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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: The Bible Unearthed
Mad Geo

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Serious question then.

Why do the archaeologists seem so sure that this culture did not exist as written in Gen-Josh?

This does not strike me as caged in typically conservative scientific language. I have heard this lack-of-evidence for Israelites repeatedly. We also have the problem of a lack of mention by other cultures that tend to mention such things (Egyptians).

Are you just being an apologist for their existence because you want it to be true, or because you actually know that the archaeologists are being deliberately dismissive? I am not saying that to be mean, I actually am trying to discern the "truth".

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ken
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quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Why do the archaeologists seem so sure that this culture did not exist as written in Gen-Josh?

Which archaeologists? The ones who wrote this book? (which I haven't read of course) You'd have to ask them. I happen to think they are wrong.

Archaeologists in general? I think you'll find that some think one thing and some another.

Also, I'm not an arachaelogist or a historian. Just someone who reads books.

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Ken

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Mad Geo

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Fair enough.

As I said earlier, I have been looking for this for a while as I had heard other archaeologists make that statement (I read books too [Biased] ). I was interested in supporting evidence (of which we have at least two books here now).

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Hawk

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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Why do the archaeologists seem so sure that this culture did not exist as written in Gen-Josh?

Which archaeologists? The ones who wrote this book? (which I haven't read of course) You'd have to ask them. I happen to think they are wrong.

Archaeologists in general? I think you'll find that some think one thing and some another.

Exactly right. This thread seems dominated by people who are convinced that archeologists have ‘disproven’ the Bible. That there is no debate, that there is only one theory, cut, dried and unarguable. That all archeologists agree with each other. This is incredibly stupid.

Archeology is not just a science, it is also a humanities subject. And anyone who has ever studied humanities knows that there is no truth that is not subjective. Every thing dug up from the earth can be interpreted in any one of hundreds of different ways.

And so many people in this thread seem to be buying the arrogant lie that if an author claims he’s looked and hasn’t found something then it logically means that thing never existed. If you expect to find something and it’s not there in the tiny spot where you’ve dug a hole what does that mean. Does it mean the civilization you’re looking for didn’t exist or that you dug in the wrong spot? Or that the evidence has decayed or been moved? Or any other reason? It is impossible to tell.

I found Jayhawker Soule’s post to be the funniest. His quote by William Dever goes as follows:

quote:
Originally posted by Jayhawker Soule:
William Dever writes ...
quote:

After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible historical figures. Virtually the last archaeological word was written by me more than 20 years ago for a basic handbook of biblical studies, Israelite and Judean History. And, as we have seen, archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit


How any reputable archeologist can be so arrogant to claim that their research 20 years ago is definitive and everyone else should give up is beyond me. This sounds like someone who’s so close minded to any research that isn’t his own his opinion counts for very little IMO.

quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I have heard this lack-of-evidence for Israelites repeatedly. We also have the problem of a lack of mention by other cultures that tend to mention such things (Egyptians).

Well, it depends on what you listen to as to what you hear repeatedly doesn’t it? There are lots of naysayers but there are also lots of research and evidence that supports the Bible. Read The Bible in the British Museum The Bible in the British Museum and visit the artifacts there. There is plenty of evidence that the Bible is very accurate if you actually take the trouble to read outside the critics. The accuracies that have been supported by extra-biblical evidence are random as you’d expect but new evidence is being discovered all the time. From the link:

quote:

There is, for example, a Babylonian clay tablet which records Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC, as narrated in the book of Jeremiah. For this book the author has selected over seventy such 'documents', mainly from Western Asia, with some examples included from Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor, dating from the period of the Patriarchs to the New Testament times, c. 2000 BC to c. AD 100

It all depends on where you look. A quick google search brought up this site. It's not the most useful of sites but it does show the other side of the story. And the quotes it gives certainly cast irrefutable doubt on the claim that ‘all’ archeologists agree and have given up on expecting corroboration between archeology and the Bible.

quote:
We have no reason to fear archaeology. In fact it is this very science which has done more to authenticate our scriptures than any other. Thus we encourage the secular archaeologists to dig, for as they dig we know they will only come closer to that which our scriptures have long considered to be the truth, and give us reason to claim that indeed our Bible has the right to claim true authority as the only historically verified Word of God. This is why so many eminent archaeologists are standing resolutely behind the Biblical accounts. Listen to what they say (taken from McDowell's Evidences 1972:65-67):

G.E. Wright states,"We shall probably never prove that Abram really existed...but what we can prove is that his life and times, as reflected in the stories about him, fit perfectly within the early second millennium, but imperfectly within any later period."

Sir Frederic Kenyon mentions, "The evidence of archaeology has been to re-establish the authority of the Old Testament, and likewise to augment its value by rendering it more intelligible through a fuller knowledge of its background and setting."

William F. Albright (a renowned archaeologist) says, "The excessive skepticism shown toward the Bible by important historical schools of the 18th and 19th centuries, certain phases which still appear periodically, has been progressively discredited. Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details, and has brought increased recognition to the value of the Bible as a source of history."

Millar Burrows of Yale states, "On the whole, archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the scriptural record."

Joseph Free confirms that while thumbing through the book of Genesis, he mentally noted that each of the 50 chapters are either illuminated or confirmed by some archaeological discovery, and that this would be true for most of the remaining chapters of the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

[qb]Nelson Glueck[qb] (a Jewish Reformed scholar and archaeologist) probably gives us the greatest support for the historicity of the Bible when he states, "To date no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a single, properly understood biblical statement."



--------------------
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Pottage
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quote:
Originally posted by Jayhawker Soule:
This impresses me as a false dilemma: folk lore typically displays a (nuanced and evolving) understanding of what the world was like which, in part, sustains it through generations of oral transmission, but that renders it no less folk lore - a tapestry of political propaganda, folk history, theology, and re-imagined myth.

I hope I'm not expressing a logical fallacy. It's true that I'm referring to the fact that the Biblical record contains details of lifestyle, technology and culture that are correct for the period of the stories being described but not correct for the time when the Biblical record in the form we have it was likely written, around the 7th century BCE. But I'm not doing so in order to claim that this means those stories are therefore and for that reason alone necessarily correct (which I agree would be fallacious). I'm making the point because in some postings on this thread it would appear to have been overlooked or disregarded. An example is this from MerlintheMad:

quote:
The picture of the world of the Patriarchs does not fit into the era claimed for it: but it does fit very well into the 8th century BCE
In fact it is the opposite of this which is true.


But I do regard the inclusion of contextually appropriate material as having evidential weight - it suggests that the lives of the Patriarchs (for example) were not simply fabricated from whole cloth in the 7th century BCE. These stories in the form we have them may or may not be free from error. MerlintheMad and I are agreed that the older the story the greater the possibility of inaccuracy. However the inclusion of these details does imply that these were stories of great vintage in the 7th century and that those who wrote them down then were keen to preserve the accuracy of the accounts as they had them. This extended to setting down details that would have seemed to them to be wrong, the price for a slave for instance, or a nobleman having ridden on a mule.

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MerlintheMad
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quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
...
quote:
The picture of the world of the Patriarchs does not fit into the era claimed for it: but it does fit very well into the 8th century BCE
In fact it is the opposite of this which is true.


But I do regard the inclusion of contextually appropriate material as having evidential weight - it suggests that the lives of the Patriarchs (for example) were not simply fabricated from whole cloth in the 7th century BCE. These stories in the form we have them may or may not be free from error. MerlintheMad and I are agreed that the older the story the greater the possibility of inaccuracy. However the inclusion of these details does imply that these were stories of great vintage in the 7th century and that those who wrote them down then were keen to preserve the accuracy of the accounts as they had them. This extended to setting down details that would have seemed to them to be wrong, the price for a slave for instance, or a nobleman having ridden on a mule.

I will transcribe from a couple of paragraphs from the book which should point out how the authors view the evidence for the "patriarchal age" as it appears in our Bible, i.e. how the details do NOT fit into the second millennium BCE, but rather into the 8th to 7th century BCE:

"The critical textual scholars who had identified distinct sources underlying the text of Genesis insisted that the patriarchal narratives were put into writing at a relatively late date, at the time of the monarchy (tenth-eighth centuries BCE). The German biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen argued that the stories of the patriarchs in both the J and E documents reflected the concerns of the later Israelite monarchy, which were projected onto the lives of legendary fathers in a largely mythical past....

"But when did that compilation take place? The biblical text reveals some clear clues that can narrow down the time of its final composition. Take the repeated mention of camels, for instance. The stories of the patriarchs are packed with camels, usually heards of camels; but as in the story of Joseph's sale by his brothers into slavery (Genesis 37:25), camels are also described as beasts of burden used in caravan trade. We now know through archeological research that camels were not domesticated as beasts of burden earlier than the late second millennium and were not widely used in that capacity in the ancient Near East until well after 1000 BCE. And an even more telling detail -- the camel caravan carrying "gum, balm, and myrrh", in the Joseph story -- reveals an obvious familiarity with the main products of the lucrative Arabian trade that flourished under the supervision of the Assyrian empire in the eighth-seventh centuries BCE....

"...It was only then that camels became a common enough feature of the landscape to be included as an incidental detail in a leterary narrative."

They go on to discuss other clues desribed in the patriarchal narrative and conclude:

"All the clues (Arabian goods, Philistines, camels, places and other nations mentioned in the patriarchal stories) point to a time of composition many centuries after the time in which the Bible reports the lives of the patriarchs took place. These and other anachronisms suggest an intensive period of writing the patriarchal narratives in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE."

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MerlintheMad
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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
...We lost all record of he entire Hittite Empire for three thousand years. ...

The Hittites were unfortunate in their chroniclers it seems.

Objecting that we cannot expect to discover specifics about single tribes/clans, much less individuals, ignores the singular difference in one archeological site and Judah: we KNOW where the OT story takes place. This isn't a random search, but instead a deep uncovering of already identified place names. We can expect to find something specifically mentioning David and Solomon when we arrive at the depth coinciding with their reigns, as given in the biblical history. But, we find contradiction, dichotomy, missing features which cannot possibly be missing if the timeline of the OT is at all accurate, literal history: e.g. the temple of Solomon: it aint there, at, all, where and when it's supposed to be....

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Hawk

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quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

We now know through archeological research that camels were not domesticated as beasts of burden earlier than the late second millennium and were not widely used in that capacity in the ancient Near East until well after 1000 BCE...
"...It was only then that camels became a common enough feature of the landscape to be included as an incidental detail in a leterary narrative."

Only according to certain people. If you read other archaeologists then you get a completely different picture.

From Randall W. Younker
Institute of Archaeology
Andrews University

quote:

My own research, however, and that of several other scholars, has shown that there is actually plenty of evidence for domesticated camels from the second millennium BC. Some of this evidence includes a bronze figurine of a camel in a kneeling position found at Byblos and dated to the 19th/18th centuries BE; a gold camel figurine in a kneeling position from the 3rd Dynasty of Ur (2070-1960 BC); a petroglyph at Aswan in Egypt which shows a man leading a camel by a rope (writing next to the picture suggests its dates to 2423-2263 BC); and a figurine from Aabussir el Melek, Egypt showing a recumbent camel carrying a load (dated to the 3rd millennium BC). To these examples, I can take pride in adding another that was discovered by myself (Younker 1997), along with colleagues, Dick and JoAnn Davidson (our children), William Shea and David Merling during an excursion into the Wadi Nasib in the Sinai during the month of July 1998. There I noticed a petroglyph of a camel being led by a man not far from a stele of Ammenemes III and some famous proto-Sinaitic inscriptions discovered by Georg Gerster in 1961. Based on the patina of the petroglyphs, the dates of the accompanying inscriptions and nearby archaeological remains it would seem that this camel petroglyph dates to the Late Bronze Age, probably not later than 1500 BC. Clearly, scholars who have denied the presence of domesticated camels in the 2nd millennium BC have been committing the fallacy of arguing from silence. This approach should not be allowed to cast doubt upon the veracity of any historical document, let alone Scripture.

It is interesting to note how, once an idea gets into the literature, it can become entrenched in conventional scholarly thinking. I remember doing research on the ancient site of Hama in Syria. As I was reading through the excavation reports (published in French), I came across a reference to a figurine from the 2nd millennium which the excavator thought must be a horse, but the strange hump in the middle of its back made one think of a camel. I looked at the photograph and the figurine was obviously that of a camel! This scholar was so influenced by the idea that camels were not used until the 1st millennium, that when he found a figurine of one in the second millennium, he felt compelled to call it a horse! This is a classic example of circular reasoning.


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Pottage
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I had been planning to read this book Merlin, as a result of this thread. But if that is their considered view then perhaps I won't bother. It doesn't sound as if they are all that up to speed.

I won't quote too extensively but as a first port of call you might like to read this article. From its concluding paragraph:

quote:
To encapsulate, Prof. MacDonald’s findings have an enormously important bearing on the Patriarchal narratives. First the pre-Abrahamic date for domesticated camels nullifies the claim that their mention in Genesis is anachronistic. Second, ownership of camels would have greatly facilitated the Patriarchs’ frequent travels between Mesopotamia and Canaan.
Egypt imported gum, balm, spices, slaves and many other products from the fertile crescent and elsewhere and had done so for a thousand years before the dates we assume for Joseph. That's well enough known to feature in High School textbooks of course, but if you'd like to get a bit of background on that you might start here, here, or here.
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Hawk

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Well done Pottage, you beat me to it. I don't have much detailed knowledge of this subject but it's easy enough to refute the more blatent claims of these authors with a few quick google searches.

I'm not interested in this book, as Barnabas62's link argued, the only point of it is to stimulate real scholars to not be complacent. In terms of actual scholarly works that are genuinely interested in finding the truth and not just knocking Christians I would be interested if anyone could recommend anyone. I've heard good things about Kenneth Kitchen and his book On the Reliability of the Old Testament looks very good. Has anyone read it?

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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts

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MerlintheMad
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You merely underscore the already noted controversy in dating the evidence.

Silberman and Finklestein are not out to "knock Christians"! These are highly qualified and regarded scholars and archeologists: Jewish of course: so perhaps they are out to "knock the Torah".

Do you really believe that they are unaware of what is in your typical high school textbooks?

I have read this book twice through, and both times I came away impressed that they want the truth and that is all they are after. I didn't sense any agenda regarding religion. I would trust their considered conclusions, therefore, before any scholar's who is obviously annoyed that such research would dare question the traditional biblical consensus....

[ 04. June 2009, 20:43: Message edited by: MerlintheMad ]

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Bullfrog.

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What of the "House of David inscription"?

Also, whether Israel was a regional power or a small tribal kingdom is somewhat semantic. It looks to me at some level that the fight isn't whether Israel as a social organization existed, but whether it was worth noticing. Even the Bible notes that the kingdom lasted about a generation as a united governable state, and spent the rest on the verge of anarchy. If I recall from class, the only times Israel did well at all was when the dominant empire du jour began to fall apart (Egypt first, then Assyria, then Babylon, then Persia, and finally Greece...they never really had a chance against Rome).

Perhaps it would help of we could figure out what our expectations are of this "Israel" thing, because there's pretty good evidence that something called "Israel" goes back at least to 1200 BC or so..

Since, theologically, I'm somewhat inclined to see the entire nationalization of Israel as a colossal mistake, I suppose it shouldn't bother me too much to know that they never really succeeded in the enterprise.

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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg

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Pottage
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quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

Do you really believe that they are unaware of what is in your typical high school textbooks?

I'd assume not. There's nothing questionable about their credentials. But what has been reported on this thread about their book is pretty uninspiring isn't it.

Two "sensations" are referred to in the OP. One of them is a fallacious argument that the absence of evidence of something equates to evidence of absence. The other is an interpretation of Kings which is shared by, well, everyone. Then you quote from their book an argument for their thesis that the Patriarchal stories are riddled with anachronisms, an argument which relies on scholarship that has been thoroughly discredited. I have a few books on the reading list already; I don't think I need to lengthen it with this one.

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JoannaP
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quote:
Originally posted by PhilA:
As far as the Exodus is concerned, lets be clear: there is no evidence of it happening as the bible portrays.

However, there is an unnamed city, dating from Ramses II that was unfinished for no discernible reason. Because the Egyptians didn't write about failures, only victories, there is nothing in the Egyptian archives about this place, it was literally stumbled upon by farmers and mentioned to archaeologists.

One explanation for why it wasn't finished is because the work force picked up and legged it. It is quite possible that these slaves (of which the Egyptian word is translated as 'Hebrew') began to identify as one people and became somewhat nomadic for a time.

PhilA,

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion that a Ramesside city was built by slaves?

By whom is the Egyptian word for "slave" translated as "Hebrew"? Why not translate it as "slave" if that is the closest English equivalent for the word? If you want to give a word a non-standard translation, you need a strong justification.

Joanna

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Hawk

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What books are on your reading list Pottage?

--------------------
“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts

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JoannaP
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To be slightly more on topic, my understanding is that "Bible Unearthed" was not intended to say anything new, but was written for a non-specialist audience. There is a large chasm between what is believed in university theology or archaeology departments and what is belived by most congregants; this book was written in a populist style to bridge that gap a little. IMHO it is certainly clearly written and the arguements are easy to follow.

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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin

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Pottage
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
What books are on your reading list Pottage?

Not much history at the moment actually, aside from a couple of books on British India. I'm weak: if I see The Bible Unearthed in a bookshop I'll probably end up buying it! [Smile]
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MerlintheMad
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JoannaP, that is correct, as far as reaching the general readership audience is concerned: but I think that Silberman and Finkelstein have attempted to break some new ground for thought as well.

From the authors' Acknowledgements:

"Almost eight years ago (that would be c. 1993) -- during a peaceful summer weekend with our families on the coast of Maine -- the idea for this book was born. The debate about the historical reliability of the Bible was again beginning to attract considerable attention outside scholarly circles and we came to the realization that an updated book on this subject for general readers was needed. In it, we could set out what we believed to be the compelling archaeological and historical evidence for a new understanding of the rise of ancient Israel and the emergence of its sacred historical texts.

"Over the intervening years, the archaeological battle over the Bible has grown increasingly bitter. It has sunk -- in some times and places -- to personal attacks and accusations of hidden political motives. Did the Exodus happen? Was there a conquest of Canaan? Did David and Solomon actually rule over a vast empire? Questions like these have attracted the attention of journalists and commentators all over the world. And the public discussion of each of these questions has often gone far beyond the confines of academic archaeology and biblical criticism into the hotly contested realms of theology and religious belief.

"Despite the passions aroused by this subject, we believe that a reassessment of finds from earlier excavations and the continuing discoveries by new digs have made it clear that scholars must now approach the problems of biblical origins and ancient Israelite society from a completely new perspective. In the following chapters, we will present evidence to bolster that contention and to reconstruct a very different history of ancient Israel. Readers must judge for themselves if our reconstruction fits the evidence."

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MerlintheMad
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Pottage, I found The Bible Unearthed at the local library, and bought my own paperback copy used on the Net for my second read....
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Jayhawker Soule

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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Why do the archaeologists seem so sure that this culture did not exist as written in Gen-Josh?

Which archaeologists? The ones who wrote this book? (which I haven't read of course) You'd have to ask them. I happen to think they are wrong.

Archaeologists in general? I think you'll find that some think one thing and some another.

I think you'll find a broad consensus among archaeologist if you were to take the time to look. It didn't happen. This is not just inference from lack of evidence, but inference to best explanation from abundant evidence, both in Egypt and Canaan.

[ 05. June 2009, 01:21: Message edited by: Jayhawker Soule ]

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if G-d (G-d is not X for all X)

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Jayhawker Soule

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quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
I found Jayhawker Soule’s post to be the funniest.

Laughter often accompanies willful ignorance, and I would venture to guess than you've never read a book on Syro-Palestinian Archaeology in your life. Since you so much enjoyed my previous quote, permit me another ...
quote:
During the first half of this century and even up through the 1960s, many archaeologists were optimistic that archaeological discoveries had validated many of the historical claims of the Bible, if not the theological interpretations given to that history by the Biblical authors. For example, Albright triumphantly declared in the mid 1930s: "Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details, and has brought increased recognition of the Bible as a source of history". Albright's most famous student, G. E. Wright, also believed that archaeology and the Bible were very closely aligned when he concluded that biblical archaeology's "chief concern is not with strata or pots or methodology. Its central and absorbing interest is the understanding and exposition of the scriptures".

Such sentiments as the above are examples of what Lemche has recently referred to as:
quote:
"the pervasive mania within certain archaeological circles for correlating text with excavation before either the text or the excavation has had an opportunity to speak for itself".
This highly optimistic view of what archaeology can do for biblical studies - historically speaking, at least - is now all but absent except among the most conservative of archaeologists and biblical historians. The contemporary view of most archaeologists is that the purpose of archaeology, however defined, is not to prove the Bible true in any sense, historically or otherwise.

- Archaeology and the Bible by John Laughlin

By the way, should you actually choose to stop chuckling long enough to read enough to have an informed opinion, may I suggest starting with:And, as I suggested earlier, spending some time at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem could be valuable as well. Or you can continue quote-mining the internet in an effort to support your presuppositions.

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if G-d (G-d is not X for all X)

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BroJames
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quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
<snip>Take the repeated mention of camels, for instance. The stories of the patriarchs are packed with camels, usually heards of camels; but as in the story of Joseph's sale by his brothers into slavery (Genesis 37:25), camels are also described as beasts of burden used in caravan trade. We now know through archeological research that camels were not domesticated as beasts of burden earlier than the late second millennium and were not widely used in that capacity in the ancient Near East until well after 1000 BCE. And an even more telling detail -- the camel caravan carrying "gum, balm, and myrrh", in the Joseph story -- reveals an obvious familiarity with the main products of the lucrative Arabian trade that flourished under the supervision of the Assyrian empire in the eighth-seventh centuries BCE....

"...It was only then that camels became a common enough feature of the landscape to be included as an incidental detail in a leterary narrative."<snip>

I just wanted to pick up on this part of the post, because it deals with something I do know about and can easily verify: namely the text of the Old Testament. There are only about half a dozen places altogether in the Pentateuch where camels are referred to (Gen 12 - Abraham's wealth, Gen 24 - a bride for Isaac, Gen 30 Jacob's wealth, Gen 31, 32 - Jacob's return home, Gen 37 Joseph sold by his brothers) so much for "packed with camels". In only two of those places are camels referred to as being used as beasts of burden. Secondly, they are not there as 'incidental detail', but as indicators of the unusual wealth of their owners.

The archaeological evidence appears to be equivocal as to the domestication of camels in general and as to their use as beasts of burden such that it would be overstating it even to say
quote:
there is no archaeological evidence that camels were domesticated as beasts of burden earlier than the late second millennium or that they were widely used in that capacity in the ancient Near East until well after 1000 BCE
let alone the stronger statement the authors make. What archaeological evidence do they adduce that positively shows that camels were not domesticated before the late second millennium, and that they were not widely used as beasts of burden in the ancient near east before 1000 BCE? Or are they just saying that there is no archaeological evidence to support that view - which is of course an argument from silence?
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Hawk

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quote:
Originally posted by Jayhawker Soule:
By the way, should you actually choose to stop chuckling long enough to read enough to have an informed opinion

Can’t I do both [Big Grin]

Your first post was funny as the author you quoted had the temerity to say that his 20 year old opinion was the last word on the subject. This arrogance and even willful ignorance of the continuing debate gave me a wry smile. I ‘quote-mined’ for some opposing viewpoints, not because they supported my viewpoint (which I haven’t fully decided on yet) but because they showed why his arrogance was inaccurate and humorous. I don’t think his opinion on archeology is disproved by a handful of internet quotes but I do think that his arrogance is nicely punctured.

I found your above post far more interesting and much more reasonable, despite your sniffy-nosed attitude towards me. I’ve just bought the Redford book off Amazon which looks very interesting. I am a history graduate but I am lacking in detailed knowledge of this period so I was actually grateful for your recommendations. Thank you.

--------------------
“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts

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Johnny S
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You'se guys just don't get it, do you?

It must be true, I read it in a book.

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Pottage
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As I understand it, it's very much Redford's theories that are represented in The Bible Unearthed so that might well be a useful read.

I do think though that it's unfair to assume that anyone who takes issue with that viewpoint is doing so because they cannot bear the thought that the Patriarchal stories and the early history of Israel and Judah as described in the OT might not be literally true. Some of the assertions made by ths school of thought are incompatible with actual discoveries in the dirt and it's legitimate to take issue with them on that score; it isn't simply a matter of people clinging blindly to unshakeable preconceptions of inerrancy.

I think Redford is thought of as the source for the lists of supposed anachronisms in Samuel which often seem to feature in articles on this. Some of these may well be indicative of later redaction, but some of them, on enquiry, turn out not to be anachronistic after all. Camels are one example, which perhaps we've already broken the back of in this thread, so another straw is unnecessary. Another is the reference to Goliath wearing scale armour: it's been said that this is an anachronism because 7th century warriors would have worn such armour. And of course it IS true that scale armour would have been familiar in the 7th century BCE, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also common in the tenth century. As indeed it was, with examples dating from the 10th and 11th centuries BCE pulled from the dirt in Megiddo, Lachish and elsewhere.

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Bullfrog.

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quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Did David and Solomon actually rule over a vast empire?

Just for one (and because I posted this before), who's arguing that David and Solomon ruled over a "vast empire"?

--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg

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MerlintheMad
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"Vast" is comparative: in this case it would include all of present day Israel, and north into Lebanon and south to the borders of Egypt, and east to the desert: as the OT tells us. It would also mean that Israel was dominant, i.e. completely independent of either Egypt or Asyria. Instead, the evidence from the ground limits "Israel" and "Judah" to the narrow strip along the Jordan and southern highlands, and gives them respectively populations of c. 50K and 5K ONLY....

[ 05. June 2009, 16:05: Message edited by: MerlintheMad ]

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Mad Geo

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quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
You'se guys just don't get it, do you?

It must be true, I read it in a book.

It does kinda reflect on the Bible that way, doesn't it!

LOL

--------------------
Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"

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Bullfrog.

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quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
"Vast" is comparative: in this case it would include all of present day Israel, and north into Lebanon and south to the borders of Egypt, and east to the desert: as the OT tells us. It would also mean that Israel was dominant, i.e. completely independent of either Egypt or Asyria. Instead, the evidence from the ground limits "Israel" and "Judah" to the narrow strip along the Jordan and southern highlands, and gives them respectively populations of c. 50K and 5K ONLY....

The biblical record says that Israel was only very very briefly (and always very tenuously) independent, and calling it "dominant" seems to stretch the word a bit. I think the authors are shoving a case onto their opponents that at least some of them wouldn't agree with themselves. Are the authors perhaps engaging in an implicit criticism of the modern nation of Israel through this criticism of the bible as a source? Are these their true antagonists?

More historically...

"The Borders of Egypt" The Egyptian Empire went through a lot of expansion and contraction over history. It used to include, I think, much of what is now the modern nation called Israel.

50K people might have been a sizable population at the time, considering the resources and neighboring states. If I recall from our study of Amos, Israel had a major growth spurt in the 800s (the period leading up to Amos' writing), which partly inspired Amos' rants against wealthy people sticking it to the poor. As you say, it's comparative.

"As the OT tells us"...chapter and verse? I feel that it's there, but it'd be easier if we had some specific text to work from.

--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg

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ken
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The camels are really interesting. The OT seems to get horses, donkeys and mules exactly right (i.e. agrees with modern view of their history), which , as I said, I think is pretty clear evidence that the original sources do come from before the time of the kingdoms.

It used to be commonplace that camels were not domesticated back then so the mentions in Genesis had to be anachronisms. I'm not sure if that's still the case.

I don't know where or when camels were domesticated. I have no particular background knowlege on camel domestication (crops, on the other hand, I can do - I've passed exams in that!) I'd imagine that we'll get good information from genetics one day. I don't know if we've done the work yet (I found an online account of an Alpaca genome project, but not one for hunmped camels). They must have been familiar in Canaan before about 1050/1100 BC, because that is when they started calling the third letter of the alphabet "gimel" (which is camel) and they would not have done that if no-one knew what a camel was. But how long before that seems to be anybody's guess.

If you just do a cursory Google you get a big range of dates, mostly on pretty dodgy-looking sources.The outliers seem to be on polemical websites addressing this exact point. There is one "OMG the Bible is a Fake!" site that says 700BC. And another one that seems to be mainly for Holy Land Tours that says 3000 BC. Even superficially serious scientific sites sometimes give the game away by throwing in references to "evolutionists" or quoting from Bible dictionsaries published in 1931. Most seem to say between 1000 and 2000 BC.

Some people think the earliest written mention of camels is in some tablets from Alalakh (another city in that same bit of northern Syria as Haran and Carcemish and Urfa and all the rest of them) from about 1500 BC so exactly the right time & place. But some people think its not about camels at all!

In the Oman areas archaeologists have found a few burned camel bones in houses from as long ago as 5500 BC but they might well be hunted animals. (though it is evidence against the once popular idea that Arabian one-humped camels originated as a domesticated variety of central Asian two-humped camels) There are unburned bones in a place called Umm an Nar, an island near Abu Dhabi, and a picture of a camel on a tile. That's from 2200-2600 BC. But no other apparent domestic camel remains in the area from then till 900 BC. Some people think that taht is evidence of domesticartion. Others that they were kept as meat animals but not used for riding. And at least some that they were wild camels hunted for meat (but the paper I read that in thinks camels were first domesticated as pets!)

The most referenced text on domestication seems to be a PhD thesis from 1981 by Ilse Köhler-Rollefson who I think reckoned it was 1500-1000 BC. She seems to have since revised her opinions, perhaps because of Umm an Nar, and now says about 2500 BC (But she is a big camel fan....)

The earlier part of that range is fine for the idea that there were camels in Patriarchal times, the later part is not. So the jury still seems to be out on whether the camels have to be an anachronism or not. 1500 BC, no problem. 1100 BC, problem. 300 years in it - but the estimates vary by more than that.

--------------------
Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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JoannaP
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quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
Are the authors perhaps engaging in an implicit criticism of the modern nation of Israel through this criticism of the bible as a source? Are these their true antagonists?

If Finkelstein was that severe a critic of the modern nation of Israel, would he be the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University? I assume with his reputation he could easily get a post in Europe or the US if he wanted to leave Israel.

--------------------
"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
"Vast" is comparative: in this case it would include all of present day Israel, and north into Lebanon and south to the borders of Egypt, and east to the desert: as the OT tells us. It would also mean that Israel was dominant, i.e. completely independent of either Egypt or Asyria. Instead, the evidence from the ground limits "Israel" and "Judah" to the narrow strip along the Jordan and southern highlands, and gives them respectively populations of c. 50K and 5K ONLY....

Of course they couldn't have been exaggerating to make their little kingdom sound bigger and tougher than it really was. A dose of wishful thinking can't be ruled out either. In other words just because they got the extent of the kingdom wrong doesn't necessarily say anything about when it was written.

[ 05. June 2009, 17:54: Message edited by: mousethief ]

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
Are the authors perhaps engaging in an implicit criticism of the modern nation of Israel through this criticism of the bible as a source? Are these their true antagonists?

If Finkelstein was that severe a critic of the modern nation of Israel, would he be the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University?
I don't see why not. One can be a severe critic of (say) the United States and still love the country and wish to remain in it.

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

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Bullfrog.

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mousethief put it pretty well. I know tons of people in American universities who stridently oppose American nationalism expressed abroad.

--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg

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MerlintheMad
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quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
..."As the OT tells us"...chapter and verse? I feel that it's there, but it'd be easier if we had some specific text to work from.

(Gen. 15:18)

18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

Israel intended to subject all the lands given to their father Abram. There are far too many references in the OT to list here; but they are the evidence that goes into the maps of most Bibles, showing the extent of the various kingdoms of Saul, David, Solomon, Israel and Judah. At the fullest extent -- Solomon's kingdom -- it reached from Egypt well north of Damascus to the Euphrates, and east of Jordan to the desert, and to the borders of a much reduced Philistia and Phoenicia.

But the rub seems to be that there is NO evidence, outside the OT claims, that the legendary David and Solomon ever actually held anymore than their ancestral lands in the Jordan valley and the central hill country....

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JoannaP
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quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
mousethief put it pretty well. I know tons of people in American universities who stridently oppose American nationalism expressed abroad.

O.K. I know this sounds as if I am contradicting my prevous post, but I find it easier to imagine some-one in that position "stridently" expressing their criticism than doing it "implicitly" through a book on their country's prehistory and early history.

--------------------
"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin

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Bullfrog.

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quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
mousethief put it pretty well. I know tons of people in American universities who stridently oppose American nationalism expressed abroad.

O.K. I know this sounds as if I am contradicting my prevous post, but I find it easier to imagine some-one in that position "stridently" expressing their criticism than doing it "implicitly" through a book on their country's prehistory and early history.
Fair enough. And doing some reading on the guy, it looks like I was somewhat mistaken. Apparently he himself is a traditional Jew of the sort who does all the ritual stuff but views the bible entirely as a medium for the Jewish tradition, ahistorically. He supports Israel's "right to exist" (though I'm not sure how far he takes that notion), he doesn't seem to be a strong Zionist, and he pointedly says his support of Israel has nothing to do with biblical historicity.

It fascinates me in an amateurish sort of way that his biblical hermeneutic is the same as his historical argument, but that's mostly conjectural. If his hermeneutic was influencing his archaeology, it would probably lead him to where he seems to be, drawing as strong a line as possible between biblical history and physical history, rejecting anything biblical as real unless there was absolute 100% evidence to the contrary.

Though it does interest me that he seems to have shifted as evidence continued from "David didn't exist," to "David existed, but he (with his so-called 'kingdom') was a small fry who didn't amount to much."

--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg

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Jay-Emm
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I'm not quite sure what the kind of find levels would be,

At the one extreme I refuse to believe that we could disprove Ruth's existence because we've not found any record of her even if we found every artifact going and a myriad eye witneses (and would suspect fraud if anyone found direct proof-the names of the tribes or places might be a springboard for questioning though...).

At the other if we hadn't found Babylon now it would put Chronicles in trouble (although would I have said that 200years ago?)

But in the middle, not being a historian, I have no idea what level of evidence would be expected given what we've explored, I've heard of some of the big finds but no idea of the scale of the little data (e.g. independent tablets that could have had David's name on but didn't, do we have approximately one for every year or every century)? Would we expect (Chi2?) to be 1% sure he didn't exist or 99%.

If I made up a tale that France almost stretched to Russia or Nomads took over China, and it got accepted as historical truth what kind of (lack of) evidence would be accepted sufficient to prove it as a myth/true?

Anyhow sorry that's confusing, but I'm really not sure to what extent we'd expect to be able to answer from silence, or be confident in our assertions
(e.g. "Biggles must be wrong begause it's hero is fighting a 5th century tribe in Europe with a dromedary that's native to Asia").

Jayemm

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Bullfrog.

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quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
..."As the OT tells us"...chapter and verse? I feel that it's there, but it'd be easier if we had some specific text to work from.

(Gen. 15:18)

18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

Israel intended to subject all the lands given to their father Abram. There are far too many references in the OT to list here; but they are the evidence that goes into the maps of most Bibles, showing the extent of the various kingdoms of Saul, David, Solomon, Israel and Judah. At the fullest extent -- Solomon's kingdom -- it reached from Egypt well north of Damascus to the Euphrates, and east of Jordan to the desert, and to the borders of a much reduced Philistia and Phoenicia.

But the rub seems to be that there is NO evidence, outside the OT claims, that the legendary David and Solomon ever actually held anymore than their ancestral lands in the Jordan valley and the central hill country....

I tend to figure that the older the text is, the less accuracy to expect from it. Abram is about as old as it gets, and in that frame I'd agree that the promise meant a potentiality, not a reality. Again, the biblical account would agree with Finkelstein that as far as reaching that potential went, the ancient state of Israel was a failure.

Where did it say that Solomon's Kingdom extended from Egypt to Lebanon? If Chronicles, that wouldn't surprise me, since I'd agree that Chronicles is obviously the idealized sort of post-exilic text that Finkelstein is talking about, the idealized recollections of the returning priests and upper-crust. That's why David and Solomon seem so much shinier in Chronicles than they do in Samuel or Kings.

Far as evidence goes, I glanced at a few lines of Finkelstein's book (while looking for a quote about kernels) and he seems to argue mostly from evidence garnered from the 8th century onward (basically, stuff covered with respectable accuracy in prophetic books like Amos and Hosea, which are also in the Bible, as well as Kings).

I guess one problem with saying "The Bible says" is that the Bible isn't a single book, but a collection. It might be more interesting to look at different parts of the bible and figure out where they fit in historically. What was it that created the "House of David" and "King of Israel" that have been confirmed to exist as political entities as far back as the ninth century and as far north as Tel Dan (which some sources refer to as "northernmost Israel"?*

*Tel Dan Stele

--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg

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Jayhawker Soule

ignostic
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Jayhawker Soule:
By the way, should you actually choose to stop chuckling long enough to read enough to have an informed opinion

I found your above post far more interesting and much more reasonable, despite your sniffy-nosed attitude towards me. I’ve just bought the Redford book off Amazon which looks very interesting. I am a history graduate but I am lacking in detailed knowledge of this period so I was actually grateful for your recommendations. Thank you.
You're most welcome. Might I recommend that you pay particular attention to his brief discussion of the Shasu, quite possibly the origins of the tetragrammaton.

Parenthetically, a somewhat different yet equally informative approach to the subject can be found in works such as From Epic to Canon and Early History of God.

--------------------
if G-d (G-d is not X for all X)

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Johnny S
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quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
You'se guys just don't get it, do you?

It must be true, I read it in a book.

It does kinda reflect on the Bible that way, doesn't it!

My mistake. I should have said, "It can't be true, I read it in a book."
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MerlintheMad
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quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
...Where did it say that Solomon's Kingdom extended from Egypt to Lebanon? ...

Actually it didn't take in "Lebanon", as that was Phoenicia (the Sidonians). But Solomon's kingdom, inland, went north of there. I was looking at the map in the NIV of the united kingdom (Saul to Solomon), and it shows the northernmost territory, Hamath which reaches the Euphrates, as "under Solomon's control." That is based on scriptural inference, but I don't recall which passage(s). The Catholic Study Bible (NAB) does not go into such specifics about showing clear borders, and does not even extend any further than showing Damascus, i.e. no "Hamath" depiction like in the NIV. The differences would seem to be based on whether or not a conservative view of Solomon's control is held?...
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Jayhawker Soule

ignostic
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quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
As I understand it, it's very much Redford's theories that are represented in The Bible Unearthed so that might well be a useful read.

I do think though that it's unfair to assume that anyone who takes issue with that viewpoint is doing so because they cannot bear the thought that the Patriarchal stories and the early history of Israel and Judah as described in the OT might not be literally true. Some of the assertions made by ths school of thought are incompatible with actual discoveries in the dirt and it's legitimate to take issue with them on that score; it isn't simply a matter of people clinging blindly to unshakeable preconceptions of inerrancy.

I think Redford is thought of as the source for the lists of supposed anachronisms in Samuel which often seem to feature in articles on this. Some of these may well be indicative of later redaction, but some of them, on enquiry, turn out not to be anachronistic after all. Camels are one example, which perhaps we've already broken the back of in this thread, so another straw is unnecessary. Another is the reference to Goliath wearing scale armour: it's been said that this is an anachronism because 7th century warriors would have worn such armour. And of course it IS true that scale armour would have been familiar in the 7th century BCE, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also common in the tenth century. As indeed it was, with examples dating from the 10th and 11th centuries BCE pulled from the dirt in Megiddo, Lachish and elsewhere.

I believe you to be entirely mistaken. Professor Finkelstein is an archaeologist with unimpeachable credentials who's views stem primarily from his field work and satistical analysis of Israelite ethnogenesis in the hill country. Professor Redford is an Egyptologist. While his views on the Exodus are shared (and briefly quoted) by Finkelstein, it is a natural overlap, and his explication of the relevant Egyptian archaeology goes qualitatively above and beyond any "lists of supposed anachronisms."

As for ...
quote:
Some of the assertions made by ths school of thought are incompatible with actual discoveries in the dirt and it's legitimate to take issue with them on that score; it isn't simply a matter of people clinging blindly to unshakeable preconceptions of inerrancy.
... I would be more than happy to discuss these actual discoveries one by one.

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if G-d (G-d is not X for all X)

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Jayhawker Soule

ignostic
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quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I guess one problem with saying "The Bible says" is that the Bible isn't a single book, but a collection. It might be more interesting to look at different parts of the bible and figure out where they fit in historically. What was it that created the "House of David" and "King of Israel" that have been confirmed to exist as political entities as far back as the ninth century and as far north as Tel Dan (which some sources refer to as "northernmost Israel"?*

*Tel Dan Stele

Well said.

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if G-d (G-d is not X for all X)

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leo
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Well said, indeed.

the appeal to ‘what the Bible says’ is what Paul so emphatically opposes, for he would point us to what a loving God is doing in transforming and enabling lives in the present through the Spirit. This will depend not on the letter of the text, but on using the Bible as part of the complex way of discerning what the divine Spirit is now saying to the churches. Too often Christians have ended up functioning as if they did not have a doctrine of the Spirit, or, if they have, somehow the voice of the Spirit is identified with the text of scripture or what Christians have said in the past (more accurately, what the majority of — and most influential — Christian voices have said). To take seriously the fact that ‘the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ (2 Corinthians 3.6) means quite simply that God’s Spirit may be saying something new in speaking to our ever-changing situations. The Bible for sinners – C. Rowlands and J. Roberts (SPCK 2008) pp. 22f

I prefer the plural term used by Jesus when he spoke about the Hebrew scriptures, hai graphai, or “the writings.” The singular (capitalized) term “Scripture,” increasingly common in conservative writing, may perhaps be chosen deliberately because of the homogeneous (and misleading) impression it gives that within this single category all is equally capable of being used by the Spirit to inspire the Church. The heterogeneous (and biblical) plural “scriptures” is more satisfactory (The singular “Bible” also conveys a sense of homogeneity unavailable from the plural Greek word biblia, “little books,” from which it derives.) The Savage Text – Sdrian Thatcher (Wiley-Blackwell 2008) p. 151

Hundreds of Protestant theologians have convinced themselves that when they read the Bible, it speaks to them. The Bible, they confidently assert, “speaks”: it “says,’’ while we “listen” and “obey.” It is necessary to point to an obvious fact — that “speaks’ is a metaphor — in order to unmask the dangerous and potentially disastrous category mistake that these loose locutionary metaphors appear to authorize, Texts do not speak. They let themselves be read. The Savage Text – Sdrian Thatcher (Wiley-Blackwell 2008) p.144

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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com

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Pottage
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quote:
Originally posted by Jayhawker Soule:
I believe you to be entirely mistaken. Professor Finkelstein is an archaeologist with unimpeachable credentials who's views stem primarily from his field work and satistical analysis of Israelite ethnogenesis in the hill country. Professor Redford is an Egyptologist. While his views on the Exodus are shared (and briefly quoted) by Finkelstein, it is a natural overlap, and his explication of the relevant Egyptian archaeology goes qualitatively above and beyond any "lists of supposed anachronisms."

You're entirely at liberty to believe that I am mistaken. I might be, though nothing you have posted demonstrates that I am.

I haven't challenged the professional expertise or credentials of Finkelstein or Redford. I have said they they are representative of one school of thought on this topic (which is true), and that there are other opinions (which is true). And I have said that you are wrong to assert that all those who hold contradictory opinions do so because their minds are closed to science by their position on issues such as Biblical inerrancy. In fact some do so because they interpret the archaeology differently to those whom you particulary admire.

As it happens, though I don't like what I have read on this thread about about the book that this thread is about, overall I am closer to the Finkelstein "camp" as it were than to his fiercer critics. I would have hoped that this is apparent from my posts, but the tone of your post suggests that perhaps it is not.

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Jayhawker Soule

ignostic
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quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by Jayhawker Soule:
I believe you to be entirely mistaken. Professor Finkelstein is an archaeologist with unimpeachable credentials who's views stem primarily from his field work and satistical analysis of Israelite ethnogenesis in the hill country. Professor Redford is an Egyptologist. While his views on the Exodus are shared (and briefly quoted) by Finkelstein, it is a natural overlap, and his explication of the relevant Egyptian archaeology goes qualitatively above and beyond any "lists of supposed anachronisms."

You're entirely at liberty to believe that I am mistaken. I might be, though nothing you have posted demonstrates that I am.

I haven't challenged the professional expertise or credentials of Finkelstein or Redford. I have said they they are representative of one school of thought on this topic (which is true), and that there are other opinions (which is true). And I have said that you are wrong to assert that all those who hold contradictory opinions do so because their minds are closed to science by their position on issues such as Biblical inerrancy. In fact some do so because they interpret the archaeology differently to those whom you particulary admire.

As it happens, though I don't like what I have read on this thread about about the book that this thread is about, overall I am closer to the Finkelstein "camp" as it were than to his fiercer critics. I would have hoped that this is apparent from my posts, but the tone of your post suggests that perhaps it is not.

Respectfully, what archaeology in particular do you find subject to a different interpretation?

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if G-d (G-d is not X for all X)

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Pottage
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quote:
Originally posted by Jayhawker Soule:
Respectfully, what archaeology in particular do you find subject to a different interpretation?

I wouldn't like this thread to descend into the sort of debate you find between protagonists in this rather bitter little debate. I know you've asserted here that Finkelstein's POV is accepted by an overwhelming consensus of archaeologists, but really that overstates the case: anyone with a passing interest in the topic or five minutes to spare to Google it will know that the debate between the different viewpoints is ongoing and unresolved. Moreover it often seems to descend into some rather distasteful name calling which makes me uncomfortable.

But I've given a couple of examples already on this thread where, as reported here anyway, The Bible Unearthed takes what seems to me to be an unjustified leap. For instance MerlintheMad quotes from the book a passage which treats the following opinion as evidential of the Patriarchal stories having been fabricated of whole cloth in the 7th century BCE:

quote:
And an even more telling detail -- the camel caravan carrying "gum, balm, and myrrh", in the Joseph story -- reveals an obvious familiarity with the main products of the lucrative Arabian trade that flourished under the supervision of the Assyrian empire in the eighth-seventh centuries BCE
Of course it IS true that these items WERE traded to Egypt in the 7th/8th century. But they were also traded to Egypt along essentially the same trade routes for hundreds of years before that. I can't make up my mind on the issue of low/high chronology to be entirely honest, but some arguments on both sides seem to me to be pretty unconvincing, and this is one of them.

I hasten to make it clear (though I've said this already) that this doesn't mean I think that, for example, the Exodus happened just as the Biblical record describes. Very clearly there has been considerable embellishment. But the case isn't made for simply asserting as I know from this thread is your opinion:

quote:
[the Exodus] didn't happen, not in the 15th century BCE and not in the 13th century BCE.
A true view, I think, based on what we know so far in scientific terms is more likely to be something like this:

"It's implausible for many reasons that it happened just as the Bible tells us. It may not have happened at all, or it may have happened at a different date and in a different way than would be gleaned from a literal reading of the Bible. But there's litle evidence either way, and such as there is is incomplete and is patchy enough to be subject to conflicting interpretations. Many of those differing opinions are sincerely held by archaeologists and historians based on rigrous analysis rather than their respective personal views of the relevant books of the Bible."

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Jayhawker Soule

ignostic
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quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by Jayhawker Soule:
Respectfully, what archaeology in particular do you find subject to a different interpretation?

I wouldn't like this thread to descend into the sort of debate you find between protagonists in this rather bitter little debate. I know you've asserted here that Finkelstein's POV is accepted by an overwhelming consensus of archaeologists, but really that overstates the case: anyone with a passing interest in the topic or five minutes to spare to Google it will know that the debate between the different viewpoints is ongoing and unresolved.
I don't believe I ever suggested "that Finkelstein's [general] POV is accepted by an overwhelming consensus of archaeologists" and, in fact, began by quoting Dever precisely because he is best known as an ardent polemicist against both Finkelstein and the minimalists. As for the debate between the minimalists and their detractors, I generally find myself more closely aligned to the latter.

Perhaps we should both take a few moments to reread the OP and my initial response ...

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if G-d (G-d is not X for all X)

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Hawk

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This is an interesting discussion, despite (or perhaps because of) the entrenched viewpoints of some posts. Due to my ignorance of the subject I still haven't made up my mind over much of this. On certain details though I can say with some degree of (personal) certainty. The debate is not over, there is no "broad consensus" to support the Minimalist viewpoint. Just as there is no broad consensus about any other viewpoint.

Also, IMO, the supposed anachronisms are flawed argument and carry very little weight with me. They are either wrong (see camels) or can quite easily be argued either way (see spice trade). What I am interested in is not this poor textual analysis and arguing from silence but in the actual evidence that has been uncovered.

Merlin has mentioned that they found evidence that there was no destruction layers in the archeology of the period where the invasions of Canaan were supposed to have taken place. That they knew where to look and the counter-argument that they just haven’t found the evidence yet can’t be true as they have found the evidence and it is not as the Bible records (I.e. that during the period where the Bible says the city or town was supposed to have been attacked and destroyed the archeology of the walls etc has been uncovered and show no sign of this) This is interesting if true. Would someone who has read this book or other minimalists be able to fill me in on some details about this? I would be interested as to which period the archeologists were looking in to find these layers. Are their targeted dates accurate? Did they check other periods that have been suggested for the time of the Canaan invasions (as obviously there is debate about this)?

I have heard that the walls of Jericho were actually discovered and they had fallen outwards (as the Bible records) which was unique. Surely this is evidence of destruction in the archeology? What do the minimalists say to argue against this?

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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts

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