Archeologly proves the Bible?

[eccles]

Now I remember O'Connor, on the "Jesus Family Tomb" movie.

 

[GreNME]

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

Huh? I learned to translate my name to Cuneiform in the sixth grade.

Of course, I never learned to translate anything else, and subsequently forgot how to do the name thing...


_{PS: Never again, without your permission? something about asses or ass kicking?}

 

[GreNME]

"If you're interested I can look into asking the mods to set us up with a moderated thread where you, me, and a few others who might be interested in such a project could give at least a few pages a try for edification."

I like that. It would increase my knowledge of Ancient Egypt.

About trying to prove anything from that period, I assume it is almost impossible due to the spin put on the stories by biased writers. The Roman Catholic Church is the worst example of that.

I have the DVD of Zeitgeist and am not very impressed with it.

em hotep

If you mean Egyptian writings, you'd be surprised at how much can be found through corroborating artifacts, writings, and locations.

As for grabbing a few pages from the Ani Papyrus, give me a couple days and I'll see about starting a thread.

 

[Marduk]

I have recently developed the notion that the Old Testament stories are written as propaganda to solidify Mesopotamian control of the area. The area was always a battleground between Egypt and whatever power lay to the north. A nice religious story that grabbed stories of the region and built a "come out of Egypt" narrative would serve those who would benefit from Mesopotamian rule.

the timeline doesn't fit, a lot of stories in the OT can be traced back to mesopotamian texts that existed a long long time before Hebrew or Judaism did. The flood, Babel, Job etc
when Mesopotamian power was supreme, I could easily see how the exodus story was written by Hebrew scribes when they were enslaved by the babylonians though, a kind of "hey boys dont worry that we're slaves, remember a thousand years ago when we were slaves to the egyptians and we overcame adversity"
I bet they were crapping themselves around 500CE

It occurred to me when Joseph Campbell was talking about the similarities between the birth stories of Sargon I and Moses. (I also heard him talk a lot of rot about the Exodus, though, so I'm taking what he said with caution.)

Sargons birth story is from a text that post dates the biblical version but is copied from a text that predates it, its hard to tell if its accurate or redacted by a court scribe at the time of Sargon or just after when one of his sons was in power, either way, its just as legitimate as the claims made for Moses, who of course has no other supporting evidence for his existence. Sargon is a fact, moses a fiction

 

[boloboffin]

the timeline doesn't fit, a lot of stories in the OT can be traced back to mesopotamian texts that existed a long long time before Hebrew or Judaism did. The flood, Babel, Job etc
when Mesopotamian power was supreme

oh, yes, stories like the flood and such, those are just descended from the originals. I was thinking the Exodus stories, the patriarchs, stuff like that.

Sargons birth story is from a text that post dates the biblical version but is copied from a text that predates it, its hard to tell if its accurate or redacted by a court scribe at the time of Sargon or just after when one of his sons was in power, either way, its just as legitimate as the claims made for Moses, who of course has no other supporting evidence for his existence. Sargon is a fact, moses a fiction

I don't care about the accuracy, just that the story existed. Making Moses a Hebrew Sargon who rescues the Israelites from Egyptian rule sounds like useful propaganda to me -- if not for the population, at least to ingratiate Israel to its new Mesopotamian overlords (I'm assuming the Hebrew stories were written after Egyptian domination of the area - in the Iron Age, basically).

 

[Simon39759]

the timeline doesn't fit, a lot of stories in the OT can be traced back to mesopotamian texts that existed a long long time before Hebrew or Judaism did. The flood, Babel, Job etc
when Mesopotamian power was supreme, I could easily see how the exodus story was written by Hebrew scribes when they were enslaved by the babylonians though, a kind of "hey boys dont worry that we're slaves, remember a thousand years ago when we were slaves to the egyptians and we overcame adversity"
I bet they were crapping themselves around 500CE

That's also my thesis. Although I believe that the 'they stuck to Ywh and got rewarded for it' was a big part of the story.

 

[eccles]

I just printed and bound the "Works" of Philo. I printed it on sheets of "philo" pastry to make it easier to digest the contents.

 

[Hokulele]

Philo is a trip. It is pretty easy to see the correlations between John's gospel and Philo. If you have read any of the gnostic works, there are many correlations there as well.

 

[eccles]

Philo is a trip. It is pretty easy to see the correlations between John's gospel and Philo. If you have read any of the gnostic works, there are many correlations there as well.

So are all the other books I have like Eusebius, Josephus, The Apocrypha, Josephus, thg Gnostic Gospels and I am only half way throught Murdock. AND I have to sort throught the many books I have on Egypt. How long has a 70 year old got to live?

To top all that I just fixed up the problem I had with my controls for my flight simulator, as much as WinXP will allow you. Now I can fly again.

BUSY.

em hotep

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

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

Pish tosh. I cracked Harrapan a few years ago. The only problem is since I'm the sole person in the world who understands it I can't send messages to anyone other than myself.

 

[pakeha]

Well, whether Gospel writers Matthew and John are eyewitnesses is up for debate, and I've already mentioned how Luke has been called one of the world's great historians -- and I assume you believe these men died for fiction.

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

Nice try, DOC:

Well, whether Gospel writers Matthew and John are eyewitnesses is up for debate

perhaps it's time to mention the 'debate' you cite is from the link you yourself provided.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4997121&postcount=265

and I've already mentioned how Luke has been called one of the world's great historians

By whom?

and I assume you believe these men died for fiction.

And I assume you believe these men actually existed.
Any sources for that?

 

[pakeha]

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

Nothing like an objective source, is there.
Other posters have done the essential debunking of this source.
My own contribution is this:

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."

The elements of the site are compatible with the Gospel descriptions.
DOC, that proves what, exactly?

Windblown earth and seeds watered by winter rains would have created the green covering on the rock that John calls a "garden."

Sorry, are you telling us the author of this article confuses a garden with green covering on a rock?

 

[DOC]

Wasn't Luke's Census story called complete nonsense by the Dominican Priest, Father J. Murphy-O'Conner.

I doubt he called it complete nonsense do you have a link.

 

[DOC]

They never affected our calenders {AD. and BC}.

Weakest argument for Jesus's divinity ever.

In your mind what's the strongest argument for the divinity of Jesus.

 

[eccles]

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

Thst is a completely unbiased source: Atlantic Baptist University. My BS detector is SCREAMING it's head off.

em hotep

 

[zooterkin]

I doubt he called it complete nonsense do you have a link.

http://www.bib-arch.org/online-exclusives/nativity-03.asp

Now let us turn to Luke. Mason recognizes (as do all scholars) that the census mentioned in Luke (2:1–2) took place in 6 A.D., which is far too late to be of any relevance to the birth of Jesus in the days of Herod the king (37–4 B.C.): In other words, Joseph and Mary could not have been traveling to Bethlehem for this census. Thus, the linchpin of Luke’s narrative slips out, and the story fragments into a number of individual, unrelated elements. But the fact that Luke is wrong on X (the census) does not necessarily mean that he is wrong on Y (the location of Jesus’ birth).

ETA: Since I know how literal you are, how about this one:
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2009/01/18/story38761.asp

‘‘Luke made a mistake’’ in inventing the census that took Jesus [of Nazareth] to Bethlehem, according to Fr Murphy O’Connor. ‘‘The census was nonsense. The census we’re told was for the Roman Empire. This wasn’t part of the Roman Empire, this was an independent Jewish kingdom. But Luke had to try and find a motive why a heavily pregnant woman would travel the length of the country.

‘‘He made a guess and he got it wrong . . . I think Bethlehem was an embarrassment to the early Christians. Because there was a messianic prophecy centred on Bethlehem, the prophecy of Micah, which promised a warrior king, and Jesus was anything but. He didn’t fulfil the messianic prophecy of Bethlehem.”

 

[zooterkin]

In your mind what's the strongest argument for the divinity of Jesus.

Clearly none of them is strong enough to be convincing.

 

[Ladewig]

In your mind what's the strongest argument for the divinity of Jesus.

I am at a loss to answer; just as I suspect you could not provide an answer to the question "what's the strongest evidence for Shiva's divinity?" Feel free to prove my suspicions to be incorrect by giving an answer to that question.

 

[eccles]

I decided to do some "digging" myself about "St" Luke. I suppose there are very few unbiased reliable sources on the internet, so I shall use Wkipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_the_Evangelist

First thing I noticed is the picture of Luke with the monk's tonsure (bald patch). That is a painting from 1431CE.

This passage is a bit vague:
"If we accept that Luke was in fact the author of the Gospel bearing his name and also the Acts of the Apostles, certain details of his personal life can be reasonably assumed. While he does exclude himself from those who were eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry, he repeatedly uses the word "we" in describing the Pauline missions in Acts of the Apostles, indicating that he was personally there at those times.[9]

There is similar evidence that Luke resided in Troas, the province which included the ruins of ancient Troy, in that he writes in Acts in the third person about Paul and his travels until they get to Troas, where he switches to the first person plural. The "we" section of Acts continues until the group leaves Philippi, when his writing goes back to the third person. This change happens again when the group returns to Philippi. There are three "we sections" in Acts, all following this rule. Luke never stated, however, that he lived in Troas, and this is the only evidence that he did."

Any independent evidence for this claim? I think not.

Lets go a bit further:
"Luke died at age 84 in Boeotia, according to a "fairly early and widespread tradition".[11] According to Nikiphoros-Kallistos Xanthopoulos (Eccles*. History XIVth c. AD., Migne P.G. 145, 876) and others, Luke's Tomb was located in Thebes (Greece), from whence his relics were transferred to Constantinople in the year 357."

(*Eccles - no relation to me)

Now go to the External Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/16/world/body-of-st-luke-gains-credibility.html?pagewanted=print

"October 16, 2001
'Body of St. Luke' Gains Credibility
By NICHOLAS WADE
A new DNA analysis gives tentative support to the belief that the remains in an ancient lead coffin are those of St. Luke, traditionally considered the author of the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.

Dr. Guido Barbujani, a population geneticist at the University of Ferrara, Italy, has extracted DNA from a tooth in the coffin. He concluded that the DNA was characteristic of people living near the region of Antioch, on the eastern Mediterranean, where Luke is said to have been born. Radiocarbon dating of the tooth indicates that it belonged to someone who died between 72 A.D. and 416 A.D.

"Bishop Mattiazzo, according to an article in November 2000 in Traces, a Catholic journal, decided to investigate the relics under the leadership of Dr. Vito Terribile Viel Marin, a pathologist at the University of Padua. In 1998 the 400-year-old seals were removed from the lead coffin, and the study began."

The spread in the radiocarbon dating indicates at least two possibilities. One is that the body is that of Luke or a man who died at the same time, the other is that for some reason, a new body was put in the coffin in Constantinople around 300 A.D."

Read the whiole article. I am always suspicious about the authenticity of these "relics"., like the foreskin of Jesus somebody has.

These locations of relics and "Sacred Sites" can be a huge money spinner for the Church. e.g. the Church of the Holy Sepulcra, the Church of the Nativity. They most be BIG money factories.

em hotep
Very Skeptical Eccles

 

[DC]

when i read in those Jesus this and God that, Bible there Gospel here threads i always have to ask myself.

are we really in the Year 2009?