Robert Byers

Well.
Why should i think there would be stuff from a settlement back then? time erodes. Is this the place? The bible makes clear rules about waste and litter and its destruction. There could be plenty of reasons and more reasons I don't know about for why old camps of large numbers. Its difficult to get a bead on this. Study about campmess would first need to be read about.

The Jericho answer you gave was unconvincing.
I know, read, that walls of Jericho are found so uniquely placed that they must explain it as earthquakes and not from war or age.
This women only did a definitive work in the eyes of small circles and not by proving something to large numbers. Bits and pieces found in old ruins are not persuasive of great decisions made about the ruins. In short the claim of a authority is worthless. Instead you would have to show the data of this authority and make then the case.
The bible is a witness to what happened and you must first discredit this witness before you say the account was wrong.
Rob Byers

Robert Byers

Fine. This is afterwards. Until this the witness must be acceptable.
Rob nyers

Robert Byers

These liars on the streets before they were discovered as liars were people /witnesses in good standing. Timeline here.
No you don't need to establish you know what your talking about etc. Your credibility in presumed until someone shows it isn't ok.
Rob Byers

Sheshonq

No they weren't. They were liars back then too - merely because nobody had discovered it, does not change the fact that they were liars. What kind of nonsense is that?

In the court of law you have to establish credibility first.

Afraid you're wrong about that. The first thing an attorney will do is called PTD - pre-trial deposition. At that time, they ask a series of questions of the person who wants to give testimony, to determine whether they are knowledgeable, or just blowing smoke.

Just one more thing that you're ignorant of.

Sadly wrong.

You skipped this part:

Says who? Show me a breakdown of iron-age battles where no evidence was found.

You mean kinda like your excuse about items decaying over time - you were guessing and didn't know what the hell you were talking about.

"Any number of reasons"? Fine - then invoke those reasons - and watch your so-called 'reasons' get shot down like clay pigeons on an artillery range.

Sheshonq

Because we already have stuff from other settlements back then.
Because we have stuff from other settlements in the Sinai back then.
Because we have stuff from other parts of the Mideast back then.

2.5M people camped in one location for 38 years and zero evidence left behind? Horseshit.

Not iron and brass. Many other things survive from that time as well. Instead of just guessing, why don't you get off your lazy backside and study some archaeology?

spin

No. No. No. A witness must be shown to have a way of knowing what the witness reports. "Where were you on the night of the fifth..." If the witness cannot be shown to have an opportunity to know, then the person is not a witness.

We are not dealing with information per se. We are dealing with information in a context. If the person supplying the information cannot be placed in a position of knowledge the information in itself cannot be validated and therefore the information provider is not a witness.

The advocate selects the person with information in such a way as to use him/her as a witness. If a person is presented in court without validation the information is thrown out. The jury is advised to disregard the information and the advocate is cautioned for introducing inadmissible information.

People consider all sorts of information. It is then vetted for relevance.

Once validated.

A validated testimony is then debated for its value.

It is not a matter of credibility per se, but of validation. This is prepared before the testimony and the first thing done is that that validation is demonstrated. Only then can the witness testify.

Neither am I. A witness must be validated, shown to have a way of having relevant knowledge. The value of that information can then be discussed.

As with the courts, history simply doesn't work that way. One has to show the validity of the testimony before being able to use it. When you cannot say when a text was written, whether it was written by one person or by many over a long period of time, where it was written, for whom it was written, what the desired result of the writers was when writing, it is exceptionally hard to introduce much of anything from the bible as validated testimony of a specific past under investigation.

The best chance texts that can be validated were omitted from the protestant bible, 1 & 2 Maccabees. In the real world Daniel can be dated with precision to prior to 164 BCE, though in the inerrantist galaxy, that can't be given. Chronicles was written after the last mentioned person (about the 14th generation of the Davidic line, 1 Chr 3, after the exile), but probably long after that. Deuteronomy talks about going back to Egypt in ships, 28:68, a fact which refers to slaving in the post exilic period. I can see why you are not interested in the important notion of witness validation, but prefer to go with the naive notion of any witness being of good standing until shown not to be. The hopes of validating many parts of the bible seem so slim.


spin

Minimalist

You miss the point, probably intentionally. If one witness thinks a car is red and another witness thinks a car is green than both may be but one must be, wrong. No amount of time until examination can change the fact that the two tell different tales.

Thus, when Mark testifies that Jesus' last words were:

"And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

But, Luke says:

"Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last. "

Now, both could be totally full of shit but in a best case scenario only one can be right. There is no reason to presume that either is credible.

-Jay-

For perspective, Robert, the population of the state of Nevada is right at 2.5M. Rhode Island has a little over 1M. You apparently have no appreciation for just how much crap (both literally and figuratively) that many people generate. If they were there, the evidence would be clear.

regards,

NinJay

badger3k

Can I guess the answer?

Uh-Uh, you are wrong. Look at how many people have lived in the few thousand years that people have lived, and where is all their poo? Besides, the bible doesn't mention people pooing, so it didn't happen.

:worried: :wide:

Unless ... that is what was meant by manna ?

Minimalist

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


And while we're searching for non-existent ancient latrines, give some thought to the bodies of the dead. If the "whole generation" that sinned had to die out before Yahweh the Bloody Handed let them enter Canaan then there should be 2.5 million bodies laying around. Where are they? The sands of Egypt preserved natural mummies of the poor and Sinai is just as dry as Egypt.

What about the garbage middens? Surely you don't think that many people can live without creating mounds of garbage? They never broke a pot? How come no pottery sherds, as A. Mazar mentioned in the excerpt above? No fire pits with charcoal for easy radiocarbon dating, either? They went 40 years without making a fire? Not likely.

If ever a story was complete horseshit, it is the Exodus tale of all these people living in the goddamn desert for 40 years.