The oldest biblical character who probably existed

[lionking]

Just what I wanted, this thread invaded by an holocaust denier with anti-Semitic tendencies. Are there any lengths you will not go to in order to discredit jews and their history?

 

[Matt Giwer]

Just what I wanted, this thread invaded by an holocaust denier with anti-Semitic tendencies. Are there any lengths you will not go to in order to discredit jews and their history?

Quoting the priest Josephus is antisemitic? Josephus invented antisemitism. I doubt modern people have his attitude.

Is it now antisemitic to actually examine cited inscriptions to see of the claims made about them are credible?

Rule 12. Address the argument not the arguer.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Just what I wanted, this thread invaded by an holocaust denier with anti-Semitic tendencies. Are there any lengths you will not go to in order to discredit jews and their history?

Regardless of Matt Giwers views on the Holocaust, it seems to me that he has presented well-researched and logical reasons to dismiss the idea put forward in your "cracking", "well-researched" book that David was a historical figure or for that matter than any pre-David Biblical figure was historical as opposed to made up out of whole cloth.

Did you start this thread in order to learn something, or not?

 

[lionking]

Did you start this thread in order to learn something, or not?

Certain posters have absolutely no credibility. Some put forward "well researched" reasons for the Holocaust being a myth.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Certain posters have absolutely no credibility. Some put forward "well researched" reasons for the Holocaust being a myth.

Rule 11. do not try to change the subject

 

[Matt Giwer]

Regardless of Matt Giwers views on the Holocaust, it seems to me that he has presented well-researched and logical reasons to dismiss the idea put forward in your "cracking", "well-researched" book that David was a historical figure or for that matter than any pre-David Biblical figure was historical as opposed to made up out of whole cloth.

Did you start this thread in order to learn something, or not?

The believers' desired translation of the Tel Dan stele does not pass the giggle test for all the previous reasons and a rather obvious one.

The W in DWD is another big hint as V and W are only related fricative sounds (usually equivalent to F and V) in Germanic languages. In English and Russian V and W are unrelated sounds. So it only makes believer sense if DWD was a German.

 

[lionking]

The believers' desired translation of the Tel Dan stele does not pass the giggle test for all the previous reasons and a rather obvious one.

The W in DWD is another big hint as V and W are only related fricative sounds (usually equivalent to F and V) in Germanic languages. In English and Russian V and W are unrelated sounds. So it only makes believer sense if DWD was a German.

What do you mean by "believers"?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Certain posters have absolutely no credibility.

To whom do you refer? Unless it's yourself that you are referring to I can't see how this is not a personal attack on Matt Giwer in the sense prohibited by the MA. Shall I assume you are following the MA?

Some put forward "well researched" reasons for the Holocaust being a myth.

Then those reasons get debunked by better-researched posts from better-informed posters.

Is that going to happen in this case? I'd like to see it done if so, because whatever Matt Giwer thinks about the Holocaust to the best of my knowledge he's absolutely right that there is no good reason to think that David or any earlier Biblical figures are anything other than self-serving religion fictions.

 

[lionking]

Who are "the believers" Matt? Are they the Jews?

 

[ddt]

Regardless of Matt Giwers views on the Holocaust, it seems to me that he has presented well-researched and logical reasons to dismiss the idea put forward in your "cracking", "well-researched" book that David was a historical figure or for that matter than any pre-David Biblical figure was historical as opposed to made up out of whole cloth.

Did you start this thread in order to learn something, or not?

Most of the arguments Matt puts forward in this thread have already been discussed recently in this thread over in the History section, and have largely been debunked. For instance, evidence has been given there that the word BYT not only means house as a dwelling but also as a royal dynasty. And to take another example: you don't even contemplate to take serious Matt's claim that Josephus invented antisemitism, do you?

Matt may be writing more-than-average English for a Holocaust denier; that doesn't mean, however, that his arguments are sound.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Most of the arguments Matt puts forward in this thread have already been discussed recently in this thread over in the History section, and have largely been debunked. For instance, evidence has been given there that the word BYT not only means house as a dwelling but also as a royal dynasty.

Thanks for the link - I take it the relevant post is this one?

Matt Giwer: It does look very much like BYTDWD appears in Kings, according to this page here, and seems to be referring to a political entity rather than a place. I'm no expert and I'm only going by this one page, so if you can give us a good story as to how this is all a mistranslation I'd be more than willing to listen, but that sure as heck looks like a sighting of BYTDWD in the wild that's a heck of a lot earlier than the 14th Century.

And to take another example: you don't even contemplate to take serious Matt's claim that Josephus invented antisemitism, do you?

Nope. He may have been the first recorded person to engage in semitism-related race baiting for all I know, but that's not at all the same thing.

Matt may be writing more-than-average English for a Holocaust denier; that doesn't mean, however, that his arguments are sound.

This is absolutely true, but nonetheless to ignore his arguments without knowing of better ones would be irrational. The fact that he's irrational about facts pertaining to the Holocaust is grounds for caution about his other claims but not grounds for immediate disbelief.

 

[lionking]

Matt Giwer takes every opportunity to demonise Jews and question anything which legimitises Israel's existence. This is just another of his gambits.

If someone else questioned the existence of David, I would take notice. If Matt said the sky was blue, I would go outside to check.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Matt Giwer takes every opportunity to demonise Jews and question anything which legimitises Israel's existence. This is just another of his gambits.

Fair enough. I'm interested in the question because modern Christians all too often think that the Bible is historically accurate, not because I think it makes a speck of difference to how a rational person should view Israel.

The very idea that events thousands of years ago could possibly lend legitimacy to a nation only seventy years old is so bizarre that it's doesn't even seem worth refuting.

 

[ddt]

Thanks for the link - I take it the relevant post is this one?

Yep, that's the main one - the discussion goes on after that, and may have re-appeared. That thread had a couple of stints of discussion with months of no posting in between, so I'm vague on what has been discussed when and when again. You may also check out the recent postings which more clearly show Matt's colours.

Nope. He may have been the first recorded person to engage in semitism-related race baiting for all I know, but that's not at all the same thing.

That would make Josephus then a self-hating Jew. For all I know, he recorded instances of anti-semitism, but didn't promote them.

This is absolutely true, but nonetheless to ignore his arguments without knowing of better ones would be irrational. The fact that he's irrational about facts pertaining to the Holocaust is grounds for caution about his other claims but not grounds for immediate disbelief.

He's had enough of his arguments about ancient biblical history trounced that yes, I agree with Lionking. His stance is more minimalist than the Biblical Minimalists.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Pharaoh was the name of any administrative city that did not come to be a reference to the king until around the 7th c. BC. It was the equivalent of the modern references such as "The White House (or 10 Downing) issued a statement ..." Any use of the word to refer to the king directly prior to the 7th c. BC is an anachronism. In every case but those involving religious beliefs anachronisms are evidence of the earliest possible creation date.

Bullcrap. The term pharaoh (actually, PR-AA in egyptian) has been used for the god-king since at least Tuthmoses III, in the 15'th century BC, a good half a frikken millennium before the estimated date of writing the Genesis, even more so before the Exodus. Amenhotep III in the 14'th century BCE is actually addressed as a pharaoh in a letter addressed to him. And before that, it's been used for the pharaoh's palace.

In fact the oldest John (Judah) Maccabe as the DWD thing is nonsense. The actual connection is through his son John Hyrcanus who used military conquest to impose the worship of Yahweh on the people of Iodumaea, Samaria and Galilee. This is found in Wars of the Jews by Josephus the turncoat priest of Yahweh.

I never said I knew who that David was. That was in fact the caveat I was agreeing with: it's just a name, and we don't know exactly who or what it was. It doesn't even necessarily have to be a person, in fact. There are tribe names who aren't based on persons at all, but on places or historical ways to define themselves, and their invented ancestor brothers are just symbolic things to cement an alliance.

Not sure why you go on about Judah Maccabee, though. I don't think anyone actually claimed in this thread that a 2nd century BC ruler would be referenced on a 9'th-8'th century inscription. I think most of us are aware that they didn't have a time machine.

In fact the Hyksos connection to the Jews was invented by Josephus in the first book of Against Apion. To him anyone who refused to believe the Jews were the Hyksos who ruled Egypt for a century hated Jews and the refusal to believe his nonsense claim was proof of their hatred.

The Hyskos connection can stand on its own as a valid hypothesis, regardless of who said it first. Of course, it's just a hypothesis.

The believers' desired translation of the Tel Dan stele does not pass the giggle test for all the previous reasons and a rather obvious one.

The W in DWD is another big hint as V and W are only related fricative sounds (usually equivalent to F and V) in Germanic languages. In English and Russian V and W are unrelated sounds. So it only makes believer sense if DWD was a German.

Heh. Just heh... You're judging an ancient semitic inscription by the modern English version of that name? WTH? It's like denying Roman inscriptions about Julius Caesar on account of their writing it with an I instead of J. So it can't be the same Caesar, right? I hate to break this to you buddy, but variants and translitaration of the same name can vary massively between languages and over time.

The fact is, that name is actually pronounced "Daud" or "Dawud" for both the ancient semitic populations and the Arabs as one of their descendants. Hence that letter being transliterated with a W. You don't need to be German for that. You just need to know WTH you're talking about.

The serpent is Apophis from Egypt.

1. Religions borrow from each other all the time. If you think that's big, check out how much they borrowed from the Akkadians. But, really, that's the kind of thing that happened in all religions. Not sure why you think it's important.

2. By that logic, just about any animal is connected to some Egyptian cult, just because they had a god for each animal. E.g., then by that logic the Easter Bunny is the Egyptian goddess Unut, the spirit wolf of the Innuit is obviously Wepwawet, etc. You'll need a stronger connection than just being also present in a culture that made gods in the shape of almost every single animal they knew of.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Anyone can look at the Tel Dan inscription and see, because of the dot separators between words, that BYTDWD, is single word as is BYTLHM as in Bethlehem.

You do know that the BYT in BYTLHM also means house, yes? The name of the city is "house of Lehem" and it's a toss whether that "lehem" is its literal meaning of "bread", i.e., the town name actually meant "house of bread", or someone was actually named Lehem waaay back.

So, your point is... what? That BYT can't mean "house" in BYTDWD, because it's like in BYTLHM where it does mean "house"?

 

[Delvo]

The W in DWD is another big hint as V and W are only related fricative sounds (usually equivalent to F and V) in Germanic languages. In English and Russian V and W are unrelated sounds. So it only makes believer sense if DWD was a German.

I don't know anything about which words or parts of words are missing from ancient Semitic-language inscriptions or your personal posting history here, but even I know not to take you seriously after seeing this. U, V, and W started out as one letter in the Latin alphabet, which was derived from a Semitic letter which has also been used for the same set of sounds (a vowel sound and at least two consonant sounds, just to keep things simple) and independently split into more than one letter in modern Semitic-language alphabets ("waw" and "vav" at least) which still each do double duty, for the same reason: those sounds are related to each other and tend to get shifted around over the centuries, with pronunciations changing and letters getting reassigned from one sound to another. The changes you refer to in Germanic languages are merely the most recent in a long line that have happened in multiple language families.

That's why W is double-U in English but double-V in Spanish and French, and why people quoting Latin sometimes pronounce the sound of our W in places where a V is written, particularly depending on when it was written (such as weni, widi, wiki), and why we got both Jehovah and Yahweh from a single original word (with no vowels originally written and a similar issue evolutionary issue affecting the sounds we now represent with I, J, and Y). The original inscription you're talking about wasn't written with our modern U, V, or W; it was written with an ancient letter which corresponds to all of them, so the word's modern cognates could use any of them.

 

[a_unique_person]

I am reading "Jerusalem, the Biography" by Simon Sebag Montefiore, and a cracking and well researched book it is.

In the early chapters he writes about David, who I thought was probably fictional, but references the Tel Dan stele which seems to be good evidence that an Israelite king called David existed around 1000BC. So is there any evidence (apart from the bible itself) for any earlier biblical character? Moses perhaps?

They may have existed, but they weren't anything like the "Kings" that they were portrayed as, more chieftans of a tribe. Documents of such ancient times tend to exaggerate.

 

[Beerina]

Well, I'm not saying I know his historical name, nor that I'm taking that story as actually true. "Born of water" was just an example of a "born of" that would actually make sense for a literal reading of the Exodus story. (Well, that or "born of" one of the many Nile deities.) But it's just an example of how the MSSW particle was actually used, really.

"Born of water" sounds like a prophecy from elsewhere that Moses floating among the reeds was invented to shoehorn into and take advantage of.

 

[I Ratant]

...
Matt may be writing more-than-average English for a Holocaust denier; that doesn't mean, however, that his arguments are sound.

.
Then, dissect them.
Don't argue the person, argue the statements.
And don't use "lie" as a counter argument.
Show how a statement is incorrect.