where are the proofs of yours? You're the one accusing, where is the evidence? no facts, just asserted opinions, masquerading as facts. That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. ~Christopher Hitchens Believe whatever you want. Make all the accusations you want. Conjure up all manner of plausible scenarios how your theories 'might' be true. But they still are assertions, without evidence. They are beliefs, only. Ad hom is a poor substitute for facts and reason.. but false accusers have no facts, just lies and smears, to impugn the competition.
2 Chronicles 13 . Abijah is said to,have raised 400,000 soldiers from the tribe of Judah to fight 800,000 soldiers raised from the Northern 10 tribes, That's 1,200,000 soldiers. Remember that soldiers were men between 20 and 50 - Jewish law of the time. Because of tradition most of these men would be married with children - often large families. Add wives and just 2 children each family we have well over over 4,000,000. Add on those outside this group and we have around 5,000,000 population of Palestine. That's without any indigenous population. This is a ridiculous number and could not be sustained by the land of Palestine at the time. Archaeology and commonsense proves this if you study the land of the time. When we talk of cities we think of places with large populations. Most cities were about the size of our large towns, and towns the size of large villages. The battle I mentioned probably took place but can you imagine 1,200,000 soldiers fighting hand to hand. Can you imagine the carnage 500,000 dead soldiers lying there while soldiers fought and stumbled over piles of bodies These 2 small kingdoms are supposed to have fielded armies larger than the Empires of old could ever amass. Archaeology doesn't always confirm the Bible. 'Some archaeologists believe that the city of Ai is located at an archaeological site called et-Tell; however, archaeological excavations show that the ancient city at el-Tell was destroyed during the third millennium B.C., making it impossible that Joshua's army could have destroyed it. A few archaeologists believe Ai could be at another site called Khirbet el-Maqatir. While the debate on Ai's location is ongoing, many archaeologists now believe that the story of Ai's destruction by an Israeli force is fictional and that this battle never took place'. Moi621. You might like this about Biblical Battles. https://www.livescience.com/59911-ancient-biblical-battles.html
That's your number, so it can be as ridiculous as you want. You make too many assumptions, that are not warranted: The numbering system in Hebrew is the same as our base 10. A translation of '400,000!', or '800,000!', are exactly those numbers, intended by the writer. You claim to be a biblical scholar.. have you never studied (or even heard of?) the ambiguous numbering system of ancient Hebrew? ..and so you believe.. without any hard evidence.. just plausible alternatives that you pounce on and declare to be, 'Fact!'
I am aware of the Hebrew numbering system. There were several systems used in the ancient world. And the article was addressed to Moi for her interest. You claim that Archaeology proves the Bible. It only proves some aspects of the Bible. But then when the OT was written many of these facts were known and included in stories. Of course archaeology proves some of it - and disproves other parts. I can write an historical novel and archaeology can prove I was right. There was no Biblical style Exodus. Archaeology and the Armana letters show what really happened in Palestine. Insurrection from within. Possibly with Hittite help.
Thought I addressed the quantitative points. Was there a battle? Moi sez Yes. Are the numbers accurate? Moi sez "maybe not". These histories were passed down by oral tradition before being written. Numbers do tend to thus, inflate. The biblical battles helped both the Israelis and British (WW1) find old biblical roads to move their forces in times of stress. BTW Just watched Abraham saving Lot from capture by the 5 Kings on History Channel. That Abraham leads an attack in the darkness of night with fires behind him is still a preferred military situation today. Do I need to offer the Bible ref. or can the reader manage it? Yes the attack took place and probably the strategy. Lot was freed. As to the numbers involved, I am less concerned than those more literal. Yes to history. Not HERstory
In the first bible thread, i posted this lengthy rebuttal about the numbering problem in ancient Hebrew. Regarding the criticism that the numbers in the exodus were too large. Even though this has not formally been presented, with textual references and geographical proofs, i will offer a rebuttal. 1. There is not a clear consensus, even among biblical scholars, as to the exact numbers. 'Eleph', the word for 'thousands', has many idiomatic meanings and possibilities, depending on context and intent of the writer. Translation difficulties add to the ambiguity, so arriving at a definitive number is not a clear cut possibility. English translators, with a western view of statistics, do not render the many nuances of 'eleph' the same as the original authors. Any conflict or confusion from those passages where 'eleph' is translated as a literal number of 1000 units is primarily a translation issue, not a 'mistake!' or 'error!' from the original text. A decent explanation here: At the heart of the issue is the meaning of the Hebrew word eleph. It is usually translated “thousand,” but has a complex semantic history. The word is etymologically connected with “head of cattle,” like the letter aleph, implying that the term was originally applied to the village or population unit in a pastoral-agricultural society. From that it came to mean the quota supplied by one village or “clan” (Hebrew Mišpāḥā ) for the military muster (Malamat 1967: 135). Originally the contingent was quite small, five to fourteen men in the quota lists of Numbers 1 and 26, as shown by Mendenhall. Finally the word became a technical term for a military unit of considerable size, which together with the use of the same word for the number 1,000 has tended to obscure its broader semantic range. See also Humphreys 1998 and 2000, and Hoffmeier 2005: 153–59. Source 2. The exact route is unknown, and the assumption of barren wasteland is unfounded. 3. The miraculous provision of manna and water is given to explain the survival of the Israelites wandering in the desert. 4. Flocks and herds still had forage, so it was obviously not a parched wasteland, as critics like to portray. 5. Weather patterns change, over thousands of years, and the exact conditions are unknown. It was evidently enough to support the Israelite herds and flocks. Another good study of eleph: https://goedbericht.nl/english/six-hundred-thousand/ From this link: The rendering thousand(s) is concordant and completely correct with the understanding that it is not necessarily a fixed number. Also in many other languages, thousand, idiomatically represents a large number. In English we have millepedes (one thousand feet). For understanding the many thousands, for example, in the book of Numbers, but also in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, this is a very important fact. I admit: sometimes it also is quite complex, because where is eleph to be taken as a 1000 and where as a unit, clan or family? With the available Hebrew text we now (!) have, it is often times not possible to trace or figure out. Here are the possibilities: 1. The numbers are not translated accurately, due to ambiguity of the Hebrew word for eleph. 2. The area was able to sustain flocks and herds, and with the added provision of manna, kept the Israelites alive. 3. It was all made up, and this glaring error provides 'gotcha!' proof. These are all plausible, and i leave it to each person's bias, prejudice, and preference to choose. I am uncertain, but lean towards the 1 & 2 possibilities, given the reliability and integrity of the rest of the manuscripts. These are historical, scholarly FACTS, about numbering in ancient Hebrew. Yet some still prefer the phony narratives, that 'the numbers are wrong!', when we can't even exactly identify what the actual numbers were. When 'gotcha!' words or phrases are pounced upon by the anti-bible critics, it only exposes the lack of understanding of the many nuances of the original languages. They grab some English translation, apply an Anglo centric spin, then boldly declare, 'error!', when there is a translation issue, or some other explanation that their western, anglocentric bias won't let them see. IOW, there is no 'proof!' of error, here (or anywhere else), only a choice of interpretation that can imply a possible error, if you read it in the way they insist. But, is that what the author intended? Is that the EXACT and ONLY way to interpret that passage?
Also from the previous thread: Another explanation of eleph from a Hebrew scholar: https://hallel.info/does-אלף-elef-mean-thousand-or-clanchief-in-exodus-and-numbers/ The point of this is ambiguity in the translation of 'eleph' as 'thousands', or 'clan', or 'large number', depending on context and intent. I can go either way.. either a mistranslation, if indeed the area could not support their herds, or an accurate English translation, and the area could support the flocks and herds. But there is no compulsion to conclude, 'error!', from these eleph passages.
False. I have never claimed that. I have claimed that archaeology has, 1. Affirmed a biblical account 2. Not contradicted a biblical account IOW, i dispute the accusation that, 'Archaeology has disproved the bible!' That is a phony narrative, from anti-christian bigots, and their dupes.
Archaeology and geology have disproven the notion that there was a global flood a few thousand years ago. The most realistic explanation is that there was a local flood that the Biblical writers fictionalized as a global one, but the Bible is pretty clear that it was global, and there was no such flood.
Hardly. That is just a belief. There are global flood stories in many ancient cultures. The global landscape implies plausibility for such an event. Ocean fossils are found on mountain tops. There is NOTHING empirical that 'proves!' no flood. There is speculation, incredulity, and opinion. Those prove nothing. Only a contrary belief implies error. There is no 'proven error!', here.
A global flood would have left global geological evidence. The global landscape most certainly does not imply any such event. Ocean fossils on mountain tops are not evidence fo a global flood. Empiracly, there was no global flood. This isn't speculation or belief. This is fact. A global flood would have left global hydrologically sorted stratum; none exist. We have empirical evidence that the layers we see were deposited over a long period of time, and over the course of several events, not one global one. There are footprints preserved in sediment, animal burrows, raindrop impressions, etc. This shows the layers hardened before new sediment was dumped on top of them. If there were a global flood, we'd expect ferns (which float) to occur mostly in the higher stratum and grasses (which sink) to occur mostly in the lower stratum. The opposite is true. The basics: when sediment is deposited in a single flood event, it forms hydrologically-sorted bands, with larger grain sediments like sand falling below smaller grain sediments like silt and clay. If you see bands of sediment appearing without such order, they were deposited in separate events. Junior high geology disproves the global flood.
Here is a link to a 75 question quiz that tests how well you know the Bible = https://www.topixoffbeat.com/quiz/18829/qidx1 Have some fun and see how well you do. The question about the 4th Commandment is wrong although you can get the right answer to that particular question. The real 4th Commandment is found in Exodus 34:19-20.
There is no archaeological evidence for the Exodus and invasion of Palestine by the Hebrews. In fact there is no credible evidence for the Hebrews in Egypt at all. There were certainly groups of various nations , including Canaanites. It's all in Egyptian history. There were only 2 recorded 'exoduses' One when Ahmose threw out the Hyksos. While he was away conquering other areas his wife, in whose hands he had left Egypt, threw out a section foreign people who rebelled. The Bible says of 3 cities being destroyed. Archaeology shows that around 11 cities were destroyed at that time. Archaeology also shows that the chaos in Palestine at that time was insurrection by the Canaanite inhabitants against their Egyptians masters. We do know that a tribe/people 'Israel' were already established in Palestine. in 1200 BCE and were competent landowners. The major event of the reign of the Pharaoh Merneptah (1213 BC-1203 BC), 4th king of the 19th Dynasty, was his battle against a confederacy termed "the Nine Bows" at Perire in the western delta in the 5th and 6th years of his reign. Depredations of this confederacy had been so severe that the region was "forsaken as pasturage for cattle, it was left waste from the time of the ancestors The pharaoh's action against them is attested in four inscriptions: the Great Karnak Inscription, describing the battle, the Cairo Column, the Athribis Stele (the last two of which are shorter versions of the Great Karnak), and a stele found at Thebes, called variously the Hymn of Victory, the Merneptah Stele or the Israel Stele. It describes the reign of peace resulting from the victory. The Nine Bows were acting under the leadership of the king of Libya and an associated near-concurrent revolt in Canaan involving Gaza, Ashkelon, Yenoam and Israel. Exactly which peoples were consistently in the Nine Bows is not clear, but present at the battle were the Libyans, some neighboring Meshwesh, and possibly a separate revolt in the following year involving peoples from the eastern Mediterranean, including the Kheta (or Hittites), or Syrians, and (in the Israel Stele) for the first time in history, the Israelites. In addition to them, the first lines of the Karnak inscription include some sea peoples,[24] which must have arrived in the Western Delta or from Cyrene by ship. There is no evidence that the Pentateuch was written by Moses or that the events and people were real. The writers and 7th century compilers made errors that show this. Not only that but there are contributions from Elohist scribes of the Northern Kingdom who worshipped El at Shiloh, From Jahwist scribes in the Southern Kingdom who worshipped Yahweh and from a Priestly class. Each writing for his own people. Your number 1. When Hosea wrote his chapter 11 was he thinking of Israel or Jesus. It can't be both as Jesus never committed the sins of Israel. Or was Matthew or whoever wrote Matthew just lying to make Jesus birth divine. Or was Luke right in 'sending' Jesus back to his Nazareth home after Mary's ritual cleansing when he ought to have been in Egypt according to Hosea/Matthew?. Micah is used to birth 'Jesus' in Bethlehem Ephratah but Jesus didn't exactly fulfil the so-called prophecy.. And both Matthew and Luke break Jewish and Roman laws. The Bible is just a book written by many unknown as well as known, authors. It has its faults and also much wisdom. I'm busy at the moment growing 2000 seedlings and plug bedding plants. Back sometime.
I know how some here HATE people posting Youtube videos to address things, but this one was too good to pass. This is the most obvious Bible contradiction I've ever come across and the atheist in the video even addressed the apologetics used to excuse it. There is simply no way around this one Christians. Don't worry though, it's a short video and gets to the point:
Of course there are ocean fossils on mountain tops. 100 million years ago many of these were seabed. Tectonics plates have moved continents around and the continents have 'collided' pushing up the sea bed in some cases and in others pushing land down under the opposing shift. It's happening today. Proven by the earthquakes caused by these collisions. Sinai Desert. Plenty of sustenance for tribes? It hasn't changed naturally for millenia. Even Cambyses had to ally with local Arabs to provide his army with water at various places. I know all about the number systems and Gemetria. They are the reasons why I call the figures in the Bible ridiculous and decry the Exodus. Tribes in the desert were never very big due to the lack of sufficient vegetation for their animals. Why do you think that tribes would enter Egypt and the Delta to feed their flocks. It was rich pasture compared with the desert scrubland and occasional oasis greenery. The Egyptian records show they kept an eye on them in case of trouble. What we have now is an Egyptian Pharaoh and his army chasing a small tribe of people whose God had caused them chaos and the loss of their firstborn. And this Pharaoh and all his army are drowned. And not a word anywhere in their history. Egypt was open to invasion by any inclined nation. And what a chance for the slaves to stage an uprising. This tribe survives in the desert by some means, for a generation. Suddenly they. become a large force of 12 tribes. A frightening force able to overcome the combination of many kings (31) and their armies. And guess what. Big enough to take over and occupy the whole of Palestine. Me. I'll accept the archaeological find of the Armana letters and the internal destruction of Palestine's Egyptian leaders.
The story about the loss of the first born is an illustration of the 4th Commandment ~~ Exodus 34:19-20 (ERV) = 19 “A woman’s first baby always belongs to me. Even the first animals that are born from your cattle or sheep belong to me. 20 If you want to keep a donkey that is the first born, then you can buy it with a lamb. But if you don’t buy that donkey with a lamb, you must break the donkey’s neck. You must buy back all of your firstborn sons from me. No one should come before me without a gift.“ The Egyptian Empire included all of the Levant to the Euphrates River. They lost the area to invaders. The Israelites didn't leave Egypt; Egypt left the Israelites. The part about the Pharaoh getting drowned in the Red Sea was about how he was driven back across it to Egypt proper.
@usfan @trevorw2539 @The Wyrd of Gawd Warning: Moi subscribes to the history, not the quantities afforded in Bible references. The Flood Story. Notice, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis We do river deltas and estuaries for easy proteinacious pickings. And Civilization does gravitate to rivers and estuaries such as the Nile, Indus and Yellow River. Most fertile for agriculture too. The Great Flood circa 10K BC would have knocked civilizations as they existed back to the Stone Age. No more metal smith or potterer. South East Asia. India. Africa. Europe. etc. The Great Floods when the last Ice Age ended around 10K BC knocked out what there was of civilization and people maintained an oral tradition. Before there was a Persian Gulf, there was the Persian Valley - Eden. Around the globe a flood on all cultures, civilizations as sea levels rose. etc. Likewise before there was a Mediterranean Sea, there was a fertile and civilized, valley. Yes to a GREAT FLOOD. No to the whole globe being submerged but, certainly seemed that way. The best archeology is hundreds of feed under water! TELL ME THAT AIN'T SO! That goes for all cultures and dinosaurs too! Tribal, Oral Traditions kept the truth if not the details. Moi
The Hebrew refers to the first born Male. Your interpretation is contradictory. If the firstborn was a baby girl it was of little value to the family. The name only past on through the males. Jewish firstborn males were believed to inherit from their father all his strength, vigour, attributes etc. Women were of little account, In any case the commandments are written in accordance with more ancient beliefs. The Armana letters show the rejection and eviction of the Egyptians
You need to distinguish between Ice Ages and Glaciation Periods. An ice age is a period of colder global temperatures and recurring glacial expansion capable of lasting hundreds of millions of years. We are actually in an Ice Age now - indicated by the fact there are glaciers and Ice caps at the poles. See bold below A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods. The last glacial period ended about 15,000 years ago.[1] The Holocene epoch is the current interglacial. A time with no glaciers on Earth is considered a greenhouse climate state .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period#Quaternary_ice_age There was no great flood when the last Ice Age ended. It happened gradually over several thousand years. . It is estimated by science that the sea rise was between 1 and 2'5 metres per CENTURY. No need for an Ark. Recent studies of the Mediterranean suggest that it was never completely dry even 5 million years ago. You might find this helpful. https://www.history.com/topics/pre-history/ice-age
You've pushed the non-catastrophic impression into the nonrealistic zone. While there was no universal flood the way we interpret the label, people who witness an 800-ft tsunami think of it as a global catastrophe. When the "seven sisters" (separate parts of a meteor or comet) trashed different areas of the globe, people thought hell opened up on them. The bronze age ended abruptly because of some kind of catastrophe. Various civilizations adopted refugee behavior. When the rising sea level broke through the Bosporus, people were not chased from their settlements to higher ground by a mere gradually increasing tame pool of water. We don't know for sure which one of the various cataclysms deserved the global flood label. Probably more than one. Although it was way back around 250,000 years ago when the monster that initiated the rapid demise of the dinosaurs smashed into the ocean (Gulf of Mexico?), it produced a shock wave that pushed bodies of crocodiles, monkeys, and tree stumps all the way up into Alaska and mixed them with polar bears and penguins. Edit: It may have been similar to the one that hit in the Atlantic Ocean and scarred the Carolinas vicinity as well as rupturing the lava pool that took the support out from under Atlantis about 9000 years ago.
You can always read all of the different versions if you don't like the one given = https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Exodus 34:19 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Exodus 34:20 So the message in Exodus 34:19-20 is basically that the God character (the king/priest crime syndicate) was running an extortion scheme. They laid a claim on all of the first born, whether human or animal. I suppose they kept the baby girls for their harems. They were big on baby raping. Anyway, so when a farmer's female animal had its first offspring they had to turn the young one over to the crime syndicate. In the case of a donkey colt they could buy it back if they gave the thugs a lamb. Otherwise the farmer had to break the donkey's neck. They had to pay for their newborn sons. And every time they appeared before the thugs they had to bring some goodies. Moses = the master criminal.
800 ft Tsunami? The dinosaurs went out of extinction 55-60 million years ago. The Black Sea basin is large.. The people had time to pack up and leave their homes when they saw the water rising. The Arctic was once as warm as the temperate zone today. .Crocodiles and monkeys etc lived in the area we call the Arctic. The Flood was certainly a memory of a disaster somewhere - but not over the whole earth. Local flood - local memories. Above Bold.. Have you read this? It might interest you. http://etc.ancient.eu/interviews/what-caused-the-bronze-age-collapse/ An interview with the writer of '1177BCE. The year civilisation collapsed'.
It's fiction. Moses never existed. Most civilisations put the firstborn at the head of the family. The money paid in later times was for the upkeep of the Temple and Priests, If you raped your daughter at any stage you lost any chance of a dowry..
So you believe. So you assert. A scientific examination of evidence for a global flood is beyond this thread. But there is no hard evidence that ANY of the biblical accounts are 'error!' That is a false accusation, with no compelling evidence just plausibility and assertion.
