Mythology with real places & people

So, of all the places mentioned in the Exodus route you cannot name a single one that has been shown to be real, doesn’t that concern you a little? You need to read my request a little bit more, I asked for a real person from the first five books, the majority of what you posted are not mentioned in the first five books.I also asked for evidence that they were real and all you have posted are the names of a few people who think that Moses wrote the Pentateuch! None of which you provide the evidence for why they think Moses wrote it.If I post the names of fifty scholars who don’t think Moses wrote it does that mean he didn’t?So, do you have any evidence at all that Moses even existed? We don’t even know his proper name.So, let’s go with Moses, when is it that Moses was supposed to have lived (I have my own opinion on this but I’d appreciate yours)? Give me a rough estimate of the time frame in which we are to look for this ‘historical’ character then we can look for evidence to support this. As I said, the opinion of people who lived as much as two thousand years after Moses was supposed to have lived is not really strong evidence.Do you know what they based their conclusion on? Did they actually believe this or are they simply passing on Jewish beliefs? Do you think Old Testament Studies and the study Ancient Near Eastern history has not developed any in the last 2000 years? This isn’t even in the first five books, plus this is just an assertion, no one knows if this relief is referring to Israel at all. Yes, and way outside my request.I personally think that King Omri is the first Biblical character that we have good evidence for, not great when we consider the many hundreds mentioned before him. In which context do they appear? Again, way outside the first five books, as are you next few examples. So I wont waste time on them. How does this prove that Abraham was a real person? Once again, how does this prove that any biblical character existed?
I will ask again, name one real person from the first five books of the Bible and provide evidence that they existed.I find it a bit concerning that the vast majority of your examples came from books much later than the first five, are you not concerned about the lack of evidence for the hundreds of people, some of them kings and pharaohs, mentioned in the Pentateuch?

But you haven't provided any evidence!Tell you what, since you have failed to provide evidence of any real people or events in the first five books, what is your evidence for Shishak's relief featuring Israelites?Posting someone's opinion doesn't make something true, you at least have to tell us why these people arrive at their conclusions otherwise how can we rebutt?

Sorry but I really don't see what you are getting at.Are you saying that because these names are mentioned on the wall and in the Bible then everything that the Bible says about these places is true?

Peg, you really must be cherry picking from websites that are utterly ignorant about archaeology and the Bible, I have never read such trash sunce Ray got banned. And the evidence completely contradicts the biblical account. And it has been excavated extensively after the 1930s.The information contained in Joshua is wholly contradicted by the available archaeological data.According to the Bible, the first city that the Israelites came across was Jericho (Josh 2:1). After invading the city, and slaughtering every living thing in it, the Israelites then focussed their attention on Ai, a city ten miles from Jericho.Their first attempt to conquer the city failed, a setback later revealed to be the consequence of Achan’s theft of some treasure that had been devoted to Yahweh. However, after Achan and his family had been killed, God gave his blessing and Joshua’s armies were successful in their second attempt at conquering Ai.Both of these cities should then show signs of destruction at around the same time in the archaeological record. For example, Jericho’s walls (Josh. 6:20) and Ai’s burning (Josh. 8:19-21) should have left identifiable traces of destruction within a fairly short period of time of each other. But the archaeological data tells a completely different story.Jericho has been identified as Tel es-Sultan and during the 1930’s John Garstang excavated the city and concluded that there was indeed evidence of ‘collapsed mudbrick walls under the ruins of houses that he identified as evidence of the destruction by the Isarelites’ (Calloway, Joseph A., 1988 The Settlement in Canaan in Ancient Israel: A Short History from Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple . Shanks H (ed), Prentice- Hall, Washington. p.61From 1952 — 58 Kathleen Kenyon extensively excavated Jericho and using improved techniques she discovered that Garstang’s wall, which he dated to c. 1400 BCE, actually dated to around 2300 BCE (Calloway p.62). Kenyon had discovered many instances of collapsed walls dating from 3200 — 2300 BCE, she put this mainly down to earthquakes activity in the region.Kenyon also found evidence of a city wall, which she dated to c. 1560 BCE. But it can be stated categorically that Jericho was unoccupied and ‘unwalled’ after c. 1560 BCE, until c 1200 BCE, therefore, Joshua’s conquest has to be prior to 1560 BCE, a date at odds with the Bible.If Jericho had to be conquered pre 1560 BCE for the biblical account of the Conquest of Canaan to be accurate, then Ai has to show traces of destruction at around the same time.A former apprentice of William Albrights, Judith Marquet-Krause, excavated Ai (et-Tell) from 1933-35 and she concluded that Ai was unoccupied between 2400 BCE and c. 1200 BCE. Joseph Calloway led nine seasons of extensive excavations at Ai between 1964-76 and essentially confirmed what Marquet-Krause had earlier said. Calloway added that there was no walled city at Ai after c. 2400 BCE, and the only evidence of any occupation after this date was of a small-unfortified village dating from 1200 BCE until the site was abandoned around 1050BCE.If we also accept that almost every scholar involved in the debate over the origins of Ancient Israel declares that the conquest would be in the mid to late 13th century BCE, then neither Jericho nor Ai were inhabited.The question is: how can the Israelites have conquered Jericho, then marched on to Ai, ten miles away, and conquer it as well if Ai was not occupied at the same time as Jericho?So much for your magical book.I'll say it again, for a so-called history book its record is horrendous.We don't even know the name of the pharoah at the time of the Exodus, that is an unbelievable omission for such a leading character. I think it is obvious why the name is never given, the story is a fairy tale.

No one is saying it is JUST a book of myths and legends but it certainly does contain myths and legends.You do seem to think that archaeology greatly supports the Bible but it really doesn't.I would say that from King Omri onwards the archaeological evidence does begin to support the Bible, but before that there's really not that much to support it.You also have to remember that archaeology has shown that a great many of the stories in the Bible, if taken at face value, simply didn't happen.Jericho is a great example. In fact, the whole military conquest of Canaan as outlined in Joshua simply never happened. There may be little kernels of history in there, but as far as a face value reading of the text goes, it is just fantasy.Also remember, just because there wasn't an Exodus, or a desert sojourn, or a Conquest of Canaan, this doesn't mean that there is not a God, it just means that the authors of the Bible were the same as any other men, biased, prone to exaggeration and imaginative.

Hindus still worship Brahman, and Hinduism is more than twice the age of Yahwism.Buddhism, although Buddha wasn't a god, is at least 500 years older than Christianity.The 'god' that Christians worship isn't that old in relative terms, even the God of the Old Testament is about 1500 years older. How can you think that this is unique?Muslims are still dying for their God, and certainly live their lives according to Allah's rules, which are far more demanding than any Christian cult that I have came across.

There are poems in the Torah, but the Torah itself isn't a poem. The Song of the Sea (Song of Moses) in Exod 15 for example.I'm not sure what you are trying to say with your second point, it appears that you are saying that the Torah is called the Song of Solomon, or are you saying there's a reason they the Song of Solomon is called a 'song'? (it's also called the song of songs)Plus there's the Song of Deborah in Judges 5.

There's two versions intertwined in the Bible itself, (gen. 6-9).Part of the problem with the discipline of history is that some people aren't very sure what history actually is, they think it is something that happened in the past. It is also very difficult to gauge how accurate a story is, what tools would we use for this job?Also, different historians will accept different types of evidence.I have always said that any Christian who searches for things such as Noah's Ark, and accepts the tripe that they can find on the Internet, must have a very weak faith.The problem with events such as the Flood is that there are huge mountians of contradictory evidence, the Flood simply didnt happen. Does this mean that Jesus isn't God? Of course it doesn't.

Hi,So how do you arrive at your conclusion?

Well, I think that would depend on which particular story we examine.It is a perfectly logical conclusion to assume, for example, that many of the stories have kernels of history within then that are indeed surrounded by myths and legends. Do you really think that if one part of a story is supernatural then we should reject the entire account? What about the Babylonian exile, don’t you think that happened?From a personal point of view, I used to believe everything in the Bible was true, then I went to the other extreme where I rejected everything in it. Today though, in regard to the historicity of the stories, I sit somewhere in between the two extremes. The spiritual claims can never be proven, you either accept them or you don’t, I personally don’t. However, after a lot of years of studying theology, history, and archaeology at 3 unis I think the logical conclusion is that the authors of the Bible were the same as the authors of any other ancient text, propagandists. The area I am interested in is really the origins of Israel debate, from enslavement to the united monarchy, and the authors of the texts that relate to this were obviously not interested in recording an accurate history, they were as biased as any other ancient author. They were not writing a critical history for us to dissect many hundreds of years later, they were creating texts to persuade people that they best do what Yahweh wants them to do or else!I think a lot of Bible believers would benefit from reading the Bible alongside some of the many extant ancient near eastern texts then they would appreciate the skill of the narrators a lot more. They would also be surprised at how similar it is to other texts and how heavily the Bible authors borrowed from surrounding cultures, a part of the story of Joseph for example is clearly borrowed from the Egyptian ‘Tale of Two Brothers’, Moses’ early escape is lifted from Sargon the Elder, the Exodus Route could have been lifted from the Tale of Sinuhe etc.There are characters from the Bible that are supported from external sources, The Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone) does give support for an historical King Omri:Lines 4-5 of the stone: because he has delivered me from all kings, and because he has made me triumph over all my enemies. As for Omri
the king of Israel, and he humbled Moab for many years (days), for Chemosh was angry with his land. Now some of the stories written about King Omri may indeed be myths, but does that mean that King Omri didn’t exist?What I would say that you may agree with is that if any other ancient text’s history was as poorly supported as that of the Bible, that text would be put on the fiction shelf of the world’s libraries long ago.As your signature says, facts are facts, and in regard to the accuracy of the ‘history’ presented in the early books of the Bible, the fact is the accuracy of the Bible is appalling.

Hopefully, one day, Peg will come to realise the disservice that she is doing the Bible, and how much she is missing out onThanks for the clarification.

Definitely. No it wouldn’t, but then I don’t see anyone at this site that claims this, and no one is asking you to believe that the Bible has no historical merit. I would congratulate you if I ever see any signs that you respect the Bible, but I doubt that is ever going to happen.I could give you many example of why you are doing the Bible, and its authors, a disservice, but I will give you one to begin with.If I can direct you back to the Jericho example you gave in an earlier post hopefully I can get my point across.In my opinion you seem so determined to accept that Bible as 100% historically sound that you cherry pick the information you think supports your argument and ignore the contradictory evidence. In that post you highlighted the work carried out by Garstang during the 1930s as being accurate and supporting the biblical account. Now, the 1930s was a long time ago and you didn’t appear to consider that perhaps other archaeologists have excavated Jericho after Garstang and arrived at a different conclusion. In some of your posts you mention that archaeology has proven the Bible correct time and time again, so it appears that you value archaeology as a reliable and dependable discipline. Well, archaeology has shown beyond any reasonable doubt that Jericho was uninhabited when the Bible claims Joshua and his armies entered it. Garstang’s findings have been rejected a long long time ago Peg, but you obviously just latched on to the first piece of information you found that you thought supported the Bible and posted it. This proves that you really are not at all interested in the Bible, you are only interested in maintaining your own narrow-minded view of it.Think about this. When the Bible claims that the Israelites, led by Joshua, were invading Canaan, the city of Jericho was not inhabited, so the Bible is clearly incorrect here. Do you even consider why the Bible would make this erroneous claim? I mean, are you not even a little bit curious as to how the story of Jericho came to be in the Bible?The disservice you are doing the Bible here is to make the Bible incorrect, YOU are the one that is making this Bible story into a fairytale not anyone else. Have you even considered any alternative possibilities? Have you considered that perhaps Jericho was invaded at a different time in history by a different army and the author(s) of the Book of Joshua simply stole this event for the Israelites?Have you considered that perhaps Jericho was destroyed by an earthquake and Joshua’s invasion is etiological?This is what I mean by doing the Bible a disservice. By taking a very narrow view of it you are missing out on the beauty of its prayers, poems, songs, myths, legends, and puns etc. You are missing out on its historical contexts as well; have you any idea of how it compares with other contemporary near eastern texts?I think I, an atheist, have more love for the Old Testament in my little finger than the majority of Christians have in their entire being. It is an amazing collection of ancient literature, something I intend to study and investigate for a long time to come, it is just sad that so many so-called believers view it as some sort of magical book that just *poofed* into existence and that everything in it has to be 100% factual or we can reject it all. Yes you are. You are also doing YOURSELF a disservice! If you really loved the Bible you would at least try and learn something about it, and not from fundy websites either. Indeed you are.

You really don't understand what Nuggin is saying do you?

In academia there are two Jesus', the Jesus of the NT and the Historical Jesus. Although based on the same person, the stories of Jesus that appear in the NT are fiction. The historical Jesus is the one who has all the supernatural elements removed.Having said that, proving Jesus did exist would be a tough job!

Name one person who claimed Pilate was a fictional character.