotsman fallacy".  I never claimed that and never will.


 

I said you were bordering on the "no True Scotsman Fallacy" because of post 554 comments-

caposkia post 554 wrote:


.....rip....  Each religion has their own "additions" if you will that would use OT sourcing to justify their own addenda.  Anyone can take anything out of context including our government documents to justify their own addenda.  The catch is when confronted, they cannot support their perspective, but only with their own writeup.   therefore, to blame these writings for such bloodshed is hardly justified.


This is your opinion that you see these religions doing something contrary to what you see as acceptable and is one of the reasons I said you were bordering on the NTSF. What is true? What is not true? Who is right? Who is not right? Who are you to judge whether their OT sourcing is valid to pursue their agenda or not? That's why I said you were close to the NTSF. Though, I realize you are basically agnostic in some respects, as you don't claim to know for sure, at least that's what I get from you.
Note - I said you were close to the NTSF, not that your statement was in fact.

 

caposkia post 554 wrote:


....rip ..... To note, it is impossible to find such justification in the NT of the Bible and any sects that have justified justified their actions through their own books or doctrine, which is again their own interpretation of the Bible stories in specific points.  Today we don't have bloodshed, but each religion still has their own books or doctrine as interpretation to suggest that the other is wrong.  An analyzation of each would clarify where they were mislead if at all.


Here again, you claim that they can't find the justifications in the NT, and that is your opinion again, pushing you close to the NTSF. All sects view the NT in slightly different ways. Again, who is right? Are any right? Are they all wrong? My view, is they are all wrong, but that is for a NT discussion later, not here.

 

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


How do you know this?



I guess I make a bit of an assumption here, but I would assume that those who dedicate their lives to understanding the intentions of the writings from a neutral point of view would have the best understanding of what is being said and what should be understood vs any religion or denomination sect who has decided to make their own interpretation or come to their own conclusions regardless of how accurate they may be convinced that they are.  some of these people are my friends.  This may allow others who disagree with my perspective to throw out the bias card along with those who ultimately are believers, but I assure you my sources (those who I know personally anyway) are teaching and discussing from a neutral point of view. 


Neutral from your perspective or mine, or the RCC or ??
My view as a former Christian Evangelical and Catholic changed as I learned and understood. As a non-believer that does not accept the NT as true as presented, the whole argument is lost on me in regards to interpretations by each sect as I view them all as very very wrong. But you knew that didn't you? Again this is for a NT discussion.

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


If the god of Abe religions had all perished, man would still have found a way to kill one another to take the other's shit. However, if you can say, "God wills it", as in the movie Kingdom of Heaven, it sounds much more legitimate.



If God is real and the god of Abe religions had all perished... I believe those religions would still exist in other forms.   People finding a way to kill one another has nothing to do with scripture.  Only what their own adjendas have decided.  Anyone can come up with any reason to do whatever they want... how justified that reasoning is is subjective to the observer. 


After living in Florida for 20 years I know how hard it is to kill infestations of roaches once they get into your property, but it can be done. So I agree, that some form of worshiping the Yahweh god would have survived, just like roaches always come back from somewhere.


caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


All Christians carry the genes in their inheritance using an analogy, as they are all descended from the same source material, and I don't mean St Peter here. They have inherited the early church fathers' views such as Ambrose and Augustine, which have been used by all in one way or the other. As is still being done today with bullshit laws based in Biblical interpretation. Though, the Bible itself speaks volumes on crime and punishment does it not. It's a good thing that neither Jews nor Christians follow the laws of Moses, and I don';t mean the 10 commandments, I mean all the other laws.



The Bible does speak volumes on crime and punishment... but to interpret that as relevance to today, we'd again need to take into consideration the NT and how that "fulfilliment" of OT laws changes the expectations.  This does not mean that the laws were abolished, only that the punishment for the crimes has been paid in full therefore causing amendments in the crime and punishment executions. 


I was actually laying blame on Ambrose and Augustine for the later on atrocities committed because 'God Wills It" and other such lame attempts to have one's way using religion. As I don't know your views on these early fathers since you are not a mainstream believer, nor do I know if you have ever read in detail what they advocated, I will suspend any view of you in that regard as I don't know how it would apply. And this probably is also a NT discussion anyway.


caposkia wrote:


this always goes into the "so I can do anything and get away with it?"  which of course is not the case.  It comes down to accepting of the gift that Jesus gave and what that really means.  There's a lot more to it than "thanks for the free ride!" 


Not with me it doesn't. I'm aware of the beliefs on this. I understand that there is supposed to be actions that coincide with the faith and acceptance of Jesus.
We keep drifting away into the NT and Christianity, not what I want to do in this thread.

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


And to say today we don't have bloodshed seems to overlook 9/11, Northern Ireland for most of the 20th century, and Kosovo. And of course the Mid East.



I realize now you were talking generally and I took it as specifically Christian caused bloodshed.    My mistake, I have not forgotten or overlooked the bloodshed other religions are causing all over the world, including the persecution of Christians around the world.


Exactly, I was being general. I give you that Christians today don't pursue 'crusades' in the same manner as in the middle ages. Though other things occur, but that is going way outside my goals for this thread.

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Anonymouse would beg to differ with you on the Jews, see his threads, he sees them as worse than Nazis.



maybe within themselves.  they are quite strict, but I don't see them taking it out on others.  I'll have to look into that.


He sees the Jews as the villains in a planned takeover of Palestine, killing Palestinians for sport etc... I rather not get into that, go visit his large thread.
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/30129


caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


I see the violence in the OT as largely fiction, propaganda and sometimes the "God wills it" justification for taking someone else's shit.

I would have supported whatever to get or kill Bin Ladin.  Bush in one of his few statements said it best. If you harbor terrorists you will be considered a terrorist. We could have gone to extremes to get Bin Ladin, we didn't, it took 10 years.  Fighting the Taliban, is pointless, it is a religious war. Killing Bin Ladin was justified, fighting in Afghanistan is not.



I agree and we could definitely go on a tangent with what was justified and not, but we don't need to go there.  The point is we have justified the killing of others due to their actions against us and thus the same with the Bible. 


As if one can ever justify killing in the name of any god that can't be seen or verified. As the US exists, al-Queda exists, and we saw the buildings go boom that is known. What is not known, is does your god exist or is he a creation of man? My view is obviously he was created and developed by man, therefore he is not real whereas the 'others' mentioned do exist and can be pointed out in the reality we occupy.

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


You should research the gods of Canaan, such as El and the various Ba'als. El was the god of all gods, he was a Canaanite god. Funny El is the name Abe used for his god. And Asherah is supposedly Yahweh's consort and/or Ba'al's depending on the story.

As I always say, Read more, kill less.



I have done some research of all different gods.  It's funny to note that history seems to point to the Christian God for El in a round about way.  Any god who claims to be the god of all gods would likely have many peoples that they were a god of.  Abe used El as the name for his god because there were many gods that were followed in his community.  One being El the god of all gods.  No one knew until Moses asked what the name of our God is... Our God claimed to be the god of gods just as El did so it makes sense that he would call Him El despite the fact that others who followed El may not have been following the same God.  What people called their god and who they really followed in many cases were very different.  E.g. sects like the Jehovah's Witnesses claim to follow Jesus, yet they don't support his teachings and claim "the governing body" to be their source or connection to God. 


Good, keep researching, its good to do.

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Have you read the Sumerian kings list? It goes on for 100s of thousands of years. Though the kings are not always related.

As I remember, the Dune series by Frank Herbert involved bloodlines and genealogy to bring out their messiah. The Dune series was science fiction was it not?



100's of thousands of years?!  There must be hundreds of books on it!    Definitely haven't read that.   would lead me to believe though that those genealogies are legitimate. 

It'd be interesting to see if the Dune series had a source for their genealogy.  I'm willing to bet if it was detailed enough ti was. 


The Sumerian Kings list is a list of their kings back to the dawn of time. It lists king's reigning for thousands of years, these kings also had lives longer than Methuselah.

 

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


 

As the OT goes back to the mythical Adam, it would be very difficult to validate. It goes through the characters Abraham, Joseph and others that have no standing in history that can be proved. Somewhere around 700 BCE the kings can be documented. As to all the rest, you are going to have to prove to me they were real, as I have nothing that does that I have ever seen.



the fact that there is a little evidence that suggests the stories may have taken place and no evidence against their happening should suggest a likelihood of validity.  Also the support within themselves... We keep looking at the Bible as one book yet it is hundreds or even thousands of documents over many centuries that have been compiled into the neat compact book we have today.  The evidence would be in those sources... some Bibles like the Archaelogical study Bible would go into further detail. 


We always come to this point don't we?
The Greek stories are not by a single author. The Sumerian stories are not either. The Book of Mormon is though, good ol' Joey Smith the con man.
I understand that many writers and redactors had their fingers in the Bible, that's one of many problems these hundreds of stories have.

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Were the stories questioned? And what did they say on the stand? Just funning ya.

 

The NT especially was argued against and most of that writing has been destroyed except the defense by the Christians, such as the discussion with a Jew, Trypho, which may or may not have been a real discussion. As the mainstream Christians forced beliefs on others as with the Donatists, the Cathars, the Jeseans, and the gnostics, their writing was ordered destroyed in the eradication of the heresies. Some has survived, as has some of the books written that did not make the canon of the NT. All are interesting to see the differing views of Jesus beliefs.

As we continue in our journey we can go into the holes in the Judah/Israel stories. Something to ponder though, there is nothing I have ever seen that in any way documents what either the people of Israel in the North or the people in the South, Judah actually believed. Artifacts have not brought to light who or what was really worshiped. Pot shards do not tell you who were the gods. Asherah statues do though and they have been found throughout Palestine in what was Israel and what was considered Judah. I so love how a scrap of an artifact is used by believers to make a claim that everything is true, however all it is usually is some vague unrelated word that can mean anything. As for instance the Mesha Stele and the Moabite stone indicate far different events as reported in the OT, but what do believers get out of it? They only grasp that David is mentioned and see it as validation of all. The artifacts do not tell anything in regard to what any of these ancient people held for religious beliefs at all, but the believer interpolates and validates his deeply held convictions with a scrap. This is hardly justified from such minute pieces of artifacts.



I understand there were many many different beliefs within those groups. 

the thing with Christians is there is a lot of education required to become a minister or leader in any church.   If in fact evidences pointed against scripture or the lack of evidence in history suggested question, most who go in would come out non-believers and never get into the churches as a leader.  The contrary is true.



Many do become non-believers.

I was never taught the errors and issues that were made in the early church in parochial schools. I learned of some of the problems at a Jesuit University. Once my interest was motivated, I found much on my own. I wonder sometimes if the reason this does not occur often is self deception and the grasping at a 'blanket' or crutch. Many very hard core believers I have encountered have had a "significant emotional event" that opened them to beliefs.
This would be a very good area to study and research or write a thesis for someone, perhaps it has been done.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


pauljohntheskeptic
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2 Samuel Continued

2 Samuel 21

As I mentioned earlier, this chapter began with 3 years of famine after the death of Absalom at some point. The issue I had was in 2 Sam 15:7 where it indicated after 40 years Absalom came to the king.... whereas David only ruled for 40 years according to 1 Kings 2:11. Anyway, here David somehow asks the god why there was this famine. the god answered him that it was due to Saul and his house because they killed Gibeonites. So David contacts the Gibeonites who were not of the children of Israel but were descendants of the Amorites. David wants to make it right with them so the god will cease the famine. He asked what would be acceptable amends. Normally this would be in the form of valuables such as gold, silver or goods, but no they want vengeance against the madman Saul's family. They asked for 7 of Saul's sons to be given up for execution at Gibeah where they would be hanged to the god.

So David selects 7 of Saul's descendants to be executed by the Gibeonites so that they could slay them unto the god and he'd relent with the famine on Israel. After the execution the mother of some of the dead descendants called Rizpah went into mourning which gained David's attention for then he had all those executed as well as Saul and Jonathan's bones all brought together and buried in Zelah, part of Benjamin's territory. After this, the god halted the famine.

Meanwhile, the ever present Philistines continue to war with Israel. In a battle, Ishbibenob one of the giants, attempted to kill David who had been exhausted during the battle. However, Abishai intervened and killed him. After this, the men demanded David no longer risk his life in battle as it would extinguish the lamp of Israel.

Now for an interesting development.

In 2 Samuel 21:19 according to the JPS Hebrew Bible - "19 And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam."

But wait, I thought David killed Goliath?

In order to prevent this obvious difference the KJV and NIV and most other translations added the words "the brother of" to the verse making it far different than originally translated from the Hebrew.

After all, how could believers allow this error in the myths. It is too obvious that the multiple writers that were involved in these "hundreds of stories" made mistakes in documenting the hero stories of David.

After all, this was not the first questionable event in the story of Goliath, I previously mentioned the point that David supposedly took Goliath's head to Jerusalem in 1 Samuel 17:54 whereas Jerusalem was not part of Judah/Israel supposedly until David conquered it in 2 Samuel 5:6-10 after being king for 7 1/2 years.

Methinks we have legend and mythology here.

In verse 22 JPS we have - "These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants."

The 4 mentioned are:

1 -  v 17 Ishbibenob killed by Abishai

2 -  v 18 Saph killed by Sibbecai

3 -  v 19 Goliath killed by Elhanan

4 - v 21 an unnamed giant who was " a champion, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number" killed by Jonathan (a son of David's brother Shimea)

I think it's pretty clear that the David stories are filled with legends and myths as indicated here, the earlier stories and this chapter have issues.

But what would you expect from hundreds of stories and writers that put down on paper the oral legends and myths from likely hundreds of years earlier.

Accuracy, no. Reality? How can one ever know.

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


caposkia
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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:In

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

In some cases the OT stories are in conflict with history and archeology. For example the invasion of Canaan by Joshua is at odds with both. Ai was ruins for 1000 years near the time period and Jericho had no walls at the time. The kingdom of Edom also did not exist at the time.

So in these cases there was no battle at all.

or just that the battle didn't happen in the time period assumed or suggested by the writer... this again goes back to the date discrepency issue.  As I mentioned a while back, many times the writers will reference to what they know or what they understood to be the case during the time of the battle... they didn't have history books or a library to go to to double check their references.  

The fact that Ai was in ruins for as long as it had when this story was told should suggest when the battle likely took place and not necessarily when the writer thought it did.  Especially with a reference to Jericho having walls... then again the walls reference could simply be referring to people guarding and not literal walls.   I think I mentioned that before as well.  In most cases when the Bible references "wall" of a city or territory, it's not a literal wall, but either the implied boundary of the territory or a blockade set up to protect the city, usually just soldiers guarding the boarders.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

In the case of the Exodus, Egypt does not record anything in regard to the OT story, and there is nothing to be found in support in the Sinai. One can find the Egyptian forts from the period, evidence of nomadic wanderers and such, but nothing in regard to the 60 to 600,000 supposed escapees.

We've established why this might be the case as well.. reference "saving face"

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I don't know what inspired the Exodus tale and neither do you for sure. I know these stories were not written down when they supposedly happened. Over time some one with a pimple in Egypt can easily become the whole nation was affected with boils. Raining debris from Thera exploding can become the fiery hail of the plagues of Moses. Red mud washing down the Nile can become a river of blood.

Most historical stories were not written down when they happened... This is mentioned a lot, but holds no ground for or against the validity of the story.  

Also, no one ever said it was literally blood in the river... you've likely just detailed the natural explanation of the events.  What's significant is the timing.  E.g. if this alleged person Moses really talked to God and saw a firey bush and then went to the pharaoh and foretold of the events that were to happen, then for them to happen within a close period of time.  that close period could still be over years, or just weeks, not completely sure.  Either way, to suggest a natural possibility of their happening only further confirms the possibility of the story actually happening.  I've said many times, it would be logical for a God who created everything we know to work within the confines of His creation to cause events to happen. 

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Insignificant numbers of a few escapees do not sound as good as 600,000 that were enslaved for 100s of years. That they did not invade Canaan as described seems to go against the tale that is being described. And the archeology goes against the massive invasion of Hebrews, instead they were no different than the others settling in the area from a prior nomadic past.

it seems like we're getting redundant.  We have covered all of this already.  We've agreed that it likely occurred on a smaller scale, likely not significant enough to even show up in archeology in some instances.  Lower numbers suggest that it likely is not going against evidence in history, but was on a much smaller scale than what is claimed.  This is again consistent with history in general.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

What did not happen was 600,000 escapees from 100s of years of enslavement did not wander for 40 years in the Sinai. This massive group did not skirt around the kingdom of Edom that did not exist at the time. They did not siege the city of Ai that was ruins for 1000 years. They did not blow down walls that did not exist at Jericho. Hundreds of thousands of Hebrews did not invade Canaan as claimed.

There were not battles where 4 times the population of the area was killed, multiple times as claimed in Judges and 1 and 2 Samuel.

Taken together all of this expansion of numbers to bloated excess suggests there was much storytelling and fiction as well as creative writing added.

So seriously now, how can one ever know where there may be truth in these stories with all of that going on?

So how does that compare to the OT claims? They aren't at all the same

 

That's part of the significance of the OT.  You're right, they aren't all the same, but they're all very congruent with each other despite the fact that they were written by different peoples over 1000's of years.  Despite the evidences that we have already discussed and have yet to discuss or have yet to be uncovered, just the congruency of such a vast array of stories... or more literally scraps of stories, which are random enough in and of themselves to have such a flow and congruency with each other suggests the basis of what is being told has actually happened in history.   This basis being that there was this one particular God involved in these events somehow and that these people (names and times may vary) did actually have these experiences.    I don't believe there has been such a congruency with such a vast variety of scraps over such a long period of time being so congruent.  If there is, I'd likely assume they hold truth in history as well.  There would be no logical reason to doubt unless there was concrete evidence in history or archaeology that showed the story that is told could not possibly have happened because of X.  Such congruency suggests a place in history, most historians look for such consistencies when researching people groups for factual history.  


caposkia
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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:My

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


My source of numbers was a simple Google search.

see wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups
The Christian group is obviously anyone that believes in the Jesus character.
The Moslems are all variations of Islam.
The Jews are all variations of Judaism
Etc.
I also found some other sources as well but don't recall them right now. See the table, it has most of what I listed.

So it's taking a general number.  Ok.  Probably only of those denominations that count their members as well.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


I said you were bordering on the "no True Scotsman Fallacy" because of post 554 comments-

caposkia post 554 wrote:


.....rip....  Each religion has their own "additions" if you will that would use OT sourcing to justify their own addenda.  Anyone can take anything out of context including our government documents to justify their own addenda.  The catch is when confronted, they cannot support their perspective, but only with their own writeup.   therefore, to blame these writings for such bloodshed is hardly justified.


This is your opinion that you see these religions doing something contrary to what you see as acceptable and is one of the reasons I said you were bordering on the NTSF. What is true? What is not true? Who is right? Who is not right? Who are you to judge whether their OT sourcing is valid to pursue their agenda or not? That's why I said you were close to the NTSF. Though, I realize you are basically agnostic in some respects, as you don't claim to know for sure, at least that's what I get from you.
Note - I said you were close to the NTSF, not that your statement was in fact.

 

caposkia post 554 wrote:


....rip ..... To note, it is impossible to find such justification in the NT of the Bible and any sects that have justified justified their actions through their own books or doctrine, which is again their own interpretation of the Bible stories in specific points.  Today we don't have bloodshed, but each religion still has their own books or doctrine as interpretation to suggest that the other is wrong.  An analyzation of each would clarify where they were mislead if at all.


Here again, you claim that they can't find the justifications in the NT, and that is your opinion again, pushing you close to the NTSF. All sects view the NT in slightly different ways. Again, who is right? Are any right? Are they all wrong? My view, is they are all wrong, but that is for a NT discussion later, not here.

You keep claiming opinion, but these are researchable and verifiable facts.  I didn't specify a particular sect and therefore was also generalizing, but to be specific, you can look at the Jehovah's Witnesses translation of the Bible and see many contextual errors in their translations.  Whereas non-affiliated translations are typically very careful about contextual errors and will identify each spot where the context was hard to comprehend and also give alternative understandings in some cases.  

Mormons must reference to a separate book from the Bible to justify their perspective.  and so on.  

Beyond that, to suggest that I am throwing my opinion into the mix here to justify my perspective is suggesting that what I've told you about my history and how I've come to know God has been a lie.  Do you believe that I've been lying to you?

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Neutral from your perspective or mine, or the RCC or ??
My view as a former Christian Evangelical and Catholic changed as I learned and understood. As a non-believer that does not accept the NT as true as presented, the whole argument is lost on me in regards to interpretations by each sect as I view them all as very very wrong. But you knew that didn't you? Again this is for a NT discussion.

Of course i knew this and I agree with you as well... the only difference is I still believe regardless of what i've seen each sect do.  Neutral from a neutral perspective... in other words, no bias adjenda on either end.  Just doing their job

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


I was actually laying blame on Ambrose and Augustine for the later on atrocities committed because 'God Wills It" and other such lame attempts to have one's way using religion. As I don't know your views on these early fathers since you are not a mainstream believer, nor do I know if you have ever read in detail what they advocated, I will suspend any view of you in that regard as I don't know how it would apply. And this probably is also a NT discussion anyway.

Likely, not for now really, but I typically don't agree with those perspectives.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Not with me it doesn't. I'm aware of the beliefs on this. I understand that there is supposed to be actions that coincide with the faith and acceptance of Jesus.
We keep drifting away into the NT and Christianity, not what I want to do in this thread.

so we'll keep on focus for now of what the story is talking about and nothing more, but I think you're starting to see how the NT and the OT are dependent on each other and how important it is to take both into consideration when studying today.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


He sees the Jews as the villains in a planned takeover of Palestine, killing Palestinians for sport etc... I rather not get into that, go visit his large thread.
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/30129

sounds like a conspiracy theory.  I'll check it out at some point.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


As if one can ever justify killing in the name of any god that can't be seen or verified. As the US exists, al-Queda exists, and we saw the buildings go boom that is known. What is not known, is does your god exist or is he a creation of man? My view is obviously he was created and developed by man, therefore he is not real whereas the 'others' mentioned do exist and can be pointed out in the reality we occupy.

the big question is whether they're doing it for a supernatural being or not as well.. not necessarily God or one in cooperation with God.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Good, keep researching, its good to do.

haven't stopped for over 15 years... don't plan on stopping now.


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


The Sumerian Kings list is a list of their kings back to the dawn of time. It lists king's reigning for thousands of years, these kings also had lives longer than Methuselah.

similar time discrepencies maybe, but it sounds like it could hold ground... 


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


We always come to this point don't we?
The Greek stories are not by a single author. The Sumerian stories are not either. The Book of Mormon is though, good ol' Joey Smith the con man.
I understand that many writers and redactors had their fingers in the Bible, that's one of many problems these hundreds of stories have.

It is something we keep coming back to.  It seems you want to use that information to discredit when in fact it further confirms the likelihood.  You even noted the one book that had a single author just happened to be a con man.   Interesting note

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Many do become non-believers.

Sure many do, but most don't... most that do become non-believers however have had a background in dispensationalist sects or sects that kind of as we've been saying (have their own adjenda) and so when they look at history and see that it doesn't jive with what they thought and were taught was true, they ultimately dismiss the whole idea.  

Lets put it this way, if history truly revieled Christianity to be a fraud, I guarantee seminaries would not be so thorough in covering the history and would be in fact trying to hide it.  Again, the contrary is true.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


I was never taught the errors and issues that were made in the early church in parochial schools. I learned of some of the problems at a Jesuit University. Once my interest was motivated, I found much on my own. I wonder sometimes if the reason this does not occur often is self deception and the grasping at a 'blanket' or crutch. Many very hard core believers I have encountered have had a "significant emotional event" that opened them to beliefs.
This would be a very good area to study and research or write a thesis for someone, perhaps it has been done.

 

I think it has been done... I can't name any authors off the top of my head however.


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:2

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

2 Samuel 21

As I mentioned earlier, this chapter began with 3 years of famine after the death of Absalom at some point. The issue I had was in 2 Sam 15:7 where it indicated after 40 years Absalom came to the king.... whereas David only ruled for 40 years according to 1 Kings 2:11.

A foot note I have mentions that other older manuscripts say "4 years"... i.e. 4 years after Absolom's return to the court (14:33).  By this time he must have been about 30 years old, so his revolt must be dated early in the last decade of David's reign.  In any regard, it's not in reference to David's reign.   This book agrees with the reign of David in 2 Sam. 5:4-5.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Anyway, here David somehow asks the god why there was this famine. the god answered him that it was due to Saul and his house because they killed Gibeonites. So David contacts the Gibeonites who were not of the children of Israel but were descendants of the Amorites. David wants to make it right with them so the god will cease the famine. He asked what would be acceptable amends. Normally this would be in the form of valuables such as gold, silver or goods, but no they want vengeance against the madman Saul's family. They asked for 7 of Saul's sons to be given up for execution at Gibeah where they would be hanged to the god.

So David selects 7 of Saul's descendants to be executed by the Gibeonites so that they could slay them unto the god and he'd relent with the famine on Israel. After the execution the mother of some of the dead descendants called Rizpah went into mourning which gained David's attention for then he had all those executed as well as Saul and Jonathan's bones all brought together and buried in Zelah, part of Benjamin's territory. After this, the god halted the famine.

Meanwhile, the ever present Philistines continue to war with Israel. In a battle, Ishbibenob one of the giants, attempted to kill David who had been exhausted during the battle. However, Abishai intervened and killed him. After this, the men demanded David no longer risk his life in battle as it would extinguish the lamp of Israel.

Now for an interesting development.

In 2 Samuel 21:19 according to the JPS Hebrew Bible - "19 And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam."

But wait, I thought David killed Goliath?

In order to prevent this obvious difference the KJV and NIV and most other translations added the words "the brother of" to the verse making it far different than originally translated from the Hebrew.

After all, how could believers allow this error in the myths. It is too obvious that the multiple writers that were involved in these "hundreds of stories" made mistakes in documenting the hero stories of David.

If the change was that cut and dry, Christianity woudl have been exposed on this front years ago.  This is where contextual difficulties likely have come in.  I'm not sure if you know much about parsing Hebrew, but in translation, you have to take into consideration not only the words that are written, but to the context that they were written in... in other words, one sentence might read; "Jake Jimbo store to travel".  This would be a common literal Hebrew translation of a "sentence".  Now in English, we have many questions about this sentence, who is Jake Jimbo, or are they 2 different people?  Also, did they have a traveling store or did they travel to a store, or to the store in town?  If Jake and Jimbo are 2 different people, who's Jimbo?  is he a brother, a friend?  a father, a stranger who just happened to meet Jake along the way?  We don't know strictly from this sentence... so context is the only way we can make sense of it.  

Translators never just add words or a phrase to make it make sense, they always have a reason behind it... this reason is not opnion or religion bias, but based on study and investigation into the parsing and context of where it came from.  For some Bibles to translate that this was the brother of anyone, the text must have implied such a possibility somewhere, or at least that there was a relation, but that they weren't the same person.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

In verse 22 JPS we have - "These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants."

The 4 mentioned are:

1 -  v 17 Ishbibenob killed by Abishai

2 -  v 18 Saph killed by Sibbecai

3 -  v 19 Goliath killed by Elhanan

4 - v 21 an unnamed giant who was " a champion, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number" killed by Jonathan (a son of David's brother Shimea)

I think it's pretty clear that the David stories are filled with legends and myths as indicated here, the earlier stories and this chapter have issues.

But what would you expect from hundreds of stories and writers that put down on paper the oral legends and myths from likely hundreds of years earlier.

Accuracy, no. Reality? How can one ever know.

By the basis of what fits in history and what does not, so far, with the volume at which these events likely occured, they very well could and do have a place in history, there's absolutely nothing to suggest they don't...

I guess a giant is pretty far fetched huh.. but then again, what was the size of the ancient peoples of this land this many years ago?  There average size and weight would be considered miniature compared to us "giants" of today... It was also not uncommon for someone to be born of gigantic proportions during that time... by gigantic I mean 6'8" and 300 lbs... to a 5' 100 lb individual, that person is a giant.  many cultures around the world support these outliers in size in their own cultures.  Myan cultures leaders tended to be giants which they used against the people as a means of naming themselves gods.  As for 6 fingers and toes on each hand and foot... that phenomenon has also been recorded many times in our current day and history... is it so far fetched to consider that there was one such giant that happened to have 24 digits in all?  

From what I've shown, it seems pretty clear that a lot of assumptions were made on your part and that it's not pretty clear that the David stories are filled with legends.  Only that you may have mistaken some translations to be implimenting information without resource and describing beyond human like peoples that were more likely very human and just abnormally large even for our day, but are known to be possible today.  

We can know these stories more likely have a place in history simply by the fact that there is little information supporting them and none that shows the content of the stories as a basis for what the story is conveying could not have happened on any scale.  

 

 


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At some point all the tales

At some point all the tales in the bible must have been taken as gospel by at least someone and clearly today we see many religious people cherry picking the verses that suit them best.

It's obvious they do this because they now have a more evolved understanding of right and wrong thanks to a genetic need to be a better person to help aid the survival of our species. I mean the bible teaches homophobia, but we're evolving into a people of tolerance and understanding. This is not the bible or a god teaching us because they clearly are homophobic, it's because we know it's wrong to victimise people.

Subsequently the modern world has stopped stoning people, we fight against slavery & arranged marriages, we don't tolerate ethnic cleansing, genocide, rape, sacrifice (human or animal), but the bible does. If I ever have to thank a god for anything, it's for giving me the free will to decide that the bibles teachings are vile and that my own sense of morality can easily better that of a masochistic god.

Scotland The Brave


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

In some cases the OT stories are in conflict with history and archeology. For example the invasion of Canaan by Joshua is at odds with both. Ai was ruins for 1000 years near the time period and Jericho had no walls at the time. The kingdom of Edom also did not exist at the time.

So in these cases there was no battle at all.

or just that the battle didn't happen in the time period assumed or suggested by the writer... this again goes back to the date discrepency issue.  As I mentioned a while back, many times the writers will reference to what they know or what they understood to be the case during the time of the battle... they didn't have history books or a library to go to to double check their references.  

The fact that Ai was in ruins for as long as it had when this story was told should suggest when the battle likely took place and not necessarily when the writer thought it did.  Especially with a reference to Jericho having walls... then again the walls reference could simply be referring to people guarding and not literal walls.   I think I mentioned that before as well.  In most cases when the Bible references "wall" of a city or territory, it's not a literal wall, but either the implied boundary of the territory or a blockade set up to protect the city, usually just soldiers guarding the boarders. 

Ai was destroyed sometime around 2200 BCE in the 3rd millenium even before Abraham came from ancient Sumer.

Archeologists don't support that Ai was around to be destroyed anytime near a period of Hebrew invasion.

A good description of why is in a book by Israel Finkelstein "The Bible Unearthed" pp 72-96 for more information on why the scenarios described in the OT in regard to both Ai and Jericho are not realistic or possible.

The description in the OT in regard to the walls of Jericho are hardly to be taken as anything else besides real physical walls. Attempting to make this mean virtual or spiritual walls is more or less not realistic in regard to the context of the story.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I don't know what inspired the Exodus tale and neither do you for sure. I know these stories were not written down when they supposedly happened. Over time some one with a pimple in Egypt can easily become the whole nation was affected with boils. Raining debris from Thera exploding can become the fiery hail of the plagues of Moses. Red mud washing down the Nile can become a river of blood.

Most historical stories were not written down when they happened... This is mentioned a lot, but holds no ground for or against the validity of the story.  

Also, no one ever said it was literally blood in the river... you've likely just detailed the natural explanation of the events.  What's significant is the timing.  E.g. if this alleged person Moses really talked to God and saw a firey bush and then went to the pharaoh and foretold of the events that were to happen, then for them to happen within a close period of time.  that close period could still be over years, or just weeks, not completely sure.  Either way, to suggest a natural possibility of their happening only further confirms the possibility of the story actually happening.  I've said many times, it would be logical for a God who created everything we know to work within the confines of His creation to cause events to happen.

Legends and myths also originate based on natural events as well.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Insignificant numbers of a few escapees do not sound as good as 600,000 that were enslaved for 100s of years. That they did not invade Canaan as described seems to go against the tale that is being described. And the archeology goes against the massive invasion of Hebrews, instead they were no different than the others settling in the area from a prior nomadic past.

it seems like we're getting redundant.  We have covered all of this already.  We've agreed that it likely occurred on a smaller scale, likely not significant enough to even show up in archeology in some instances.  Lower numbers suggest that it likely is not going against evidence in history, but was on a much smaller scale than what is claimed.  This is again consistent with history in general. 

Probably we are getting redundant.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

What did not happen was 600,000 escapees from 100s of years of enslavement did not wander for 40 years in the Sinai. This massive group did not skirt around the kingdom of Edom that did not exist at the time. They did not siege the city of Ai that was ruins for 1000 years. They did not blow down walls that did not exist at Jericho. Hundreds of thousands of Hebrews did not invade Canaan as claimed.

There were not battles where 4 times the population of the area was killed, multiple times as claimed in Judges and 1 and 2 Samuel.

Taken together all of this expansion of numbers to bloated excess suggests there was much storytelling and fiction as well as creative writing added.

So seriously now, how can one ever know where there may be truth in these stories with all of that going on?

So how does that compare to the OT claims? They aren't at all the same

 

That's part of the significance of the OT.  You're right, they aren't all the same, but they're all very congruent with each other despite the fact that they were written by different peoples over 1000's of years.  Despite the evidences that we have already discussed and have yet to discuss or have yet to be uncovered, just the congruency of such a vast array of stories... or more literally scraps of stories, which are random enough in and of themselves to have such a flow and congruency with each other suggests the basis of what is being told has actually happened in history.   This basis being that there was this one particular God involved in these events somehow and that these people (names and times may vary) did actually have these experiences.    I don't believe there has been such a congruency with such a vast variety of scraps over such a long period of time being so congruent.  If there is, I'd likely assume they hold truth in history as well.  There would be no logical reason to doubt unless there was concrete evidence in history or archaeology that showed the story that is told could not possibly have happened because of X.  Such congruency suggests a place in history, most historians look for such consistencies when researching people groups for factual history.  

We see this in very different light.

I see it as continuation of storytelling and legends, and you see it as some sort of validation. The two views will continue to be divergent.

That's part of why we are having this discussion.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


I said you were bordering on the "no True Scotsman Fallacy" because of post 554 comments-

caposkia post 554 wrote:


.....rip....  Each religion has their own "additions" if you will that would use OT sourcing to justify their own addenda.  Anyone can take anything out of context including our government documents to justify their own addenda.  The catch is when confronted, they cannot support their perspective, but only with their own writeup.   therefore, to blame these writings for such bloodshed is hardly justified.


This is your opinion that you see these religions doing something contrary to what you see as acceptable and is one of the reasons I said you were bordering on the NTSF. What is true? What is not true? Who is right? Who is not right? Who are you to judge whether their OT sourcing is valid to pursue their agenda or not? That's why I said you were close to the NTSF. Though, I realize you are basically agnostic in some respects, as you don't claim to know for sure, at least that's what I get from you.
Note - I said you were close to the NTSF, not that your statement was in fact.

 

caposkia post 554 wrote:


....rip ..... To note, it is impossible to find such justification in the NT of the Bible and any sects that have justified justified their actions through their own books or doctrine, which is again their own interpretation of the Bible stories in specific points.  Today we don't have bloodshed, but each religion still has their own books or doctrine as interpretation to suggest that the other is wrong.  An analyzation of each would clarify where they were mislead if at all.


Here again, you claim that they can't find the justifications in the NT, and that is your opinion again, pushing you close to the NTSF. All sects view the NT in slightly different ways. Again, who is right? Are any right? Are they all wrong? My view, is they are all wrong, but that is for a NT discussion later, not here.

You keep claiming opinion, but these are researchable and verifiable facts.  I didn't specify a particular sect and therefore was also generalizing, but to be specific, you can look at the Jehovah's Witnesses translation of the Bible and see many contextual errors in their translations.  Whereas non-affiliated translations are typically very careful about contextual errors and will identify each spot where the context was hard to comprehend and also give alternative understandings in some cases.  

Mormons must reference to a separate book from the Bible to justify their perspective.  and so on. 

 

OK, I'd agree in the case of the JWs. And I now note you were being general.

caposkia wrote:

Beyond that, to suggest that I am throwing my opinion into the mix here to justify my perspective is suggesting that what I've told you about my history and how I've come to know God has been a lie.  Do you believe that I've been lying to you?

No, I don't think that.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


I was actually laying blame on Ambrose and Augustine for the later on atrocities committed because 'God Wills It" and other such lame attempts to have one's way using religion. As I don't know your views on these early fathers since you are not a mainstream believer, nor do I know if you have ever read in detail what they advocated, I will suspend any view of you in that regard as I don't know how it would apply. And this probably is also a NT discussion anyway.

Likely, not for now really, but I typically don't agree with those perspectives.

I didn't think you did actually based on your comments.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


Not with me it doesn't. I'm aware of the beliefs on this. I understand that there is supposed to be actions that coincide with the faith and acceptance of Jesus.
We keep drifting away into the NT and Christianity, not what I want to do in this thread.

so we'll keep on focus for now of what the story is talking about and nothing more, but I think you're starting to see how the NT and the OT are dependent on each other and how important it is to take both into consideration when studying today.

Perhaps if it is a Christian view we were discussing and nothing else, but we are looking before that when it shouldn't be required. The period we have been looking at is when OT events pertain and not NT events. They should stand on their own without the NT.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


As if one can ever justify killing in the name of any god that can't be seen or verified. As the US exists, al-Queda exists, and we saw the buildings go boom that is known. What is not known, is does your god exist or is he a creation of man? My view is obviously he was created and developed by man, therefore he is not real whereas the 'others' mentioned do exist and can be pointed out in the reality we occupy.

the big question is whether they're doing it for a supernatural being or not as well.. not necessarily God or one in cooperation with God.

They could have been duped by the Jinn.

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:


We always come to this point don't we?
The Greek stories are not by a single author. The Sumerian stories are not either. The Book of Mormon is though, good ol' Joey Smith the con man.
I understand that many writers and redactors had their fingers in the Bible, that's one of many problems these hundreds of stories have.

It is something we keep coming back to.  It seems you want to use that information to discredit when in fact it further confirms the likelihood.  You even noted the one book that had a single author just happened to be a con man.   Interesting note.

It's hard to not notice that Joey Smith was a con artist.

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

2 Samuel 21

As I mentioned earlier, this chapter began with 3 years of famine after the death of Absalom at some point. The issue I had was in 2 Sam 15:7 where it indicated after 40 years Absalom came to the king.... whereas David only ruled for 40 years according to 1 Kings 2:11.

A foot note I have mentions that other older manuscripts say "4 years"... i.e. 4 years after Absolom's return to the court (14:33).  By this time he must have been about 30 years old, so his revolt must be dated early in the last decade of David's reign.  In any regard, it's not in reference to David's reign.   This book agrees with the reign of David in 2 Sam. 5:4-5.

I don't know which older manuscripts you mean, details please.

In the JPS it indicates what I showed as does the LXX or Septuagint where 1 & 2 Samuel are 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Kings are 3 & 4 Kings.

See - http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/Kings%20II/index.htm

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Anyway, here David somehow asks the god why there was this famine. the god answered him that it was due to Saul and his house because they killed Gibeonites. So David contacts the Gibeonites who were not of the children of Israel but were descendants of the Amorites. David wants to make it right with them so the god will cease the famine. He asked what would be acceptable amends. Normally this would be in the form of valuables such as gold, silver or goods, but no they want vengeance against the madman Saul's family. They asked for 7 of Saul's sons to be given up for execution at Gibeah where they would be hanged to the god.

So David selects 7 of Saul's descendants to be executed by the Gibeonites so that they could slay them unto the god and he'd relent with the famine on Israel. After the execution the mother of some of the dead descendants called Rizpah went into mourning which gained David's attention for then he had all those executed as well as Saul and Jonathan's bones all brought together and buried in Zelah, part of Benjamin's territory. After this, the god halted the famine.

Meanwhile, the ever present Philistines continue to war with Israel. In a battle, Ishbibenob one of the giants, attempted to kill David who had been exhausted during the battle. However, Abishai intervened and killed him. After this, the men demanded David no longer risk his life in battle as it would extinguish the lamp of Israel.

Now for an interesting development.

In 2 Samuel 21:19 according to the JPS Hebrew Bible - "19 And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam."

But wait, I thought David killed Goliath?

In order to prevent this obvious difference the KJV and NIV and most other translations added the words "the brother of" to the verse making it far different than originally translated from the Hebrew.

After all, how could believers allow this error in the myths. It is too obvious that the multiple writers that were involved in these "hundreds of stories" made mistakes in documenting the hero stories of David.

If the change was that cut and dry, Christianity woudl have been exposed on this front years ago.  This is where contextual difficulties likely have come in.  I'm not sure if you know much about parsing Hebrew, but in translation, you have to take into consideration not only the words that are written, but to the context that they were written in... in other words, one sentence might read; "Jake Jimbo store to travel".  This would be a common literal Hebrew translation of a "sentence".  Now in English, we have many questions about this sentence, who is Jake Jimbo, or are they 2 different people?  Also, did they have a traveling store or did they travel to a store, or to the store in town?  If Jake and Jimbo are 2 different people, who's Jimbo?  is he a brother, a friend?  a father, a stranger who just happened to meet Jake along the way?  We don't know strictly from this sentence... so context is the only way we can make sense of it. 

First off, I'm not talking about Christianity here at all, so there is nothing to expose in it's regard. These stories are Jewish stories not per se Christian.

In this case I have looked at just about all of the translations and the KJV is wrong,. Most KJV versions indicate in some way that this was not the original Hebrew translation in some manner by footnotes, italicized type or another way to indicate words were added that were not part of the Hebrew.

The original Hebrew does not have"brother of " in 2 Samuel 21:19.

See - the JPS version once again as well as the LXX or Septuagint

Link to LXX again - http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/Kings%20II/index.htm

See also this discussion - http://blaugmenting.blogspot.com/2007/10/kjv-only-2-samuel-2119.html

Here the writer notes that the KJV added the words "brother of" and that many other translations which used the KJV did as well. He lists those that did not add the words and those that did add the words.

Further, Samuel is listed under the prophets in Hebrew scriptures and Chronicles are grouped with the writings. Precedence goes to the prophets in Jewish interpretations.

However, the original and oldest works only have Goliath, not brother of.

This writer also discusses how 1 Chron 20:5 indicates it was a brother and many use this to invalidate that which is in 2 Samuel, in my opinion wrongly as Chronicles is generally an inferior book with many problems and errors which we shall soon discuss.

caposkia wrote:

Translators never just add words or a phrase to make it make sense, they always have a reason behind it... this reason is not opnion or religion bias, but based on study and investigation into the parsing and context of where it came from.  For some Bibles to translate that this was the brother of anyone, the text must have implied such a possibility somewhere, or at least that there was a relation, but that they weren't the same person. 

Here they added words, the only possibility is they knew David was the claimant from earlier and knew of the 2 Chron version. Still it departs from the original Hebrew and earliest versions including the DSS.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

In verse 22 JPS we have - "These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants."

The 4 mentioned are:

1 -  v 17 Ishbibenob killed by Abishai

2 -  v 18 Saph killed by Sibbecai

3 -  v 19 Goliath killed by Elhanan

4 - v 21 an unnamed giant who was " a champion, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number" killed by Jonathan (a son of David's brother Shimea)

I think it's pretty clear that the David stories are filled with legends and myths as indicated here, the earlier stories and this chapter have issues.

But what would you expect from hundreds of stories and writers that put down on paper the oral legends and myths from likely hundreds of years earlier.

Accuracy, no. Reality? How can one ever know.

By the basis of what fits in history and what does not, so far, with the volume at which these events likely occured, they very well could and do have a place in history, there's absolutely nothing to suggest they don't...

I guess a giant is pretty far fetched huh.. but then again, what was the size of the ancient peoples of this land this many years ago?  There average size and weight would be considered miniature compared to us "giants" of today... It was also not uncommon for someone to be born of gigantic proportions during that time... by gigantic I mean 6'8" and 300 lbs... to a 5' 100 lb individual, that person is a giant.  many cultures around the world support these outliers in size in their own cultures.  Myan cultures leaders tended to be giants which they used against the people as a means of naming themselves gods.  As for 6 fingers and toes on each hand and foot... that phenomenon has also been recorded many times in our current day and history... is it so far fetched to consider that there was one such giant that happened to have 24 digits in all?  

From what I've shown, it seems pretty clear that a lot of assumptions were made on your part and that it's not pretty clear that the David stories are filled with legends.  Only that you may have mistaken some translations to be implimenting information without resource and describing beyond human like peoples that were more likely very human and just abnormally large even for our day, but are known to be possible today.  

We can know these stories more likely have a place in history simply by the fact that there is little information supporting them and none that shows the content of the stories as a basis for what the story is conveying could not have happened on any scale.  

Sometimes I'm not challenging the entire story as in this case, only part of it.

Yes 6'8" would be a giant. Yes humans had 6 fingers and toes sometimes. I'm not saying that this was not the case here in these stories. Yes a family could have had several sons that were 6' 8" and 300 lbs. Yes they could all be Philistines.

But the stories have disagreements throughout as I mentioned based on the original Hebrew.

That's where I have problems and why I consider them storytelling, not because it mentions giants.

The only argument I'm making against this episode is it is very unclear who exactly killed Goliath and when. I'm also arguing against the early version where David took the head to Jerusalem then. If Goliath was killed later as in 2 Sam 21, then he could have taken the head to Jerusalem as that's where his capitol was at this point. It however was not when the sling killing was supposedly.

The point is the story is inaccurate as presented. What is the reality? No one today can know. Is it real or is it legend? I see no way to tell and remain skeptical as a result. As a skeptic, I have to be swayed with actual proof that a story has basis in history, which is not happening with all of the variances I have mentioned. As a believer, you can see it another way as you have shown.

These are some of the other reasons why we are doing this thread.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:Ai

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Ai was destroyed sometime around 2200 BCE in the 3rd millenium even before Abraham came from ancient Sumer.

Archeologists don't support that Ai was around to be destroyed anytime near a period of Hebrew invasion.

Or is it possible that it wasn't Ai at all?  A while back we talked about how authors may reference to people, places or locations using names that existed during their time or may have been in the place of what took place at the time yet not actually involved in the event... in other words, something that was in the place of Ai at the time the author was writing may have been destroyed.  Ai may have been significant enough to remember and as far as the author was concerned, it may have been the same to him.. we know today it's likely not, but still likely took place in the same location as Ai.    This is the same as another issue a while back.. I don't remember what it was, but the same name displacement or reference was causing historical reference issues.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The description in the OT in regard to the walls of Jericho are hardly to be taken as anything else besides real physical walls. Attempting to make this mean virtual or spiritual walls is more or less not realistic in regard to the context of the story.

Not spiritual, but walls had many meanings... in many cases, the word translated may not have been walls at all, but barracades or guards, but the implication of whatever it was was that it created a barrier between what was outside and what was in.  When looking at the Hebrew, the context likely implies, this... I haven't checked on it, but in past such references, Hebrew literal contexts implied the conclusion and not English contexts.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Legends and myths also originate based on natural events as well.

Sure, but that in no way implies we should assume anything about any stories.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

We see this in very different light.

I see it as continuation of storytelling and legends, and you see it as some sort of validation. The two views will continue to be divergent.

That's part of why we are having this discussion.

 

we do... which is why we could never base the validity of scripture strictly off that perspective.  I was just implying that it supports the liklihood that it has a place in history, not that it is proof... Statistically speaking, it's unlikely not to be congruent with history due to the drastic similarities and congruencies within the stories themselves considering the vast time and distances wherein these stories were written.  


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pauljohntheskeptic

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Likely, not for now really, but I typically don't agree with those perspectives.

I didn't think you did actually based on your comments.

just clarifying here... seems as if we're in agreement up to this point from this post.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

 

Perhaps if it is a Christian view we were discussing and nothing else, but we are looking before that when it shouldn't be required. The period we have been looking at is when OT events pertain and not NT events. They should stand on their own without the NT.

This was just a reference as to why it's important to take both into account when studying today.  When perspectives of understanding are questinoned today based on what was written in the OT, we would have to take NT writing into consideration.  

I agree that looking at the OT from an OT perspective strictly, the NT is not required... but to understand now what was understood then, the NT clarifies what we would culturally not comprehend now...e.g. the point of the laws of Moses, not to condemn those who can't follow it, but more to prove that it's humanly impossible to meet God's standards... a concept that the people of the time would have grasped, but would have been lost in time without NT reference due to the fact that context does not imply this in OT writings.  

All in all, we should stick strictly to historical accuracy and save any purpose based questioning for the NT discussions whenever that might be.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

They could have been duped by the Jinn.

there could have been many angles of dupification Eye-wink

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

It's hard to not notice that Joey Smith was a con artist.

Granted, which is one reason why single authorship of divine writings automatically sends red flags up for me.   


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pauljohntheskeptic

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

First off, I'm not talking about Christianity here at all, so there is nothing to expose in it's regard. These stories are Jewish stories not per se Christian.

Of course... I meant to reference the following of this God in general and I should have said that... sorry.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

In this case I have looked at just about all of the translations and the KJV is wrong,. Most KJV versions indicate in some way that this was not the original Hebrew translation in some manner by footnotes, italicized type or another way to indicate words were added that were not part of the Hebrew.

The original Hebrew does not have"brother of " in 2 Samuel 21:19.

See - the JPS version once again as well as the LXX or Septuagint

Link to LXX again - http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/Kings%20II/index.htm

See also this discussion - http://blaugmenting.blogspot.com/2007/10/kjv-only-2-samuel-2119.html

I will check out these links when I have more time to sit down.  

It is noted that Hebew likely wasn't the original language, but it is the oldest of manuscripts that we have.  It is thought by many scholars to be likely Aramaic of origin or... another language to which I can't remember at the moment...  Anyway, this would make it more difficult to get an accurate translation. 

To make a point, no unaffiliated Bible translation is going to 'add in words' unless they have a sound contextual reason why.  for the Bibles you reference to add them in and claim as they did, it's basically covering them to say that they saw contextual reasoning to add those words in, but understand that it wasn't written as such originally... Therefore if in the future we find that their contextual finding was mistaken, they're covered... for now, as far as we're concerned, their contextual finding is accurate unless otherwise noted.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Here they added words, the only possibility is they knew David was the claimant from earlier and knew of the 2 Chron version. Still it departs from the original Hebrew and earliest versions including the DSS.

regardless, context is key to comprehending Hebrew in English.  Most of any English translation departs from the original Hebrew... if you want a good reference of the original Hebrew, look up "the Amplified Bible"... unabridged... it will not only give you a most literal translation, but it will also give you every possible angle of translation of every specific phrase in the Bible.  that oughta cover the departing from Hebrew issue for you.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

But the stories have disagreements throughout as I mentioned based on the original Hebrew.

That's where I have problems and why I consider them storytelling, not because it mentions giants.

again, scholars are very careful in investigating the congruency... if in fact they weren't congruent, they would not have changed the wording, instead, they would have stricken the text from being put into the Bible.    The context implies congruency and thus it's been there from what I can see.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The only argument I'm making against this episode is it is very unclear who exactly killed Goliath and when. I'm also arguing against the early version where David took the head to Jerusalem then. If Goliath was killed later as in 2 Sam 21, then he could have taken the head to Jerusalem as that's where his capitol was at this point. It however was not when the sling killing was supposedly.

The point is the story is inaccurate as presented. What is the reality? No one today can know. Is it real or is it legend? I see no way to tell and remain skeptical as a result. As a skeptic, I have to be swayed with actual proof that a story has basis in history, which is not happening with all of the variances I have mentioned. As a believer, you can see it another way as you have shown.

These are some of the other reasons why we are doing this thread.

Agreed.  I'm assuming then you take all history that's not all that clear in the same manner.  In other words, most of what happened before the middle ages is barely beyond speculation and can be taken with a grain of salt.  Key here being most, not all... I accept that there are clear documentations of some happenings from further back in history, but still proof is subjective when considering history alone from far enough back in time.


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Ai was destroyed sometime around 2200 BCE in the 3rd millennium even before Abraham came from ancient Sumer.

Archaeologists don't support that Ai was around to be destroyed anytime near a period of Hebrew invasion.

Or is it possible that it wasn't Ai at all?  A while back we talked about how authors may reference to people, places or locations using names that existed during their time or may have been in the place of what took place at the time yet not actually involved in the event... in other words, something that was in the place of Ai at the time the author was writing may have been destroyed.  Ai may have been significant enough to remember and as far as the author was concerned, it may have been the same to him.. we know today it's likely not, but still likely took place in the same location as Ai.    This is the same as another issue a while back.. I don't remember what it was, but the same name displacement or reference was causing historical reference issues. 

 

Based on the description in the OT account and the location of the ruins they coincide. That legends could have been merged together obviously is possible. A group of 20 warriors attacked a small village and destroyed it merges perhaps with however AI was destroyed. The point still is the account is incorrect in the OT either way and is not true as written.

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The description in the OT in regard to the walls of Jericho are hardly to be taken as anything else besides real physical walls. Attempting to make this mean virtual or spiritual walls is more or less not realistic in regard to the context of the story.

Not spiritual, but walls had many meanings... in many cases, the word translated may not have been walls at all, but barricades or guards, but the implication of whatever it was was that it created a barrier between what was outside and what was in.  When looking at the Hebrew, the context likely implies, this... I haven't checked on it, but in past such references, Hebrew literal contexts implied the conclusion and not English contexts. 

No matter how one tries with this account it is detailed as "the walls come tumblin' down". I don't know how a wall of soldiers can be considered "tumblin' down" as in the details given in the OT account. Obviously if it was just barricades made of carts and such it would make a poor story as well. Consider, 20 soldiers storm the village and the "carts come tumblin' down". This is not very inspiring. Again, the OT account is not true as written.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Legends and myths also originate based on natural events as well.

Sure, but that in no way implies we should assume anything about any stories.

I agree, one should not assume anything about stories that are thousands of years old. When the stories don't seem to fit one needs to be skeptical about them. The above stories have some problems being correct as written, thus one should be skeptical about them as actually being real as described and consider they have legend and myths attached. And since I don't see "magic" as real, they drift into the myths and legend category pretty much based on their own content.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

We see this in very different light.

I see it as continuation of storytelling and legends, and you see it as some sort of validation. The two views will continue to be divergent.

That's part of why we are having this discussion.

 

we do... which is why we could never base the validity of scripture strictly off that perspective.  I was just implying that it supports the liklihood that it has a place in history, not that it is proof... Statistically speaking, it's unlikely not to be congruent with history due to the drastic similarities and congruences within the stories themselves considering the vast time and distances wherein these stories were written.  

Again, a difference in our views. As I weigh that which is said, the scale tips based on the "magic" claimed and the lack of support in the area of archeology for these 2 for one. Myths take on fantastic and sometimes believable story lines, but when they can't be placed in reality problems evolve. There are many similarities and congruences in myths and legends as well also involving vast time and distances for their writing.

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

 

Perhaps if it is a Christian view we were discussing and nothing else, but we are looking before that when it shouldn't be required. The period we have been looking at is when OT events pertain and not NT events. They should stand on their own without the NT.

This was just a reference as to why it's important to take both into account when studying today.  When perspectives of understanding are questinoned today based on what was written in the OT, we would have to take NT writing into consideration.  

I agree that looking at the OT from an OT perspective strictly, the NT is not required... but to understand now what was understood then, the NT clarifies what we would culturally not comprehend now...e.g. the point of the laws of Moses, not to condemn those who can't follow it, but more to prove that it's humanly impossible to meet God's standards... a concept that the people of the time would have grasped, but would have been lost in time without NT reference due to the fact that context does not imply this in OT writings.  

All in all, we should stick strictly to historical accuracy and save any purpose based questioning for the NT discussions whenever that might be.

If we aren't talking about Christianity, which we aren't really so far then there is no reason at all to bring up the NT writings and take them into consideration. In some OT events, Christianity does see things that the originators the Jews do not. The stories in regard to the Exodus, Jericho, Ai, the killing of Goliath are not areas that need the NT' perspective. As to how to comprehend the laws of Moses, the NT's version is a Christian perspective and there is plenty of Jewish commentary on the subject that does not need or require the NT. Actually the OT writings does make it clear that the Jews could not meet the god's standards, look at David, Solomon, and many others.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

They could have been duped by the Jinn.

there could have been many angles of dupification Eye-wink

Obviously. Since Muslims believe in the Jinn, if they misconstrue the Koran utilizing it to kill in the name of al-Lah, it must be that they have been duped by them into actions that will be adverse.

caposkia wrote:


pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

It's hard to not notice that Joey Smith was a con artist.

Granted, which is one reason why single authorship of divine writings automatically sends red flags up for me.   

I don't know what a divine writing is supposed to be. Is it the book of the dead from Egypt? The struggle between Tiamat and Marduk or Ba'al and Yam?

What you call divine writings I may consider as legends and myths, another reason for this discussion.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

First off, I'm not talking about Christianity here at all, so there is nothing to expose in it's regard. These stories are Jewish stories not per se Christian.

Of course... I meant to reference the following of this God in general and I should have said that... sorry.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

In this case I have looked at just about all of the translations and the KJV is wrong,. Most KJV versions indicate in some way that this was not the original Hebrew translation in some manner by footnotes, italicized type or another way to indicate words were added that were not part of the Hebrew.

The original Hebrew does not have"brother of " in 2 Samuel 21:19.

See - the JPS version once again as well as the LXX or Septuagint

Link to LXX again - http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/Kings%20II/index.htm

See also this discussion - http://blaugmenting.blogspot.com/2007/10/kjv-only-2-samuel-2119.html

I will check out these links when I have more time to sit down.  

It is noted that Hebrew likely wasn't the original language, but it is the oldest of manuscripts that we have.  It is thought by many scholars to be likely Aramaic of origin or... another language to which I can't remember at the moment...  Anyway, this would make it more difficult to get an accurate translation. 

To make a point, no unaffiliated Bible translation is going to 'add in words' unless they have a sound contextual reason why.  for the Bibles you reference to add them in and claim as they did, it's basically covering them to say that they saw contextual reasoning to add those words in, but understand that it wasn't written as such originally... Therefore if in the future we find that their contextual finding was mistaken, they're covered... for now, as far as we're concerned, their contextual finding is accurate unless otherwise noted.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Here they added words, the only possibility is they knew David was the claimant from earlier and knew of the 2 Chron version. Still it departs from the original Hebrew and earliest versions including the DSS.

regardless, context is key to comprehending Hebrew in English.  Most of any English translation departs from the original Hebrew... if you want a good reference of the original Hebrew, look up "the Amplified Bible"... unabridged... it will not only give you a most literal translation, but it will also give you every possible angle of translation of every specific phrase in the Bible.  that oughta cover the departing from Hebrew issue for you.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

But the stories have disagreements throughout as I mentioned based on the original Hebrew.

That's where I have problems and why I consider them storytelling, not because it mentions giants.

again, scholars are very careful in investigating the congruency... if in fact they weren't congruent, they would not have changed the wording, instead, they would have stricken the text from being put into the Bible.    The context implies congruency and thus it's been there from what I can see.

 

Let me know what you think after you look at the links I gave you. As I indicated, the translators were aware when the KJV was done that earlier David has the credit for Goliath's death, As did 2 Chronicles so claim. Here it said something else and nothing changes the point that the words were knowingly added. When we get to 1 & 2 Chronicles we will see differences between it and Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The only argument I'm making against this episode is it is very unclear who exactly killed Goliath and when. I'm also arguing against the early version where David took the head to Jerusalem then. If Goliath was killed later as in 2 Sam 21, then he could have taken the head to Jerusalem as that's where his capitol was at this point. It however was not when the sling killing was supposedly.

The point is the story is inaccurate as presented. What is the reality? No one today can know. Is it real or is it legend? I see no way to tell and remain skeptical as a result. As a skeptic, I have to be swayed with actual proof that a story has basis in history, which is not happening with all of the variances I have mentioned. As a believer, you can see it another way as you have shown.

These are some of the other reasons why we are doing this thread.

Agreed.  I'm assuming then you take all history that's not all that clear in the same manner.  In other words, most of what happened before the middle ages is barely beyond speculation and can be taken with a grain of salt.  Key here being most, not all... I accept that there are clear documentations of some happenings from further back in history, but still proof is subjective when considering history alone from far enough back in time.

Your statement is far too general in regards to what occurred prior to the middle ages. If accounts from 2 cultures agree as does archeology then the story is likely what happened. Many stories have one sided accounts and are sketchy in archeology and may or may not be what happened. In regard to Alexander for example it is clear he did conquer much of the world. Some of the details in the stories are likely not true as written either. "Magic" in any story no matter from what culture should subject the story to question.

 

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"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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The Creation story

was written by Moses. He evidently learned it from the Egyptian archives. He would have had access to the writings as he was in the spectrum of the Egyptian ruling class. Biblical Creation may have been Egyptian.

The only possible thing the world needs saving from are those running it.

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Old Seer wrote:was written

Old Seer wrote:

was written by Moses. He evidently learned it from the Egyptian archives. He would have had access to the writings as he was in the spectrum of the Egyptian ruling class. Biblical Creation may have been Egyptian.

Earlier in this thread these subjects were discussed.

I don't personally think Moses was a real person. I don't think that the Exodus was real as described. In my discussion with Caposkia I did agree 20 to 100 escapees from Egypt could have occurred.

Even so, the story has issues with the archeology of Palestine as well as history.

Go read posts 173 to about 292. Not all posts apply, some drift off topic into the NT and Jesus.

 

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"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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2 Samuel cont'd

Chapter 22

 

This is a song of David.

Key points mentioned:

1-The god delivered David from the hand of his enemies and Saul.

2-David thinks the god heard him and aided him.

3-He mentions the foundations of the Earth- a primitive concept.

4-He claims to have been righteous thus rewarded by the god. Has someone forgot about an arranged murder?

5-Overall a song of praise and thanks to the god for his help in eradicating enemies and supporting him.

Chapter 23

The supposed last words of David

Verses 1 to 7 are David's last words contains both praise to the god and threats to the "sons of Belial" .

Verses 8 to 39 are a list of David's "Mighty Men" or supporters and warriors and some of their accomplishments.

Chapter 24

The god once more is miffed at Israel and he influenced David against them to number them (count). So David orders this census and meets some resistance from Joab.

After going throughout the land for 9 months and 20 days they report back to David the following:

Israel: 800,000 valiant men

Judah: 500,000 men

The problem still remains here that there were no where near this number in Palestine at the time. If one adds a woman to each and a single child one has 3.9 million as a population. As indicated in the text, many had multiple children 2 to a dozen, so there'd be even more. The population is estimated from archeology at less than 45,000 in about 1150-900 BCE reaching a peak in the 600s BCE of 160,000. This is total population, not just the men.

David decided he has sinned against the god in v10.

The god through his prophet/seer Gad offered David a choice between 3 things: 7 years of famine; or flee and be pursued by his enemies for 3 months; or a 3 day pestilence. So he told Gad that he is at the mercy of the god, and let me not fall into the hand of man (enemies).  So the god sent a pestilence which killed 70,000 men (women and children not included or maybe not affected?).

The angel of the god was restrained by the god from destroying Jerusalem, as the god repented of the evil. David spotted the angel that killed the people and spoke to the god telling him, I have sinned and done wickedly, but what have these sheep (innocent people ) done? The prophet/seer Gad came to him and told him to build an altar in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. David goes there and Araunah offers at no cost whatever David needs, instead David insist he pay and does 50 shekels of silver. David build the altar and offered burnt sacrifices and the god relented from the plague (read as murder spree if you want).

 

Again, 70,000 exceeded the population of the area.

All 3 chapters are to me unsupported storytelling.

As in many places, the numbers are exaggerated to levels that are very unlikely. And yes, I know we agree that this happened.

This reaches the end of 2 Samuel and we can soon progress into the fun books of 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles. We will go back and forth between the two discussing their similarities and issues as well as the disparities to history and archeology.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Based on the description in the OT account and the location of the ruins they coincide. That legends could have been merged together obviously is possible. A group of 20 warriors attacked a small village and destroyed it merges perhaps with however AI was destroyed. The point still is the account is incorrect in the OT either way and is not true as written.

As usual I will follow up with the typical response to this.  You again agree that it is possible that the legends could have merged together and that a small magnitude of the story is a possible historical truth yet conclude that the OT is still incorrect as if the name discrepancy discredits the whole story or what was written.  Unfortunately this is not true.  The name may be incorrect, but the account is not.  To claim the account is incorrect is to claim it never happened in any way at all in history.  You have just confirmed this is not the case. 

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

No matter how one tries with this account it is detailed as "the walls come tumblin' down". I don't know how a wall of soldiers can be considered "tumblin' down" as in the details given in the OT account. Obviously if it was just barricades made of carts and such it would make a poor story as well. Consider, 20 soldiers storm the village and the "carts come tumblin' down". This is not very inspiring. Again, the OT account is not true as written.

this is getting into word semantics.  What makes sense today might not make sense back then, what made sense back then might not make sense today... this has been confirmed many times over in history.  Beyond that there is a language barrier.  Many languages would use terminology that would not make sense in English or vise versa.  To take the saying and conclude strictly from an out of context quote without doing research on the language and terminology of time times as well as assuming a Hebrew word translated as walls is literally walls as written from someone that is understood not to be an eye witness to the account that the OT is false here is not logical I'm sorry to say.  Too many discrepencies.  Even if it was literally walls that were built up, what geological evidence would you expect understanding the many materials their walls could have been made of that would not last through the ages?  There are many reasons why there wouldn't be archaelogical evidences of literal walls.  

Regardless, I still take it as not so much literal walls, but moreso of a possible barracade or even possibly just a reference to the boarder that had been guarded... there are many historical references of armies creating "walls" metaphorically speaking. (thinking of telephone again, how many times does the walls metaphor get used from person to person before it is believed to be literal?... just a thought)   Especially seeing as if I remember correctly, the Hebrew word may not necessarily mean tangeable walls.   The point still stands that the settlement was attacked despite the "wall" issue and therefore again does not discredit the event as historically true.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I agree, one should not assume anything about stories that are thousands of years old. When the stories don't seem to fit one needs to be skeptical about them. The above stories have some problems being correct as written, thus one should be skeptical about them as actually being real as described and consider they have legend and myths attached. And since I don't see "magic" as real, they drift into the myths and legend category pretty much based on their own content.

Beyond Gods interventions, we have only agreed as to their possible validity in history.  The "magic" issue you have would likely be better addressed in the NT when it is mentioned many many times of eye-witness accounts of the events.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Again, a difference in our views. As I weigh that which is said, the scale tips based on the "magic" claimed and the lack of support in the area of archeology for these 2 for one. Myths take on fantastic and sometimes believable story lines, but when they can't be placed in reality problems evolve. There are many similarities and congruences in myths and legends as well also involving vast time and distances for their writing.

The problem with your "magic" claim is that scientifically a lot of the "magic" can be explained.   This in no way discredits God, but this is a topic for another thread.  


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:If

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

If we aren't talking about Christianity, which we aren't really so far then there is no reason at all to bring up the NT writings and take them into consideration. In some OT events, Christianity does see things that the originators the Jews do not. The stories in regard to the Exodus, Jericho, Ai, the killing of Goliath are not areas that need the NT' perspective. As to how to comprehend the laws of Moses, the NT's version is a Christian perspective and there is plenty of Jewish commentary on the subject that does not need or require the NT. Actually the OT writings does make it clear that the Jews could not meet the god's standards, look at David, Solomon, and many others.

Right, that's the point, that they couldn't meet the requirements, even the OT greats as mentioned... even Moses himself.  The Jews however didn't understand that the Laws were not achievable, only that they were to follow them strictly.  

The problem with going on with this particular conversation is it's likely going to get off the historical focus and go more into the spiritual invfluence or purposes and reasoning, which is based on God and not history.  What is historical is that Jesus came because of the unattainable level of God's laws and the ignorance of the Jews about their role in that.  

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I don't know what a divine writing is supposed to be. Is it the book of the dead from Egypt? The struggle between Tiamat and Marduk or Ba'al and Yam?

What you call divine writings I may consider as legends and myths, another reason for this discussion.

Granted... my particular reference was to writings from God... but divine writings could generally reference any writing that was spiritually inspired.  These could include writings listed above... Note: divine does not automatically assume truth, only that the inspiration was from a metaphysical being, as claimed by the Quran and other writings.


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Your statement is far too general in regards to what occurred prior to the middle ages. If accounts from 2 cultures agree as does archeology then the story is likely what happened. Many stories have one sided accounts and are sketchy in archeology and may or may not be what happened. In regard to Alexander for example it is clear he did conquer much of the world. Some of the details in the stories are likely not true as written either. "Magic" in any story no matter from what culture should subject the story to question.

 

Ok, I haven't looked at the links yet.  I will.

i did keep it general to stay on topic.  The problem again with "magic" is is any claimed magic literally magic or just misunderstood information?  I have said many times that I believe  a lot of God's "miracles" worked within the laws put forth in his creation... In other words, science can explain the events... but what makes them miracles is the timing.   Or sometimes the abilities that at the time would be beyond a generally understood ability at the time but that might not be seen as a miracle today. 

 


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Chapter 22

 .......................

Again, 70,000 exceeded the population of the area.

All 3 chapters are to me unsupported storytelling.

As in many places, the numbers are exaggerated to levels that are very unlikely. And yes, I know we agree that this happened.

This reaches the end of 2 Samuel and we can soon progress into the fun books of 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles. We will go back and forth between the two discussing their similarities and issues as well as the disparities to history and archeology.

 

yea, we've covered that.  Looking forward to what's next. 


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caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Based on the description in the OT account and the location of the ruins they coincide. That legends could have been merged together obviously is possible. A group of 20 warriors attacked a small village and destroyed it merges perhaps with however AI was destroyed. The point still is the account is incorrect in the OT either way and is not true as written.

As usual I will follow up with the typical response to this.  You again agree that it is possible that the legends could have merged together and that a small magnitude of the story is a possible historical truth yet conclude that the OT is still incorrect as if the name discrepancy discredits the whole story or what was written.  Unfortunately this is not true.  The name may be incorrect, but the account is not.  To claim the account is incorrect is to claim it never happened in any way at all in history.  You have just confirmed this is not the case.

There is also the 1000 year discrepancy as well that discredits the OT version. Ai was destroyed easily 1000 years prior to any possible date for the Joshua story. So no, the OT account is not accurate as written.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

No matter how one tries with this account it is detailed as "the walls come tumblin' down". I don't know how a wall of soldiers can be considered "tumblin' down" as in the details given in the OT account. Obviously if it was just barricades made of carts and such it would make a poor story as well. Consider, 20 soldiers storm the village and the "carts come tumblin' down". This is not very inspiring. Again, the OT account is not true as written.

this is getting into word semantics.  What makes sense today might not make sense back then, what made sense back then might not make sense today... this has been confirmed many times over in history.  Beyond that there is a language barrier.  Many languages would use terminology that would not make sense in English or vise versa.  To take the saying and conclude strictly from an out of context quote without doing research on the language and terminology of time times as well as assuming a Hebrew word translated as walls is literally walls as written from someone that is understood not to be an eye witness to the account that the OT is false here is not logical I'm sorry to say.  Too many discrepencies.  Even if it was literally walls that were built up, what geological evidence would you expect understanding the many materials their walls could have been made of that would not last through the ages?  There are many reasons why there wouldn't be archaelogical evidences of literal walls.  

Regardless, I still take it as not so much literal walls, but moreso of a possible barracade or even possibly just a reference to the boarder that had been guarded... there are many historical references of armies creating "walls" metaphorically speaking. (thinking of telephone again, how many times does the walls metaphor get used from person to person before it is believed to be literal?... just a thought)   Especially seeing as if I remember correctly, the Hebrew word may not necessarily mean tangeable walls.   The point still stands that the settlement was attacked despite the "wall" issue and therefore again does not discredit the event as historically true. 

The account is fairly detailed to indicate physical walls far beyond any possibility of translation or language barriers.

Josh 2:15 - JPS - "Then she let them down by a cord through the window; for her house was upon the side of the wall, and she dwelt upon the wall."

Just how can one see anything else here but real walls?

Josh 6:5 - JPS - "And it shall be, that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when ye hear the sound of the horn, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him."

Sounds like a physical wall here as well.

Josh 6:20 - JPS - "...people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city."

Still sounds like real walls.

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I agree, one should not assume anything about stories that are thousands of years old. When the stories don't seem to fit one needs to be skeptical about them. The above stories have some problems being correct as written, thus one should be skeptical about them as actually being real as described and consider they have legend and myths attached. And since I don't see "magic" as real, they drift into the myths and legend category pretty much based on their own content.

Beyond Gods interventions, we have only agreed as to their possible validity in history.  The "magic" issue you have would likely be better addressed in the NT when it is mentioned many many times of eye-witness accounts of the events. 

The god's interventions are part of what I call magic. The NT is another subject for discussion as well as it's supposed magic and miracles.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Again, a difference in our views. As I weigh that which is said, the scale tips based on the "magic" claimed and the lack of support in the area of archeology for these 2 for one. Myths take on fantastic and sometimes believable story lines, but when they can't be placed in reality problems evolve. There are many similarities and congruences in myths and legends as well also involving vast time and distances for their writing.

The problem with your "magic" claim is that scientifically a lot of the "magic" can be explained.   This in no way discredits God, but this is a topic for another thread.  

As I told you before, if the "magic" or miracle in the OT is explained by science then no miracle or magic happened, nor is there a need for any god to be involved.

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

If we aren't talking about Christianity, which we aren't really so far then there is no reason at all to bring up the NT writings and take them into consideration. In some OT events, Christianity does see things that the originators the Jews do not. The stories in regard to the Exodus, Jericho, Ai, the killing of Goliath are not areas that need the NT' perspective. As to how to comprehend the laws of Moses, the NT's version is a Christian perspective and there is plenty of Jewish commentary on the subject that does not need or require the NT. Actually the OT writings does make it clear that the Jews could not meet the god's standards, look at David, Solomon, and many others.

Right, that's the point, that they couldn't meet the requirements, even the OT greats as mentioned... even Moses himself.  The Jews however didn't understand that the Laws were not achievable, only that they were to follow them strictly. 

However, the Jews still believed they could return their soul to the god in the same condition it was received.

And this subject would be better discussed with our current Jewish theist Furrycatherder.

caposkia wrote:

The problem with going on with this particular conversation is it's likely going to get off the historical focus and go more into the spiritual influence or purposes and reasoning, which is based on God and not history.  What is historical is that Jesus came because of the unattainable level of God's laws and the ignorance of the Jews about their role in that. 

Your NT view is noted and will be discussed some point in the future. If you want to do so now go visit any thread by Furrycatherder.

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I don't know what a divine writing is supposed to be. Is it the book of the dead from Egypt? The struggle between Tiamat and Marduk or Ba'al and Yam?

What you call divine writings I may consider as legends and myths, another reason for this discussion.

Granted... my particular reference was to writings from God... but divine writings could generally reference any writing that was spiritually inspired.  These could include writings listed above... Note: divine does not automatically assume truth, only that the inspiration was from a metaphysical being, as claimed by the Quran and other writings.

Divine as a claim assumes that there is an entity that is some kind of metaphysical being, something I do not concur. Which is part of why I say I don't know what a divine writing is.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Your statement is far too general in regards to what occurred prior to the middle ages. If accounts from 2 cultures agree as does archeology then the story is likely what happened. Many stories have one sided accounts and are sketchy in archeology and may or may not be what happened. In regard to Alexander for example it is clear he did conquer much of the world. Some of the details in the stories are likely not true as written either. "Magic" in any story no matter from what culture should subject the story to question.

 

Ok, I haven't looked at the links yet.  I will.

i did keep it general to stay on topic.  The problem again with "magic" is is any claimed magic literally magic or just misunderstood information?  I have said many times that I believe  a lot of God's "miracles" worked within the laws put forth in his creation... In other words, science can explain the events... but what makes them miracles is the timing.   Or sometimes the abilities that at the time would be beyond a generally understood ability at the time but that might not be seen as a miracle today. 

Again, if it is not "magic" or a miracle and is misunderstanding because of their lack of knowledge no god is required.

I consider a lot of the stories to have misunderstandings of some sort.

When Thera blew and the wall of water smashed into Turkey and parts of the coast of Syra they may have thought it was a god. Not to mention the chunks of Thera falling down on many parts of Turkey and the Black Sea area.

There are many other natural events that may have found their way into stories of one culture or the other. This in no way requires a god, only misunderstanding.

 

 

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:The

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The account is fairly detailed to indicate physical walls far beyond any possibility of translation or language barriers.

Josh 2:15 - JPS - "Then she let them down by a cord through the window; for her house was upon the side of the wall, and she dwelt upon the wall."

Just how can one see anything else here but real walls?

Ya know, I've been trying to investigate this.  It's been hard to find information.  However... I have a question for you... Would you say the destruction of Jericho historically could have taken place at the end of the Late Bronze I period (around 1400 BC)?  It seems there has been investigations into the dating of the archaelogical findings and they have been found to be wrong as dated by Kenyon who dated the findings somewhere around 1550 BC. 1400 would be congruent with Biblical claims. 

These studies would confirm that the walls of Jericho would have been physical as well... and with your representation of the Bible quotes it does make sense.

The Schematic cross-section diagram of the fortification system at Jericho based on Kenyons west trench gives a detailed analysis of what the walls would have been like... 

According to these studies, though Kenyon concluded with reference to the miliatry conquest theory and the Late Bronze age walls, there was no archaelogical data to conclude that there were actual walls surroundng the city, further investigation into the findings suggests otherwise.   Based on this... i would consider the idea that the walls were in fact physical.  I think you were right about the walls being phsyical, but it seems there is reason to believe there is archaelogical evidence to confirm this in history. 

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

As I told you before, if the "magic" or miracle in the OT is explained by science then no miracle or magic happened, nor is there a need for any god to be involved.

This is a poor angle to take on concluding Gods existence... My question to this would be why must there be an unexplainable need for God to exist? 

If i do a task that is not needed or is easily done by others, does that mean I really never did the task?   I see this as the same logic here.  Maybe I'm not understanding your angle on this...


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

However, the Jews still believed they could return their soul to the god in the same condition it was received.

And this subject would be better discussed with our current Jewish theist Furrycatherder.

yea, that's just it... they believed they could in fact do so when Jesus teaches otherwise. 

It would be better with Furrycatherder... I'm sure they know more than I do... but it'd be an interesting discussion just the same.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

 

Divine as a claim assumes that there is an entity that is some kind of metaphysical being, something I do not concur. Which is part of why I say I don't know what a divine writing is.

 

I get what you're saying.  Anyone claiming to have one would say you're looking at it, but of course then again, you don't recognize it as such... From that perspective, it really is on your shoulders to understand.  I'm not sure how else I could explain it to you.


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Ok, I haven't looked at the links yet.  I will.

i did keep it general to stay on topic.  The problem again with "magic" is is any claimed magic literally magic or just misunderstood information?  I have said many times that I believe  a lot of God's "miracles" worked within the laws put forth in his creation... In other words, science can explain the events... but what makes them miracles is the timing.   Or sometimes the abilities that at the time would be beyond a generally understood ability at the time but that might not be seen as a miracle today. 

Again, if it is not "magic" or a miracle and is misunderstanding because of their lack of knowledge no god is required.

I consider a lot of the stories to have misunderstandings of some sort.

When Thera blew and the wall of water smashed into Turkey and parts of the coast of Syra they may have thought it was a god. Not to mention the chunks of Thera falling down on many parts of Turkey and the Black Sea area.

There are many other natural events that may have found their way into stories of one culture or the other. This in no way requires a god, only misunderstanding.

 

yea, that seems to be the general consensus... Though it's not that we can explain how it happened now, it's that we can't explain why it happened exactly when it did to cause the results that it did... God's miracles aren't about defying the laws that God is understood to have put in place in his creation... that's just not logical or efficient... if God is who he is, he's goign to work witin the limits he put forth soas to not disrupt the flow and balance of the system... instead what is a miracle is the timing... e.g. the possible tsunami like effect from a nearby volcano that drew the water back on a raised part of land so that Moses and his people could get across, but comes back and crashes down on those chasing them.  Scientifically explainable and historically confirmed to have likely happened around the same time, but totally frikken ironic that it happened exactly at that moment in time if God in fact does not exist. 

 

 

 


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caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

The account is fairly detailed to indicate physical walls far beyond any possibility of translation or language barriers.

Josh 2:15 - JPS - "Then she let them down by a cord through the window; for her house was upon the side of the wall, and she dwelt upon the wall."

Just how can one see anything else here but real walls?

Ya know, I've been trying to investigate this.  It's been hard to find information.  However... I have a question for you... Would you say the destruction of Jericho historically could have taken place at the end of the Late Bronze I period (around 1400 BC)?  It seems there has been investigations into the dating of the archaelogical findings and they have been found to be wrong as dated by Kenyon who dated the findings somewhere around 1550 BC. 1400 would be congruent with Biblical claims.

1400 BCE does not work either. The Late Bronze Age settlement in Jericho dating back to and before the 14th century BCE was poor and insiginificant and not fortified. There was no sign of destruction of any kind at all in the excavations. See ppp 81-82 bible Unearthed for example.

You are obviously referring to what is called Jericho IV, the layer of destruction Kenyon dated to cira 1530 BCE. This has been confirmed by radio carbon dating to the 16th century BCE (1617–1530 BCE). See below.

 

caposkia wrote:

These studies would confirm that the walls of Jericho would have been physical as well... and with your representation of the Bible quotes it does make sense.

The Schematic cross-section diagram of the fortification system at Jericho based on Kenyons west trench gives a detailed analysis of what the walls would have been like... 

According to these studies, though Kenyon concluded with reference to the miliatry conquest theory and the Late Bronze age walls, there was no archaelogical data to conclude that there were actual walls surroundng the city, further investigation into the findings suggests otherwise.

Do you mean biblical archaeologist Dr. Bryant G. Wood? If so this was disproved in 1995 by Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht from high-precision radiocarbon measurements made on eighteen samples from Jericho.

They maintain that kenyon was right with 1550 BCE.

See - http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/answers/bryantwood.php

 

caposkia wrote:

  Based on this... i would consider the idea that the walls were in fact physical.  I think you were right about the walls being phsyical, but it seems there is reason to believe there is archaelogical evidence to confirm this in history.

See above, I don't think there was an occupied city of Jericho at the time.

http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/answers/bryantwood.php

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

As I told you before, if the "magic" or miracle in the OT is explained by science then no miracle or magic happened, nor is there a need for any god to be involved.

This is a poor angle to take on concluding Gods existence... My question to this would be why must there be an unexplainable need for God to exist? 

If i do a task that is not needed or is easily done by others, does that mean I really never did the task?   I see this as the same logic here.  Maybe I'm not understanding your angle on this...

Why must your god be in the first place? Can he/she be a high tech being from another part of the Universe and still meet your descriptions?

One man's magic is another's technology.

No, you don't seem to get what I meant above. If that what occurred in the storytelling is explained by science or was just misunderstood by the ancients then none of it contributes towards a basis for a god.

All the ancients misunderstood much of what our elementary school children understand today. The texts are filled with claims of various gods doing this and that. Yet, it really only shows they were ignorant of the reasons. The god did it idea was the way they labeled it for they had no other way to understand.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

However, the Jews still believed they could return their soul to the god in the same condition it was received.

And this subject would be better discussed with our current Jewish theist Furrycatherder.

yea, that's just it... they believed they could in fact do so when Jesus teaches otherwise. 

It would be better with Furrycatherder... I'm sure they know more than I do... but it'd be an interesting discussion just the same.

I'm tempted to argue over the Jesus claim of teaching but that could sidetrack us pretty far. My view for future discussion is the Jesus is shown as a character in several manuscripts with unknown authors from unknown dates. Whether the Jesus was more than that is subject to question. Was he real? Was he a composite? Was he but a character? Some other day we can beat that out.

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

 

Divine as a claim assumes that there is an entity that is some kind of metaphysical being, something I do not concur. Which is part of why I say I don't know what a divine writing is.

 

I get what you're saying.  Anyone claiming to have one would say you're looking at it, but of course then again, you don't recognize it as such... From that perspective, it really is on your shoulders to understand.  I'm not sure how else I could explain it to you.

Of course a believer in your god or al-Lah or Brahman would consider certain ancient texts to be divine for one reason or another.

You don't seem to give the Vedas the label of divinely inspired and worship Brahman. Same thing.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Ok, I haven't looked at the links yet.  I will.

i did keep it general to stay on topic.  The problem again with "magic" is is any claimed magic literally magic or just misunderstood information?  I have said many times that I believe  a lot of God's "miracles" worked within the laws put forth in his creation... In other words, science can explain the events... but what makes them miracles is the timing.   Or sometimes the abilities that at the time would be beyond a generally understood ability at the time but that might not be seen as a miracle today. 

Again, if it is not "magic" or a miracle and is misunderstanding because of their lack of knowledge no god is required.

I consider a lot of the stories to have misunderstandings of some sort.

When Thera blew and the wall of water smashed into Turkey and parts of the coast of Syra they may have thought it was a god. Not to mention the chunks of Thera falling down on many parts of Turkey and the Black Sea area.

There are many other natural events that may have found their way into stories of one culture or the other. This in no way requires a god, only misunderstanding.

 

yea, that seems to be the general consensus... Though it's not that we can explain how it happened now, it's that we can't explain why it happened exactly when it did to cause the results that it did... God's miracles aren't about defying the laws that God is understood to have put in place in his creation... that's just not logical or efficient... if God is who he is, he's goign to work witin the limits he put forth soas to not disrupt the flow and balance of the system... instead what is a miracle is the timing... e.g. the possible tsunami like effect from a nearby volcano that drew the water back on a raised part of land so that Moses and his people could get across, but comes back and crashes down on those chasing them.  Scientifically explainable and historically confirmed to have likely happened around the same time, but totally frikken ironic that it happened exactly at that moment in time if God in fact does not exist. 

 

BULLSHIT, that is merely retrofitting. Otherwise the ancient polytheists who wrote Icarus knew about "lift" in flight back then because they depicted humans flying like birds.

Again, if a Muslim quotes the verse about the "sky turning red" do you become a Muslim because they point to a picture red nebula? Or do you accept it rightfully as retrofitting after the fact? Would you become Jewish if Furrycatherder here made arguments that you should become a Jew because she argues science fits her beliefs too?

Quote:
he's goign to work witin the limits he put forth

A claim and naked assertion as a counter to an objection we are not making.

Our objection is claiming ALL powerful. We are not talking about what your god claims he will or wont do, we are objecting to the concept "all" AS a claimed attribute.

You have no way of empirically knowing. "All" by definition in the "omni" attribute claims would have to by virtue of the word "all" include deception and lying and cruelty. That is the REAL reason you don't understand why your logic fails because you HAVE to set limits by dodging with "he said he wouldn't do that".

"To talk of the immaterial is to talk of nothingness"(something to that affect)Thomas Jefferson. He at least was willing to accept that even though he was a deist. Even though I would still have a beef with even his watered down god.

Our point is that you cannot know what a claimed being would do if you are going to claim "all" in this omnimax god.

The rational position is that it is merely your own wishful thinking in wanting a super hero to exist.

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Ok, I haven't looked at the links yet.  I will.

i did keep it general to stay on topic.  The problem again with "magic" is is any claimed magic literally magic or just misunderstood information?  I have said many times that I believe  a lot of God's "miracles" worked within the laws put forth in his creation... In other words, science can explain the events... but what makes them miracles is the timing.   Or sometimes the abilities that at the time would be beyond a generally understood ability at the time but that might not be seen as a miracle today. 

Again, if it is not "magic" or a miracle and is misunderstanding because of their lack of knowledge no god is required.

I consider a lot of the stories to have misunderstandings of some sort.

When Thera blew and the wall of water smashed into Turkey and parts of the coast of Syra they may have thought it was a god. Not to mention the chunks of Thera falling down on many parts of Turkey and the Black Sea area.

There are many other natural events that may have found their way into stories of one culture or the other. This in no way requires a god, only misunderstanding.

 

yea, that seems to be the general consensus... Though it's not that we can explain how it happened now, it's that we can't explain why it happened exactly when it did to cause the results that it did... God's miracles aren't about defying the laws that God is understood to have put in place in his creation... that's just not logical or efficient... if God is who he is, he's goign to work witin the limits he put forth soas to not disrupt the flow and balance of the system... instead what is a miracle is the timing... e.g. the possible tsunami like effect from a nearby volcano that drew the water back on a raised part of land so that Moses and his people could get across, but comes back and crashes down on those chasing them.  Scientifically explainable and historically confirmed to have likely happened around the same time, but totally frikken ironic that it happened exactly at that moment in time if God in fact does not exist. 

  

I understand that is your position, the god does his miracles within the laws of the Universe.

Mine is one man's technology is another's miracle which requires no god at all.

I'm surprised after all the discussion we had about the Exodus that you used the storytelling of Moses. The dozen to 100 possible but not proven escapees could have waded through the Reed Sea.

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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1 Kings 1

David is finally an old man, hopefully incapable by then of killing anyone else. He has body temp issues.

The answer of course is to find a fair young virgin to keep him warm. The text indicates he did not have sex with her, no Viagra or Cialis back then.

Then David's old age  opens up another coup or revolution when Adonijah the son of Haggith decided he should become the next king. Couldn't he wait for David to actually die?

Adonijah puts together a number of followers but none in the David sphere of influence excepting Joab.

David has to hear of this from Bathsheba who is told of it by Nathan the prophet.

David's response was to send Nathan the prophet & Zadok the priest to take Solomon his son on David's own mule to Gihon. Once there, Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet were to  anoint him as  king over Israel then the  blow  the horn, and  annouce: Long live king Solomon. Afterwords, he should sit upon David's throne. He would then be king instead of David as he was appointed by David to be prince over Israel and over Judah.

Adonijah heard about this by way of Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest. Adonijah was afraid Solomon would order his death. Instead, Soloman told him if he showed himself as a worthy man no harm would come to him. Adonijah went to Solomon and prostrated himself and was told to go to his house.

Nothing here but a story that may or may not have basis.

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


caposkia
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pauljohntheskeptic

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

1400 BCE does not work either. The Late Bronze Age settlement in Jericho dating back to and before the 14th century BCE was poor and insiginificant and not fortified. There was no sign of destruction of any kind at all in the excavations. See ppp 81-82 bible Unearthed for example.

You are obviously referring to what is called Jericho IV, the layer of destruction Kenyon dated to cira 1530 BCE. This has been confirmed by radio carbon dating to the 16th century BCE (1617–1530 BCE). See below.

It's possible, but the dating according to some sources was mistaken and was earlier than thought.  It may be a different finding, but a few sources seemed to think it was of the same location.  

 

caposkia wrote:

Do you mean biblical archaeologist Dr. Bryant G. Wood? If so this was disproved in 1995 by Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht from high-precision radiocarbon measurements made on eighteen samples from Jericho.

They maintain that kenyon was right with 1550 BCE.

See - http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/answers/bryantwood.php

No.  that name didn't come up in these sources

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

See above, I don't think there was an occupied city of Jericho at the time.

http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/answers/bryantwood.php

I looked up this Bryant Wood.  He seems to be the big voice for the Biblical dating out there.  Though it seems that there was counter reasoning in 1995, Bryant apparently has confronted this evidence as late at 2009.  

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/08/Carbon-14-Dating-at-Jericho.aspx#Article

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Why must your god be in the first place? Can he/she be a high tech being from another part of the Universe and still meet your descriptions?

One man's magic is another's technology.

Why must he not be?  I guess if we can find another high tech being that can be found responsible for creating our existence, then yes, God could be this other high tech being.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

No, you don't seem to get what I meant above. If that what occurred in the storytelling is explained by science or was just misunderstood by the ancients then none of it contributes towards a basis for a god.

All the ancients misunderstood much of what our elementary school children understand today. The texts are filled with claims of various gods doing this and that. Yet, it really only shows they were ignorant of the reasons. The god did it idea was the way they labeled it for they had no other way to understand.

 

I've said it before... God doesn't need to work his "miracles" necessarily using means beyond our explanation... what makes his work significant and evidence of His presence with us is the timing.  I've added that it would be irrational, illogical and inefficient for God to try to break the laws he put in place to cause a result in his creation when he could use the creation to get the same results.   Understanding doesn't negate God as a cause.  


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Brian37 wrote:BULLSHIT, that

Brian37 wrote:

BULLSHIT, that is merely retrofitting. Otherwise the ancient polytheists who wrote Icarus knew about "lift" in flight back then because they depicted humans flying like birds.

Again, if a Muslim quotes the verse about the "sky turning red" do you become a Muslim because they point to a picture red nebula? Or do you accept it rightfully as retrofitting after the fact? Would you become Jewish if Furrycatherder here made arguments that you should become a Jew because she argues science fits her beliefs too?

Quote:
he's goign to work witin the limits he put forth

A claim and naked assertion as a counter to an objection we are not making.

Our objection is claiming ALL powerful. We are not talking about what your god claims he will or wont do, we are objecting to the concept "all" AS a claimed attribute.

You have no way of empirically knowing. "All" by definition in the "omni" attribute claims would have to by virtue of the word "all" include deception and lying and cruelty. That is the REAL reason you don't understand why your logic fails because you HAVE to set limits by dodging with "he said he wouldn't do that".

"To talk of the immaterial is to talk of nothingness"(something to that affect)Thomas Jefferson. He at least was willing to accept that even though he was a deist. Even though I would still have a beef with even his watered down god.

Our point is that you cannot know what a claimed being would do if you are going to claim "all" in this omnimax god.

The rational position is that it is merely your own wishful thinking in wanting a super hero to exist.

HEY!! Brian!!! good to see you here!

Does this mean you're going to have well researched logical and rational input to help us in our quest to understand history or are you just here for comic relief?

Though we go on small tangents from time to time, we try hard to stay on topic.  Are you willing to add in some well researched references or further empiracle detail about the city of Jericho, or be helpful with well researched referenced sources for the next step in our historical walkthrough?


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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:I

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I understand that is your position, the god does his miracles within the laws of the Universe.

Mine is one man's technology is another's miracle which requires no god at all.

I'm surprised after all the discussion we had about the Exodus that you used the storytelling of Moses. The dozen to 100 possible but not proven escapees could have waded through the Reed Sea.

 

My understanding was that we agreed smaller numbers were possible... numbers aside, it either happened or it didn't.  If we look at weather patterns of the time, there was a volcano nearby that due to its magnitude could have caused a tsunami like event which would have drawn water back from the sea low enough to reveal a raised portion of land (still found in ecographs today) long enough for this small group to cross and then the water would have rushed back as the mass of water pulled back came rushing back into place.  

Again, perfectly explainable, but the timing was perfect, which is beyond explanation unless there is a God.  


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pauljohntheskeptic

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

David is finally an old man, hopefully incapable by then of killing anyone else. He has body temp issues.

The answer of course is to find a fair young virgin to keep him warm. The text indicates he did not have sex with her, no Viagra or Cialis back then.

Then David's old age  opens up another coup or revolution when Adonijah the son of Haggith decided he should become the next king. Couldn't he wait for David to actually die?

Adonijah puts together a number of followers but none in the David sphere of influence excepting Joab.

David has to hear of this from Bathsheba who is told of it by Nathan the prophet.

David's response was to send Nathan the prophet & Zadok the priest to take Solomon his son on David's own mule to Gihon. Once there, Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet were to  anoint him as  king over Israel then the  blow  the horn, and  annouce: Long live king Solomon. Afterwords, he should sit upon David's throne. He would then be king instead of David as he was appointed by David to be prince over Israel and over Judah.

Adonijah heard about this by way of Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest. Adonijah was afraid Solomon would order his death. Instead, Soloman told him if he showed himself as a worthy man no harm would come to him. Adonijah went to Solomon and prostrated himself and was told to go to his house.

Nothing here but a story that may or may not have basis.

agreed.  likely nothing here can be brought up that hasn't already been brought up.  

 


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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

1400 BCE does not work either. The Late Bronze Age settlement in Jericho dating back to and before the 14th century BCE was poor and insiginificant and not fortified. There was no sign of destruction of any kind at all in the excavations. See ppp 81-82 bible Unearthed for example.

You are obviously referring to what is called Jericho IV, the layer of destruction Kenyon dated to cira 1530 BCE. This has been confirmed by radio carbon dating to the 16th century BCE (1617–1530 BCE). See below.

It's possible, but the dating according to some sources was mistaken and was earlier than thought.  It may be a different finding, but a few sources seemed to think it was of the same location. 

Since we have moved on, I leave you to further research this subject on your own.

 

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Do you mean biblical archaeologist Dr. Bryant G. Wood? If so this was disproved in 1995 by Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht from high-precision radiocarbon measurements made on eighteen samples from Jericho.

They maintain that kenyon was right with 1550 BCE.

See - http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/answers/bryantwood.php

No.  that name didn't come up in these sources

Probably your souces used him or Kenyon. No matter, we have moved on.

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

See above, I don't think there was an occupied city of Jericho at the time.

http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/answers/bryantwood.php

I looked up this Bryant Wood.  He seems to be the big voice for the Biblical dating out there.  Though it seems that there was counter reasoning in 1995, Bryant apparently has confronted this evidence as late at 2009.  

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/08/Carbon-14-Dating-at-Jericho.aspx#Article

I went through that link and it is not convincing. Wood is claiming about 1400, though tests are in a wide range.

If we go with his 1400 date and add 40 to 50 years to it, we are in about 1440 to 1450 BCE. The 40 to 50 years are the supposed time the Hebrews wandered in the desert.

The current Pharaoh then would be Thutmose III (1479 - 1425 BCE)

During his reign many battles ocurred between Egypt and the Mitanni. Thutmose attacked sucessfully many city states of the Mitanni during this time.

Egypt dominated the area through the reigns of Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV, leaving no room for an invading horde of escapee slaves from Egypt called Hebrews to conquer anything.

See Ancient Egypt, Ian Shaw, pp 243-253,

see also the Armana Letters,  - http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amarna/corpus

see the Annals from Egypt - this one is about Thutmose III on Wiki- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_of_Thutmose_III

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

Why must your god be in the first place? Can he/she be a high tech being from another part of the Universe and still meet your descriptions?

One man's magic is another's technology.

Why must he not be?  I guess if we can find another high tech being that can be found responsible for creating our existence, then yes, God could be this other high tech being.

We haven't found any being that created anything.

Pretty much why we have this discussion. You claim the god(s) did it and have nothing physical to show that was so.

 

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

No, you don't seem to get what I meant above. If that what occurred in the storytelling is explained by science or was just misunderstood by the ancients then none of it contributes towards a basis for a god.

All the ancients misunderstood much of what our elementary school children understand today. The texts are filled with claims of various gods doing this and that. Yet, it really only shows they were ignorant of the reasons. The god did it idea was the way they labeled it for they had no other way to understand.

 

I've said it before... God doesn't need to work his "miracles" necessarily using means beyond our explanation... what makes his work significant and evidence of His presence with us is the timing.  I've added that it would be irrational, illogical and inefficient for God to try to break the laws he put in place to cause a result in his creation when he could use the creation to get the same results.   Understanding doesn't negate God as a cause.  

I know you claim the god works through normal means and claim its the timing.

None of which you can actually show or prove.

This discussion is going off track as they do time to time.

 

 

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


pauljohntheskeptic
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caposkia

caposkia wrote:

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I understand that is your position, the god does his miracles within the laws of the Universe.

Mine is one man's technology is another's miracle which requires no god at all.

I'm surprised after all the discussion we had about the Exodus that you used the storytelling of Moses. The dozen to 100 possible but not proven escapees could have waded through the Reed Sea.

 

My understanding was that we agreed smaller numbers were possible... numbers aside, it either happened or it didn't.  If we look at weather patterns of the time, there was a volcano nearby that due to its magnitude could have caused a tsunami like event which would have drawn water back from the sea low enough to reveal a raised portion of land (still found in ecographs today) long enough for this small group to cross and then the water would have rushed back as the mass of water pulled back came rushing back into place.  

Again, perfectly explainable, but the timing was perfect, which is beyond explanation unless there is a God.  

I'd agree that a small number of escapee slaves could have left Egypt. With such a small number the rest of the storytelling is not needed.

Several dozen to 100 people easily could have got past the border posts and made it to Palestine. Doing so in way less than 40 years.

No parting the Reed Sea or flooding out the chariots of Egypt required. Besides which, they could have walked or waded through the Reed Sea.

Moving on.

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.