Exodus, Merneptah stela and israelites

do you?let phrase it this way. suppose for a second we're reading a US history book, and it says "john hancock was a president of the contintental congress before the constitution was drafted and george washington was elected as president of the united states."what can we infer about the book, without any further information? knowing history, what can we infer? was the book written before or after 1789? that's ridiculous. jacob doesn't even die until several chapters later, so the phrase "sons/children of jacob" pops up quite often refering to his specific family. and "sons/children of israel" is even more common. i count about 350 instances, in just the torah, and i will NOT post all of them here. it's a common way to refer to israelites. you keep making these preposterous claims about "such and such a phrase doesn't appear in the torah after this point" when any idiot with a searchable concordance can verify that it does.and even so, wouldn't refering to a people as "a nation" give a timeframe for when the verse was written? actually, the verse says "before any king ruled over the children of israel" not "land of israel." please try to pay attention to the details, if you're going to make a point out of them. but it's somewhat irrelevent, as the first king they would be talking about was king of a land called "israel" as well. saul, david, and solomon were "kings of israel." david's line through rehoboam were "kings of judah" and david's line through jeroboam were "kings of israel."Edited by arachnophilia, : typo

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you failed to answer my question. there is no difference, it's the same grammatical structure: {event y} before {event x}. it's not a difficult point -- something has to happen before it's written about as a past event.let me make this even more simple, using a famous example. if you found a coin with a date marked on it, and the date was "4 BC" what would you think of it? uh, no. yes, it refers to a nation. did i question that? i don't believe i did. and it doesn't say "there were no kings in israel." it says "before any king ruled israel."shall i diagram the sentance for you? let's throw out the word you're getting hung up on, "before." see that basic subject of the clause? "king." the verb -- "ruled." direct object? "israel." king rule israel.the author wrote with knowledge of kings in israel. and wrote about it in the equivalent of past tense. because, to him, it was common knowledge that israel had kings. it was to his audience too. this is not phrased as prophecy (and even saying such would be a misunderstanding of what prophecy even is). this is phrased as an off-hand, casual remark.this is not a contrived reading. this is reading they used to teach it in schools. let me stop you right in the middle here. you're still making the same mistake. "before." "before" there were kings in israel. the author has knowledge of kings in israel. ok, look. if you don't believe the above is anachronism, how about we talk about this simple point that you seem to rather pointlessly be going off on: the "nation" of israel.at genesis 36, where we find this verse, jacob's (israel's) house is himself, his two wives, his two wives' servants, dinah, and his 12 sons. that's a grand total of 17 people. now, if we want to argue for a simultaneous timeline (as the edomite kings are basically esau's grandchildren) we should count jacob's grandchildren too. that number (and detailed list) is given ten chapters later, in genesis 46, as 70. this at the point that the hebrews go into captivity in egypt.now, i wouldn't call 70 people "a nation" let alone 17. in fact, we don't even have a nation of israel until after the book of judges. so if the author is indeed refering to a nation -- it's yet another anachronism from author who did live in a nation. and this is not "i will make a great nation from you, abraham." yeah, no, try again. at this point in time, israel had none of that -- israel had 12 sons, a daughter, and four women. not the sort of group that needs a king, and they did, they had israel himself. it's a large family, yes, but still a small patriarchy.now, the people reading the book might wonder why edom had kings before they did. again, "did" past tense.

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what? no!failing marks for you. i'm not convinced you've ever even read the book -- first this bit about the single most common idiomatic way to refer to the nation of israel not being repeated (it is some 500 times or more! you can't read a section of the torah of any length without seeing it!)and now this? no, jacob was born. he just wasn't dead yet. this is contemporary to jacob. and jacob's new name "israel" isn't given in exodus, it's given in genesis, only four chapters before this point. and this too! saul was the first king of israel. he was rejected, and david took his place. david was the "great king" but saul came first.

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jerusalem existed before king david! jerusalem was first conquered by joshua. but jerusalem existed even before joshua. or moses. or even israel the person.it goes back to at least genesis 14 -- contemporary to abraham. have you even read genesis? or joshua? or samuel? what a strange question. lots of people, lots of places, over at least 200 years, maybe more like 500-700 years.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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i agree, that is suspicious indeed. how does a city that existed at the same time as the very first person called "hebrew" acquire a name in the language his decendents would speak?this means that either the entire joshua story (which you apparently haven't read) is a fabrication, or that they are using the name anachronistically. ie: it wasn't called "jerusalem" then, but something else in some other language, and they gave it a new name -- but refer to it in their stories by the modern name.this would be like saying "nebuchadnezzar built a ziggurat in ur, which is in iraq." the city of ur is indeed in iraq today, but it wasn't when the ziggurat was built.so take your pick -- made up stories, or anachronisms. also no true -- they were absolutely NOT sovereign under roman occupation. they were allowed a lot of freedom to do as they pleased, even having their own king -- but because the king answered to ceaser, they were not sovereign. there was a war between israel and itself years before that, resulting in two countries. israel was destroyed by assyria. assyrian and judah were occupied by babylon. the war didn't last a single year, it lasted the reign of the last three kings of judah. it ended in about 586 bc.

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israel is not a nation at this point in time. israel is a person at this point in time. it is an anachronism. i am wrong about what? i pointed out that you were mistaken about matter that anyone can freely look up and confirm. would have preferred verse numbers? i'll go find them if you want. from memory the name israel is given in chapter 32 of genesis. we are talking about a verse in chapter 36. genesis 32 ≠ exodus. well, no, it's not. and that is exactly what this verse proves. it's told retrospectively, yes -- i'm glad you acknowledge this basic point of common sense. some people seem to think adam was writing down the events of his life as they were happening.but the verse could not have been written by moses, who had no knowledge of israel having kings. the verse could only have been written by a person who lived after king saul. uh, no, that's exactly the opposite of what this verse proves. they wrote about having kings -- so it was written after they had kings. get it?and your point is still demonstrating great unfamiliarity with the OT. you probably meant "torah" but the OT was certain written and compiled after israel and judah had kings. heck, there's a book called "kings" that is so long it won't fit on a single scroll.

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your point isn't even internally consistent with itself.but let's look at an example. david set up jerusalem, conquered for the second time, as the capital of israel (and then judah when "israel" split off). but let's look at the first (somewhat unsuccessful) invasion:

quote:

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Jos 15:63 As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.

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"jerusalem." if it never existed before, by that name, why is called by that in joshua? if it was only called "jerusalem" after david, when must this verse have been written? what about this one:

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Gen 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.

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not the same place? not the same god?

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Psa 76:2 In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion.

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think again. salem = zion, the holy mountain of the most high god, yahweh. what is jerusalem, named during david's time, doing in genesis. when must this verse have been written? you apparently don't read MY comments either. you said they were sovereign until 70CE. i said "they weren't when they were under roman rule." roman rule extends at least until or past 70CE (i'm not terribly familiar with the history of palestine past the first century). they were under roman rule when christ was born. they were under roman rule in 70CE when they rebelled, and the romans burnt down the second temple. your statement is is just flat out wrong. they were NOT soverign until 70CE.these are not assumptions. this is history. get a book.better yet, read the bible, which contains a lot of this stuff. had you read the gospels, where christ is handed off to roman officials, and executed on a roman tortured device at the command of a roman prelate, pontious pilate, you might have known this.

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apparently, we're the ones wasting our time. you, on the other hand, could use a lesson or two on grammar, and basic reading comprehension. i could point out a few places the grammar is not the best. want one? i've got a thread on the very first of the bible brought on largely by discussion with you. i'll warn you, however, the discussion is 95% grammar, and 100% of that so far is in hebrewyou have no qualification to make any comment about the grammar of the bible when you cannot understand the grammar in translation, let alone having the ability to read any of the original. you suspect. come back when you have a little more knowledge of the language of the bible, or at least have learned to read english. because until then, all you have is suspicion. not knowledge, not an argument, and certainly not credibility.

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i have proposed a more appropriate thread. replies to your posts can be found there.