Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible

[Marduk]

Um, the Amarna Letters were written in Akkadian intended for Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. Reading Akkadian would have been no challenge. It was the Lingua Franca of the period.

http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/semitic/amarna.html

well there you go then, you can bet that Akhenaten and none of his court could read Hebrew

3. The Hymn to the Aten mimics the imagery and text of Psalm 104 (this has long been established. What is in dispute is the direction of inspiration. ie, did the Yahwists get it from the Atenists or was it the other way around?)

so unless you refine the claim to,
3. The Hymn to the Aten mimics the imagery and text of Psalm 104 provided that you ignore the Mesopotamian elements which make up the majority of psalm 104 and ignore the Egyptian elements from the Hymn to the Aten and invoke time travel to explain the temporal discrepancy.....
ya, that doesn't look too strong now does it

Some have noticed the Psalm shares certain similarities with the Egyptian poem the Great Hymn to the Aten, although there is currently no established link between them.

those certain similarities would be that they are both religious texts that glorify a deity, thats it
many of the other points were also as easily debunked, like for instance claiming that mud bricks must be Armarna, Egypt was built from mud bricks, so was every other civilisation at that time, and Akhenaten as Biblical Pharoah ?
did he drown after 17 years ?
accept it, if there was any truth to the Exodus story, you wouldn't need to push facts loosely together to fit the story, the Jews would know the name of the pharoah, they would know it doesn't take 40 years to cross 1000 miles, etc etc etc
I think its far more likely that the story was invented to boost morale at the time of the Babylonian diaspora, "hey guys, don't be disheartened, things were worse for us 1000 years ago when that other great civilisation enslaved us"

also, what happened to the claim of Exodus 1:11 that while they were there they built Heliopolis, a predynastic city, something rotten when the claim gets edited out of later editions

why the need for biblical inerrancy when it comes to Exodus anyway, pretty much all of the rest of it is fabricated
the Catholics already admitted as much
http://sueliz1.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/catholic-church-no-longer-swears-by-truth-of-the-bible/

THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.

The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible.

“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.

 

[OCaptain]

Your supposition is incorrect.

I simply stated that more would follow.

It did.

​

Too bad. I was hoping for something substantive.

 

[Marduk]

Too bad. I was hoping for something substantive.

you mean something that would contradict what this sensible guy said earlier

I don't think anyone, myself included, is taking the biblical texts as infallible truth.
.

pity that there just isn't any supporting evidence that stands up to more than ten seconds scrutiny then isn't it
perhaps your time here would be better served studying the crap made up about the New testament by desperate believers
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211645
its far more voluminous
to get something substantive back, you have to submit something substantive in the first place

or maybe you could have saved yourself some time by understanding what scholars believe the truth is

The book of Exodus is not historical narrative in any modern sense. Modern history writing requires the critical evaluation of sources, and does not accept God as a cause of events. But in Exodus, everything is presented as the work of God, who appears frequently in person, and the historical setting is only very hazily sketched. The purpose of the book is not to record what really happened, but to reflect the historical experience of the exile community in Babylon and later Jerusalem, facing foreign captivity and the need to come to terms with their understanding of God

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_E._Fretheim
iirc didn't someone else already tell you that ?

 

[OCaptain]

You know, you're simply going to decide to either truly participate in the thread instead of invoking wiki, and not dredging up biblical inerrancy when it's not something I accept.

Either engage ME and not a caricature or don't bother. You'll find it more rewarding if you engage in the discussion.

 

[Marduk]

You know, you're simply going to decide to either truly participate in the thread instead of invoking wiki, and not dredging up biblical inerrancy when it's not something I accept.

Either engage ME and not a caricature or don't bother. You'll find it more rewarding if you engage in the discussion.

I am the only one here participating in this thread, you'll notice that no one else has made an effort.
I'm sorry old chap that what I've posted is actually supported and all the wiki quotes I've used are properly referenced
whereas what you've posted isn't, I mean come on, you used this

1. The mud brick references in the Pentateuch can relate to the construction of Amarna (a site known to have been built out of mud bricks)
.

as a claim that the Israelites built Armarna, when even the biblical reference states

11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And they were adread because of the children of Israel. 13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour. 14 And they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick,

I don't see anything in there about Armarna do you ?
and when most of Egypt was built with mud brick
http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/glossary.aspx?id=250
Your evidence is so poor it doesn't need a sceptic, it needs taking outside and shooting, you make claims like

So, the thing that is clear is that these texts are similar enough to conclude that one borrowed from the other. The only unanswered question is from which direction the inspiration was drawn. I have certain ideas about that, .

which makes it apparent that you either haven't read either of them or that you are reading into them things that aren't there. You seem blissfully unaware of the rest of fertile crescent history and have stuck on the Exodus as if it proves something

if you want to stop being treated like a caricature I suggest you stop posting cartoon like evidence
I mean come on really, aren't you the person who said

scholars wear blinders when it comes to other work outside their immediate circle.

http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=310199&t=310193
seems to me that there's only one person who'd got the blinders on
and its you
I told you already, if you make a claim here you have to support it with evidence that bears scrutiny, this is not the childrens playground of the Hancock forum which you seem to have become used to

 

[OCaptain]

...this is not the childrens playground of the Hancock forum which you seem to have become used to

And yet, playground behavior is all I'm getting from you.

I will not rise to your bait.

 

[Marduk]

And yet, playground behavior is all I'm getting from you.

I will not rise to your bait.

ok, good, that's the end of another bible is true fantasy then, it's ironic really that you didn't check your facts before presenting them. I am constantly amazed that the level of biblical evidence is just enough to convince a believer but that everyone else finds it wanting

 

[TimCallahan]

You had me until you went with the nomad, settle-from-within the land model. It was no more convincing when Finkelstein and Silberman suggested it.

What "nomad, settle-from-within the land model" are you talking about? Here. again, is what I said:

What would seem most likely is that, in the transitional period at the end of the Bronze Age, Israel rose as an amphictyonic confederation of disparate but related tribes, most of them native to Canaan, but including as well pastoral groups from the east who brought with them the tradition of wilderness origins found in the patriarchal stories of Genesis.
So, I'm saying that most of the people of the Israelite confederation were native Canaanites - farmers, not nomads. I would consider the pastoral groups to be a minority. In addition, the Danites may have had Philistine origins.

 

[Moss]

What would be the understandable shorthand for "amphictyonic" for confused people? An alliance of cities with a common sacred place?

 

[Marduk]

What would be the understandable shorthand for "amphictyonic" for confused people? An alliance of cities with a common sacred place?

Allies

 

[TimCallahan]

What would be the understandable shorthand for "amphictyonic" for confused people? An alliance of cities with a common sacred place?

Yes. It's a loose defensive alliance of either tribes or city states based on a common worship and a cooperatively supported central shrine. Often such leagues have 12 members, each of which has the responsibility to financially maintain the central shrine for a month. So, the Delphic League was made up of 12 city-states. The amphictyonic league of Israel had 12 official tribes (though Simeon was little more than a region of Judah) maintaining a thirteenth, priestly, tribe, Levi. Their central shrine was the ark of the covenant, housed at Shiloh.

 

[OCaptain]

What "nomad, settle-from-within the land model" are you talking about? Here. again, is what I said:

What would seem most likely is that, in the transitional period at the end of the Bronze Age, Israel rose as an amphictyonic confederation of disparate but related tribes, most of them native to Canaan, but including as well pastoral groups from the east who brought with them the tradition of wilderness origins found in the patriarchal stories of Genesis.
So, I'm saying that most of the people of the Israelite confederation were native Canaanites - farmers, not nomads. I would consider the pastoral groups to be a minority. In addition, the Danites may have had Philistine origins.

Sorry for being dismissive before.

What is it about points east that makes you posit it as the origins of these tribal groups? Further, what prompts the association between the Philistine peoples and a tribe named Dan?

 

[Wolrab]

Points West was the Kingdoms of the Mermen.

 

[TimCallahan]

Sorry for being dismissive before.

What is it about points east that makes you posit it as the origins of these tribal groups? Further, what prompts the association between the Philistine peoples and a tribe named Dan?

The patriarchal tradition is that Abraham came from Paddam Aram, just west of the Euphrates river. There doesn't seem to be any fictional reason for claiming this. More to the point, the covenant ritual of dividing animals in two (Gen. 15:9 - 11) seems to come from Mesopotamia. Specifically, the notes on Genesis 15 in the Oxford Annotated Bible state that inscriptions from the Hurrian city of Nuzi in northwest Mesopotamia, dating from the middle of the second millennium, state that a slave could be adopted as an heir in the case of childlessness - as in the case of Abraham adopting Hagar's son Ishmael as his legal heir, even tough his mother was a slave.

As to possible Philistine associations of the tribe of Dan, read the fairly famous essay, "And Dan, Why Did He Remain In Ships?" by Yigael Yadin (1968).

ETA: You can read the essay here.

 

[TimCallahan]

One question I have regarding archaeology and the Hebrew Scriptures has to do with the effect of the Tel-Dan inscription on the historicity of David, Solomon and the pocket empire of the united kingdom of Israel and Judah under David and Solomon. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[OCaptain]

One question I have regarding archaeology and the Hebrew Scriptures has to do with the effect of the Tel-Dan inscription on the historicity of David, Solomon and the pocket empire of the united kingdom of Israel and Judah under David and Solomon. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I think the 1993 discovery of the Tel Dan stela and its "Bayt Daud" ( House of David) has been met with different responses, depending on one's paradigm. It will come up infrequently among more liberal-minded scholars who follow the Copenhagen school of Biblical Studies. The inscription doesn't find a place easily in their scholarship, plain and simple.

The funny part to me is that the more conservative scholars have moved on to something else (I'm thinking of Kenneth Kitchen).

The most energy seems to be expended by scholars in between the extremes, like the William Devers of the world. It's interesting, the development of writing on the inscription has changed from denial and accusations of forgery to the wider variety of views that exist now. The predominent view is moving toward legitimacy and the plain sense translation of the words - "house of david".

 

[Complexity]

Please keep it within the context of the thread. We're discussing Finkelstein and Silberman's recent works on their theories regarding how Israel came to be, both in reality and in their writings.

Quit being a control freak. This is not your thread.

Why in the world does the bible matter to anyone?

Yes, it is a major source of delusion and nasty behavior, but you sound as though you take it seriously.

 

[OCaptain]

Quit being a control freak. This is not your thread.

Why in the world does the bible matter to anyone?

Yes, it is a major source of delusion and nasty behavior, but you sound as though you take it seriously.

Yes, it most certainly IS my thread, and I'd thank you to respect it.

 

[Akhenaten]

Yes, it most certainly IS my thread, and I'd thank you to respect it.

Accroche-toi à ton rêve.

 

[pakeha]

...As to possible Philistine associations of the tribe of Dan, read the fairly famous essay, "And Dan, Why Did He Remain In Ships?" by Yigael Yadin (1968).

ETA: You can read the essay here.

Thanks for posting up the link- some interesting reading there.