Solitary Man

Seconded.

Sigma

The fact that 50% of Jews would refuse to publish leads me to believe that Tiger's survey was completely fabricated.

jules?

History should be fluid, unfortunately historians like definites when there are few to be found. Columbus still 'discovered' America despite never setting foot on mainland N.America and despite some vikings. When new evidence surfaces there is a tendency to ignore it, but this is just that historians like being right. Once the Bible was considered to be an historical document, evidence said otherwise and historians changed their story. did history change? Yes but the events in history are forever fixed it's just the best guess that gets recorded. Does the world get turned on its head?

Now if climate change/plagues etc was proven to be an act of god then I would be impressed.

Solitary Man

It'd be nice if you would actually respond to what I said rather than what you think I said and ignoring the rest.

Keith&Co.

Sure, I'd publish. I'd suspect most atheists that i know would, too.
The content really doesn't impact on my decision, nor the makeup of my team. I dug for it, i found it, sure as hell i'd publish it. Let the skeptics and the faithful either deal with it for what it may or may not be, let the dogmatic slot it into their ideology wherever it fits.

Finding it, i must publish. And any information i have about the date it was written, the source, the name and agenda of the author, all would contribute to evaluating it as historical data, then worry about where the chips fall.

Sheshbazzar

Ditto.
The pursuit of the truth, and the defense of the truth, as it is established as being the actual truth by incontrovertible evidence, ought to be an ethical goal, far surpassing in importance any petty personal ideological biases.
Who, holding such a certain knowledge as a secret, would be able to quell his conscience or sleep at night?
No doubt that there are some who would hold to and, help further a lie rather than renounce what they assuredly know to be a lie, that is an aspect of human nature that is dealt with here on IIDB every day. Such small minded persons are truly pitiful creatures.

jules?

If i get your point correctly; history, and theories of Levant occupation would change with new evidence. seems sensible although despite new finds, or lack of finds as it happens from Prof Finklestein that show late Bronze-age Isreal to be almost non existant, general history books still give a false impression of the extent of the land of the Israelites. [I still cannot see the world/history/beliefs etc turned on its head]

If I am being dumb and have missed your point again please reiterate.

Fr. Gottisttot

I'd publish. My personal beliefs should not influence what information I release.

Hex

Of course, I'd publish.

First off, it'd be unethical to hide it. Second off, if I didn't publish, someone else on my crew would, and I'd look like I was at home to Mr. Cock-up. :Cheeky:

But, I'd also want to have other folks come in and check the authenticity. And, I'd be sure that the texts were checked and translated by several different scholars. Why? Because then I'm closer to getting concensus as to provenience and interpretation.

But moreover, I'm going to be looking at why the hell none of this has ever showed up before, and where the -rest- of the evidence is in the archaeological record.

While an inscription is an artifact, one artifact all by itself, in contradiction with the -rest- of the archaeological record, isn't worth much of anything.

Besides, who's to say that it wasn't just 'vandalism' by some early Hebrew traders' kids out for a lark?

Tigers!

The survey has been conducted ad-hoc as I said over the last > 20 years (basically my working career). It was given to people whom I met that I felt would be willing to give it some thought and give me an answer. My sample size has been small. That's why I wanted to expand the possible pool of applicants.
The comment given about 50% for/against Jews was correct. I have not met many Jews in my career and had not asked any of them the question. I should have been clearer with the meaning of those figures as well as noting that I had no pagan or muslim data either.

The atheistic response figures I had had been a suprise to me too. I would thought that pretty much all atheists would have been willing to publish. That's why I threw it open, to confirm my suspicion. Perhaps I hit a bad patch of atheists?