Archeologly proves the Bible?

[supercorgi]

I would like to make this observation. It is my opinion only. I seem to have a feeling that Israeli Archaeologists have a biased approach to their work. They want to find evidence for the factual nature of their Torah. It is amazing how many artifacts dug up or appearing in private collections have been proved to be forgeries. The Ossurary of James is the best example. I am not saying that Solomon did not exist and that there was not a Temple, but until irrefutable evidence is found by unbiased Archeologists the Temple has to be regarded as only possible

Note 1: Not all biblical archaeologists are Israli
Note 2: Many "biblical" archeaolgists are not trained professional archaeologists using modern archaeogical methods.

I deplore the destruction of information and sites that are "excavated" by these untrained "archaeolgists = treasure seekers." Many of them are untrained people looking to prove that the Bible is true. How they even can get permits to do what they're doing boggles the mind. They are destroying sites. Do they do pollen studies - no. Do they sift every bit of dirt they dig out to find micro-fauna - no.

They are destroying information to find proof of their pre-concieved notions. They are NOT doing archaeology. I deplore these people.

That being said. There are real archaeologists doing valid field work in the Mid-East. I value these people. They will evaluate their finds and derive information from those finds that aren't influenced by their need to show that the bible is true.

 

[shadron]

Coming in late to this thread and not having time to read from the beggining I may have missed a similar post.

First of all, no, you didn't miss a similar post. Until you arrived, amb, we were discussing some fairly serious Bible history, with some excursions off into Horus theories and flight simulations.

Archeology proves beyond reasonable doubt that the babble is a fabrication of primitive sheep and goat herders imaginations and story telling.

Beyond the logical impossibility of proving a negative, and the slurred word, your hyperbole doesn't really grasp any serious point. You seem to not make any distinction between that which is fabricated or oral history with what the writers were actually experiencing. The dividing line is about 850BCE, (say, about the time of King Johoram, son of Ahab and Jezebel, or the book 2 Kings) the estimated time of the first written collections of oral histories and myth.

Practically every square inch of the Middle East has been dug up at one time or another

Bull, field archaeology is alive and well in the middle east. The Bible has many stories that are historically fairly true; anything after that dividing line mentioned above was probably written about within a few years of its happening. The exile to babylon, the temple, the specifics about the kingdom of Judea, the Maccabees, all are likely pretty good history. The exodus, no, that's fable (very probably)...

, yet not one scrap of evidence has been found to confirm any of the stories in the babble. Even the story of King David is in doubt, as is Moses and the Exodus. Surely the number of people as described in the Exodus story wandering around the desert for 40 years would have left some evidence. Nothing exists. No pottery, food utensils, nothing.
Yep, archeology proves the bible is nothing more than a collection of poetry and perhaps a history of a small tribe of desert wanderers.

Yeah, fine. According to a handy wishful-thinking timeline at http://www.wordsight.org/btl/000_btl-fp.htm, Moses happened at about 1500BCE and David at 1100BCE. The first sample of Hebrew script is the abcdery discovered at Tel Zait, dated to 1000BCE, so everything before that date, at a minimum, is oral history or story telling. So that's no surprise.

If you want to discuss Bible history then we can do that. If you just want to slur invective and vent some righteous spleen, please start your own thread.

 

[shadron]

The actual history of Israel, corroborated by non-biblical records, effectively begins with King Omri (ca. 875 - 870 BCE) and his famous son Ahab (ca. 870 - 850 BCE). The Assyrian king Tiglath-Peliser III (745 - 727 BCE) mentions King Ahaz of Judah paying him tribute.

Hey, I was only 25 years off in my educated guess about when real history started in the Bible. Thanks for that reference, Tim.

 

[GreNME]

In the Amarna Letters, the kings of various Canaanite city states complain of various bandits, called "Hapiru," roughly meaning "outlaws," who may be the source of the "Hebrews." Of course these weren't in Egypt.

A tribal group called Israel is mentoned the Merneptah Victory Stela, erected by Pharaoh Merneptah (reigned 1212 -1202 BCE) to commemorate a Palestinian campaign undertaken reassert Egyptian control of the Levant.

Of course, neither of these have any bearing on the Exodus. It would seem to be based, to the degree it was based on anything, on various small scale escapes of bands of slaves at different times. It may also have been conflated early on - as it was by Josephus in the first century CE - with the expusion of the Hyksos.

The actual history of Israel, corroborated by non-biblical records, effectively begins with King Omri (ca. 875 - 870 BCE) and his famous son Ahab (ca. 870 - 850 BCE). The Assyrian king Tiglath-Peliser III (745 - 727 BCE) mentions King Ahaz of Judah paying him tribute.

There's another mention of the region of Canaan by a pharaoh's scribe (though the story is possibly fictional) regarding a trip to the area which would be present-day Lebanon. This was during the Ramesside Period, late in the period if I recall correctly. The mention was in passing, and I don't believe it was anything more than a disparaging remark on the part of the writer.

But it still doesn't mean anything, since at different points in Egypt's history they owned that region of the Mid-East. After the Hyksos were driven out of Egypt the borders shrank. For several hundred years that followed, the region was set upon by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, until it was taken in the Hellenistic Period by Alexander's Greece.

 

[DOC]

I beg to differ. I recommend the book "Christ in Egypt" The Jesus-Horus Connection" D.M. Murdock (2009). You will find that all Christianity is based on myths...

So then you believe the Roman Senator and historian Tacitus was wrong when he wrote Christ was executed during the reign of Tiberius Caesar and the rule of Pontius Pilate?

And do you believe these men died for a myth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs

 

[I Ratant]

So then you believe the Roman Senator and historian Tacitus was wrong when he wrote Christ was executed during the reign of Tiberius Caesar and the rule of Pontius Pilate?

And do you believe these men died for a myth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs

.
ALL of the martyrs, ALL of the heretics, ALL of the unbelievers, ALL of the believers in the wrong versions of christianity have died for a myth.

 

[Ladewig]

So then you believe the Roman Senator and historian Tacitus was wrong when he wrote Christ was executed during the reign of Tiberius Caesar and the rule of Pontius Pilate?

And do you believe these men died for a myth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs

We've talked about this subject before. Willingness to die for a cause does not make the cause true. Yes, I believe that those people died for a myth.

 

[Elizabeth I]

I'm a bible-believer who is locked into blind faith and no reason and logic!!

Did I win anything?

doc, kk, cd and ethnikos are going to be very surprised to find that you're one of them.

.
That number of people living in one spot for 38 years in the Sinai would have left at the very least a large rubbish heap, and an extensive cemetery, as, due to the life expectancy of the time, most of the adults leaving Egypt would have died and been buried .
Ain't none of that in the Sinai.

I thought they were supposed to have wandered, not set up camp? Just asking - I could be wrong.

 

[Yeah_Right]

So then you believe the Roman Senator and historian Tacitus was wrong when he wrote Christ was executed during the reign of Tiberius Caesar and the rule of Pontius Pilate?

And do you believe these men died for a myth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs

And it's not unusual for people to die for any sort of myth, does anyone recall Heaven's Gate? They certainly believed their myth and commited suicide. True, they weren't murdered, but it's still killing yourself for some divine myth.

 

[I Ratant]

doc, kk, cd and ethnikos are going to be very surprised to find that you're one of them.
I thought they were supposed to have wandered, not set up camp? Just asking - I could be wrong.

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From Sinai they journeyed on to Kadesh-Barnea, arriving in the second year after leaving Egypt, and there they remained for 38 years.
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http://www.ancientsandals.com/overviews/kadesh-barnea.htm

 

[eccles]

.
From Sinai they journeyed on to Kadesh-Barnea, arriving in the second year after leaving Egypt, and there they remained for 38 years.
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http://www.ancientsandals.com/overviews/kadesh-barnea.htm

I am very skeptical about so called "proofs" presented by Bible Organisations. I am downloading the Simulation and will watch it so I can judge.

Interesting that the "Walking in Their Sandals" want your money. Well they won't get any from my pittance of a pension.

em hotep

 

[eccles]

I just watched the Promo Video. The usual bible stuff. No way.

em hotep

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

So then you believe the Roman Senator and historian Tacitus was wrong when he wrote Christ was executed during the reign of Tiberius Caesar and the rule of Pontius Pilate?

I believe that Tacitus was writing about the beliefs that Christians held while describing them in Annals in the same way I believe Herodotus was writing about the beliefs that Zoroastrians held while describing them in The Histories.

What does someone writing about the beliefs of a particular culture have to do with the veracity of those beliefs?

 

[ugot2bekidding]

You should also be aware of that Biblical archeology, as a whole, does not get a lot of respect from the archeological community.

It's unfortunate that the pseudo-scientists are casting a shadow on an otherwise legitimate field of study. Sounds familiar.

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/fauxark/

Biblical archeologists are suddenly finding themselves in a position similar to the evolutionary biologists fighting intelligent design - an entire parallel version of their field is being driven by religious belief, not research principles. The biologists' situation makes the risk clear - they did not deign to mount a public refutation of the "science" of intelligent design for years, until it was almost too late, and thus anti-evolutionary science began making its way into the public schools.

 

[amb]

We first hear of a people called Israel around 1200 BCE. Probably a collection of refugees from the failing city states on the coastal plains. They may have been joined by other tribes from the south, who brought with them their god Yahweh, who seems to have originated in the southern regions around Sinai. Most scholars claim the Exodus never happened. As I stated above, this is a story of a few tribes culture and religion, nothing more.
May I suggest a good source for this story in a book by archaeologists Israel Finknkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. ''The Bible Unearthed.

 

[GreNME]

I believe that Tacitus was writing about the beliefs that Christians held while describing them in Annals in the same way I believe Herodotus was writing about the beliefs that Zoroastrians held while describing them in The Histories.

What does someone writing about the beliefs of a particular culture have to do with the veracity of those beliefs?

I agree. I would also go further and question the accuracy of someone writing about the beliefs of other cultures in antiquity and the early Common Era, at least on many of the cases. Most of these early writers, while being some of the groundbreaking and foundational figures of written history as a study and practice, often had clearly ethnocentric perspectives which they were unconcerned with and didn't consider a problem. This is a challenge even to writers of today, so it's not like the problem somehow went away as technology improved. Instead, the only thing new about it is that we're learning to recognize that it sometimes affects the accuracy of our records.

 

[Fireshadow]

So then you believe the Roman Senator and historian Tacitus was wrong when he wrote Christ was executed during the reign of Tiberius Caesar and the rule of Pontius Pilate?

And do you believe these men died for a myth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs

Let's all say it together: Yes, DOC, people die for myths and mistaken beliefs all the time. Just because someone dies for a belief does not inherently make that belief true.

 

[MG1962]

I agree. I would also go further and question the accuracy of someone writing about the beliefs of other cultures in antiquity and the early Common Era, at least on many of the cases. Most of these early writers, while being some of the groundbreaking and foundational figures of written history as a study and practice, often had clearly ethnocentric perspectives which they were unconcerned with and didn't consider a problem. This is a challenge even to writers of today, so it's not like the problem somehow went away as technology improved. Instead, the only thing new about it is that we're learning to recognize that it sometimes affects the accuracy of our records.

You highlight one of the most (In my mind) important elements of critical thinking, especially with historical writing and research. No matter how we try to colour modify hide the fact. We are all products of our generation.

That is not to be dismissive of these writings, but to understand what was important to them. A wonderful example pointed out to me was Drakes log and diary of his around the world adventure. Every detail regarding the ship, the travels and adventures is noted. Yet nowhere does he ever mention what he ate for lunch

Today historians want to know that fact. They want to know how sailors undertook and survived these massive voyages in a pre-refrigeration days. We also want to know, just to colour the man a little more.

Drake never wrote it down, because it was part of his hum drum normal day at sea.........who could possibly be interested in that lol

 

[eccles]

Possibly. Here's a National Geographic article from 2007.

Lets have a look at a few things here from that article:

"Religious leaders do not allow archaeological excavations on Temple Mount, one of the holiest sites for Judaism and Islam. The site, known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is now covered by Islam's Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque."

Why? Are they worried that the truth might be discovered, NO TEMPLE

"This is the first time we have shards from the Temple Mount with a [uniform] date," Haifa University's Reich told National Geographic News.

The find "most certainly" indicates the presence of people in the temple during the late eighth century and seventh century B.C., he said.

People, YES; Temple. NO. THe assumption is that there are remains of a temple. Bad Science

"From an archaeological standpoint, this is the first time this has happened," Reich said.

"You can say that this was written in the Bible—but the Bible is a text and texts can be played around with. This is physical evidence."

Crude Excavations

Gideon Avni is IAA's excavations and surveys department director.

"This is the first time we have found artifacts that have not been disturbed by later periods," Avni said.

But he doesn't believe this will help pinpoint the location of the First Temple on the mount.

Hebrew University archaeologist Ehud Netzer, who discovered King Herod's tomb earlier this year, was highly critical of the Temple Mount work. "

EXACTLY Very astute remark.

em hotep

 

[I Ratant]

I am very skeptical about so called "proofs" presented by Bible Organisations. I am downloading the Simulation and will watch it so I can judge.

Interesting that the "Walking in Their Sandals" want your money. Well they won't get any from my pittance of a pension.

em hotep

.
Sometimes the bible thumpers insert a fact or two in their praising of the book, without comprehending they may have a contradiction with the dogma.
ISTR on AIG some years back a situation where the author proved the math in the book by listing ages of the patriarchs.
If one paid attention, he "proved" without knowing it that Adam was drowned in the Flood.
Noah apparently refused the old boy a seat on the Ark, if you watched the numbers.