outhouse

you mean memories of traveling trans-Jorden tribal communities that would go into Egypt and leave peacefully during good times.

they say that has a possibility of having a historical core to the moses legends


other then that were talking about the Shasu tribe, and or the Hyksos

which both are guesses and little known with any certainty at all.


again, its factual Israelites formed from displaced Canaanites

the male and female deities are also factually Canaanite

sotto voce

I'm sure. But I don't suppose that they imagined that people would be still laughing at it after all this time.

Chili

Still a major disaster since to deny it is also to be a literalist and miss the allegory completely.

So now what? Hint, of course the Exodus was real but only in the allegory contained.

The same with Jesus existing or not, and the mythicist position doesn't help it because they cannot rationalize the myth.

Cheerful Charlie

The Torah mentions almost nothing about marriage. 8 mere mentions. And lots about sacrifices, sacrifices and more sacrifices and what goodies from these sacrifices the priests got to eat and what bits were to be burnt for an offering to God. Obviously, this was all written by priests for priests. Ingersoll went into this in great detail well over a century ago.

Cheerful Charlie

Cheerful Charlie

They may have wandered less than supposed. Some lists of place names in so called Egyptin map listss mention three mentions of a village called YWH, pre-Rameses. Thutmoses overran the near East and large numbers of Canaanites were later deported to Egypt. But none of the Egyptianisms you'd expecfcct from this seemed to rub off on the possible proto-Israelites. It was Egyptian policy to take sons of chiefs, their auxillaries, to Egypt for education. The Torah mentions nothing about that. The Egyptions got lax, Canaan became a backwater and Egyptian presence waned. In the early Rameside dynasty, the area along the coast became a problem with encroaching tribes establishing themselves there an making problems, Probably shaking down traders and Egyptians among others for "taxes" and tolls et al. Seti I went on the war path and strongly re-established Egypt's military presence along the Via Mare, the main road along the Mediterranian coast. The village of YWH disappears from map lists.
The war between Egypt asnd the Hittite empire makes any wandering Israelites life rather deeply involved with Egypt's military efforts in the area. Merneptah most certainly did know of the Israelitess and beat them badly militarily, but they seem to have been found to the North of Jerusalem. By the time of Rameses VI, the Egyptian empire leaves the near East and the captive Sea peoples, including the Dor and Philistines.

Archaeology establishes the spread of the hilltop settlements that would become Israel by 1200 BCE but these are Northern Semites culturally and their dialects and languages establish that. There are almost no Egyptianisms found among them, they are typical Canaanites. Only weights and measures are basically Egyptian in part, but you'd expect that because Egypt would become their best customers, mainly for olive oil and wine.

The pseudohistory of the Torah reflects none of these known facts. Remnants of an Egyptian temple have been found in parts of "David's City" in Jerusalem that probably reflect an official Egyptian presence in early Jerusalem, that seems to have been forgotten by the Israelites, who also seem to know nothing of the happenings to be found in the Amarna letters.

Who knows what happened with all of this, we only know the Bible reflects nothing about any of this betraying any true knowledge of the Israelite past.

Trustworthy history there starts with Omri.

Cheerful Charlie

outhouse

excellent post


not that im doubting this, but do you have any sources for this below ???

never found that before, other then a 2 egyptian reliefs, and the meaning was unclear.

sotto voce

Obvious, is it? All? The Torah is a lot more than Levitical code, isn't it. Or is that just the small bit you've read?

Or are we witnessing yet more drivel?

But why didn't you tell us this before I told you that the Egyptians had religion for mercenary reasons? Why have you not answered the question of what the Torah was for, directly, to the poster who asked you?

:constern01:

Cheerful Charlie

Oxford Encyclopedia of Near Eastern Archeology (5 volumes)
The original article on this subject was written in German and as far
as I know has not been directly translated into English.

Besides a bare listing of names of villages and towns along a certain road, we have nothing more. So any connection with Yahweh may be held to be somewhat questionable by skeptics. But as we have three seperate mentions, it cannot totally be a misreading or error. All we get from pre-Israelite eras are a few hints, a few clues, some minor written evidence

The question is, how did we get from El to YHWH, this seems to be a clue, the claim that southern Negev, had some connection with the name YHWH seems to be true, but details and not available.
Seti I obvious had some vigorous activities in the area, but mentions nothing as far as names. The Egyprtan inscriptions do not even bother to name names in a rather disdaiful and dismissive mannner, the enemies of Egypt are called "Miserable Asiatics" and such. Not real useful.

Cheerful Charlie

Cheerful Charlie

No, you are witnessing some simple scholarship. I had read some drivel from some loutish preacher onn the sancity of marriage and it struck me, I did not recall much about marriage in the Torah. So I got out my concordance and looked up marriage. This lead to my reading the laws of Moses portions of the Torah very closely.
The Torah contains a lot of pseudohistory. And a lot of mitzvahs, laws of Moses.
as Col. Robert Ingersoll pointed out, obviously much of this was written for priests by priests and it seems rather to be true.

My questions were though, what does the Torah say about marriage? Obviously marriage was no big deal, hardly important to the writers and editors of the Torah.
Most certainly not that holy things modern Christiann preachers want us to think it is, in regards to legalization of homosexual marriage.

Drivel? Yes, but the drivel certainly is not coming from me.

Why the oversight? Simple, 2000 years before this, written language evolved for legal reasons, to record deeds, receipts of sales of cattle and witnessing contracts.
Including wedding contracts that were a very important part of contract law everywhere.
and pre-literate societies had strong cultural traditions of witnessing such contracts before many witnesses, clearly and with no ambiguities. So marriage was a fait accompli long before the era when these sorts of laws were written down. marriage took care of itself and was thus ignored by the writers and editors of the 5 books of Moses.

This obvious realization undercuts extremist Christian rhetoric. and offers us some insight to why the Torah reads as it does.

We have archaeologically speaking, lots of ancient marriage contracts. This was one of the most basic annd important aspects of ancient life. along with deeds to land and that is almost absent also from the Torah. there are no details from god himself how mankind is to handle that issue.

Now read how much of these books have to say about priests, their duties, sacrifices and who gets to eat what goodies from these sacrifices and what parts of the sacrifices are to be burnt as offerings.

What parts of these writings were important to the writers? It all makes for an interesting read. Now point to me any obvious "drivel". Why does the Torah mention marriage only 8 times. 2 of them are orders not to marry Canaanites, 2 tell us that an Israelite woman who marries a man from another tribe is not to lose any of her rights guaranteed by her own tribe. Most useful to modern life, yes?

Oh yes, and the rules on selling your daughter into concubinage. Exodus 21. If anybody here has some wayward nubile young daughters who you would like to get rid of and pick up some quick bucks, contact me.


Cheerful Charlie

sotto voce

That's contradiction in terms. We either have scholarship, that requires hard work and comprehension of complexity. Or we have simplistic nonsense.

There's no shortage.

Good word, eh?

Ah. The well-known scholar.

Is that right. If it's obvious, why is it not well known? How is it that you are the only poster here proposing this view?

Duties, eh. Now why would people want duties? Not what most people want, are they.

Who gave priests these duties, anyway? Priests?

Not for the squeamish, then.

Free eats. Super. Well, hardly free, when you've done all that unpleasant work.

So where's the money? The real deal?

Can you provide a verse reference or quote?