The oldest biblical character who probably existed

[SpuriusMaximus]

So, you're saying that Byt-Humri can mean the land where Omri's subjects live, after all, right? As a place to live, and all that. Well... then why can't Byt-DWD mean the land where DWD's subjects live?

 

[Matt Giwer]

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No need for envy, just educate yourself.
I have this nifty book from the Scientific American Library.. "The Origin of Modern Humans", by Robert Lewin.
Covers the subject thoroughly, from bones through DNA. mDNA, linguistics.. really a very compendium of the facts.
And never mentions anything about "aryan superiority"... I know that will be a blow.
Shows migration path from Central Africa.
Really a good compendium of the facts.

In reading it you will note it NEVER refers to just passing through migrations. But you know that.

As for your simpleton reference to Aryan the claim of superiority vice simply a related language group arose in the late 19th c. A nutcase used the spread of Noah's children after the flood to make his case. But you know that too because you have something from a somewhat popular but source of scientific material that stopped being particularly rigorous (as in scientifically correct) some 20 years ago.

The name of the language group has been changed from Aryan to Indo-European due to people who are fixated on something that ended before they were born -- maybe some day there will be a pill for that.

Indo-European languages are a legitimate area of study even though it means the same as Aryan once meant. (Hope the pill is developed real soon.) And as you should know the Indo refers to the Indus river in Pakistan not India, aka Hindustan.

May I remind you of Rule 11? Appears to me attempts to divert the discussion to modern politics are not appropriate. The link in my sig is an appropriate place for such political discussions. That is why I created it. Please post there.

 

[Matt Giwer]

So, you're saying that Byt-Humri can mean the land where Omri's subjects live, after all, right? As a place to live, and all that. Well... then why can't Byt-DWD mean the land where DWD's subjects live?

If that is what it means then it is not the David invented for the Septuagint as it is centuries later. As it cannot be the same David it has no bearing upon the Septuagint.

Step back a minute. Do you really think ANY inscription is sufficient to confirm a half million words of the Septuagint collection of stories?

The Septuagint is just a name for a collection. There are different collections. There are related books that are in no collection. Wisdom of Solomon showing his power over demons. The Book of Enoch. One or more unknown books whose contents appear in the gospels. They are all equal in the minds of skeptics and there is no record of the criteria for any variant collection or inclusion or exclusion of particular books.

The idea of a canonical collection does not appear until the 5th c. AD or so.

 

[Wroclaw]

Matt, why the obsession with the Septuagint versus, say, the Tanakh?

 

[Matt Giwer]

Matt, why the obsession with the Septuagint versus, say, the Tanakh?

Because the Septuagint is the oldest known source of the material and thus the Tanakh is a translation of it. Hard for believers to swallow I know but not my problem. Believers have only their faith in religious tradition until they can produce physical evidence the Septuagint is the translation. Argumentation is not evidence.

 

[TimCallahan]

They are all quite interesting but the standard remains the same as it is for Troy. That is archaeological finds which match the details of given in the stories about them.[/QUOTE]

Again, I specifically mentioned the archaeological remains of the cities of Samaria and Lachish, mentioned in the preserved Assyrian texts. I believe I've also mentioned archaeological strata in Jerusalem going back to the Iron Age, which began ca. 1050 BCE.

You seem to be pursuing a number of different arguments on this thread, all rolled together. They need to be disentangled. Here are the arguments you seem to be pursuing:

1) The Exodus never happened.

I think we all agree on that one, and there's really no point in bothering with it further.

2) The kingdoms of Israel and Judah never existed.

I believe I've given you extensive historical and archaeological data showing they did.

3) The Jews were still polytheists in the first century BCE.

So far, you haven't backed up this argument with any data. BTW, where did these first century BCE Jews come from if the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah never existed?

4) The Jews have no legitimate claim to the land of Israel.

First of all, whether the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were real or not has no bearing on this issue. You have conceded that the Jews were there as early as the first century BCE. Of course, they hadn't been their for nearly 2,000 years when Israel was founded in 1948, so that point is moot. The whole question of the modern state of Israel really doesn't belong on this thread.

Considering all of the above, let me suggest you stick to topics 2 and 3 above, examine my evidence and respond to it, rather then dismissing it out of hand, and provide your evidence to the effect that the Jews were still polytheists as late as the first century BCE.

 

[I Ratant]

...
May I remind you of Rule 11? Appears to me attempts to divert the discussion to modern politics are not appropriate. The link in my sig is an appropriate place for such political discussions. That is why I created it. Please post there.

.
Not a chance.
Your discussions are inappropriate no matter where they're posted.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

If that is what it means then it is not the David invented for the Septuagint as it is centuries later. As it cannot be the same David it has no bearing upon the Septuagint.

Well, I've already said several times in just this thread that it's just the name DWD, and I don't think anyone knows exactly who he was or why was he notable there. In effect you're the one who forced narrowing it more towards an actual name of a king by accepting house in the sense of country, as attested in the Byt-Humri formula, but not in the sense of a clan that may well have been based on someone who wasn't a king or even a real person at all.

But the above quoted paragraph reads like a texbook example of circular logic. X is later than Y because you already decided exactly that.

That said, like Wroclaw, I too have to wonder what's with the obsession with the Septuagint version. Is there something special about the Greek translation that I'm missing?

Step back a minute. Do you really think ANY inscription is sufficient to confirm a half million words of the Septuagint collection of stories?

No, but that's such an irrelevant truism. Sure, no one inscription can confirm all stories in one fell swoop, but we can still look for different pieces of evidence for the different stories.

The Septuagint is just a name for a collection.

More specifically, for one translation. The name means "seventy", as in, the number of people who worked on translating it, supposedly.

But even calling it one collection, so what? You seem to have this implied idea that if one particular collection appears in year X, then the individual stories in it also aren't older than year X. Which is quite trivially false. For example, just because the first collection of all of Shakespeare's plays is from 1623, doesn't mean they're all written in 1623. (Shakespeare had been dead since 1616.)

There are different collections.

Unless they differ on major points about those kings, I don't see what's the relevance of that.

There are related books that are in no collection. Wisdom of Solomon showing his power over demons. The Book of Enoch. One or more unknown books whose contents appear in the gospels.

Yes. So?

They are all equal in the minds of skeptics and there is no record of the criteria for any variant collection or inclusion or exclusion of particular books.

It depends. There is plenty of room for making them not equal, for example for the purpose of tracking what exactly did one cult believe in.

The idea of a canonical collection does not appear until the 5th c. AD or so.

Actually, that's much too late, as even the Christians had already gotten the same version before that.

But even then: so? The existence or non-existence of a canonical collection, doesn't invalidate the individual stories or anything. The Greeks also didn't have a canonical collection of stories of Herakles or Dionysus, but nevertheless they believed in Herakles and respectively Dionysus.

 

[Matt Giwer]

They are all quite interesting but the standard remains the same as it is for Troy. That is archaeological finds which match the details of given in the stories about them.[/QUOTE]

Again, I specifically mentioned the archaeological remains of the cities of Samaria and Lachish, mentioned in the preserved Assyrian texts. I believe I've also mentioned archaeological strata in Jerusalem going back to the Iron Age, which began ca. 1050 BCE.

You seem to be pursuing a number of different arguments on this thread, all rolled together. They need to be disentangled. Here are the arguments you seem to be pursuing:

1) The Exodus never happened.

I think we all agree on that one, and there's really no point in bothering with it further.

Erasing the god parts does not mean the rest is credible.

2) The kingdoms of Israel and Judah never existed.

I believe I've given you extensive historical and archaeological data showing they did.

Believe as you wish. You have not even come close to establishing the bible claims And matching the bible description is the Troy standard of evidence.

3) The Jews were still polytheists in the first century BCE.

So far, you haven't backed up this argument with any data. BTW, where did these first century BCE Jews come from if the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah never existed?

I said at least 1st c. AD not BC. As you are not familiar with the material I referred to and which I have yet to present you are correct. It is also correct no one including you has presented any evidence they were even honotheists much less monotheists so we are all equal as far as presentation.

Claiming they were other than polytheists is the extraordinary claim which is based solely upon religious tradition. There is no historical mention of such a thing. So you should not be so quick to assume the religious tradition in which you put your faith is the default position. It is the most popular position but it is not an evidenced position.

4) The Jews have no legitimate claim to the land of Israel.

First of all, whether the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were real or not has no bearing on this issue. You have conceded that the Jews were there as early as the first century BCE. Of course, they hadn't been their for nearly 2,000 years when Israel was founded in 1948, so that point is moot. The whole question of the modern state of Israel really doesn't belong on this thread.

As I said if you wish to discuss modern political claims there is at least one topic for that in my sig or you can start another. The subject of the linked thread is "The premise "By Definition Zionists are Thieves and Murders" has been questioned"" which has nothing to do with any religion only political zionism.

Considering all of the above, let me suggest you stick to topics 2 and 3 above, examine my evidence and respond to it, rather then dismissing it out of hand, and provide your evidence to the effect that the Jews were still polytheists as late as the first century BCE.

You really are shooting yourself in the foot.

For 3, show me your evidence the Judeans at any time were other than polytheists. I am more than a little familiar with the material and I have never come across anything even close. The nearest thing is four out of place words in Against Apion Book I that read like another interpolation, aka forgery.

For 2, I am quite familiar with the digs in bibleland and with those at Troy and the Troy standard of evidence. I can assure you there is nothing even remotely up the to Troy standard in bibleland but if you want to produce something you think is, go for it.

 

[Wroclaw]

Because the Septuagint is the oldest known source of the material and thus the Tanakh is a translation of it. Hard for believers to swallow I know but not my problem. Believers have only their faith in religious tradition until they can produce physical evidence the Septuagint is the translation. Argumentation is not evidence.

Would not the material therein have to have been translated from an earlier source? For that matter, since we know that, e.g., the Vulgate was NOT translated from the Septuagint, then doesn't that pretty much prove the existence of earlier versions?

 

[TimCallahan]

(snippet)

Believe as you wish. You have not even come close to establishing the bible claims And matching the bible description is the Troy standard of evidence.

. . .

For 2, I am quite familiar with the digs in bibleland and with those at Troy and the Troy standard of evidence. I can assure you there is nothing even remotely up the to Troy standard in bibleland but if you want to produce something you think is, go for it.

For information on the archaeology and history of Lachish, including Sennacherib's siege, go to www.tau.ac.il/humanities/archaeology/projects/proj_past_lachish.html
then tell me how this is any less a "standard" than is Troy. BTW, it's rather odd that you keep bringing up Troy, which was rather badly excavated by Schleiman (sp?), as opposed to either Babylon or Nineveh.

 

[TimCallahan]

. . . .

I said at least 1st c. AD not BC. As you are not familiar with the material I referred to and which I have yet to present you are correct. It is also correct no one including you has presented any evidence they were even honotheists much less monotheists so we are all equal as far as presentation.

Claiming they were other than polytheists is the extraordinary claim which is based solely upon religious tradition. There is no historical mention of such a thing. So you should not be so quick to assume the religious tradition in which you put your faith is the default position. It is the most popular position but it is not an evidenced position. . . .


You really are shooting yourself in the foot.

For 3, show me your evidence the Judeans at any time were other than polytheists. I am more than a little familiar with the material and I have never come across anything even close. The nearest thing is four out of place words in Against Apion Book I that read like another interpolation, aka forgery. . . .

First of all, you're the one who made the assertion that the Jews of the first century CE were polytheists and, particularly, that they worshipped Ashtart (Astarte). I've asked you for your evidence of this. So far, you haven't given any.

As to the idea that the Jews of the first century CE were monotheists, read The Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, who did live in the first century. He only mentions one God, no mention of Astarte or anyone else. You might also look into the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date to the first century and present Biblical texts quite close to their modern form.

 

[ddt]

We know the real names for the region from well established ancient sources, Palestine, Syria, Phoenicia, Nabatea and so forth as well as local variants. None of them are Canaan. But if you know of any that do I assume you will be so kind as to give me the url.

I have read such claims by believers. When I ask them for URLs they have been to the unsupported assertions of other believers. Therefore I am looking for the translation of inscriptions and the like found by arkies.

What are you claiming here? That you've been too lazy to look into the Amarna letters, or that you have looked into them and can disprove what is claimed about them? Or are you referring to the claims about the Phoenicians?

Anyway, try this one: Niels Peter Lemche, The Canaanites and their Land: the tradition of the Canaanites (link), p. 27. Oh sorry, he is a believer? Anyway, he mentions a tablet from Mari (present-day Eastern Syria) from the 18th. century BC which mentions Canaanites. It also gives reference to the original publication of the tablet.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Well, I've already said several times in just this thread that it's just the name DWD, and I don't think anyone knows exactly who he was or why was he notable there. In effect you're the one who forced narrowing it more towards an actual name of a king by accepting house in the sense of country, as attested in the Byt-Humri formula, but not in the sense of a clan that may well have been based on someone who wasn't a king or even a real person at all.

You keep trying to shove your religious assumptions into a discussion of something indirectly related. You can't sneak in the yellow part. There is no evidence of any biblical king David, period. A biblical king David is all that is under discussion. This is not a search for a "kernel of truth" because there are a ton more kernels of truths of the same kind in Xena Warrior Princess episodes.

To argue for the credibility of the Septuagint stories with such major changes is no different from arguing the credibility of Xena scripts. If David was not the successor of Saul and the father of Solomon who ruled the united kingdom as described then you might as well be telling me about Xena. There is no difference.

Finding the Troy described in the Iliad is the standard of evidence.

 

[Matt Giwer]

...
More specifically, for one translation. The name means "seventy", as in, the number of people who worked on translating it, supposedly.

The sole source for the name and the claim that the Septuagint is a translation is from a known forgery called the Letter of Aristeas. No one knows when it was created but the author names people who held positions after his death so forgery is quite obvious and has been known for well over a century.

The name Septuagint is only vaguely related to this letter and in fact may have had a different origin entirely and the forger was guessing. LXX and LXXII are different numbers. It may have been called the Septuagint before the forgery and the forger simply invented a close number.

But even calling it one collection, so what? You seem to have this implied idea that if one particular collection appears in year X, then the individual stories in it also aren't older than year X. Which is quite trivially false. For example, just because the first collection of all of Shakespeare's plays is from 1623, doesn't mean they're all written in 1623. (Shakespeare had been dead since 1616.)

In fact no one knows when the individual stories appeared. No one knows when they were first collected as a book. The oldest known collection into a book is the Vatican Codex and the second oldest the Sinai Codex. The version in Hebrew (aka Aramaic) does not appear until the 11th c.

I thought I explained this but if not let me do so now. The only reason to say the stories or scrolls or books if you wish are older than the earlier 1st c. AD is the appearance of the Letter of Aristeas which Josephus attributes to that time. So if Josephus is wrong then all bets are off. But as there is mention of a collection being translated we can say that at least in the time of Josephus several scrolls existed. In another place Josephus says the Judeans have only 22 holy books so if he means they are the ones translated then some were created after his time. (Please do not try to mix and match the ones we have into 22 unless you can show what you imagine did in fact at one time exist as the accepted configuration. I can mix and match. So what?)

Being generous when Pompey arrives in the region the Judeans first appear in history. That is 67 BC. Reports around that time are of priest-kings and sort of a society for Judea that is congruent with the Septuagint including Maccabes 1 and 2. Rough congruence is all there is so there is no real evidence any of the Septuagint stories are that old.

But the politics of the region and the priest kings do support the Maccabe stories so whether or not committed to writing they were likely known at the time. There is no direct evidence any of the other stories existed in 67 BC. While the Maccabe war is not mentioned in any surviving text other than the Maccabes books the general political situation in the region regarding the Herods is mentioned. The Herods patronage from Egypt, of course Pompey's arrival, later declining to support Antony and later gaining patronage from Rome is recorded.

Patronage from Rome was heavily dependent upon being an "ancient" people, the older the better. Rome gave it heavy weight in deciding conflicting claims of wannbe rulers. The Maccabes were not ancient in fact not even a century old in 67BC. So there is a use for a backstory making them ancient. Now if you look at who conquered Egypt and was sort of still active in the region you find Abraham was made second oldest to Egypt. I am not talking our reality but the world as perceived back then.

Lots of handwaving, right? The best news I can make of it believers is that maybe 22 of the Septuagint books existed in the late 1st c. AD. Making the best of what is known of the region and what can be surmised as leading up to how it got the way it was when Rome found it and taking into account Egyptian mentions the earliest creation of any of the books would have been after the Maccabean war. That is as far back as I can stretch even one book and that is 99.99% speculation.

The best I can say for it is that it is not incongruent with what is known. It is not much different from piecing together when the Indians first arrived in the Americas. There are no direct records but a reasonable picture can be created from what is known. Doing that for the Septuagint and the earliest I can suggest for any of the stories is the mid 2nd c. BC.

Were it to stay strictly with what can be found from direct evidence I could only say the best guess is that 22 of the books had been created by the late 1st c. AD. Which ones they might have been would be those that contributed to Antiquities of the Jews. I have not done that exercise.

By that time Jews were busy creating their Galilean messiah cult literature which is just as fantastic.

 

[Matt Giwer]

...

Unless they differ on major points about those kings, I don't see what's the relevance of that.

Would you consider the book on Solomon's mastery of magic and power over demons to be different on major points?

 

[Matt Giwer]

Would not the material therein have to have been translated from an earlier source? For that matter, since we know that, e.g., the Vulgate was NOT translated from the Septuagint, then doesn't that pretty much prove the existence of earlier versions?

That is called begging the question. Or are you appealing to your own ignorance? It hardly matters.

Produce the physical evidence of older material from which the Septuagint is a translation.

 

[ddt]

For information on the archaeology and history of Lachish, including Sennacherib's siege, go to www.tau.ac.il/humanities/archaeology/projects/proj_past_lachish.html
then tell me how this is any less a "standard" than is Troy. BTW, it's rather odd that you keep bringing up Troy, which was rather badly excavated by Schleiman (sp?), as opposed to either Babylon or Nineveh.

Schliemann. [/nitpick]
And I agree he did a poor job. After his death, his excavations were continued on a better footing by his assistant Dörpfeld, and numerous other excavations have been carried out on Hissarlik.

I'm also at a loss what Matt's "Troy standard" is. Maybe that Schliemann excavated Troy with the Iliad in his hand? Sorry Matt, that's also an apocryphal tale. He couldn't have: the shoreline near Hissarlik has changed considerably since the Trojan War allegedly took place. Recent research has shown the reconstructed historical shoreline to indeed correspond to Homer's description (link).

ETA:

Finding the Troy described in the Iliad is the standard of evidence.

And which Troy would that be, Matt? I'll go with the assumption it is Ilion found in Hissarlik. But which layer?

 

[Matt Giwer]

For information on the archaeology and history of Lachish, including Sennacherib's siege, go to www.tau.ac.il/humanities/archaeology/projects/proj_past_lachish.html
then tell me how this is any less a "standard" than is Troy. BTW, it's rather odd that you keep bringing up Troy, which was rather badly excavated by Schleiman (sp?), as opposed to either Babylon or Nineveh.

Except for the world wars excavation at the site has been essentially continuous. As I said, only in the last few months have the answers to the remaining objections been published. And, as I noted, there is still nothing more than the perimeter of the lower wall is close enough to one event in the Iliad. It says nothing about the main characters including if they were real, the cause of the war, or the real events of the war nor its duration.

The link you give is not even in the same ball park. Why? Need I first educate you on over a century of digging at Ilium?

 

[Matt Giwer]

First of all, you're the one who made the assertion that the Jews of the first century CE were polytheists and, particularly, that they worshipped Ashtart (Astarte). I've asked you for your evidence of this. So far, you haven't given any.

What else would they be but polytheists? Even your favorite book of faith, excuse -- book in which you have faith, says the people were polytheists. No one mentions they have only one god not even their detractors. What is your point?

As to the idea that the Jews of the first century CE were monotheists, read The Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, who did live in the first century. He only mentions one God, no mention of Astarte or anyone else. You might also look into the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date to the first century and present Biblical texts quite close to their modern form.

A agree he was a member of the Yahweh cult. But he makes no explicit statement of the people having only one god save for four words which stand out like a very sore thumb as interpolation. One would think he would wax eloquent on having only one god yet his great praise is solely for the law. Of course the law is the source of the power and wealth of the priests so we can understand that. He goes into many reason why his people are unique and wondrous but none of the reasons are even worshipping only one god much less that there is only one god.

I do not see what the DSS have to do with the subject. Perhaps you could explain. The current OT says the people were polytheists many places. The priests only claim to be priests of one of many gods. What else would one expect of people who chose to be priests of a particular god? That they would advocate worship and temples taxes to other gods?