I just want to say thanks for your work, this is a subject I've had a casual interest in over the last year or so.

Add some paragraphs Nony using the "edit" button under your post, before someone clicks the "reply" button to your post. I will read that tomorrow .... thanks for sharing. 

[ ADD-ed next evening ] I have no argument with your summary, as I see those ancient writers as largely patriots of their society, as today I read the "land of the free" from ours, and Batman policing New York. 

Could you list your sources please?

Umm, how come the Greek Gods don't get such a break? How about the Ancient Jewish Literature" section then?   

Yeah, Science doesn't kill people: people kill people.

<P>

Most of my observations are that there is no evidence. One cannot expect proof of a negative. Is there anything in particular you have in mind?

Bristling is not a good thing. I leads to boils of biblical proportions.<P>

My issue is what you would have us understand when there is no evidence such a culture ever existed. Only faith leads one to believe it existed. And from real history we know such a culture could not have existed as the real history of bibleland tells us it was always under foreign rule of some sort. We also know of the temple of Astarte, aka STRaTo's Tower, BYT STRT in Jerusalem until Rome rebuilt the city in the early 2nd c. AD. Pray tell, what possible "culture" could be divined from stories which describe a culture which never existed? <P>

One imagines the virtues Homer incororated into his epics were no more than poetic license and did not represent the Achean culture -- even if there was a war with Ilium that resembles the story in the Iliad. <P>

Trying to elevate the OT to being representative of a culture that clearly did not exist or, if you prefer, left no trace from which bible information could be deduced, is like learning of Aztec and Mayan culture from the Book of Mormon.<P>

But consider silk appeared in Egypt in the 3rd millennium BC. Bibleland was on that trade route, technically part of the sild road. Places along trade routes tend to be cosmopolitan almost liberal in terms fo what was liberal in those days. All the cultures which participated the trade routes passing through bibleland had more advanced religions than the bible says was in bibleland.<P>

According to the bible the good guys were genital mutilating savages with a ritual/taboo primitive religion. It also paints their neighbors in a worse light with human sacrifice. <P>

First it is unlikely such a culture could have existed along a major trade route. Second it is incredible the civilized cultures would have failed to remark on the existence of these savages. Third, it is only partially understandable that they may have chosen not to wipe them out or at least their human sacrifice neighbors just for the sake of human decency.<P>

One may not like my explanation but believers have even greater problems. If they want the OT to have been written in the 5th c. BC then anything before that is fiction and there is nothing to be learned. Any claim it was based upon records has to produce the records before talking about them. And if one wants these books created earlier than that one has to address them being all wrong about Egypt and the time when it ruled bibleland. No matter how one looks at it the OT is at best historical fiction without the punch of Homer.<P>

But if you can produce some evidence which makes it at least plausible that the OT describes a culture which actually existed please feel free to do so. A few letters here and there cannot substantiate the entire OT. What should be even easier, produce evidence of the non-religious records which in every other culture are at least ten times more common. Where are the Judean king lists carved in stone as in Egypt? Where are the secular records of bible events to be found in bibleland? A few questionable mentions in other civilizations do not answer the mail. Such prolific writers as the bible good guys left no local records of their amazing victories in battle? How is this possible?<P>

Of course I do not accept an appeal to authority as that is a logical fallacy. I do not accept, What else could it be? as that is another logical fallacy. Certainly tradition is unacceptable as all but the biblethumpers agree that Solomon and evenything before him is myth.<P>

The time at which myth starts in the OT has been moving ever more recent even among believers. As in the past so also today beleivers decline to be pinned down as to when they claim the stories were created. After X date does not pin it down. The 2nd c. BC is also "post-exilic" on the false presumption there was an exile.

Our culture is selective on which god gets the benefit of the doubt and which people are credited with credibility. We have the Iliad. We know the Achean culture existed. We know their gods. We even have Ilium although there are still questions of the war having happened as described or even happened at all. This is all in the archaeological finds. The general facts do not disagree with the story of the war.<P>

But from the beginning the claim that Ilium was discovered was in question. It still is today although the most recent finds may support it. That is recent as in the last few months. <P>

But in bibleland there is not the least evidence the city existed prior to Alexander although there might have been a village there. Certainly there is no evidence of any temple of Solomon. There is evidence of a temple in Roman times from multiple sources but they also indicate it could not have been where the Dome of the Rock is today. <P>

But if we were to take the Iliad seriously the gods intervened and occasionally required human sacrifice as the price of intervention. But as they did win clearly the Greek gods were and are real. And then the "sophisticated" come along and claim the ideals in the Iliad were real. <P>

It is quite like believing a Hollylwood war movie prior to Vietnam. Everyone was patriotic, idealist and fought for mom, apple pie and the flag. But when it comes to the bible, the people really were like that. Fine with me. They were genital mutilating savages. Believers can't have it both ways.

Don't try to be pedantic. Of course the city was Jerusalem, the same one that Sennacherib called Ur-sa-li-im-mu in  his description of the siege of Jerusalem.

If you must know about Akkadian cuneiform, why not buy a book on the subject. I really don't understand why you have to bend  over backwards to show your willful lack of knowledge.

I referred you to the Zenon archive. Try buying a book, such as Martin Hengel's "Judaism and Hellenism". If you want to know about the Palestinian encounter with Alexander the Great, look up the Wadi ed-Daliyeh papyri.

Do me a favor and at least try to spell the name as is recognized in English.

If you so need to see evidence for Yehud, why don't you look at the coins here?

Actually I was using the last verses of 2 Chronicles a book whose latter parts feature a fair amount of history. If you don't want to admit it as a source please explain why not citing why it is wrong on that count while being right about most things checkable from the conflict with Sennacherib down to the captivity of Jehoiachin.

Well, why not check out the following articles?

The Jewish Temple at Elephantine 

Stephen G. Rosenberg

Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 4-13

Exchange of Inherited Property at Elephantine (Cowley 1)

H.Z.Szubin

Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 102, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1982), pp. 651-654

This latter deals with Jewish law as evinced at Elephantine. Now, please stop bullshitting. You know nothing about Elephantine. No scholar that I've read in a peer-reviewed journal doubts the Jewishness of the Elephantine colony. If you have a rabbit up your sleeve, now is the time to produce it.

See Broken Prism A, Sargon II, "The the rulers of Philistia, Judah, Ed[om], Moab (and) those who live (on islands) and bring tribute". Jehoahaz of Judah is mentioned in an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III, and it seems obvious that it is a tribute list, though it's fragmentary.

Stop talking rot. Your desire to keep your eyes glued shut is very sad and you should get over it. There is enough evidence out there for you to obtain on your own without trying to get someone to hold your hand over it.

spin

>Don't try to be pedantic. Of course the city was Jerusalem, the same one that Sennacherib called Ur-sa-li-im-mu in his description of the siege of Jerusalem.

I don't even know how to spell pedantic. Why do you accuse me of it? If you can get that name out of non-phonetic glyphs you can get most anything you want. Now all you need do is find evidence in this oddly spelled city of this conquest with proper carbon dating. Without the carbon dating you cannot distinguish this from a later story invented around this description. I can create a story around it today. That does not make my story authentic.

>If you must know about Akkadian cuneiform, why not buy a book on the subject. I really don't understand why you have to bend over backwards to show your willful lack of knowledge.

Why would I need a book when you are here as an expert on the subject and can explain it all to everyone reading this? Please feel free to do so. Yes it was an attempt to adapt the synonym cuneiforms into a phonetic language. It is the language of the tablets found at Ugarit giving the same biblical titles of Yahweh as a minor deity and his consort as Ashara. You make assumptions which are unwarranted.

>> The Maccabe... >Do me a favor and at least try to spell the name as is recognized in English.

I spell it in the preferred English of Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post, both Israeli newspapers in a "hebrew" speaking country. It also matches Makkah, hammer, in Arabic. So Judah Maccabe would be the equivalent of Abu Maccabe today. Judah then means nom de guerre.

>>The Persians did no such thing. The single passage is that Cyrus returned holy things to their places. When Babylon conquered it took the local supreme god idol to Babylon. That is what Persia returned. Else one has to deal with the Judeans being holy things, neutered, which can only salvaged as a reference to circumcision.

>Actually I was using the last verses of 2 Chronicles a book whose latter parts feature a fair amount of history. If you don't want to admit it as a source please explain why not citing why it is wrong on that count while being right about most things checkable from the conflict with Sennacherib down to the captivity of Jehoiachin.

So you assumed Chronicles contains history and therefore used it to demonstrate it contains history. IF you have physical evidence of a captivity in Babylon please present it. If not please stop pretending you do. There is exactly one claim of physical evidence from Babylon which is a joke to say the least.

>Well, why not check out the following articles?

As you are familiar with those articles why do you not present the evidence in them? Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

>This latter deals with Jewish law as evinced at Elephantine. Now, please stop bullshitting. You know nothing about Elephantine. No scholar that I've read in a peer-reviewed journal doubts the Jewishness of the Elephantine colony. If you have a rabbit up your sleeve, now is the time to produce it.

That depends upon what you have read to find no doubts. Barely two decades ago there were no doubts of Moses and Solomon. So please recite what you have learned from peer reviewed journals as appeals to authority are logical fallacies.

As for "jewishness" I have no idea how to make sense of that. A local primitive superstition that was incorporated into the later invention of the OT does not make it intrinsic to the later creation. It is no different from saying the Aztecs and Incas and Mayans existed therefore the Book of Mormon is authentic.

You are claiming genital mutilating savages really did exist in the midst of civilized cultures. That is not reasonable. That is worse than Ozark hillbillies existing in the US.

>See Broken Prism A, Sargon II, "The the rulers of Philistia, Judah, Ed[om], Moab (and) those who live (on islands) and bring tribute". Jehoahaz of Judah is mentioned in an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III, and it seems obvious that it is a tribute list, though it's fragmentary.

How does this differ from proving Atlantis by reference to Plato without primary evidence of Atlantis? Please show me the physical evidence from Judah of biblical Judah. Show me the physical evidence of this kingdom from the kingdom itself. Why is this so hard if it is so certain? I have asked for this from the beginning and still nothing.

Believers are constantly into secondary evidence. There is nothing to eliminate a story inspired by this inscription created in the 2nd c. BC. We know biblical Egypt did not exist. Why would anyone assume biblical Judah existed?

I have no gripe with you. You have a position very much in favor of the genital mutilating savages and their ritual/taboo society. Why you think it is something of value I have not the least idea unless you were told you were born jewish and bought into the zionist mythology of a jewish people instead of only a religion. I assume you are not a murderer and thief and therefore you cannot be a zionist.

So I do not see why you want to believe. I have been in many science related exchanges over the years and as a physicist I do not tell people to read books. I give them the facts and if they do not understand I explain further until there is no misunderstanding. You do not do that. You keep appealing to authority.

Why is it you do not require primary evidence from bibleland but have to go far afield to find imaginings of references?

<hr>

Please keep in mind I would be the first to jump at a secular version of the bible stories to see what was really going one. From what I have found I would expect to find warring priests inciting riots against other priests of other gods and the local king trying to keep the peace. That is almost the story we find in the Bar Kochba revolt except they agreed on the god but not on what it wanted. A secular version would make sense of all of this nonsense.<P>

But we find no secular record at all. Was it destroyed? How did that happen without leaving evidence? How is it ALL secular records were destroyed even though unrelated to biblical stuff? Where are the secular records of this great kingdom  of Judah? Who destroyed them and why? At one time I was told the devil inspired their destruction . What is your explanation for no evidence in bibleland itself?

Is modern history written by free honest people?

What one uses as raw material for ancient history is certainly not unbiased material. Historians have to wade through it with difficulty and care. But there is often lots of strange collaboration.

spin

The reason why A_Nony_Mouse hasn't got any sources is because A_Nony_Mouse doesn't know what's available. In fact A_Nony_Mouse doesn't want to know about the evidence that Judah did in fact exist in 600 BCE. The Assyrian data makes in around 700 BCE with Senncherib's siege of Hezekiah's Jerusalem. Strangely enough this Hezekiah is mentioned in the bible along with Sennacherib's siege. Around 600 we learn about Nebuchadnezzar's siege of the city of Judah, which corresponds with the archaeological data for the fall of Jerusalem and the biblical data for the fall. If one can't say that the writers made it up, A_Nony_Mouse will try to say that the people translating the cuneiform made it up. However it happened, someone made it up.

Yeah, sure.

spin

I read your draft and it is interesting. I agree that people are predisposed to grant too much probability to the stories of Ancient Israel and Judah you call bibleland. I don't however see how one can tell the BS, myths, legends, and fiction from any possible reality. As Spin has said there is sufficient evidence that ancient Israel and Judah did exist though not quite as the Rah Rah stories of the OT present. You have chosen to consider anything to do with ancient Palestine a Pack of Lies it would appear. I think that is going too far. I consider the ancient people of Palestine somewhat savage though they weren't given to cutting out hearts of the living as say the Aztecs to placate their god or so it seems. I realize that I have remnants of indoctrination from my years as a believer that float around in my brain. I however do not grant them basis in reality unless there is substantial evidence from other cultures.

As far as I can tell from my research: there was an ancient land of Israel and Judah, they had kings, they fought each other possibly,  they had relationships with other nations at the time, they banded together to fight off invaders such as Assyria. They sold each other out to gain advantage possibly. As to if they had a god named Yahweh who was the god of a mythical dude named Abraham I see nothing to substantiate that. Temples by Solomon and a great nation, probably only a hut in a back ass village of goat herders for Judah for sure. Ahab and the Omride kings seem to have existed and they were not likely Yahweh ass kissers. More than that who really knows.

As to when the bible fantasies were written who can tell. I have seen nothing to indicate when these Rah Rah aren't we the shit stories were written. Most likely after the Persians knocked off the Babylonians but beyond that is anyone's guess. I see your point in suggesting sometime after Alexander but I don't see any proof. Yeah Daniel was no doubt written in the 2nd century BCE based on its a piss poor Sci-Fi adventure in places. But parts of the OT do seem to have some correlation with histories of Assyria and Babylon. That Assyria used Palestine as a place to extract tribute is well established. That they invaded it several times has been shown. Babylon also has been clearly established as an invader of Judah by their accounts as well as excavations at sites such as Mizpah. Do I accept any of the bible's history as accurate, no not really not beyond they were some people identified as Judah and Israel by other cultures. As to what happened with this king or that , that is pretty much not possible to determine.

So far I haven't seen your evidence that the Greek came first. I suggest you look at some of the work of Rook Hawkins on this site as he has far more knowledge of this subject than I do.

spin:

A_Nony_Mouse wrote:

Now all you need do is find evidence in this oddly spelled city of this conquest with proper carbon dating.

Why? The stratigraphy is better. C14 is only statistical, while stratigraphy relates directly to events in history. You know when the fall of Jerusalem happened, through stratigraphy and that coincides with the Babylonian data.

Without the carbon dating you cannot distinguish this from a later story invented around this description. I can create a story around it today. That does not make my story authentic.

Crap.

Here you are asserting the horizons in Babylon and in Jerusalem have been reconciled. Do you happen to remember where that is documented? Or at least which team did it ans when? I find it quite interesting this has been accomplished in such different climates and geographies over two and a half millennia.

A_non: So you assumed Chronicles contains history and therefore used it to demonstrate it contains history.

spin: Working on the fact that much of the latter part can be confirmed, have you got reason to doubt it? If so, what?

As for doubting it, it is up to the believer to establish a "fact" that otherwise exists only in tradition. As for cause 1Cronicles starts off with begats from Adam and 2Chronicles starts with the mythical Solomon. So all of 1 is out along with the first nine chapters of 2 without question one hopes. How much is much? What in particular do you claim is real history and upon what evidence?

spin: I've already cited the rations provided in Babylon for Jehoiakin and for the five sons of the king of Judah. The Judean nobles were carted off to Babylon. Some of them, as I said, stayed.

The old rations story. I do not recall reading your mention of that but if you do as most do you divide the rations by normal eating and determine the number of people. As grain was the form of taxes in the city that is what was paid out. As there no mention of anything else one rationally assumes the grain provided for all their living expenses, servants, clothing, housing, firewood, oil, food besides grain and everything else. The numbers are quite small after that. And that still leaves you with establishing the Judah folk were among the recipients.

spin: No appeal to authority. You need to do your own work and not try to depend on wheedling information you're too lazy to get by yourself out of others. Doh!

That is a common response of believers when faced with the fact they have no basis for their beliefs. It is an appeal to authority without naming the authority. I could read everything ever written, still disagree with you, and your response would be the same.

pauljohntheskeptic>I read your draft and it is interesting. I agree that people are predisposed to grant too much probability to the stories of Ancient Israel and Judah you call bibleland. I don't however see how one can tell the BS, myths, legends, and fiction from any possible reality.

My question goes to when it was written. As for separation there are two things. First one removes the magic, aka miracles, from thes stories to see what is left. Not much to the skeptical observer. Then one looks to the description of persons and places and kingdoms in the OT and requires the archaeological and historical finds to match the bible description. Solomon as a hilltop warlord and Israel as a hill is not an acceptable replacement. That is bait and switch, a con game.

pauljohntheskeptic>As Spin has said there is sufficient evidence that ancient Israel and Judah did exist though not quite as the Rah Rah stories of the OT present.

I am saying the facts are so different from the stories that the stories cannot be distinguished from historical fiction. As such they could have been written at any time. The facts are so different they cannot have been contemporary records. And as the facts do not show a dominant Yahweh cult the entire religion part of it is also a fabrication, total fiction. After all that is removed, what is left? That land was inhabited and long after the supposed events fiction was created with lots of poetic license.

For example in 2 Chronicles there is a mention of the Egyptian king Shishek conquering Jerusalem. While there was an Egyptian campaign within a century of the bible chronology his name was not that given in the bible nor do the Egyptian records mention Jerusalem or anything like it as the site of a conquest. How forgiving does one have to be to assume it is a contemporary record? But if it is a later record then the question is how much later? When it comes ot fiction it could be written today as the known facts are ignored.

pauljohntheskeptic>You have chosen to consider anything to do with ancient Palestine a Pack of Lies it would appear. I think that is going too far.

What do you consider stories which are crucially dependent upon magic? I call them fairytales.

pauljohntheskeptic>I consider the ancient people of Palestine somewhat savage though they weren't given to cutting out hearts of the living as say the Aztecs to placate their god or so it seems.

But they were into ritual genital mutilation as a criteria for tribal membership. They also collected foreskins and wore them as necklaces to show their prowess in combat. But we have only the bible as a source for those stories so there is no point in taking them seriously.

pauljohntheskeptic>I realize that I have remnants of indoctrination from my years as a believer that float around in my brain. I however do not grant them basis in reality unless there is substantial evidence from other cultures.

From a believer background you accept much more than you would for any other culture. It is not just a matter of being told there is evidence but skeptically examining it and comparing it to the bible story. A single substantive difference means it is not a contemporary record. The version without magic is presumed the credible version. When the skeptic looks at what is claimed to have been found in other cultures one finds little more than wishful thinking.

>As far as I can tell from my research: there was an ancient land of Israel and Judah, they had kings, they fought each other possibly,  they had relationships with other nations at the time, they banded together to fight off invaders such as Assyria.

Without appealing to authority I would point out you are in the biblethumper minority these days to be defending the existence of a biblical Israel. I am in a much smaller minority than you in that belief so size does not matter.

>They sold each other out to gain advantage possibly. As to if they had a god named Yahweh who was the god of a mythical dude named Abraham I see nothing to substantiate that. Temples by Solomon and a great nation, probably only a hut in a back ass village of goat herders for Judah for sure. Ahab and the Omride kings seem to have existed and they were not likely Yahweh ass kissers. More than that who really knows.

If you want Solomon's temple to have been a hut what is your objection to pack of lies? And if you toss out Yahweh then you cannot have any objection to pack of lies. Which brings me back to when the OT was created. You describe the goatherds and you expect them to have created this fiction? How long afterward are you comfortable with the creation of this fiction, aka pack of lies?

Frankly I don't see much difference between your "defense" of the OT and an LDS defense of the Book of Mormon. Take away the magic and the god part and eliminate all the exageration and "all the rest is true." There really isn't much left to be true.

>As to when the bible fantasies were written who can tell.

We can rationally assume they were written centuries after the real events. Reading and writing were reserved for the wealthy. They cannot be contemporary records and false at the same time unless intended as fiction. If writing were expected to survive the ages it would have been in stone. There is nothing of this in stone.

>I have seen nothing to indicate when these Rah Rah aren't we the shit stories were written. Most likely after the Persians knocked off the Babylonians but beyond that is anyone's guess. I see your point in suggesting sometime after Alexander but I don't see any proof.

It is simply that the people appear AFTER the stories appear. And by people appear I mean as identifiable as followers of this religion by the way they are described. Even if the handful of ancient passages did refer to the characters in the OT there is no description of them which would identify them. So again, the issue is not proof of a negative as you suggest. The issue is the first descriptions of these people by which they can be identified are after the books appear.

>Yeah Daniel was no doubt written in the 2nd century BCE based on its a piss poor Sci-Fi adventure in places. But parts of the OT do seem to have some correlation with histories of Assyria and Babylon.

So do some of the stories of Conan the Barbarian. So what?

>That Assyria used Palestine as a place to extract tribute is well established.

And Herodotus mentions the Palestine Syrians as a source of tribute to Persia. I don't see any Jews in either.

>That they invaded it several times has been shown. Babylon also has been clearly established as an invader of Judah

At best, of Palestine only. The only Babylonian inscription needs a healthy dose of wishful thinking and then does not match the bible story. In the Babylonian version the king is replaced not shipped off to Babylon. Which is more credible? The one without magic.

>by their accounts as well as excavations at sites such as Mizpah. Do I accept any of the bible's history as accurate, no not really not beyond they were some people identified as Judah and Israel by other cultures. As to what happened with this king or that , that is pretty much not possible to determine.

If the history is wrong then the stories are fiction. If they are fiction they could have been written at any time. Similar stories can be written today. Although not biblical Leon Uris wrote the total fiction of Masada.

>So far I haven't seen your evidence that the Greek came first. I suggest you look at some of the work of Rook Hawkins on this site as he has far more knowledge of this subject than I do.

I have said the people first appear in real history as identifiable by the description of them after the Septuagint appears. It is the same for the Mormons, Muslims and Scientologists. I do not feel it necessary to demonstrate Mormons, Muslims and Scietologists did not exist before their founding books but believers expect me to do that for Jews.

I have pointed out the sole ancient claim the Septuagint is a translation is a forgery. But the assumption of a translation became the dominant Christian belief and we know how easy it is for believers to find confirmation of their beliefs. I would be more impressed if the Septuagint had been considered the official version and maybe around the Renaissance the hebrew version came to be accepted. That would eliminate the power of believers to find confirmation of their beliefs. Eastern rite Catholics still hold the Septuagint is the intended meaning if not the original.

If I am completely wrong, then the Septuagint is more than 2000 years closer to the original and thus unqustionably closer to the original meaning of the hebrew as understood by the Judean translators.

I have also given reasons why they should have been mentioned by Herodotus and Alexander's chronicelers but they did not. I have given the generic cause for mentioning them as being the strangest people in the whole world as having only one god but no one did. And if they had more than one god you have just shitcanned the entire OT.

As the OT is fiction at best loosely based upon fact and nothing substantive can be taken seriously what is the point of claiming goatherds and dirt farmers created and preserved the volume of material and more that today is not included in the 6th c. BC? Pick a century. It is incredible enough that it was produced in the 2nd c. BC.

Dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was necessary. (Japan had no navy, nor air force left)

It was dropped on a military target. (Pure lie)

Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin of JFK. (Fourth bullet)

There were WMDs in Iraq. (Pure lie)

(Etc.)

spin

Thanks, enjoying this discussion ... lots of good points from you all ... understanding reality is the goal ... I hope this thread will get more friendly now ... be nice as you disagree, please.  Let's help each other respectively .... We are all in this together ... carry on you titans ... as ignorant me and the kids are reading ....  

  Yeah, all history is full of lies .... on that we all agree.

There was a Hiroshima. There was a bomb. There was no biblical Israel. There was no Solomon.

Lee Harvey Oswald and JFK existed as opposed to Abraham and Moses and David and Solomon who did not exist. That is independent of your whacked out belief in Dealy Plaza as portrayed in a Lexx episode.

Do you get the picture? How about somone publishing the history of the nuclear war that came to be called WWIII and nearly ended civilization? How many wars of the non-existent bible people are reported in the bible? All of them.

How about publishing a history of the dominance of worship of the god Zeus in modern American society culminating in the conversion of the Capital building in DC into a temple to him? That would be comparable to the bible claims about Yahweh and bibleland.

As I was saying, ficticious events cannot be created when people are around who know better. They have to be written after people have forgotten the real history. And as I noted that is only the lower limit on when. They can be written centuries after everyone has forgotten or, as in the case of the book of  Mormon, 1800 years after the events it describes.

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

What's left is badly done contadictions, overly hyped stories about insiginificant people. Is it fiction, lies, propaganda or literature? Some of all most likely. But which parts exactly was my point. All lies have some truth but which parts. Does it matter? Not really. It has no real merit to the world except for fundies and extremists. I give none of it much value other than in painting a distorted view of some ancient people.

In the late 19th/ earty 20th c. there were farms in Kansas. There were traveling snake oil salesmen and there were hot air balloons. I think that exhausts all the truth there is in The Wizard of Oz.

What does it matter? If you have no interest in how the OT came into existence it makes no difference to you. It actually made no difference to me until the thumpers started making impossible claims about it which affronted my amateur interest in the ancent world and archaeology.

What matters is there is no way to reconcile the OT with the ancient world as known from every other source. In any field of learning where there is an effort for a consistent understanding of what is sore thumbs like the OT are anathema.

Any attempt to accept it's existence is a plea for exceptionalism from this group of goatherds and dirt farmers over every other similar society in ancient times. If believers are to taken seriously these otherwise illiterate and uncultured peasants created and preserved this collection.

Do you really expect to find a kernel of fact greater than in The Wizard in all of this? But if you have no interest in the ancient world or have some idea they were superior to us then there is nothing for you to interest you in this matter. However exceptionalism is never the way to explain anything as anything that does not make sense can be explained by exceptionalism. It is pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It is the reason catastrophies are the last resort of science.

To  pauljohntheskeptic:

In general you appear to be arguing for decisive maybe.

I certainly am not arguing for Herodotus being all inclusive. I give him as only one example with his three different listings of people in the region including those who practiced circumcision and the absence of any who could have been Jews from all of them.

But that is not all. Later we have Alexander in the course of conquering the world conquering this region while the chronicles of his campaigns make no mention of any conquest of Judea. Moreover there are two surviving inventories of his conquests. When glorifying the conqueror one expects the list of conquests to be as long as possible rather than abbreviated. No mention of any Judah, Judea or anyone who could have been Jews.

But that is not all. There is no mention of these people, their stories or their traditions until after Pompey conquers the region. The Greeks ruled for centuries and not a single mention of them.

We all know that relatively little survived from ancient times but that is not license to assert the existence of Atlantis. Neither is it license to assert the existence of the good guys in the bible stories.

Were that all there is one could still argue for the stories having the same amount of fact in them as The Wizard of Oz. But we have archaeology. Percentagewise bibleland is the most dug place in the world. Professionals and amateurs have been digging there for more than a century. Since 1948 every construction effort by Israel in Israel and the occupied territories also constitutes a dig with their strict antiquities laws. If construction is falling behind, salt it with some fake artifacts to the law stops you and pays for your loss. Every home, storm drain, parking garage, street, and everything else which disturbs the earth constitutes a dig. And still nothhing, nada, zilch.

Everything points to the sudden creation of this religion between Alexander and Pompey. And as I have noted that is like the sudden appearence of Islam, the LDS and Scientology as created not traditional religions like the Greek and Roman pantheons or the committee religions like Christianity.

If you are happy with a Wizard of Oz match with reality that defines your level of interest, any explanation will do. I am not satisfied with that.

The "any explanation will do" approach allows much of the selling of religion to continue. It supports theism because people will accept just about anything as long as it supports their religious beliefs.

If that is to esoteric for you all this OT fiction has lead to nearly 2/3rds of Americans supporting the atheist fake Jews in Israel over the rightful owners. The open plan to dirve out or murder the Palestinians started with Zev Jabotinski in the 1920s and was openly implemented by the Zionist murderers.

What is always fun to me is when someone parades their ignorance in an effort to show themselves very clever. Philology requires study. People who know nothing about it almost always make a balls-up.

The Hebrew name Omri is spelt (MRY (AYIN MEM RESH YOD). There is no letter in Assyrian equivalent to the AYIN. The pronunciation at the time when the Assyrians came into contact with the inhabitants of Samaria/Israel/Bit-Khumri led the Assyrians to transcribe the name as variations on Khumri. Although the Assyrian records don't record many place names in Palestine which start with an AYIN, there is another example: the Hebrew name of Gaza is (ZH (AYIN ZAYIN HE). The initial sound ends up a G in Greek but it also ends up Kh in Assyrian, where Gaza is Khazata (for example in Tiglath-Pileser III's inscriptions), so when we see Omri written as Khumri, this is what we should expect from the Assyrians.

It's fun isn't it, when someone who totally repudiates the bible is forced to try to quote it against you?

A few facts. One doesn't necessarily expect a foreign conqueror to get your lineage right -- then again should we expect the bible to get the facts straight in this case? One name the Assyrians used for Israel was Bit-Khumri, the "house of Omri". Calling Yehu "Yahua son of Khumri", seems quite reasonable for someone ruling the house of Omri.

Another Assyrian record, again from Tiglath-Pileser III, talks about Bit-Khumri and mentions the Assyrians overthrowing king Pekah (Pa-qa-ha) and placing Hoshea (A-u-si-') as king [Pritchard, p.194]. The same inscription mentions Jehoahaz of Judah -- this is Hezekiah's father Ahaz. Adad-nirari III places Bit-Khumri in the vicinity of Sidon and Tyre, as well as Edom and Philistia [p.192]. Shalmaneser III also mentions Ahab of Israel, A-ha-ab-bu ^matSir-'i-la-a-a (which spells out the Hebrew name Y$R)L), as participating in the battle of Qarqar. Sargon II states that he was the "conqueror of Samaria [the principal of Israel] and all Bit-Khumria". [p.195] From his annals he says "I besieged and conquered Samaria and led away 27,290 inhabitants" and later "Samaria and all Bit-Khumria". [p.195-6] Bit-Khumria leaves the Assyrian records and the Assyrians look further south to Philistia, Judah, Edom and Moab.

An interesting side issue is that while Adad-nirari III and earlier kings mention Bit-Khumri, we have to wait until the time of Tiglath-Pileser III (744-727BCE) for the first instance of Judah paying tribute to Assyria.

spin

You make some broad assumptions in many instances that are completely unwarranted. It seems you have the purpose in mind that the Jews and their questionable book just dropped out of the sky one day in the first or second century BCE. You seem to suggest they came forth and wrote a book of fables on the spot and immediately promoted it as the truth. Joe Smith may have done such but there is considerable evidence there were people in this area that were the ancestors of the later Jews. These people had to come from somewhere yet you choose to ignore the Assyrian and Babylonian records. No one is saying that just because a group of people lived in ancient Israel that the OT is a true account of their misadventures.

Again I suggest you review some of Rook's work and perhaps look much closer at Assyrian and Babylonian history.

The first thing one discovers quckly upon researching Zionism itself, not what Zionists say about it is that it is an atheist, marxist movment.

It does not take much reading to discover the Revisionist movement by Jabotinsky took over the Zionist movement in the early 1920s. It openly advocating driving out or murdering the Palestinians in order to steal their land. By definition all Zionists are murderers and thieves. They did leave a modest loophole, Palestinians could stay as servants without civil rights. If they did have civil rights with the first election the entire zionist crap would have been shitcanned.

Umm, I don't think the writer of 1 Sam 20:16 was either British or American.

When you work on false assumptions you get to false conclusions.

When you decide something is fiction a priori, evidence means nothing.

Which books, the Assyrian and Babylonian records? Your dismissiveness when you ignroe the data, is merely a sign of your not doing your job. Bias is denying evidence because of your a priori commitments, a priori commitments which you have trumpeted in two threads.

Even though I'm in the middle of the highway I know that's not a bus hurtling towards me, so I'm safe.

spin

pauljohntheskeptic> Saying something has no merit and is accepted by fundies et al. does not mean I have no interest in how the OT came into existence. I'd really like to understand how people fell for the fraud of Mormonism as well. 

And I simply point to one more religion invented by a book. However this one appears to have been imposed on the people due to the liberal use of capital punishment to enforce it.

pauljohntheskeptic> You make some broad assumptions in many instances that are completely unwarranted. It seems you have the purpose in mind that the Jews and their questionable book just dropped out of the sky one day in the first or second century BCE. You seem to suggest they came forth and wrote a book of fables on the spot and immediately promoted it as the truth. Joe Smith may have done such but there is considerable evidence there were people in this area that were the ancestors of the later Jews. These people had to come from somewhere yet you choose to ignore the Assyrian and Babylonian records. No one is saying that just because a group of people lived in ancient Israel that the OT is a true account of their misadventures.

I do not suggest Judaism dropped out of the sky. I have specifically compared the invention of the religion at one point in time to the invention of Islam, the Latter Day Saints and Scientology. I simply say it is no different. There is certainly evidence in all three of those cases that they had ancestors in the regions where they were invented. That does not make the ancestors proto-muslims, proto-mormons or proto-scientologists. it does not warrant claiming there were identifiable "peoples" prior to those inventions. And I believe I have offered to post a review of a current best seller in Irael by a historian who demonstrates the idea of a Jewish people was invented by the Zionists and did not exist before them. If I did not I will post it if you wish.

This constant talk of a "people" is a turn of the 20th century anachronism imposed upon people thousands of years ago. It makes no sense at all to do so.

pauljohntheskeptic> Again I suggest you review some of Rook's work and perhaps look much closer at Assyrian and Babylonian history.

I look at the archaeological finds in bibleland itself. If such a culture existed the greatest quantity of evidence is to be found there. Percentagewise, modern Israel is the most dug place in the world. And there even biblical archaeologists do not have any hard evidence such as is found in Egypt of Egyptian culture and in all other known ancient cultures. Were it not for the bible no one could possibly make the claims that are made for bibleland.

So why is it necessary to go hundreds of miles from bibleland to find evidence of anything about bibleland? Why is not the land littered with evidence as in Egypt? The saying goes in Greece you can't dig a flower garden without finding antiquities. In bibleland things that support the bible are found only by biblical archaeologists, those who explain all finds in the context of a bible story that has no factual relation to the find.

Israeli museums are online. Why not take a look at what they have found and see what is explicit confirmation of the OT. Given the audience in the US you would expect those museums would have exhibits touring the country to raise research funds. They do not.