steve_bnk

Sure but who were those 'yawehists'. We have no way of knowing what the demographics were. The Christian cultural myth is the Jews were a monolithic group ordained by a deity with a continuous monolithic history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine_papyri

'...The Jews had their own Temple to Yahweh[1] which functioned alongside that of the local ram-headed deity, Khnum.[2] The "Petition to Bagoas" (Sayce-Cowley collection) is a letter written in 407 BCE to Bagoas, the Persian governor of Judea, appealing for assistance in rebuilding the Jewish temple in Elephantine, which had recently been badly damaged by an anti-Semitic rampage on the part of a segment of the Elephantine community.[3]///

The papyri suggest that "even in exile and beyond the worship of a female deity endured."[9] The texts were written by a group of Jews living at Elephantine near the Nubian border, whose religion has been described as "nearly identical to Iron Age II Judahite religion".[10] The papyri describe the Jews as worshiping Anat-Yahu (or AnatYahu). Anat-Yahu is described as either the wife[11] (or paredra, sacred consort)[12] of Yahweh or as a hypostatized aspect[13] of Yahweh.[14][15]..'

Nothing to infer a Jewish state in Palestine of biblical stature, and further muddies the waters as to what Jewish means circa 400- 500BCE. You will have a hard time just defining the term Jew with any precision.

outhouse

Word salad, instead of producing exactly what you asked for youself.


At this modern age no one should be pushing mythology into reality.


Why dont you admit your personally biased and refuse to look at reality historically.?

Duvduv

If you ever read the works of Max Weber, you would know that it is impossible for a human being not to bring his values and biases into analyses of social phenomena. So whatever biases I have can only be matched by your own.

steve_bnk

If there is no more proof for Herodotus living than Moses, then we accept the bible as true? That does not work.


The writings attributed to Herodotus can be correlated by other evidence, The biblical Moses and his adventures exist only in the bible without any correlations. For example, Exodus.

We do not need to prove the existence of Aristotle. The fact that you can challenge existence of other figures in antiquity does not further your argument for the biblical Exodus.

Confucius, Buddha, Sung Tzu, Lao Tze.

In the case of Lao Tze his origins and actual existence is unknown. There are anecdotal stories.

We know that the Shaolin Temple and monks of o legend existed. They interacted with the world around them and left a footprint. The origins of the Shaolin martial arts in one version is attributed to a wandering monk from India anecdotally. No one knows the real story.

There is a Japanese Kendo saint Myamoto Musashi who wrote a book on strategy Book Of Five Rings still in print. Probably no archeological evidence for him either, but there are sword duels he is known to have fought and there are contemporary references.


We can say Aristotle whoever he may have been, left us through his writings the beginnings of modern rational logical thought.

Buddhists face the same issue with the Buddha. There are no independent corroborations of his alleged existence. I believe if you asked a Buddhist on the existence of the historical person they'd probably say it does not matter.


The origins o the Buddhist Pali Cannon and authorship are more traceable than any biblical writings.

Whoever Buddha, Herodotus, Aristotle, Confucius were they left a detectable foot print in their respective civilizations and history.

There is no such foot print for the biblical stories. There is no corroboration between Moses and Exodus to what became 'Jews'.

The Buddhist bible so to speak. Oral tradition to text. And there is no way to separate out original teachings from alterations and embellishments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pali_canon

'...The Pāli Canon (Pali: Tipitaka) is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language.[1] It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon.[2] It was composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to writing during the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka in 29 BCE, approximately four hundred and fifty four years after the death of Shākyamuni.[3][4][5]..'

steve_bnk

Another common theist approach used in Creationism vs Evolution.

It boils down to asserting science is as much faith as religion, therefore wrongly concluding Creationism is just as scientifically valid as Evolution.

Or atheists have as much 'faith' in the non existence of god as theists have faith in existence of god, therefore the two sides are equal.

You keep claiming bias, but you do not present the basis for your belief in Exodus, the specific op topic.

semiopen

I guess it's too highbrow for me.

However, you may have mixed up two different things.

Black_Madonna_of_Częstochowa

Whereas with Eve_Frank - Even though she was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, she was never called Madonna.

This must have momentarily confused me. :Cheeky:

Duvduv

Look, Steve. You and I both know that it is humanly impossible to pinpoint the creation, so save your energy for other arguments. The creation of the universe is beyond human comprehension and our concepts of time and space. That's why dating creation to billions of years ago makes no sense. If God created the universe he did it beyond our conceptions of time and space, so what appears within our definitions of time and space to be billions of years is not really the case. Haven't you ever studied some teachings of the Vedas? Go read some of the books of Alan Watts.

Duvduv

When Jacob Frank died he was "succeeded" by his daughter. However, when he was in Czestechowa Poland he developed the idea that his daughter Eva was the female messiah, and the black madonna. Stephan Huller knows all about it.

Duvduv

There is no greater footprint for Sakaymuni Gautama than there is for Moses, Zoroaster or Alexander the Great. No videos. No recordings, nothing. So whatever you want to accept about their existence is ultimately based on FAITH. That's spelled F A I T H.

Iskander

you forgot to include Jesus and Paul in that list.