Minimalist

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There were no walls in "David's Time"...Jerusalem was an insignificant little shithole in the 10th century. There were walls built in Hezekiah's time and when the bible was first written down, in the late 7th century, its authors concocted the tale based on what they saw THEN. William Dever, in "Who Were The Early Israelites...", gives a summary of all the places which are listed in the Joshua Conquest tale which were not occupied in the Late Bronze Age. They were occupied in the 7-8th centuries. The Conquest tale is a travelogue of 7-8th century Palestine.

And it was not an extensive city. Even by Josiah's time, Finkelstein reports in The Bible Unearthed that the urban area of the city was about 150 acres, max, with a population of 15,000. As far as I know the book is not online so if you wish to check you will need to visit your library. One spring was evidently enough. When things got bigger later on, Herod the Great built aqueducts but let's not get ahead of the story. You have stumbled on the truth though. Water would have been a limiting factor in the city's growth. They also made extensive use of cisterns to collect rainwater but, it is almost a desert area, rainfall is sporadic.

See above. A palace for the king, a temple for the priests, homes for administrators and court officials as well as artisans, scribes, etc. Most of the farmers would have lived in agricultural villages on the outskirts where they could be near their fields. We are not talking a major metropolis.

The bible claims that the pharoah, Sheshonq I, attacked the city in the late 10th century but it seems to be news to Sheshonq. He wrote an extensive list of the cities and towns he subdued but Jerusalem is not one of them. Instead, his target seems to have been the coastal plain (always Egypt's primary interest) and the newly forming population centers which later became the northern kingdom of Israel. The bible's author's were always happy to demonstrate some failing of their ancestors by having some foreign king come in and kick their asses...of course such acts were always at 'god's' bidding. One might assume that after laying Egypt waste during the Exodus god must have lost his touch and had to employ surrogates to do his dirty work. Whatever...there is no evidence for the Exodus, either. The plain fact is, to answer your question, no one seems to have bothered with Jerusalem for centuries. The Egyptians evicted the Hyksos in the 16th century and kept tight control on Canaan until the middle of the twelfth. When the Assyrians took out Israel in 722 they continued their offensive south and took out the Philistines as well. The also continued on to conquer Egypt but seem to have been content to allow Jerusalem to exist as a vassal state.

You are certainly free to read the link, if you wish. The conclusion posted speaks for itself. I'm not your secretary.

I'm sure it's accredited...by someone... but it seems that every time some idiotic claim is made about archaeology in Palestine "proving" the bible there is some baptist seminarian doing the shouting. It gets tiresome after a while when they substitute faith for reason.

spamandham

I agree completely. It isn't the quantity of documents that matters, but rather, the substance contained.

That's the issue regarding Jesus. The first time he appears in any work we are aware of, he shows up in the writings of a man who claims to have met him in the third heaven, and who by his own admission was deemed a nut by others. This man (Paul) also states that he (Paul) was specially selected to reveal this hidden message. Huh? What hidden message?

He then gets transformed into a legendary (fictional?) character by several others, and only long after than starts to be discussed by non-Christians as a historical figure.

Certainly none of this disproves the existence of a man whos life/death spawned the Biblical Jesus legends, but ancient history isn't about proofs/disproofs.

spamandham

Sticking with what has reached us is not a neutral conclusion. It's a conclusion that the mechanism involved in that line of transmission is trustworthy.

I have heard historians claim history became a science in the 1950's, and not to put too much stock in what was written prior to that.

But, you're more than welcome to trust anonymous ancient people if you wish, Roger.

In fairness, you should probably remind those you are chastising here, that you accept quite a bit of the legendary aspects of the story as well.

lee_merrill

If you want to redo your post without the profanity, I will be glad to read it.

lee_merrill

Yes, quite.

If you're going to hear someone talk about a Messiah sent by God, you should perhaps not complain if there is mention of the supernatural.

This would be a conclusion, now we want the evidence.

It is to some degree, note all the fuss about who wrote the works of Shakespeare. This becomes critical if there was a man with some valid claim to be God, we really need to know if this is supportable by evidence.

I again do recommend the method of Paul, "Who are you, Lord?" was Paul asking Jesus to reveal himself, and then "Lord, what do you want me to do?"

To obey a living Christ, I have found this extraordinary confirmation of a real person, and of his presence, as I see him at work as I seek to do his will.

Minimalist

You'll have to toughen up a little.

lee_merrill

Well, bud, if you want to splash filth in your page, I don't have to wade through it. Also, such eruptions may indicate who is losing ground, i.e. the one who throws the mud--as the saying goes...

And profanity is not toughness, it's softness, it's in fact a way for people to make waves when they have a lack of substance by way of reply--it's a cop-out. A desire to make weighty pronouncements without having the actual requisite weight.

jeffevnz

Well, according to Wikipedia, it's a late form of Yehoshua, which may mean "God's salvation". Whatever the name originally meant, the fact that Yeshua was a late, slurred version of it tells us that the meaning of the older version, Yehoshua, was probably not apparent to the people who used Yeshua.

My own first name, Geoffrey, is in a similar situation. It comes from an Anglo-Saxon compound word apparently meaning "God's peace" or "God's love", or something along those lines, but most people don't know the etymology, even though they're quite familiar with the name.

Based on that, I still think it's fair to say that the early Christians were referring to Jesus by a name that, to them, sounded like just another male name, without any obvious meaning.

ETA: It just occured to me that the Gospels also mention that Jesus bar-Abbas guy with the first name spelled the same way, IIRC. More evidence that the early Christians would have seen it as just another male name.

aa5874

Obedience to a belief is not confirmation of the existence of a real Jesus. And your statement supports mythology rather than historicity since your seem to be 'seeing and hearing' things.

I hope you don't expect me to believe that you can see Jesus right now. The historicity of Jesus will never be confirmed by faith, never.

Have you exhausted all your cards?

Toto

Profanity? It's just one little word of Anglo-Saxon origin, not even blasphemous.

I think you must be the one trying to cover up a lack of substance.