Exodus, Merneptah stela and israelites

LOL,If you can manage to step back and look at his posts, it is f*cking hilarious.No wonder the crackpot evangelists have such a big following.I would love to have the time to look at the psychology of religion, wee Joseph there would be an amazing subject.I don't know whether to feel sad or not for the guy.Brian.

.Edited by Brian, : ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

.Edited by Brian, : dbl pst

There’s no error mate, you just don’t have the balls to admit that this is an anachronism, and Moses could not have written this verse, or you are probably the only person on the planet that cannot understand what this passage is saying. This isn’t what it is saying at all. It is saying that Edom had, in this example, ”queens’ BEFORE Israel did. This is the whole point of putting the word ”before’ in there. If the passage meant what you would like it to it would say that ”Edom had Kings but Israel didn’t’.The text was written long after the start of the monarchy, this is the only way to make sense of the ”before’. Using ”before’ means that Israel will have kings as well, lol but Edom had them BEFORE Israel. There’s nothing ambiguous about the text at all. Afraid not mate, the word before proves that this passage is an anachronism, written by some unknown scribe or scribes, long after Moses was alleged to have lived. It would work just as well with chickens, or sheep, or schools, anything at all really would work. The Edomites had chickens, before there were any Israelite had a chicken, see it works as well. All it settles is the fact that you cannot read very well and your grammar is appalling. Oh I bet this is going to be packed full of facts. Well, by whoever wrote the text we have to be fair, this is the real situation. Yes, it shows that it is late addition to the Book of Exodus and it wasn’t written by Moses. You are still stuck in this fantasy that Moses wrote this down sometime during the second millennium BCE. Now the very fact that this verse mentions ”before’ means that it was written after the beginning of the Israelite monarchy, so you are giving too much credit to the author here. There’s no problem with a scribe sitting in the Land of Israel writing this text maybe 700 years after this was supposed to have happened and using ”Israel’ as a term for a land or a people, its not an issue. You need to read your Bible again. Jesus, you do have some real reading difficulties don’t you, or are you just parroting some garbage from fundy websites yet again?The Hebrews are referred to throughout the Book of Exodus, and even once in Deutronomy!Exodus 10:3 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, "This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me.You just talk garbage mate, you don’t even think about what you are writing, no critical research skills whatsoever. And how do you know this, just more nonsense. Again, you do not know this at all. The mention of Israel can quite easily be another anachronism. And you have no support for either of these assertions. LOL, all you are doing is proving my case, you are a silly laddie. I have never in my life said that the Merneptah stele contains the first unambiguous reference to Israel outside of the Bible, you must be confusing me with someone else. Once again your reading skills are amazing. The Stele DOES not mention King David, if it did then there wouldn’t be a huge debate going on in the academic world abut the tel Dan stele. I don’t mind being wrong, I am very open to learning new information. Unfortunately, you really don’t have a very good background knowledge of the Bible at all, your knowledge of ancient near eastern history is laughable, your critical thinking skills are non-existent, you have no idea what archaeology is and what it can and cannot do, you don’t know what history is, you invent all sorts of silly little gimmicks to try and make the bible into some perfect source of information, and you don’t have the balls to admit you have cocked up here.But hey, keep posting and denying that the passage under discussion is not an anachronism. I teach part time at a high school and I can play this game for as long as you want.Brian.

Yes. Well for that to be correct there would have to be some time AFTER the Edomites having children that Israel had children!And why is it impossible for someone writing say 700 years after the event to narrate it is present a folk tale in present tense? As soon as the author(s) mention the word ”before’ they are referring to something that happened AFTER the incident being discussed. It is really simple, the author knew that Edom had kings before Israel had kings, the author knew that both nations had kings and Edom had theirs first. Indeed, so the author is referring to that tie in retrospect. The author knew that Israel had kings that’s why he could say what he did. If Israel hadn’t have had any kings then the word ”before’ would not have been used. Yes I know, but they did have kings 400 years later, so the author knew that Edom had kings before Israel. I have no idea why you cannot see this, unless you are being deliberately obtuse. But it doesn’t, this is the whole point. To have kings before another nation has had kings, both nations would have needed to have had kings, it makes no sense any other way.Answer this: How did the author know that Edom had kings before Israel did? And the best coherent path makes this stick out as an anachronism, that’s why every scholar that has read it knows it had to be written after the beginning of the Israelite monarchy. Well the evidence is an insurmountable obstacle to Bible inerrantists, whom even the staunchest admits that there are glaring anachronisms in the Old testament, with the mention of Dan long before it was called Dan probably the most well known.But the Book of Exodus is rife with anachronisms, the cities of Pithom and Rameses is another famous one where either Rameses or both are anachronistic. If we follow Bible chronology and place the Exodus around 1446 BC then both cities are anachronistic, if we follow the revised chronology that places the Exodus in the mid 13th century BCE then the City of Rameses is okay, but Pithom is still anachronistic as the name Pithom was never used as a name for a city before the Saite period (7th c BCE). The name was used for temples and estates, but the name had never had any connection with a city (Lemche N P (1998) page 398, biblio details posted earlier)But these are just a few from the huge mountain of evidence that demonstrates beyond all reasonable doubt that much of the early history of Israel was added much later. Put this against the evidence for it being contemporaneous, and the comparison is laughable. That the text has been added to and edited is not even under debate anymore. Common sense impacts this verse though. Again though, you do not have a single shred of evidence that David wrote anything, in fact, you have no evidence that there ever was a King David. But, hey, maybe I am doing you a disservice, maybe you do have evidence that he wrote the psalms, not all of them though, so let me see what you have, if you have any. I’ll await the usual circular reasoning. I didn’t reject it, I advised caution when coming to conclusions about the meaning of the phrase ”byt dwd’, as it is well known that the meaning had not been settled. I also criticised the professionalism of Biran because of the way he went about his business here. It is strange that it is only the good old bible archaeologists who conduct their work in this manner, no archaeologist from any other field would be so ignorant. It is no good having a million stats if 99% of them are inaccurate. I don’t know if a book as erroneous as the old testament exists anywhere. I haven’t misconstrued anything. A basic reading of the text tells us that Edom had kings before Israel, so Israel had kings after Edom, and the author knew this. If you did some textual criticism and opened your mind you could see an easy solution. No it doesn’t. It is the very evidence from the ground that has falsified most of the first 5 books, and most of the next 2 as well.I look forward to your next display of cognitive dissonance.Brian.

Well you have asked four questions. Yes they reject this idea as there is no reason at all to consider it. First question is easy. Jerusalem is much older than 3000 years, with the earliest houses being dated to the early bronze age, second (or third) question, there is no sign of the first temple so how can we know? No one knows for certain.The earliest extant texts are the Dead Sea Scrolls, before this all we have are educated guesses. One thing though that is not disputed is that all the books are anonymous, we don't knw who wrote a single one of them.Another fact is the obvious signs of editing, with doublets and anachromisms the big clues.Brian.

Look mate, I am not here to give you a hard time, there's enough people piling on you already on other threads. All I am pointing out is that when it comes to archaeology, history, and the text of the Hebrew Bible, then things really are not as straightforward as you appear to believe.I can see where you are coming from, I approached many subjects in a similar way myself once upon a time, but it is only through studying that one realises exactly what archaeology can do, what history really is, and that the Hebrew Bible was not only written and rewritten over a long period of time it was also subject to the social and political influences of the communities that it was written in, as was every ancient text in existence.But when you look at the bigger picture, and ask questions that academics ask, you soon realise just how difficult it is to prove many of the events in the Hebrew Bible.Take the Merneptah Stele if you wish and look at the possible options. First off you need to look at the name itself, and it does look as if 'Israel' (our Bible Israel) is the most obvious translation, but we should'nt just leave it at that, we need to look for other options if you are going to have your interpretation accepted by your peers. Now 'Israel' is not the only translation that has been presented, for example Othniel Margalith claimed that the 'Israel' of the Merneptah Stele is unrelated to the people of the Bible. His conclusions were based on the suggestion that the Egyptian 's' could also be represented as a 'z and this suggested that the name 'Israel' could be translated as 'Izreel', which according to Margalith, an inexperienced scribe incorrectly inscribed 'Isreel' instead of 'Yezreal'(Jezreel) the valley in the north of the country (Margalith, quoted in Hasel, Michael G, Israel in the Merneptah Stele BASOR 296 p.46).Another translation comes from Alessandra Nibbi, although this hasn't gained much support, suggests that the 'Israel' of the Merneptah stele are actually a people known as 'the wearers of a sidelock and could be alluding to the Lybians (Nibbi quoted in Hasel page 45)These are two alternative translations, proving that not all scholars translate the 'Israel' of the stele as 'Israel'.Archaeologists and historians, especially in this postmodern world, really shouldn't state absolutes, and we should really say that the most likely translation is Israel, but we shouldnt say that it definitely is 'Israel' because we do not know what may be found in the future that may have clarify the Stele. Think of this, what if another inscription was found that infromed us that the Israel of the Stele was an Israel that came from Ebla (the name is found in two sources from there)then this would falsify any claim that the israel in the Stele is our Biblical Israel, and if this is the case then scholars could never have proven that Israel of the Stele is the Biblical Israel.Now I am not saying that the Israel of the Stele is not our Israel, it probably is, all I am advising is some caution when stating that this is a clear cut and unambiguous pice of evidence, and as far as archaeology goes I can assure you that very little is clear cut and unambiguous.But say that you go with the idea that this is our Israel, what does the mention actually prove? Well very little really, all it really suggests (not proves) is that Israel was an unsettled nation roaming (or semi-sedentary)a small part of Palestine at the end of the 13th century BCE.In an archaeological/historical context, THIS IS ALL that the Stele itself can tell us, everything else is in addition to the information in the stele. The Stele says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the religious practices of Israel, nothing about where this Israel came from, and nothing about later Israel. Archaeological artefacts are mute, they have no inherent meanings or contexts, their meanings and contexts are given to them by the archaeologist who is examining them, this is why we have so many archaeologists disagreeing about the meaning and context of the same artefact, it is simply a part of archaeology as a discipline.Here is the difficult part, regardless of what your interpretation of the evidence is, you have to provide justification for this interpretation, what Lewis Binford calls 'inference justification'. Now if we take the Israel of the Stele to be our Israel, then you have to provide justification from other evidence to support your interpretation.Now if someone wishes to place the Biblical Israel in Palestine at the end of the 13th century BCE then, for me, they need to provide some evidence of something uniquely Israelite in the archaeological record. Unfortunately, IMO, no one has provided any evidence of israelite material culture in Palestine during the 13th century BCE, so this weakens the argument.If we apply the claim that the Israel of the Stele is our Biblical Israel, then as far as the Biblical texts go, at face value, it causes huge problems with the accuracy of the claims made in the Bible.Some examples are, the Bible claims that the Exodus was in 1446 BCE, this is during Thutmosis III's reign where Palestine was a province of Egypt, it makes Pithom and Rameses anachronistic, and it falsifies the Biblical Conquest of Canaan which claims that forty years after the Exodus the Israelites began a military campaign that conquered the whole of Palestine in 5 years.There are other huge issues caused by the Stele, and by ALL of the other archaeological evidence. But the one constant factor is that the Biblical texts HAVE to be reinterpreted nowadays to fit the archaeological record, a literal acceptance of the Biblical text as histoically accurate was abandonned a very long time ago.So, I am not giving you a hard time, I am just advising a bit of caution when stating absolutes when referring to archaeologogy and/or history.Take care.Brian.

I didnt mention any science in my post, although I did mention a great deal of arts, and the logic is sound.Tell you what, why don't you tell me exactly where my 'science' and logic are at fault?In my explanation of what archaeology can and cannot do, please tell me exactly what it is, in your opinion, that is incorrect about that information. I would really appreciate it. Well it wasn't a waste of time, you did learn that you have a particular problem with grammar. I don't think you can lecture me on grammar when you post something like "to expose your not talking..."Added to the FACT that you are the only person on planet Earth that cannot see the anachronism.Anyway, I would be eternally grateful if you can point to the errors in my explanation about archaeology and the Merneptah Stele.Brian.

What science are you talking about?Also, my view of history is perfectly in line with mainstream academic history. But I dont reject everything, where do you get that idea from? There really is no end to your ignorance. Of course Jerusalem is a Hebrew name since it appears in the Hebrew Bible, but Jerusalem is not the original name of the city. What do you think the Urusalim of Abdi-Heba is in the Amarna Letters? a soveriegn nation in Jerusalem? Not much of a nation.You keep avoiding my questions, and all it is doing is demonstrating that you do not know what archaeology or history is. You should maybe take a course or two and come back when you have some idea. Did I deny this? This is just ridiculous. Do you think there is no debate about these things between scholars literally as we speak?I posted references, probably from scholars you havent even heard of, and you still keep denying the facts. AsI keep telling you, it is precisely these 1000s of artefacts ('relics' really is a very poor choice of word) that show up the problems with the Hebrew Bible's accounts of the past. As I aske dyou very politely, why not tell me where I am going wrong? In my explanation about archaeology and the Merneptah Stele what exactly is it I have presented that is incorrect? Instead of just bluster, why not actually point it out and tell me where I am going wrong? What science are you on about, I don't recall posting any scientific evidence.So, some example of my errors would be appreciated, it would help to prevent me making similar errors in the future.Brian

This is becoming tedious. So let's take it a step at a time and perhaps you can see where you are going wrong, and why people in the science threads are experiencing the same problems with you that I am.Now, I write that: " Now if we take the Israel of the Stele to be our Israel, then you have to provide justification from other evidence to support your interpretation.Then you reply with "There is a other evidence. That's it, That is your entire rebuttal!What I would like to see is some of this 'other evidence' that you are on about.So, what is this 'other evidence' that you have?Once you provide this we can move onto the next point.Brian.

This is exactly what we have been saying Joseph.Moses could only write about Adam because he knew adam had lived. Thus the author speaking about before there were kings in Israel could only have written this if he knew there had been a king of Israel.It is exactly the same. The author knew Israel had a few Kings after the Edomites did. The verse makes no sense at all any other way.Brian.

Any chance of you supporting this statement?hat evidence do you have that this occurred? Sure there wasn't Christianity, but Herodotus wrote about Palestine 500 years before Jesus was born.The name Palestine is derived from the Philistines.

Exactly, that is why Moses could not have written this verse, unless he had a crystal ball or the time machine you mentioned.So, this verse had to be written after the establishment of the Israelite monarchy.Moses didnt write anything, Moses is a literary invention, its no big deal.Brian.

So you have no evidence at all. That's fair enough to be honest since no archaeologist has uncovered any proof of this in over a hundred years of excavation in the holy land. Palestine is just the English rendering of the latin Palaestina taken from the Greek Palaistinei mentioned by Herodotus 500 year before jesus, I thought you would be interested.Brian