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Archeologly proves the Bible?

Glad you are interested by Jan Assman's writings, eccles.
The second link I gave goes into more detail of the suject from an article and interestingly enough Jan Assman's next book come out in October of this year.

eccles, I enjoyed your brief overview of Egyptian/Christian links.
I would have appreciated a mention of Isis and Christian borrowings of her worship- after all, a goddess Emperor Commodus worshipped had to have had something going for her.
Or is that an argumentum ad populum.
 
The Roman historian Tacitus said Jesus received the ultimate penalty from Pontius Pilate. And all four gospels said Jesus was put in a tomb. We know from the evidence that 1st century tombs existed outside a gate of the wall of Jerusalem. It is rational to conclude that Jesus was put in one of those first century tombs that we know existed. Also, as famous as Jesus was and as fast as Christianity spread all over the Roman Empire certainly some people in the 3rd century knew where Jesus died. If you travel on the East coast of the US there are historical markers all over the place of things that happened hundreds of years ago.
OK.
The Roman historian Tacitus said Jesus received the ultimate penalty from Pontius Pilate. And all four gospels said Jesus was put in a tomb.
Both these phrases mean nothing, of course.
But let's simplify the situation and say that X, deceased in Jerusalem 1st cent ad was buried in a tomb.
We know from the evidence that 1st century tombs existed outside a gate of the wall of Jerusalem
OK
It is rational to conclude that Jesus was put in one of those first century tombs that we know existed
If we simplify the statement, it reads "it is rational to conclude X was put in one of those first century tombs we know existed".
No. Not rational. The fact that these tombs existed doesn't lead us to rationally conclude X is buried there.
Or in this case, Jesus.
 
No offense, but I would trust a famous Jewish/Roman historian -- who knew the Roman Emperor (who was ruler over the Roman province of Egypt) good enough to travel with him to Egypt -- over you when he says Moses was in Egypt.

And this logical fallacy is called appeal to authority. You're soaking in it.
 
That is your opinion, others have different beliefs. Here is evidence that the eyewitnesses and apostles Matthew and John did indeed write the Gospels that have bore their names for 2000 years:

http://www.abu.nb.ca/courses/NTIntro/John.htm

http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/NTIntro/Matt.htm

I went to your links, DOC.
The first one identifies John of the Gospel with the author of Revelations.
THe second concedes there is little internal evidence Mark wrote the Gospel which bears his name and on the subject of Matthew I quote
The authorship of the Gospel of Matthew is something of a puzzle. It is unlikely that the canonical Matthew represents a straightforward translation of an original Aramaic or Hebrew version composed by the apostle Matthew, since the author of the Gospel of Matthew probably used the Gospel of Mark as a source. Nevertheless, it is probably safe to conclude that the apostle Matthew wrote something in Aramaic or Hebrew that has some connection to the canonical Gospel of Matthew. But what exactly that text was and its connection to the canonical Matthew is difficult to determine
Now about those tombs.
 
Just about all of them. "Virgin" Births e.g. Horus, son of Isis, a Virgin.
Jesus in the Temple at 12 years old.

are you aware that all of the examples given by Massey were prevalent across the fertile crescent, especially in Mesopotamia, where the Jews were exiled shortly before the Bible was first compiled and that there are a lot of primary sources from Mesopotamia that are in cases word for word the same as biblical texts.

e.g.
Gilgamesh: -
When a seventh day arrived
I sent forth a dove and released it.
The dove went off, but came back to me;
no perch was visible so it circled back to me.
Genesis 7
8 And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth
Gilgamesh
I sent forth a raven and released it.
The raven went off, and saw the waters slither back.
It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle back to me.
Genesis 7
7 And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth
would you claim that there is any egyptian text that made it into the bible this unedited

Are you aware that Hebrew sources themselves claim that they got a large proportion of their theology from Mesopotamia,
According to Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish of Tiberias (230–270 AD), all the specific names for the angels were brought back by the Jews from Babylon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archangel#In_Judaism

or that the enemy to Bel Marduks supreme godhood was a creature called Tiamat who was most often described as a "great red dragon" and that in Mesopotamian linguistics SA.AN = opposed/equal to god, there is even an Assyrian text copied from a Babylonian original that describes the fall of a serpent and 1000 of his brethren from the Heaven of Asshur (Assyria state god)
5 The Divine Being spoke three times, the commencement of a psalm.
6 The god of holy songs, Lord of religion and worship 7 seated a thousand singers and musicians: and established a choral band
8 who to his hymn were to respond in multitudes ... 9 With a loud cry of contempt they broke up his holy song 10 spoiling, confusing, confounding, his hymn of praise. 11 The god of the bright crown [1] with a wish to summon his adherents
12 sounded a trumpet blast which would wake the dead, 13 which to those rebel angels prohibited return, 14 he stopped their service, and sent them to the gods who were his enemies.[2]
15 In their room he created mankind.[3] 16 The first who received life dwelt along with him. 17 May he give them strength, never to neglect his word, 18 following the serpent’s voice, whom his hands had made. 19 And may the god of divine speech [4] expel from his five thousand [5] that wicked thousand
20 who in the midst of his heavenly son, had shouted evil blasphemies!
21 The god Ashur, who had seen the malice of those gods who deserted their allegiance
22 to raise a rebellion, refused to go forth with them.

are you aware that Ashurbanipal who founded the library of Nneveh waged war on Egypt several times and that his lust for texts was greater than his lust for treasure and a large number of Egyptian texts ended up in Ashurbanipals library at Nineveh. Ashurbanipal claimed to be the first King who could read and write

so any ritual enacted in egypt was available in the Library of Nineveh where Hebrews were employed as librarians, obviously Massey didn't know any of this being in a period before cuneiform texts were widely available and he isn't regarded as a good source on anything by anyone who knows what they are talking about
for instance
W. Ward Gasque has written that Egyptologists have rejected many of the specific claims made by Harpur and Massey as fallacious, pointing out that there is no evidence of a virgin birth for Horus, and that Harpur's main source, Alvin Boyd Kuhn, was a Theosophist whose books were mainly self-published and that his other sources were in the main not ancient Egyptian texts but out-of-date authors.[9]. This later claim refers to Harpur specifically but does not negate the translations or texts cited by Massey, however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Massey#Parallels_between_Horus_and_Jesus
this is why I snorted my coffee, because your statement is unsupportable
you can rail against me for claiming that the Horus claims aren't true if you like, but they have been discussed here several times already and theres a whole host of other members who will drown you with links proving it

Now you may be right that there is genuine original Egyptian content in the bible, but it didn't neccesarily come out of Egypt, because the Hebrews were never there, we know where they were present though and all the information Massey claims is solely egyptian was available in Mesopotamia at the exact same location of the Hebrews, many of the texts from the library of Nineveh are actually signed "Rabbi" as they were employed for the purposes of translating foreign texts into Akkadian (the lingua franca of the time) and Assyrian (the language of their owners) and of course, large parts of the Old Testament are actually set in Mesopotamia, not Egypt

;)
 
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When you find a reference to the Gospel of Matthew - or any of the others, for that matter - being written originally in Aramaic, you know the material you're reading was written by a person who was a beleiver first and whose expertese, such as it is, has been placed in service to his dogma. In Gospel Fictions Randal Helms points out that Old Testament material from the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX) was incorporated into the gospels, often word-for-word. The LXX was a translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek for the benefit of the Jews of the Diaspora, most of whom no longer spoke either Hebrew or Aramaic. So the incorporation of material word-for-word from the Greek of the LXX into the Greek of the gospels demonstrates that Greek was the language in which the gospels were originally written: There are no Aramaic originals of the gospels.

As to the empty tomb: Let's remember that whatever tomb Jesus might have been laid in, assuming that story is true, wouldn't have been marked as his tomb, particularly since it was a family tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea. Nor would an outlawed sect have likely put up any marker there. Remember also that in the year CE 70 the Roman army flattened the city of Jerusalem. Thus the tomb would have been buried in rubble or was possibly destroyed. Add to that the fact that Jerusalem was rebuilt atop this base of rubble, only to be destroyed once again by the Romans in 136, in the wake of the Bar Kochba revolt. The Romans then built a Greco-Roman style city named Colonia Aelia Capitolina - replete with a temple to Zeus - on the site. So, by the time Christianity gained ascendency, in the 300s, such sites as the Via Dolorosa, the "Upper Room" where Jesus and the disciples had the Last Supper, and the tomb in question had been buried under at least two layers of rubble for between 200 and 300 years. Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem didn't start until this time. So all these sites, such as the Holy Sepulcher, were manufactured as memorials centuries after the time of Jesus.
 
Just about all of them. "Virgin" Births e.g. Horus, son of Isis, a Virgin.
Jesus in the Temple at 12 years old.
Baptism in the myths of Anubis.
Crucufixion. Horus was crucified.
Resurection after 3 days. Horus rose from the dead after 3 days.

Are you just intentionally ignoring what I've posted? None of those are accurate correlations. From a much earlier post refuting not only those claims, but many of the common ridiculous claims for the Horus-Jesus connection, this is The Jesus/Horus similarity claims, broken down:

Claim | Jesus | Horus
Virgin Birth | biblical | non-existent
Only Begotten Son | biblical | non-existent 1. Mother's Name | Mary | Isis (not meri 2. )
'Foster' Father | Joseph | none 3. (Osiris)
Father's Ancestry | not royal 4. | divine
Birth Location | stable/cave | varied
Annunciation | angel to Mary | none 5. Birth Herald | Eastern Star (biblical) | none 6. Birth Date | Celebrated Dec. 25th 7. | revolving 8. Birth Announcement | Angels | none (hidden) 9. Birth Witnesses | Shepherds | none or Ra (Re) 10. Later Witnesses | Wise Men 11. | none or Ra (Re) 12. Death Threat | Herod | Set (Seth) 13. Handling Threat | went into hiding (in Egypt) | none or went into hiding 14. Followers | 12 disciples | 0, 4, 16 (varied) 15. Activities | miracles (healing, walked on water, etc.) | fought Set (Seth) and ruled Egypt 16. Method of Death | crucifixion | none (didn't die) 17. Accompanied By | two thieves | none (didn't die)
Burial | in a tomb | none (didn't die) 18. Fate After Death | descent and resurrection | none (didn't die)
Resurrection Announcement | women | none (didn't die)
Future | book of Revelation | none (ruled Egypt) 19.

1. The "only begotten son" thing doesn't work with Horus because different stories have him being a single son, a second son (after Set), and sometimes even the father or husband of Isis (though without the death Osiris experienced). 2. The word 'meri' means 'beloved' in Egyptian, and can be applied to men as well as women. 3. Osiris was the actual father of Horus in most Egyptian mythology. 4. The 'royal' lineage of Jesus did not come from Joseph, it came from Mary (allegedly traceable to King David). Lineage like that was matriarchal (passed down from mother) to child in Jewish culture, not patriarchal. It's still that way today (in Jewish culture). 5. No one told Isis she was to conceive, she made that decision herself. In some versions of the story, she even asked the help of other deities to lend their magic to hers to make it possible (to revive Osiris and conceive). In other versions she needed no help, only Osiris to father the child. 6. There was a religious observance to the star named for Sothis (known now as Sirius), but this observance was not connected to Horus and was instead connected to the flooding of the Nile, which happened practically like clockwork every year. Sothis (the deity) is connected to Hathor, not Horus. 7. The celebration of Christmas on the 25th was not widespread until the Fourth Century, and had at times been condemned by some Christ-worshippers as incorrect and tolerant of influence from other local religious observances (like Saturnalia and Solstice celebrations). The earliest Christian writings guessing the birth date of Jesus have it either in the autumn (November-ish) or January 6th, the latter of which is still celebrated as the birth date of Jesus to Eastern Orthodoxy today. 8. I say the date would be revolving because the Egyptian calendar differed from our Gregorian and Julian calendars, and any given day in the calendar would have fallen on a different subsequent day on the calendar we use today. However, attempts to use examples of dates given to Greek-Egyptian texts would have placed the birth date of Horus in August (on our current calendar), not December. 9. No birth announcement was made because Isis did not want to have Set (Seth) learn of the baby Horus's whereabouts in most accounts (the accounts where Isis hid). 10. Depending on which account you use, either no one else was present or the god Ra (Re) was present. 11. The Christian bible makes no mention of the number of wise men. This but of the story was added later in cultural retellings. The number three was assumed because of the number of different gifts supposedly offered in the biblical tale, but no verification of three "wise men" at the birth. 12. There are some stories where Hathor, Thoth, Seb, Anubis, and a few others as well as Ra (Re), but never only three other deities. 13. The threat of death from Set (Seth) is not in every account of the birth and life of Horus. In some Set (Seth) is simply the jealous uncle or brother, attempting to gain favor among the other gods above the upstart Horus (and failing). 14. Not all of the stories of the birth of Horus involve Isis going into hiding. Some of them actually involve Isis having the other gods be aware of her child, or having some of the gods train Horus as he grows older. One (rather racy) story even involves Set (Seth) attempting to (sexually) seduce Horus in a competition to show Set's (Seth's) superiority over Horus among the gods (which fails amusingly). 15. For use regarding Horus, these numbers are arbitrary. He had priests and acolytes, as well as many other followers, servants, and allies. To number the individuals on or part of the side of Horus would be in the hundreds if you're just using the mythological stories, and all of Egypt if you use the writings attributing the throne of Egypt to Horus. 16. Almost every mythological story of Horus involves him avenging his father (Osiris) by humiliating or slaying Set (Seth). To this end Horus has more similarity to Luke Skywalker than to Jesus. 17. Horus didn't die. Osiris (his father) was the one who died. 18. Horus wasn't buried in a tomb. In some iterations of the story, Osiris (his father) was brought to a tomb. In those stories, it's there where Osiris was resurrected by Isis (not Anubis) and brought back to life as the god of the afterlife. 19. Horus was the embodiment of the power of the throne of Egypt. This symbol was even kept in place when the Greeks conquered Egypt and later when the Romans ruled over Egyptian lands.

From:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/calum/egyptb.html#Baptism
Read the whole of that web page. It is by an Archaeologist I know personally. Calum has a large list of similarities between Egyptology and Christianity. I am a bedraggled refugee from the "Holy" Roman Catholic Church and I can see the connection even without reading stuff like this.

I seriously doubt your friend there is an archaeologist, but none of the information on that page is original. It's almost completely stuff Gerald Massey wrote without ever actually giving an actual translation. As a friendly challenge to both yourself and your friend, I humbly submit to you right now that we can have a moderated thread (where only we can post) here on this forum where the three of us can take the Papyrus of Ani (which is available online, but if you need I can get images), and together we can go line-by-line in translation and figure out whether it actually says what Massey claims it says, or whether it says what every other translation in existence states it says. If you don't know how to translate Egyptian or think your friend may have trouble translating, I'll be happy to provide you with online resources from groups I have literally no connection to.

Seriously, this is a first-year-level Egyptology project. I'm sure you would find it quite enlightening (and several others here would find it entertaining).

Egyptian Baptism is covered extensively by D.M.. Murdock: Christ in Egypt: The Jesus-Horus Connection". She has a whole chapter on it.

And she made up most of her connections out of whole cloth.

As I said in another reply, Christianity developed in Alexandria in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE.

No, it started in the late first century in Judea, and spread from there. Nice try, though-- that certainly allows for not only the Horus-Jesus nonsense, but it allows the advent of Mithraism (which is reported in Rome around the 1st century as well) to pre-date Christianity. Clever. Too bad it's fake information.
 
GreNME, you know hieroglyphics and would be willing to work through a simple document with people? Sign me up.
 
Christ's Tomb - what most archaeologists and historians say.

From the article: "Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem"

"Unlike many historical sacred sites, which often turn out to be based more on pious tradition than historical fact, most historians and archaeologists say the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is likely to be located over the actual tomb of Christ. The most important supporting evidence is as follows: [1]

1. In the early 1st century AD the site was a disused quarry outside the city walls. Tombs dated to the 1st centuries BC and AD had been cut into the vertical west wall left by the quarrymen.
2. The topographical elements of the church's site are compatible with the Gospel descriptions, which say that Jesus was crucified on rock that looked like a skull outside the city (John 19:17) and there was a grave nearby (John 19:41-2). Windblown earth and seeds watered by winter rains would have created the green covering on the rock that John calls a "garden."
3. The Christian community of Jerusalem held worship services at the site until 66 AD (according to historians Eusebius and Socrates Scholasticus).
4. Even when the area was brought within the city walls in 41-43 AD it was not built over by the local inhabitants.
5. The Roman Emperor Hadrian built a Temple of Venus over the site in 135 AD, which could be an indication that the site was regarded as holy by Christians and Hadrian wished to claim the site for traditional Roman religion.
6. The local tradition of the community would have been scrutinized carefully when Constantine set out to build his church in 326 AD, because the chosen site was inconvenient and expensive. Substantial buildings had to be torn down, most notably the temple built over the site by Hadrian. Just to the south was a spot that would have been otherwise perfect - the open space of Hadrian's forum.
7. The eyewitness historian Eusebius claimed that in the course of the excavations, the original memorial was discovered. (Life of Constantine 3:28)

Based on the above factors, the Oxford Archaeological Guide to the Holy Land concludes: "Is this the place where Christ died and was buried? Very probably, Yes."

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/jerusalem-church-of-holy-sepulchre.htm
 
Based on the above factors, the Oxford Archaeological Guide to the Holy Land concludes: "Is this the place where Christ died and was buried? Very probably, Yes."

news to me, the Bible I read said he wasn't buried at all, are you now renouncing your faith Doc or just clutching at straws as usual?
:D
 
DOC, you never answered my question: since there exist evidence of places Muhammad (pbuh) has been and things Muhammad (pbuh) has done, as well as the known location of where he ascended into Heaven, doesn't that by your own stated criteria prove that archaeology equally proves the Quran?
 
GreNME, you know hieroglyphics and would be willing to work through a simple document with people? Sign me up.

Short answer: sure, but be prepared for a long project.

Longer answer: I wouldn't say I "know hieroglyphics" as much as I would say that there are numerous sources available for learning how to translate Egyptian writing (depending on the period), most of the freely available online. It would be a slow, tedious process to reference and cross-reference all the characters, find the words and word combinations (instead of a string of characters), then find the corresponding translated words into English. After that, usually there's some transliteration that must be done as well to put it into understandable English.

It's not easy-- for example, I translated the JREF user Akhenaten's avatar one day, and it took me about a half hour or so (it basically says 'Akhenaten', but in Egyptian... real exciting)-- but I'm willing to go through all the work in a public forum if it will help to finally put these claims of accuracy in Massey's work to rest. The Ani Papyrus is long enough that this could take a very long time, which is why I tend to only make these offers to the Dorothy Murdock / Gerald Massey fan club-- I figure if they can match their belief with conviction to do the actual work instead of picking and choosing who to regurgitate, then it's a worthwhile endeavor on my part. Egyptian writing is no longer the inaccessible mystical material it was at the end of the 19th and early 20th century, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily easy to translate.

(also, since I have translated Egyptian of the Ani text from prior practices, I've already done a lot of the work and this would be refresher for me)
 
Egyptian writing is no longer the inaccessible mystical material it was at the end of the 19th and early 20th century, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily easy to translate.

Egyptians so old hat now, Cuneiform is the new language of subterfuge, no one anywhere has ever translated my sig, I'll know when they do, my inbox will fill up with mod warnings. If anyones having trouble with the Sumerian I could translate it into Babylonian for you
:D
 
DOC, you never answered my question: since there exist evidence of places Muhammad (pbuh) has been and things Muhammad (pbuh) has done, as well as the known location of where he ascended into Heaven, doesn't that by your own stated criteria prove that archaeology equally proves the Quran?

Muhammad doesn't have a Church built over an "empty" tomb like the Church of the Holy Sepluchre. He is buried in Medina.

From Wiki on Muhammed:

"A few months after the farewell pilgrimage, Muhammad fell ill and suffered for several days with head pain and weakness. He died on Monday, June 8, 632, in Medina. He is buried where he died which was in his wife Aisha's house and is now housed within the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad
 
Muhammad doesn't have a Church built over an "empty" tomb like the Church of the Holy Sepluchre. He is buried in Medina.

From Wiki on Muhammed:

"A few months after the farewell pilgrimage, Muhammad fell ill and suffered for several days with head pain and weakness. He died on Monday, June 8, 632, in Medina. He is buried where he died which was in his wife Aisha's house and is now housed within the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina"


What exactly do you think the last sentence in your quote means?
 
The place of the Skull -- Golgotha

From Wiki on Calvary/Golgotha


Mark

And they brought him to the place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a skull)[3]

Matthew

And when they came to a place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a skull)[4]

Luke

And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left[5]

John

So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Gol'gotha[6]

Notice the last photo at the end of the article and how it resembles a skull:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary
 
GreNMe,
What are you doing in the slammer?:boggled:

I have seen that table somewhere. At my age my memory ain't what it used to be. Could you please give the link for that.

I have a lot of work to do on this. I am open minded about most of this except that I totally reject a "god" and the divinity of Jesus. I got too much crap from the Roman Catholic Church which is one reason why I gave it up.

As far as my friend is concerned I lost touch with him when the MSN Groups were shut down. (no, I'm not making an excuse). I could be interested in you offer. I do have a translation of the Papyrus of Ani. As far as Hieroglyphs re concerned I do have the book "Middle Egyptian" by James P. Allen, but I do find it somewhat hard. I have not really gotten into it. I also have the "Inscribe" editor from Saqqara Technologies, but have not done much with it.

I certainly would be doing what I want to do - keep learning to keep my brain active. My mother died after getting Alzheimers, and on Monday my best old friend went the same way. One must keep the brain active. Dunno how politicians get on.

em hotep

em hotep
 
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From Wiki on Calvary/Golgotha


Mark

And they brought him to the place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a skull)[3]

Matthew

And when they came to a place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a skull)[4]

Luke

And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left[5]

John

So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Gol'gotha[6]

Notice the last photo at the end of the article and how it resembles a skull:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary
Spiderman is real since the Empire State Building exists.
 

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