Maklelan

No, these are stories and rules that have no basis in fact, but are designed to scare people into obedience. I asked you for evidence. This is not evidence.

Sheshbazzar

Then employ your vaunted linguistic skills and translate for everyone here what it is that each of the above Hebrew verses say.

In another place in the Scripture it is written;
ויאמר יהושע אל־כל־העם כה־אמר יהוה אלהי ישראל בעבר הנהר ישבו אבותיכם מעולם תרח אבי אברהם ואבי נחור ויעבדו אלהים אחרים׃

I have provided textual evidence supporting the statements that I made in post #15 above. The texts repeatedly state that such fratricide did occur, and that it occurred repeatedly.
And that the 'Jewish' form of religion, figure-headed by the mythical 'Moshe', was forced upon an unwilling Hebrew populace by a self-appointed Jewish priesthood.
Like it or not that is what the TaNaKa texts reveal.

To deny the content of my post you must resort to rejecting the many accounts of this coercion that are repeatedly given within those ancient texts.
Entire books are devoted to this religious battle, where the Yahwhists forced their version of a national religion upon their countrymen with threats and swords.
If it were only a few instances, it could be ignored, but it constitutes the major theme of these texts, and would not have been so written unless there was substance to it.
Where there is smoke, there is likely fire. And if not fire, high heat, the kind that turns the hand of man against man, and brother against brother.

No such 'authoritative' and dominating religious/political power could have arisen 'without the breaking of a few eggs',
And these texts literally luxuriate in providing details of all the eggs that they broke on their way to power.

ששבצר העברי



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Maklelan

It doesn't take particularly vaunted skills to translate basic Biblical Hebrew narrative, but it goes something like this:

And Joshua said to all the people, 'Thus says Yhwh, the God of Israel, "When long ago your fathers dwelled on the other side of the river––even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor––they served other gods."'

Only if you accept it as accurate, which it absolutely is not.

And you just believe it?

No, it's what some of them say. Whether or not they're accurate is another story entirely.

No, I just have to point out that the evidence points unilaterally against the historicity of those narratives.

You don't know much about historical criticism, do you?

Sheshbazzar

Please continue to translate the content of the rest of the above verses.
And we will discuss when, where, and why they were written.

Maklelan

Unless you want to formally question my capacities with the Hebrew language, why don't you just get to your point?

Sheshbazzar

The point is apparent in the Hebrew texts provided.
You said;

וישלח יהוא בכל־ישראל ויבאו כל־עבדי הבעל ולא־נשאר איש אשר לא־בא ויבאו בית הבעל וימלא בית־הבעל פה לפה׃

ויבאו לעשות זבחים ועלות ויהוא שם־לו בחוץ שמנים איש ויאמר האיש אשר־ימלט מן־האנשים אשר אני מביא על־ידיכם נפשו תחת נפשו׃
ויהי ככלתו לעשות העלה ויאמר יהוא לרצים ולשלשים באו הכום איש אל־יצא ויכום לפי־חרב וישלכו הרצים והשלשים

Is the evidence from somewhere that such mass fratricides did take place.

Can you provide a list of reputable Historical critical scholars that are willing back your insinuation that the reported massacre by Jehu of the priests of Baal did not happen?

Perhaps you would like to claim that Jehu was only a mythical character, and never took any sides in Israel's religious deputes? Or that there never were any priests of Baal in Israel?
Most Historical-Critical scholars readily concede that battles with winners and losers did take place, and the inscriptions and writings of other ancient cultures also testify to the brutality common to the era.

Historical Criticism does not consist of simply denying everything that is recorded within the texts, particularly when these texts are the only accounting of the details of the political and religious alignments and divisions that existed at that time.

As I stated earlier, there would be no unified Israeli Nation without breaking some eggs, and the attestation of the TaNaKa and of history is consistent, that the blade of the sword was the oft resorted to settler of contentious religious differences.

That some of 'The Laws of YHWH' were not enforced is no indication that none of The Laws of YHWH' were enforced.
And the most valued venue for actually applying The Law Without Mercy was in the political/religious arena where it provided the most expedient means for the eliminating of any competition.









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stephan huller

There is no point to any of these arguments unless hatred of religion is an argument in itself.

Maklelan

No it's not. It's just a story. It's no more evidence of fratricide than Genesis 1 is evidence of a solid dome surrounding the earth.

It's not an insinuation, it's an explicit statement, and it would be easier to provide a list of those reputable historical critical scholars who believed the massacre actually did happen. Just put all the biblical inerrantists on that list. I don't know of anyone else who accepts the story as historical. In discussing Jehu and 2 Kings 10, Bob Becking said the following about Jan-Winn Wesselius' assumption of historicity in 2 Kgs 10:18ff ("Did Jehu Write the Tel Dan Inscription?" Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 13.2 [1999]: 187–201):

He then cites Knauf, Barstad, Grabbe, Linville, Nelson, Rösel, Nielsen, Diebner, Thompson. He also points out that the story of the slaughter of the priests of Baal is even considered a late interpolation into the Deuteronomistic history, citing Würthwein, Cogan, Tadmor, McKenzie, Dietrich, Nelson, and Mulzer. This all occurs between pp. 192 and 194. I agree with Becking here, as do the vast majority of scholars, as far as I can tell.

You're conflating broad historical circumstances with quite specific and ideologically important events. Try again.

Lugubert

Sorry for the nitpick, but I will until exhaustion argue that syntax is a part of grammar.

Especially in languages with minimal morphology, like Chinese, syntax is almost identical to grammar.

Maklelan

That just depends on how you define the terms. The majority of the linguistic world finds more value in distinguishing the two. You don't. That's fine.