spamandham

...unless of course, it's the Gospels. In that case, they seem happy to simply delete the crazy miracle stuff, the anachronisms, the parts known to be historically false, and the geographic errors, and then claim that the rest probably actually happened. They take what's left and invent a new subcategory for period biographies to put it in, since it doesn't actually resemble any other period biographies, and call the whole process scientific.

:huh:

Sauron

Egyptian pyramids were built with commissioned workers.

That's how it works everywhere else. People leave behind a hell of a lot of things, and they don't go back to pick them up. And that's how it worked with other nomadic groups in the Middle East. Any reason why it doesn't work here as well?

So you'll need to explain how a group of people numbering 2.5 million -- plus all their livestock -- lived in one spot for 38 years and left zero evidence of their habitation.

1. Which cities? Be specific: half-remembered episodes of "The Discovery Channel" aren't good enough here.

2. The difference here is that we know where the Israelites camped. Show me:

a. city of 2.5 million where
b. we have the exact location, but
c. we cannot find any evidence of the city or its inhabitants

You can't do it.

Except that:

1. all these people are -- at a minimum -- Bronze Age people - which means they would also leave behind metal and glass objects;

2. in other nomadic situations (tents and grass huts) we can find evidence of people's lives - how come no evidence here?

No, it's a myth.

All three are a fiction.

Cege

Please help me out here, as I'm completely ignorant of what EA 29 is, and where I can educate myself about it...and googling isn't helping me at all.

jess

I didn't see EA 29 but Hex had linked to here, which looks like lots of fun!



Thanks for the fix!

Cege

TY, Jess.

spin

The standard work on the Amarna Letters these days is William L. Moran, (Amazon).


spin

RED DAVE

Please to note that in the face of overwhelming historical refutation, Larsguy47 has quit this thread and started another one.

RED DAVE

Sven

Yes - unintentionally. Because you don't understand the difference between probability and probability density. Granted, the graph is labelled a bit confusingly. Nevertheless, the meaning is obvious for anyone with introductory knowledge of statistics.

Just look at the upper right corner: Probabilites are (and can!) only be given for a range of years. You get these probabilities by comparing the area between the graph, the x-axis and two vertical lines at the respective years with the total area between the graph and the x-axis.

Learn more here: Probability density function

Jedi Mind Trick

And if it is downgraded from a million to 200 persons then did the plagues, death of the firstborn / Passover, the pillar of smoke and fire, parting of the sea / drowning of Pharaoh's army, fire hovering over Mt. Sinai / giving of the law, etc. etc. etc. happen?

Larsguy47

"Downgrading" in this historical context is not an option. And yes, the ten plagues and all the other miraculous stuff would have occurred. Akhenaten's becoming a monotheist is proof of the ten plagues, for instance. He was totally impressed with a "living god" and likely because he had first-hand observation of these plagues in connection with the conversations of Moses with his father Amenhotep III, he of all people would have no doubt these were directly related to Moses and the god of the Israelites, so he converted, big time!

But of course, no one can blame you for not believing in angels if you haven't seen one personally. Or believing in any miracle you haven't experienced. But that is the nature of "miracles", they can't be explained by natural laws. They are not natural events. There will be little to confirm their ever occurring, save for circumstantially, like the affect it might have had on the next ruler, etc. who experienced these miracles.

Larsguy