Jack the Bodiless

I agree with a moratorium on serious responses, until he develops some integrity.

I might mention the sinking of Manhattan again though. 155,000 Google hits can't all be wrong, surely...

Sauron

Agreed. Lee's apparently making stuff up and hoping we don't check it. For example, above he says:


Well, that's what I read in a review of Arrian's book on Amazon.com, and for sure anything posted on the web must be true!

Ah. So lee now reads book reviews - not knowing that Amazon book reviews are written by Amazon's online customers of the books - ordinary people -- and not academic experts.

And as for "anything on the web being true" - a dangerous position for lee to take. Since lee apparently doesn't read books to form his opinions, relying upon websites alone - well, this complaint undercuts his own arguing position.

And this:

But this link has a similar statement about Arrian, and also debunks some other folks who wrote historical comments about Alex…

Ah. A link to debunk us! Oooooooh, scary! But hold on a minute, ladies and gentlemen -- guess where the link above goes? Any ideas?
drumroll.......
It goes back to page 4 of this very same debate on Infidels. The link doesn't debunk anything at all - except lee merrill, that is. :rolling:

Julian

You know, somehow this alone would have ended the argument for me, and forced me to capitulate, if I had been in Lee's position.

I think the moratorium, that 'rotation' suggested, is a good idea.

Julian

noah

I'm on board for the moratorium Sauron. I agree with your assessment entirely.
I'm with you Julian. That would have ended the argument for me long ago.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Um, this was meant ironically.

Well, it supports my point!

I didn't make that quote up!

I found another indication that part of Tyre may have sunk, the same fault line that probably brought down Herod's port and palace runs up and down the coast, and all the way to Tyre.

And thanks for the mention of where the map came from, Jack, I didn't recall seeing the island of Hercules there. And isn't this evidence that another part may have sunk too?

But I don't mind stopping here...

Regards,
Lee

noah

You see Lee, the word may doesn't cut it. Grasping at fault lines is just more guesswork on your part. Do you really think an earthquake that sent Tyre underwater would have escaped everyone's notice? Do you really think anyone would have missed such a cataclysm?

Do you still not see the value of sources in support of your claim?

Jack the Bodiless

The whole of the Eastern Mediterranean is tectonically active. According to this article, that's what destroyed Israel in the recent tsunami (Google on Israel tsunami - about 1,200,000 hits).

Poseidon's destruction of both Israel and Manhattan, and the subsequent extinction of the Jews as a people (invalidating the "prophecy" that they would endure forever), was a very effective way of demonstrating that Christianity is bunk.

Sauron

No it wasn't.

1. You tried to use the quote to defend your statement that Arrian was some kind of sycophant for Alexander.

2.But that position got shot down because you didn't realize the Amazon reviews you were quoting were not a reliable source.

3. So *now* you're telling us that you meant it "ironically" to avoid admitting your mistake.

4. But that only undercuts your original argument that Arrian is unreliable about Alexander. You're now left with a claim, and no source quotation to back it up.

More evidence that you're just playing games in this debate - as if more evidence were needed.

Oh, please. You just linked to page 4 of this debate. Quoting this very same debate does not support your point.

You made up the link reference to this debate, and hoped nobody would click on it.

1. Showing us a fault line in the Mediterranean does not demonstrate that Tyre sunk. The same fault line runs through Rome; does that prove that Rome must have sunk?

2. Herod's port was not brought down by a fault line; totally unconnected.

You're just flailing about here hoping to hit something by sheer effort.

The island of Hercules was not part of Tyre proper. Notice on the map that the walls of the city did not include that island.

Not much choice. You're out of bullets.

meforevidence

Hello everyone. I really have enjoyed reading your material. Both sides have showed a lot of study. I too have studied Ancient Assyria, Babylon, and manuscripts of antiquities.
First of all, as most of you know, the Septuagint is the text that was written at the time the Greeks were the strongest empire. Alexandria was named after Alexander the Great and that is where the Septuagint was written. It was started close to 250 B.C. and finished no later than 150 B.C. as evidenced by the manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls (both by the actual books being found themselves except for Esther, and by manuscripts being found that refer to the other books being translated into Greek).
In the Septuagint, The Greek word for Tyre is used throughout the Bible. It is even used in Isaiah 23, Ezekiel 28 and Ezekiel 29. It is NOT used even once though in Ezekiel 26 and 27. The Greek word is "SOR" which is a different city (and differnt Greek word) that was on the coastland. The Book of Judith speaks of the cities on the coastlands and reads: Judith 2: 27 “Then he went down into the plain of Damascus in the time of wheat harvest, and burnt up all their fields, and destroyed their flocks and herds, also he spoiled their cities, and utterly wasted their countries, and smote all their young men with the edge of the sword. 28 Therefore the fear and dread of him fell upon all the inhabitants of the sea coasts, which were in Sidon and Tyrus, and them that dwelt in Sur and Ocina, and all that dwelt in Jemnaan; and they that dwelt in Azotus and Ascalon feared him greatly.�
So the Septuagint and the Book of Judith both differenciate the cities of Sor and Tyre. The modern English versions say "daughters in the field" while the ancient versions (including Hebrew and Latin) say "daughter towns on the mainland". The Greek word for field used here is "flat land". Sor was the city on the mainland which does not exist anymore and was conquered by not only the Assyrians (including Shalmanezzer) but later by Nebuchadnezzar the II. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the mainland city of Sor but could not destroy the island city of Tyre. In Isaiah 23, the word used instead of coastland was "island" for tyre. Later, when the island of Tyre was conquered, it faded out for close to seventy years but was made back into a trading center and existed not only in the days of Jesus, but until now. So both prophecies (Isaiah 23 and Ezekiel 26 and 27) have been fulfilled. Please see my website for more information. http://www.geocities.com/bkitc/Bible...04184376984%20

Sauron

Hmmm.

1. The name "Tyre" is not Greek in the first place; it is the Greek attempt at trying to spell the Hebrew word for a Phoenician city. So it has been through the linguistic washing machine twice, before getting to English.

2. In point of fact, Tyre and Sur are the same word. This is the result of the initial letter in Hebrew being a tsade, which is prounounced as "ts". Arabic has the same letter; Russian has the same sound (as in the word "tsar"). It's difficult to teach the difference to someone who doesn't speak Arabic, Hebrew or Russian.

3. This has caused you to mistake a variant spelling for a different city. But even in the KJV, we have Tyre as well as Tyrus:

JER 25:22 And all the kings of Tyrus, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles which are beyond the sea,

JOS 19:29 And then the coast turneth to Ramah, and to the strong city Tyre; and the coast turneth to Hosah; and the outgoings thereof are at the sea from the coast to Achzib:

Variant spellings do not indicate a second location.

4. Furthermore, we know that there were variant spellings in the Septuagint; so many, in fact, that Origen had to work to clean them up. Assuming that the 70 translators working on the Septuagint deliberately intended such a difference as "Tyre" vs. "Sur" simply goes against what we know of the history of the creation of the Septuagint.

I don't know about the book of Judith. But the Septuagint does not make such a distinction.

"Daughters in the field" is a Hebrew metaphor for colonies on the mainland. The Hebrew and Latin versions were obviously translating the metaphor that the Hebrew writers used.

No. Sur and Tyre are the same word and the same city.

Yes. And since Ezekiel's prophecy requires the destruction of the island by Nebuchadnezzar, the prophecy failed. From my document on this topic, written as a rebuttal to Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict. In this piece, I am rebutting McDowell's attempt to restrict the Ezekiel prophecy to just the mainland colonies:

Huh? No, it did not.

Neither of the prophecies has been fulfilled. Ezekiel fails because Nebuchadnezzar didn't conquer the island.

Isaiah fails because (1) Tyre did not vanish for 70 years, and (2) the text of the Isaiah prophecy indicates a role for Tyre that it has never played:

ISA 23:17 And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.

ISA 23:18 And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.

Tyre has never played such a role in history.


I also noticed the following mistakes on your webpage:

No. The word "phonics" comes from the Greek word for "hearing". The name Phoenicia comes probably from the Greek word phoinix, meaning purple red. The reason for this name was the famous purple red dye of the Murex snail that was produced in this region.

Britannica:

It is not certain what the Phoenicians called themselves in their own language; it appears to have been Kena'ani (Akkadian: Kinahna), "Canaanites." In Hebrew the word kena'ani has the secondary meaning of "merchant," a term that well characterizes the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians probably arrived in the area about 3000 BC. Nothing is known of their original homeland, though some traditions place it in the region of the Persian Gulf.

The Phoenicians did not create the Greek alphabet. Phoenician was the likely ancestor of the Greek alphabet, but they had no role in creating it. Britannica:

Phoenician alphabet, writing system that developed out of the North Semitic alphabet and was spread over the Mediterranean area by Phoenician traders. It is the probable ancestor of the Greek alphabet and, hence, of all Western alphabets. The earliest Phoenician inscription that has survived is the Ahiram epitaph at Byblos in Phoenicia, dating from the 11th century BC and written in the North Semitic alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet gradually developed from this North Semitic prototype and was in use until about the 1st century BC in Phoenicia proper. Phoenician colonial scripts, variants of the mainland Phoenician alphabet, are classified as Cypro-Phoenician (10th-2nd century BC) and Sardinian (c. 9th century BC) varieties. A third variety of the colonial Phoenician script evolved into the Punic and neo-Punic alphabets of Carthage, which continued to be written until about the 3rd century AD. Punic was a monumental script and neo-Punic a cursive form.

Utter nonsense on both points. You are merely quoting Greek mythology. Britannica again:

Cadmus, in Greek mythology, the son of Phoenix or Agenor (king of Phoenicia) and brother of Europa. Europa was carried off by Zeus, king of the gods, and Cadmus was sent out to find her.

In point of fact, the Phoenician alphabet - or alphabets, I should say - were not developed by any one person. And they pre-date the establishment of Tyre as a city.