Johnny Skeptic

I would be surprised if fisherman did not spread their nets to dry. Surely nets were spread to dry even before Nebuchadnezzar's attacks.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Well, I would reiterate what I said though, that the context of "never found" does not so reasonably apply to a geographical location. But sinking under waves would.

Well, as in the above considerations? It does seem reasonable to conclude that there are switches in reference in this passage.

Right, an event can be not unusual in general, but a specific prediction of that event in a certain place would be impressive, like predicting a comet impact in northern Poughkeepsie, though comet impacts happen all over the world, and one happening somewhere is not astonishing.

I wouldn’t necessarily insist on “broke off,” and as above, I hold that “not found” refers to the people and trade and culture, but yes, otherwise, this is my view here.

But where does it say that each ancient wall in the area is not Phoenician? Isn’t it easier to just catalog the parts that are considered Phoenician, and then let the rest be considered non-Phoenician by default?

I again acknowledge that the wall exists!

I agree that they are not scholarly journal articles! I also hold that they are informed by archaeologists to some degree, and thus their opinions indicate to some measure the opinions of the archaeologists, it’s simply more evidence, but not the best evidence, I agree.

And I acknowledge your sources! But I have been making counterarguments, after seeing all the above statements, so repeating the arguments I find not so convincing.

But did Chehab say the wall shows evidence of bombardment? Or that it was from the 5th century? And Pierre Bikai says Roman columns and arena are above the Phoenician fortress wall, which was (we are told elsewhere) built to the edge of the sea! How do you expect people to build on top of a wall at the edge of the sea, as in an archaeological layer, I would still like to hear. So I think your sources are perhaps not quite so consistent.

I did explain, though, silting and erosion would tend to smooth out the edges, and this seems not to be the case at Tyre.

Um, those were the very first two quotes I have from the first edition, do you want me to check some more? The second quote doesn’t exist at all in any form! That I can tell.

Now you seem to be concluding that the changes were all trivial, on what basis do you make this claim, please? I need to see the evidence for your conclusion.

As I have said before, this is not discussed in the second edition.

I guess I need to check more quotes then. The third quote is exactly the same, yet it is on page 137, instead of on pages 81-82 (first edition). The fourth quote may have an extra sentence versus the first edition, though this may be quote compression by the person quoting Jidejian, and the second edition quote is on page 247, not page 122. Then there are two more quotes on very different pages each, and in the second quote, the second edition has “Abu’l–Fida” instead of “Abu’l-fiela” in the first edition, do I need to continue? The changes are not all incidental, and are made throughout, and where have all the extra pages come from? Though this might simply be due to retypesetting, I think probably not, if the difference is 120 pages in one instance. So this is not a reprint, with a bit of polish, instead, it is plainly a real new edition.

Um, no, I have made other points. Columns on the sea bottom, earthquakes (documented!) in the area, and a fault line, the island of Hercules sinking offshore, and so on, these come to mind.

The lack of ruins near the pottery, the lack of hearing of reports of ruins after digging where they expect to find them, the claim that Roman ruins were on top of the walls (an arena!), these also come to mind here.

Shall I continue? The hotel site not replying to me when I asked about why they made their claim, Nina’s account of the very causeway that Chehab (not Cherab!) said had the Phoenician walls, so she must not have missed this claim somehow…

Me too, so then when the experts do seem to disagree, I think we have to not make firm conclusions.

Right, so let’s put this to the test, will you contact some of these tourist sites? You are the one with these references, and I have contacted a hotel so far, so it can be done! I’m still here to tell the tale, and have not yet sunk into the sea…

Yes, if this were a hot topic when the book was written. Thus it would seem the question had been satisfactorily resolved in her opinion, at that time.

Maybe they could be off by like 50 years?

Because it was also said to become a place to spread fishnets, so then part of it would have to have remained above water, and the rest could have sunk, as in the offshore island.

But if you can demonstrate that 1) Nina discussed the very pavement that Chahab claimed also had the Phoenician walls, and that 2) Nina most definitely would have mentioned those walls (it’s a book about ancient Tyre!) if she thought they were really Phonician, then that silence is significant.

It would be like writing a book about discoveries of the writings of Plato, and not mentioning an original autograph manuscript of his most famous piece.

Regards,
Lee

Gullwind

Why not? No one knew where Troy was until Schliemann found it. Until then it was "not found." All "never found" adds is no one ever finding it. Where were the original colonist settlements in Virginia? We've found some, but not all of them. They are currently "not found." If we never do (quite likely, given the expansion of urban areas), they will be "never found." It seems to apply to geographical locations quite well.

So in other words, it means whatever it needs to mean to be a fulfilled prophecy.

Johnny Skeptic

Wrong, the U.S. stock market is a specific stock market. When it was between 6,000 and 7,000 a man, I forget who, predicted that it would be 10,000 within several years. Almost everyone disagreed with him, including most Christians. His prediction came true, but I don't know of anyone that believes that his prediction was inspired by God. There are of course many other unusual predictions, some in science, that have come true that almost no one thought would come true.

Another problem for you is that the prophecy had no time limit. If I predicted that a specific small islet in the Atlantic Ocean would become covered with water, but put no time limit on my prediction, if the island became covered with water in say one billion years, would you be impressed? I doubt it. Within one billion years, or possibly much sooner, maybe all small islets, and all small islands for that matter, in the entire world will be covered with water due to global warming or other natural factors. Jesus has not returned to earth. If he still hasn't returned to earth in one billion years, and if you were still alive, would you give up Christianity?

Are you expert enough in evaluating statistics and cause/correlation to quantify the odds of thousands of events throughout human history coming true?

Sven

Yeah, sure it's significant as long as one is somehow able to ignore all the evidence to the contrary.

Johnny Skeptic

No it doesn’t. You also said:

Wrong, the U.S. stock market is a specific stock market. When it was between 6,000 and 7,000 a man, I forget who, predicted that it would be 10,000 within several years. Almost everyone disagreed with him, including most Christians. His prediction came true, but I don't know of anyone who believes that his prediction was inspired by God. There are of course many other unusual predictions that have come true, some in science, that almost no one thought would come true.

Another problem for you is that the prophecy had no time limit. If I predicted that a specific small islet in the Atlantic Ocean would become covered with water, but put no time limit on my prediction, if the island became covered with water in say one billion years, would you be impressed? I doubt it. Within one billion years, or possibly much sooner, maybe all small islets, and all small islands for that matter, in the entire world will be covered with water due to global warming or other natural factors.

Are you expert enough in evaluating statistics and cause/correlation to quantify the odds of thousands of events throughout human history coming true? You demonstrated your ineptness in this area some time ago in another thread when you made some comments on miracle healings. I guess to you anything that is very unusual is miraculous, right, including very unusual bad things, including things that happen to Muslims and Hindus?

You are obviously unaware that when very unusual things happen, those events do not beat the odds. Rather, they fulfill the odds. Mathematical probability states it is far more likely that very unusual things will sometimes occur than that they will never occur. The best evidence of a miracle would be if they never occurred, because only divine manipulation could prevent very unusual things from not occurring. Of course, very unusual things sometimes happen to animals and plants too. Miraculous, eh, Lee?

If God exists, do you ever wonder why his intention has been to not make prophecies more clear? What advantage could such behavior possibly be for God or for humans? I know, there have to be good reasons because you have to rubber stamp everything that God does or says so that you will get to enjoy a comfortable eternal life.

By the way, do you have any evidence that the version of the Tyre prophecy that we have today is the same as the original version? If it isn't the same, of what value are any of your posts? The last chapter of the book of Revelation warns against tampering with the texts. If tampering were not possible, there
would have been no need for the warnings. Of course, tampering with the texts has never been difficult, and it would be quite easy today for some skeptics to rewrite parts of the Bible, take it to some remote jungle regions, and pass it off as a copy of the original.

Would God allow his word to be tampered with? Of course he would. Ample proof of that is that he has allowed hundreds of millions of people to die without ever having heard the Gospel message. An inerrant Bible is most certainly no more valuable than no Bible at all as far as those people were concerned.

When I was young I once read that 10,000 people in the world died of starvation every day. So, we know that God not only does not have any interest in spreading the Gospel message in a timely fashion, but he also does not have any interest in the tangible needs of billions of people.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Because the context of the statement in Ezekiel does not fit well with a meaning of geography.

Well, no, actually, the other words are reasons for concluding this.

So then the stock market getting to this level is as about as probable as a comet impact somewhere specific?

I would think the prophecy was intended for a smaller interval, though, that Ezekiel’s readers would not have thought a billion years was at all under consideration.

You seem to be claiming some ability to evaluate such estimates, though, and make comparisons.

Well, Johnny, if you want to open many more questions, I would recommend to you to open many more threads, the question before us here was about the text we have before us now...

Regards,
Lee

Gullwind

Really? Let's see, shall we?

"Make thee a desolate city," that sounds pretty physical, doesnt it? It's hard to imagine referring to a trading empire as desolate, especially since the next line is "like the cities that are not inhabited." That has to be physical. The next part deals with the island sinking, but you obviously agree that is physical.

Verse 20 is somewhat metaphorical, but deals with the city becoming uninhabited. I don't see anything that refers to the trading empire, do you?

Verse 21 says "thou" shall be no more, sought but never found.

Everywhere else, "thou" has been Tyre, and elements belonging to Tyre were referred that way, such as "thy walls, thy gates, thy streets." Yet you are now trying to claim that all of a sudden "thou" does not refer to the city, but to an element belonging to Tyre. Specifically, what about the context here indicates such a change in focus? I don't see it. Care to enlighten the rest of us?

You mean the ones that didn't happen the way its written, so they must mean something else?

Johnny Skeptic

Just one question, not many questions, and the most important question of all. The issues that you are debating are completely irrelevant unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the version of the prophecy that we have today is the same as the original version. Even if you win the current debates, you will still eventually lose until you successfully deal with my question. This is just simple logic.

You ought to already know that no skeptic at these forums ever publicly gives up skepticism because of anything that you write. The undecided crowd ought to be your main intended audience, and they are wondering why you won’t answer my question. Actually, some of them must already know that you are well aware that you cannot successfully answer my question, and they know that my question deserves as answer.

Sauron

Not really. Low lying areas and islands rise and fall often, so having that happen would not be impressive. What these areas DON'T do, however, is:

* sink entire cities under the water without anybody noticing their absence, and then
* elevate those same areas back above the water, just in the nick of time to be
* rebuilt by the very same people who used to live in the city before it sank

Which is pretty much what your crackpot idea requires.

No, you could not say it, for two reasons:
1. Noah doesn't need evidence - you are the claimant, not noah;
2. Noah has already provided far more evidence, even though he didn't have to do so

"thus the argument", eh?

1. Well, I'm glad you admit that the only reason you making that argument is to avoid watching the prophecy fail.

2. And of course, making an argument without offering any proof isn't going to work. The experts clearly indicate that the wall is Phoenician; therefore, the desperate speculation of one solitary uninformed christian are not enough to cast doubt.

I'm sure you do -- however, you are the one tossing out the what-ifs in an attempt to refute the evidence that the wall is PHoenician. The burden of proof is still yours.

And apparently you aren't planning on defending your own view, or proving your own points, either.

As usual, you leave out important context. Your originally attempted to say that the rubble in the water proved that the island sunk. As long as there are other possibilities for the rubble in the water, then your attempt to draw a proof here fails.

I don't have to prove that ANY of these things happened. All I have to do is show that you have failed to account for all of hte possibilities, before you tried to summarily declare that Tyre sunk. And, of course, as I said before: as soon as you get off your lazy ass and provide proof for your many what-if scenarios and speculations, at that point -- and not before -- you'll be in a position to demand proof from others.

You always forget these points. Deliberately, of course -- you don't want anyone to realize what an intellectually dishonest person you are. But I am here to remind you.

Wrong. Your job is to back up your claim that the rubble proves that Tyre sunk. In order to do that, you need to rule out other possible causes for the rubble being in the water. And since my list of other possible causes is far more accurate and historically sound, it's no wonder that you are avoiding this. You know that your crackpot idea won't stand close historical scrutiny.

Sadly, it does not make your argument stronger. Tyre is an island with a mercantile focus - do you get that point yet? As each successive city era or empire came, they would have cleared (urban renovated) the previous buildings of the city because real estate was at a premium.

Really? Says who, lee? YOU? Are you pretending to be an "ancient maritime expert" again, lee? Haven't we told you the dangers of making shit up as you go? Haven't you been embarrassed enough by trying to speak as an expert on subjects that you didn't even know existed until five minutes ago?

Consider Tyre's sister-city, Carthage: another Phoenician maritime power. Carthage had an intricate jetty/breakwater system:



So considering that breakwaters and jetties in the ancient world (especially the Phoenician ones) were renowned for their complexity as well as engineering skill, you're going to need to support your claim that these were just "rocks in the sea and not buildings."

1. Tourist websites are not a source for good archaeological data - you seem to prefer your sources based upon how easy they are for you to obtain, as opposed to how authoritative they are;
2. Since you haven't surveyed all the tourist sites on the market, you really aren't qualified to say whether these walls are being advertised or not;
3. The wall may not be open to the public, in which case there is no reason for a tourist site to mention something that was off-limits to tourists;
4. I already told you that the Lebanese govt has reasons to downplay any Phoenician finds;
5. The wall may have been discovered after the tourist website blindly copied the text that you trust so heavily

In short, your argument from silence is not convincing.

Of course it's an argument - it's the same caliber of argument as your initial claim was. Your original claim was that you doubted any ancients botheed to record earthquakes, but as usual you failed to support that statement.

Given that, it's fair for your opponent to respond by saying "Lots got recorded." After all, you haven't supported your initial claim about the frequency of ancient societies recording earthquakes. Until you do that, nobody owes you much more than "lots".

That's something you should check into, since you're the one with the fantasy claim about an earthquake sinking the city.

Generic references to earthquakes are not sufficient to prove your case. You need:

1. an earthquake
2. at Tyre
3. at the time in question;
4. that sank the city; AND
5. some mechanism for getting the city to rise above the water again

*yawn* so many games you play....

There have also been earthquakes in Seattle. But the debris at the bottom of Lake Washington and in Union Bay didn't get there as a result of Seattle sinking.

An earthquake in 500 AD still doesn't help you. You need:

1. an earthquake
2. at Tyre
3. at the time in question;
4. that sank the city; AND
5. some mechanism for getting the city to rise above the water again

However, there have been no such times in Tyrian history, so your premise is broken, right out of the starting gate. Moreover, Tyre was a regional power for centuries. If it had sunk, it would have been noticed by the neighboring civilizations.

Uh, no.......you are merely misquoting Jidejian's comments about Renan again. Not only are you misquoting these comments, but you can't keep the chronology straight. Renan published his volume on research at Tyre in 1864. But you need a period of desolation much earlier. So his observations about Tyre are useless to you. Why? Because they're from a time period that was 23 centuries LATER than what you need to prove your crackpot idea.

1. Says who? The island looks fairly rounded to me. It's all a matter of scaling.

2. You are still stuck with the problem that you claimed a peninsula had to take that shape. Who says so, lee? Who says that rounded edges are a requirement to be a peninsula? That's not what the dictionary definition says, nor is it the standard that geographers use. Are you making up another requirement out of the clear blue sky again, lee? Why, of course you are, silly us! :rolling:

3. But of course if you insist, then I have to point out that the following peninsulas also do not look like their edges were rounded by erosion and silting. It's not the appearance of Kenai, either.


Nor is it the appearance of Crimea:


Nor does the northwest peninsula of Iceland look like that:


See what happens when you make up criteria on the fly? :rolling:

Says who, lee? How did you decide that Cyprus was too large? What's the maximum size for a comparable island? What educational background do you have, that would allow you to make such a statement with any authority?

None. As usual, you make up whatever random criteria you need to reject valid counterexamples to your claims.

Uh, no he isn't. He is an apologist, with no training in history or geology.

What a crock. He is not "arguably" a historian; that is merely your dishonest tactic to try and semantically lower the bar so you can get your favorite source accepted along with actual, bonified historians and archaeologists. Archer is a theologian and apologist, with a background in divinity studies. Nothing more.


In the first place, you don't "need" to see anything. What you need to do is provide evidence for your claims. The Phoenician walls are there, above the water line, falsifying your silly idea. Your attempt to create doubt by sliding the phrase 'acknowledged by consensus' is transparently desperate. What's more, having read the rest of the thread it's obvious that dongiovanni1976x positively waxes the floor with you, by demonstrating the consensus of archaeologists and historians on this point.

Why would we conclude that, without knowing the facts of the situation? you are the only one here around here who builds layer after layer of argument upon assumptions.

Your claim was that finding the ruins was less probable. But you don't even know what it was they have found already. Your speculation is empty.

Nice try, but the burden of proof is still on you, the claimant here. Your job is to back up your claim that the rubble proves that Tyre sunk. In order to do that, you need to rule out other possible causes for the rubble being in the water. And since my list of other possible causes is far more accurate and historically sound, it's no wonder that you are avoiding this. You know that your crackpot idea won't stand close historical scrutiny.


No, lee; don't be silly. You have not presented any evidence. Don has presented evidence, but you have only waved your hands and speculated. That isn't evidence.

We've already done that. The evidence says that your idea is loony, and if you were really intersted in what was "most likely", then you would have jettisoned it long ago.

And again: an argument from the silence of your 3 or 4 preferred tourist websites is not an argument at all.

But as we've seen, you don't trouble yourself to do very much thorough reading on the matter. So the sites you've seen isn't a very good sampling of the available data out there.

Because she never offered an opinion on this. If you think she did, then repeat it here. In point of fact, we don't even know if she was aware of this wall when she wrote her book. If not, then it's not surprising that no special mention was made.

In point of fact, we have no evidence that there were any changes to the book between the first and second printing. You've tried to claim that several times, but each time I ask for proof you've failed to give any. Will you be giving any proof now, or will this be more of the same ducking and evasion?