Mythology with real places & people

As I said - I'm talking about the events, not the causes. And only the historical ones. I'm talking about major battles, cities, governments, the rise and fall of nations, leaders, generals.For example: Let us say the Israelites did suffer a major plague and evidence that 14,700 died from was found - that doesn't mean that the plague was caused by a pissed off Yahweh, right?And just because the walls of Jericho fell it doesn't necessarily mean that it was caused by Yahweh. Even if we grant that it was a supernatural cause, we still cannot conclude it was Yahweh. All we know is that some people have attributed it to Yahweh. It could have been Zeus, Wotan, Osiris, Jupiter, a powerful poltergeist or psychokinetic.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Name one.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

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.

Troy. Not to mention Athens, Sparta, Ithaca, etc. The story is set in the land in which it was told.By your Biblical standard, this means that the story is TRUE. Therefore Achielles was a REAL person, who REALLY killed the priest of Apollo and who REALLY died because Apollo helped Paris to kill him.This PROVES that Apollo (and by extension ALL Greek and Roman Gods) was real, which in turn DISPROVES the Bible's claim that Yahweh is unique.

Peg responds to me:

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If i told you that I am Mrs Smiths daughter... would you assume that I am Mrs Smith?

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Irrelevant. This isn't about people "assuming" Jesus is god. This is about Jesus directly and specifically stating that he was the son of god, that he had divine power.All that "I and the Father are one" stuff means something, Peg.God does not have a son. The very claim that Jesus is the son of god is a blasphemy against the very first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. God does not need a son.

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I just want to know how if one calls himself a 'son' it can be interpreted to mean that he is the 'father' ???

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Because Jesus kept on saying he was: Other texts keep saying he is: So you can understand why some might consider that Christianity considers Jesus to be some sort of divine being, claiming to be god. This is blasphemy in the eyes of Judaism and is proof positive that Jesus is NOT the Messiah. Judaism does not reject Jesus out of spite or willfulness or pettiness. It's because Jesus does not meet any of the requirements for the Messiah and directly blashphemes against god.Now, are there other verses in the Bible that claim that Jesus is not god? Indeed. Everybody knows that a book written over hundreds of years by multiple authors, redacted by others, and cobbled together by even more strangers can hardly be expected to be consistent.But to claim that there is no claim in the Bible that Jesus is god is...well...it's akin to saying that the Bible doesn't claim that life, the universe, and everything is only 6000 years old.It does. You may not like it, but it does.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg writes:

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no man can perform the miracles mentioned without some supernatural intervention

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Not according to the Bible. All you have to do is believe:

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so if the events happened as they are recorded, then the only conclusion i can draw is that the God who acted in the Isrealites behalf must have been a real God and therefore worthy of my attention.

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The same can be said for any other holy book. What makes you so sure yours is right? Everything about the Iliad and the Odyssey has been shown to be real. Are you going to make a pilgrimage to Greece to worship at the Temple of Olympian Zeus?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg writes:

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The bible account of the city of Jericho and its miraculous destruction by the Isrealites is one such example of where evidence has been found by archeology.

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The same can be said for Troy.So when are you going to start worshipping Zeus?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

So, if I claim that someone performed a miracle, then there must have been supernatural intervention.Is this true for miracles I claim were done by people other than Jesus?If I told you that there was a man who lived a few hundred years after Jesus who did all the same things Jesus did --born to a virgin
3 wise men
sheppards at the birth
disappears until he's 30
hangs around with disciples
walks on water
raises Lazarus from the dead
heals the blind
dies on the cross with two thieves
descended into hell for 3 days
comes back and it discovered by women-- would you say this person was equally divine? Why worship Jesus if someone else did all the same things more recently?Remember, I too was an only begotten son until I had a brother.

what im saying is that the archeological evidence backs up the historicity of the bible accounts proving that it is not simply a book of myths, legends and folklore.Its like saying the holocaust was fabricated by a group of people who had an agenda...there is too much evidence which shows otherwise.

your rightand if those gods were real, then surely they would have followers but they dont.How is it possible for a small group of ancients to create a God that billions of people still worship?Surely even you would admit that the God of the bible is unique in this regard. People have willingly died for this God and lived their lives according to his rules.

zues died out when the people who created him died.Homer wasnt establishing a new religion with the Iliad and Odyssey..Its a poem.

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.

Peg responds to me:

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zues died out when the people who created him died.

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So if the Final Solution had succeeded and all the Jews died, what would have happened then?And what makes you think Zeus has died out? Don't confuse your circle of friends and acquaintances as a universal sample.

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Homer wasnt establishing a new religion with the Iliad and Odyssey.

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Neither were the Jews.

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Its a poem.

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So is the Torah. There's a reason it's called the "Song" of Solomon.You haven't answered the question: Your criteria is fulfilled by any other holy book. What makes you so sure yours is right? Everything about the Iliad and the Odyssey has been shown to be real. In fact, that would be even more substantial evidence for the legitimacy of the divinity of the Pantheon because it is an outside source: It isn't trying to justify the divinity of the Olympians but simply takes it for granted. After all, everybody knows they exist and they were intimately, directly, and personally involved in the sacking of Troy and return of Odysseus to Ithaca. These poems are just describing the events.Why do you argue special pleading for your pet theology?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.