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Bible older than we thought?

If the Bible is older than we think does this mean we'll be seeing Victoria Principle flog a range of Bible beauty secrets on late night television?
 
WaterBreather said:
Tim:
I see no reason to change the dating system from the convention of AD/BC.
That serves only to distract.
As you well know. . . .
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Actually, I know nothing of the kind. But have it your way. From what I've been able to find, the Kebra Nagast is only about 1,000 years old. Do you have evidence that it was actually written ca. 1,000 BC?

By the way, I'm leaving on a geology tour to Death Valley and will not be back until Monday evening. So, if you don't hear from me for a few days, that's the reason.
 
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Wowbagger said:
I would not surprise me if many of the stories in the Bible are many times older than what was even discovered, so far. The stories that have "stuck" appeal the best to human instincts and interests, and human minds could only conjure up a limited number of appealing stories, (until science and technology inspire narrative innovations).

Stories of Jesus-like entities existed loooong before anyone decided to write about Jesus.

World-engulfing flood stories have existed since... well... the existence of floods, actually.
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You don't have to be surprised. This is very much how it works. Many of these stories were probably passed generation to generation by word of mouth, expanding and evolving like a good fish story. By the time many of these things were actually written down, so many sources were available that it appears that contamination and specialization were introduced at least once to many of them.

For instance, Jesus, to me, is the Itinerant Greek Jew wandering around pretending to be a god-man with one disciple representing each Hebrew tribe who needed to be sacrificed so that our soul shards could be 'saved' while also promoting a cleansing ritual (baptism) and a ritual meal commonly associated with mystery cults. It is just so simple. :confused:
 
WaterBreather said:
Yes, Einstein was a determinist.
Even when the EPR experiment proved otherwise.
So he was probably the worst example I chose.
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The EPR experiment disproved determinism? :confused:
Please explain how... and then explain how this is in any way relevant.

As for The Bible, why does long-established fact that writing existed before The Bible is thought to have been written suggest that The Bible is older than it is thought to be?

And even if parts of the Old Testament were written down a couple of centuries earlier than previously thought, so what? That doesn't make them "more true".

If you're going to believe in a religion based on the antiquity of it's earliest texts, become a Hindu... some of the text in the Vedas date back to around 1500 BC. (There are Sumerian texts that date back to before 2500 BC, but nobody worships those religions any more.)
 
elbe said:
Ancient Greeks?
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Actually, I'd vote for the Sumerians, who had a civilization and an early science back when even the Achaean Greeks were a bunch of barbarians. The Greeks of Pericles were the later Dorian invaders.

The Egyptians too had quite a bit of level-headed approach to figuring out the world before the Greeks. E.g., Imhotep lived in the 27'th century BC and left us, among other things, a medicine manual completely lacking any magical thinking or woowoo rituals. As well as figuring out how to build the first pyramid, an irigation system, and stuff like that. (He really didn't deserve being made the villain of The Mummy:p)

Sure, he _was_ a High Priest of Ra, so I guess someone would take him as example of all the good that religion did. But in fact, there is no indication that religion played that much of a role at all in his approach to science. When he writes about washing and bandaging a wound, however, he conspicuously lacks any kind of prayers or spells to be said over said wound.

And generally, for someone to be the first recorded genius in medicine, engineering, architecture _and_ administration -- every bit as worthy of awe as, say, Leonardo Da Vinci -- I doubt that superstition was that high on his list of priorities. You can bet that his day included a lot more reading and study than what the sacred religious scrolls say.

He probably went and became a priest just because that was effectively the ruling class and the best you can get as a literate young man.
 
It just makes the earlier Hebrews prone to more rubbish and belief. Its not as if they were as savvy as 8th century Hebrews is it? :D
 
HansMustermann said:
And generally, for someone to be the first recorded genius in medicine, engineering, architecture _and_ administration -- every bit as worthy of awe as, say, Leonardo Da Vinci
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He might have been a Genius at some things but he was imho the very worst host in history, who really wants to hear "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die.", when you've just sat down to dinner
:D

Hux said:
It just makes the earlier Hebrews prone to more rubbish and belief. Its not as if they were as savvy as 8th century Hebrews is it? :D
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you might have said that in humour, but its factually correct. In the 10th C they were Shepherds, but in the 8th they were librarians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Ashurbanipal
later they wrote a book based on what they had learned there
;)
 
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HansMustermann said:
We've had that discussion before.

The positive part: It's a piece of proto-Hebrew writing all right, likely one of the intermediate steps between early Akkadian and the final liturgical Hebrew.

The bunk part: well, just about all the rest. That shard does not actually mention King David, nor a united kingdom, and has nothing to do with the Bible.
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Where'd you get the idea that Hebrew is a descendant of Akkadian? It's not. They're not even in the same branch of the Semitic subfamily. That would be like saying English is a descendant of Old Norse.
 
Marduk said:
Case in point, the Abrahamic sky daddy didn't help the Hebrews figure anything out as they simply copied the beliefs of the civilisations around them. The modern world owes more to the Babylonians and the Greeks than it ever did to the Bible which just acted as a method of transmission but was never original in its own right.

:p
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You forgot Egypt.

Oh, I think their religion did help for some reason. I don't know why it helped, but it might have had to do with the simplicity of their faith and its emphasis on discipline. Also, the Hebrew's religion appealed to nomads as opposed to Mesopotamian city gods. Babylonian, Greek, and Egyptian polytheism changed a lot over the centuries and it's possible that the Hebrew religion influenced other religions.

Amateurs, like myself, make the big mistake of assuming that the mythologies we were taught in school were believed during the civilization's entire existence, and they didn't change philosophically. This is false. The pantheons of Greece and Egypt evolved into monotheistic religions at some point.

In Egypt, Akhenaton made Aton-Ra the one god. In Greece, there was Cleanthes, the Stoic who prayed to Zeus as the essential god. Interestingly enough, one of Zeus' sons, Heracles, dies ostracized only to rise again. Also, note the similarity between the words theos and Zeus.
 
HansMustermann said:
...even the Achaean Greeks were a bunch of barbarians.
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The Achaean Greeks were not native speakers of Greek? I tease :p Good points on the Sumerians and Egyptians. The point is all cutlures influence and are influenced by other cultures. It is a slow build up through out time and some of our greatest achievements are rooted back quiet a long time ago.

Marduk said:
He might have been a Genius at some things but he was imho the very worst host in history, who really wants to hear "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die.", when you've just sat down to dinner
:D
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That actually sounds like a great way to kick off an epic party to me.

Slayhamlet said:
Where'd you get the idea that Hebrew is a descendant of Akkadian? It's not. They're not even in the same branch of the Semitic subfamily. That would be like saying English is a descendant of Old Norse.
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Good point. They are more cousin languages. Hebrew is a Caananite language of the Northwest Semitic group. One of the difficulties in translating the shard was determining which Caananite language it most closely represented.

lightfire22000 said:
Amateurs, like myself, make the big mistake of assuming that the mythologies we were taught in school were believed during the civilization's entire existence, and they didn't change philosophically. This is false. The pantheons of Greece and Egypt evolved into monotheistic religions at some point.
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This is a great point. In discussions it is easy to fall to presenting the situation based on the image of a single period, and really the dominate philosophies of the day. Modern cultures are not unique in having divisiveness and splintering philosophies. We tend to represent civilizations passed as monolithic in form. This may have been desired by many, yet not something that is easily if ever achieved.

ETA: What I found most interesting is that the translated text bears resemblance to Deuteronomy 10:18-10:19. To my uneducated eye this implies evidence for the fragmentary theory of the Torah. I definitely do not see this as evidence as proof of the United Monarchy having existed as described in the Bible, nor of it being written in its full or even similar form centuries earlier.
 
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Marduk said:
I am hard pushed to think of anything in the modern world that was inherited from the Egyptians

anyone help ?
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A 365 day year
Early calculations of pi
Simple machines such as the inclined plane/screw, level, and elaborate tools
Paper making
Glass
Numerous medical innovations such as the stitch, prosthetics, laxatives, and health insurance
Astronomy(crucial for weather prediction)
 
lightfire22000 said:
A 365 day year
Early calculations of pi
Simple machines such as the inclined plane/screw, level, and elaborate tools
Paper making
Glass
Numerous medical innovations such as the stitch, prosthetics, laxatives, and health insurance
Astronomy(crucial for weather prediction)
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All of those were invented in Mesopotamia with the exception of paper making which was invented in China around the 2nd century AD, Paper takes its name from Egyptian papyrus, but it wasn't invented by them.
True the egyptians did invent the 365 day year but as the mesopotamian timed their year on the vernal rising of the Pleaides they had a year which was 365.256 363 051 days long. Or to simplify, one actual year exactly. They actually orientated their temples to face the rising position and split their year into 360 days plus some change. The change was when they considered the Gods had abandoned them and everyone got drunk and didn't do any work until the priests said it was safe to do so as the gods had returned. This had the advantage of their years always being accurate and served as a chronological mooring point to time their lunar and ritual calendars on. Other cultures messed around by having to add an extra day every few years to make up the loss, including the egyptians

no prize this time
sorry
:p
 
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Dats said:
If the Bible is older than we think does this mean we'll be seeing Victoria Principle flog a range of Bible beauty secrets on late night television?
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.
Victoria Principal ... flogger...



I'm sorry, what were we discussing? I kinda got distracted...
.
 
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Ok I have answered my own questions by reading this article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/egypt_importance_01.shtml
apparently they invented the pyramid form and may possibly be helpful to medicine in the future from the study of mummified bilharzia worms

Colour me not impressed. Nature surely invented the pyramid form earlier as the shape of the Egyptian pyramids was based on......
698.jpg

;)
 
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