Can a religious text be used for evidence?

[Doug1029]

6 minutes ago, stereologist said:

There are likely 4 authors, none of which are Moses who is the traditional author.

I have no argument with this.  I am not trying to determine who the original author might have been.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't Moses - most of us would have a hard time writing about our own deaths.  Besides, Hebrew writing wouldn't exist for another 270 years or so.

11 minutes ago, stereologist said:

The things you mention about item 9 are way off. Where are the tephra? If there was a volcanic eruption there should be evidence of tephra. There is the suggestion that  a low flow of the Nile is involved in plagues. Where is the evidence?  Seems that your ideas have no support.

On the bottom of the Mediterranean is a layer of volcanic ash from the Thera eruption.  At the shores of Egypt it is about three inches thick.  I have seen what one-quarter inch of ash (St. Helens) produces.  For three inches to have been put in place in only three days seems to be a bit of a miracle in itself.

Ignimbrite has been recovered from excavations at Tell el Daba.  Read the Admonitions of Ipuwer and tell me what he is describing.

 

My research on this was done over ten years ago.  I no longer remember where I found some of it.  Some of it I can reference for you, but this is not a scholarly article or a scholarly site as you demonstarte by using Wiki as your source.  The "falling dominoes" throry goes a long way to explaining the Ten Plagues, but I don't think it explains all of them.  Why don't you look it up?

And note that the disaster Ipuwer is describing occurred in the late sixteenth century, while the most-recent version of the Exodus dates from the early twelfth century.  Does that sound like a "true" story.  Like I said, it's a amalgamation, true in its parts, but not as a whole.

Doug

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

17 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

I have heard how that is done using conventional "magic," or slight-of-hand, but that was a long time ago.

And Jesus returning from the dead?  "Cast down their staff and they became serpents" seems pretty straightforward and is a miraculous claim.  "People can be fooled", like 'just a story', destroys all miraculous claims if it takes care of this one.

[Doug1029]

2 hours ago, stereologist said:

It's a fictional account. No amount of making up a pretend path does anything but make up an unsupported pretend path.

Is part of your problem the defintion of "legend?"  Fiction is words that are not true, like something Trump would say.  History is documentable.  There are written words supporting it - maybe true, maybe not.  "Legend" is an amalgamation, part truth and part fiction.  That's what the Exodus is:  part truth and part fiction.

Doug

[Doug1029]

2 hours ago, stereologist said:

But the crossing is but one part of many parts that fail. There are no records of the event in AE. There is no loss of military might by AE. There is no loss of economic power or construction. There is no evidence for a group lost in the desert. Even the conquest of Canaan appears to be internal strife and not invasion.

I have my doubts about a military confrontation at the Red Sea.  The Bible explains the escape rather well:  by keeping a torch going, the "Israelites" degraded the Egyptian's eyesite.  Behind that screen, during the dark of night, Moses escaped to the east shore.  There was no battle, thus no loss of military might, thus no reason to make a historical note of it.  For that matter, the first description of battle tactics hadn't been written yet.  So why would you expect there to be a mention of it in anybody's history?

Besides, the evidence fits better with this having been a military/mining expedition that got caught by two opposing wave trains.  "Pharaoh's army" and the "Israelites" were on the same side.  Why would they fight?

Doug

[Doug1029]

13 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

And Jesus returning from the dead?  "Cast down their staff and they became serpents" seems pretty straightforward and is a miraculous claim.  "People can be fooled", like 'just a story', destroys all miraculous claims if it takes care of this one.

Lots of explanations for Jesus.  Most are that he didn't die on the cross.  He was drugged, taken down and revived.  That idea has several different incarnations.

And I have no problem with destroying all miraculous claims.  A miracle is something that can't happen.  Let me know when you find one.

Doug

[stereologist]

1 minute ago, Doug1o29 said:

I have no argument with this.  I am not trying to determine who the original author might have been.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't Moses - most of us would have a hard time writing about our own deaths.  Besides, Hebrew writing wouldn't exist for another 270 years or so.

On the bottom of the Mediterranean is a layer of volcanic ash from the Thera eruption.  At the shores of Egypt it is about three inches thick.  I have seen what one-quarter inch of ash (St. Helens) produces.  For three inches to have been put in place in only three days seems to be a bit of a miracle in itself.

Ignimbrite has been recovered from excavations at Tell el Daba.  Read the Admonitions of Ipuwer and tell me what he is describing.

 

My research on this was done over ten years ago.  I no longer remember where I found some of it.  Some of it I can reference for you, but this is not a scholarly article or a scholarly site as you demonstarte by using Wiki as your source.  The "falling dominoes" throry goes a long way to explaining the Ten Plagues, but I don't think it explains all of them.  Why don't you look it up?

And note that the disaster Ipuwer is describing occurred in the late sixteenth century, while the most-recent version of the Exodus dates from the early twelfth century.  Does that sound like a "true" story.  Like I said, it's a amalgamation, true in its parts, but not as a whole.

Doug

 

I looked it up and I see you are making up stories for your roll-you-own fictional history.

You claimed hot stones in Egypt, not an ash fall. It seems you are waffling here. I asked for tephra and I received a comment about deposits far away from the location of the Pharoah.

I am not sure I accept your claim of  3 inches of deposit at the shores of Egypt. The reworked studies of Thera show that the ash spread mainly over water and the Mediterranean islands, but also onto modern Turkey where the ash fall was accompanied by increased water and increased tree ring growth although wheat crops were down. Thera did not and could not have sent hot stones into Egypt. It might have brought some ash especially to the delta region.

It is clear you are making things up. You've provided almost no links to support your stories. Pretending that there is something wrong with the wikipedia without poiinting out errors is a dead end.

[Doug1029]

2 hours ago, stereologist said:

It's a fictional account. No amount of making up a pretend path does anything but make up an unsupported pretend path.

Please notice that the evidence for the Hebrews being in Egypt is nonexistent.

Do you have any evidence that the Hebrews weren't in Egypt?  After all, they're next-door neighbors.

How are you defining "Hebrews?"  Supposedly, the name comes from "habiru," a term for bandits that raided the established cities of Cannan in the late eleventh and early tenth centuries.  The name didn't even apply while they were in Egypt.

Doug

[stereologist]

19 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

Is part of your problem the defintion of "legend?"  Fiction is words that are not true, like something Trump would say.  History is documentable.  There are written words supporting it - maybe true, maybe not.  "Legend" is an amalgamation, part truth and part fiction.  That's what the Exodus is:  part truth and part fiction.

Doug

Exodus appears to be all fiction. That seems to be your problem.

[Doug1029]

1 minute ago, stereologist said:

I looked it up and I see you are making up stories for your roll-you-own fictional history.

Like I said, if you would care to read it:  the Exodus is a legend.  Part history, part fiction.  The whole thing is a role-your-own account.

Doug

 

[stereologist]

11 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

I have my doubts about a military confrontation at the Red Sea.  The Bible explains the escape rather well:  by keeping a torch going, the "Israelites" degraded the Egyptian's eyesite.  Behind that screen, during the dark of night, Moses escaped to the east shore.  There was no battle, thus no loss of military might, thus no reason to make a historical note of it.  For that matter, the first description of battle tactics hadn't been written yet.  So why would you expect there to be a mention of it in anybody's history?

Besides, the evidence fits better with this having been a military/mining expedition that got caught by two opposing wave trains.  "Pharaoh's army" and the "Israelites" were on the same side.  Why would they fight?

Doug

The AE army was drowned or did you miss that portion of exodus?

http://biblehub.com/kjv/exodus/15.htm

[Doug1029]

2 minutes ago, stereologist said:

Exodus appears to be all fiction. That seems to be your problem.

Please present your evidence.  Try peer-reviewed journals.  Wiki fiction doesn't cut it.

Doug

[Doug1029]

Just now, stereologist said:

The AE army was drowned or did you miss that portion of exodus?

http://biblehub.com/kjv/exodus/15.htm

So the story goes.  But that's the Bible, not history.

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

54 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

My location for the Exodus makes a whole lot more sense than Josephus' (He is the original author of that idea.).  Mine actually fits the biblical description, wheras, his does not.

There are many parts to the Exodus story.  As I said, it is an amalgation.  It is actually many stories roled into one.  It happened over 400 years and the reigns of 42 Pharaohs.  There were at least three different Exodii and four (maybe five) different Moses.  To make the biblical story, you have to take bits and pieces from each of them and role them into one.  And that's what the biblical writers did.  The story as told in the Bible didn't happen as told.  But all of the individual parts did, at different times, in different places.

The Merneptah stele:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele

Merneptah reigned in the very late thirteenth century BC.  Check out the writings of Earnest Budge for additional hieroglyphic references to "Israel."

The Hyksos descended from Semites.  The Israelites descended from the Hyksos.  There was probably a lot of mixing-and-matching.  The Hyksos also produced Jordanians, Arabs, Amorites and others.

AND:  "Israel" didn't really become a nation until after they left Egypt, so why would you expect to find much evidence of them in Egypt?  There were perhaps 200 familes that brought the stories with them, finally settled in Israel, mixed with the local inhabitants and became the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  Israel existed at the time of Seti I as a group that he hated.  He was not very definite about exactly what they were.

Citation please.

No, the Hyksos DID NOT descend from Semites, the Hyksos WERE predominantly Semites, an ethnic group which covers much more than just Hebrews/Israelites/Jews. And no, the Israelites DID NOT descend from the Hyksos, that's just as wrong as the first claim. The Hyksos, heqa khasut, were Semites and this much is known but there were already Canaanite Semites living in Egypt when the Hyksos arrived, which means at least for a time there were two Semitic groups vying for position/power in Northern Egypt. It should also be pointed out that Ahmose's pre-emptive destruction of Sharuhen, the last holdout of the fleeing Hyksos, ended with that cities complete destruction. 

cormac

Edited March 22, 2018 by cormac mac airt

[stereologist]

3 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

Do you have any evidence that the Hebrews weren't in Egypt?  After all, they're next-door neighbors.

How are you defining "Hebrews?"  Supposedly, the name comes from "habiru," a term for bandits that raided the established cities of Cannan in the late eleventh and early tenth centuries.  The name didn't even apply while they were in Egypt.

Doug

Do you have any evidence that the Hebrews were in Egypt?  The lack of evidence is why archaeologists have labeled that story as fiction. See links and quotes I posted.

[stereologist]

1 minute ago, Doug1o29 said:

Please present your evidence.  Try peer-reviewed journals.  Wiki fiction doesn't cut it.

Doug

Let's see you post something peer reviewed instead of your absurd word games and unsupported stories. Your claims of wiki fiction are a failure. I posted more than the wiki.

[stereologist]

2 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

So the story goes.  But that's the Bible, not history.

Doug

It seems you are admitting that the loss of military might is a part of the exodus story. Thank you.

[Doug1029]

5 minutes ago, stereologist said:

You claimed hot stones in Egypt, not an ash fall. It seems you are waffling here. I asked for tephra and I received a comment about deposits far away from the location of the Pharoah.

Exactly where would Pharaoh have been during the eruption of Thera?  Thebes, Memphis and Bubastis have all served as Egypt's capital at different times.  Ipuwer seems to think he was at Piramses.  That fits with "Israelites" and Egyptians living side-by-side.

There are two different volcanic phenomena being discussed, or didn't you notice?  Ignimbrite and ash.  That's two plagues:  hail and darkness.

Doug

[Doug1029]

5 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

No, the Hyksos DID NOT descend from Semites, the Hyksos WERE predominantly Semites, an ethnic group which covers much more than just Hebrews/Israelites/Jews. And no, the Israelites DID NOT descend from the Hyksos, that's just as wrong as the first claim. The Hyksos, heqa khasut, were Semites and this much is known but there were already Canaanite Semites living in Egypt when the Hyksos arrived, which means at least for a time there were two Semitic groups vying for position/power in Northern Egypt. It should also be pointed out that Ahmose's pre-emptive destruction of Sharuhen, the last holdout of the fleeing Hyksos, ended with that cities complete destruction. 

cormac

OK.  I wasn't clear.

The Hyksos are believed to be an amalgamtion of Semitic tribes.  There were three quasi-independent kingdoms in Egypt.  AND:  Semitic travelers had been quietly settling in the Nile delta for quite some time before the kingdoms were organized.

A sizable group left Amarna after Horemheb ordered it destroyed.  Were they the "Israelites" of the "Exodus?"  Or did they just head for Caanan without much fanfare?  Seems like the latter.  Also seems that they wouldn't have been of just one race.  At any rate, they took their religion with them and they wound up living in Jerusalem.

The term "Hyksos" is properly applied to the kings, not to the people, themselves.  Beats me what I am supposed to call the people.  So we have the Hyksos (kings) being completely defeated at Sharuhen, while their relatives survived in Jerusalem and vicinity.  So what did the people in Jerusalem eventually come to be called?

Doug

P.S.:  Winners write history.  I'm wondering just who wrote that part about the Hyksos being totally destroyed.

Doug

[Doug1029]

15 minutes ago, stereologist said:

It seems you are admitting that the loss of military might is a part of the exodus story. Thank you.

Did I ever say otherwise?  I have considerable doubts about there having been any loss of military power.  And even if there was, the Pharaohs didn;t mention there defeats.

Doug

Edited March 22, 2018 by Doug1029

[stereologist]

3 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

Exactly where would Pharaoh have been during the eruption of Thera?  Thebes, Memphis and Bubastis have all served as Egypt's capital at different times.  Ipuwer seems to think he was at Piramses.  That fits with "Israelites" and Egyptians living side-by-side.

There are two different volcanic phenomena being discussed, or didn't you notice?  Ignimbrite and ash.  That's two plagues:  hail and darkness.

Doug

The term ignimbrite covers many rock types. Vesicular materials can even float. Ignimbrite could also be formed from an ashfall. Without a source I'll simply take this as unsupported.

You have not shown that the ash cloud did anything other than travel along the Mediterranean coast.

 

[Doug1029]

19 minutes ago, stereologist said:

Let's see you post something peer reviewed instead of your absurd word games and unsupported stories. Your claims of wiki fiction are a failure. I posted more than the wiki.

I have something like 140 references on the subject.  If you would like to conduct a serious discussion instead of just posting insults, maybe we could get somewhere with this.

Doug

[stereologist]

2 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

Did I ever say otherwise?

Doug

Yes, you stated that there was no loss of military might by the Egyptians.

[Doug1029]

3 minutes ago, stereologist said:

The term ignimbrite covers many rock types. Vesicular materials can even float. Ignimbrite could also be formed from an ashfall. Without a source I'll simply take this as unsupported.

You have not shown that the ash cloud did anything other than travel along the Mediterranean coast.

 

That ash layer is used as a means of dating archeological sites.

Doug

[stereologist]

Just now, Doug1o29 said:

I have something like 140 references on the subject.  If you would like to conduct a serious discussion instead of just posting insults, maybe we could get somewhere with this.

Doug

I see that you are not only pretending that you have answered questions, but are now pretending that there have been insults. I see where this is headed.

[Doug1029]

1 minute ago, stereologist said:

Yes, you stated that there was no loss of military might by the Egyptians.

I don't agree with everything the Bible says, in case you didn't notice.  I don't think the Bible got all the details right.

Doug