mata leao

Toto,I realize you are a moderator and I am new so I dont know if I can argue with you or not, but I disagree withe every single thing you have said. You say the "judeo-Christian" religion is a myth. That is not an argument, it is a conclusory statement. This is your belief. I beleive Christianity is true, it is not a myth. Do you have proof that Christianity is a myth? And who is the fact finder as to this? who decides? And if this issue is "decided" then I assume no more debates about Christianity need be had...one then wonders why you are all here? Resolved: The Ten Commandments tablets never existed..... Has anyone provided any evidence they never existed, or is this someone's belief? That also says you are charging the first author or the first redactor with making the story of the tablets up. Do you have evidence that they made up the story of the tablets? Why did they make the story up? what did they have to gain from doing so? Is there something particularly controversial or culturally anomolous about the affirmative requirements and prohibitons in the ten commandmants ? Is it your position that nothing from the hebraic oral tradition ended up being recorded later when literate hebrew scribes began to write? Are you sasying the existence of a purported copy is no evidence whatsoever of the purported original?

Diogenes the Cynic

You are allowed to argue with moderators all you want as far as debate topics. Only personal insults are forbidden.

When Toto says that "Judeo-Christian" religion is a myth, what he means is that the phrase "Judeo-Christian" denotes a tradition which doesn't exist. There is Jewish tradition and there is Christian tradition but there is no such thing as "Judeo-Christian" tradition...at least not a tradition which is in any way distinguishable from plain old Christianity. "Judeo-Christian" is just code for Christian. It's a phrase which necessarily exludes Judaism simply by including Christianity.

That's a separate issue from whether Christianity and Judaism are themselves rooted in myths, which they are, and yes, there is abundant evidence for that including sone very persuasive evidence that nothing like the Moses myth ever occurred historically.

Toto

You can argue all you want, but please give something more than your disagreement or statements of belief, if you want to be treated seriously.

There is no "Judeo-Christian" religion - that is a fact. Whether Christianity is a myth is a topic of debate here. Obviously it has not been settled to everyone's satisfaction (yours in particular).

Since you are new, I would like to advise you that it is not considered good form to continually try to throw the burden of proof on other people. It is your job to bring forward facts to support your position.

We have no evidence that they ever existed. They are part of a story with many mythological and supernatural elements that very few people treat as history.

Yes - there is evidence that the Exodus never happened. There is also evidence that supernatural beings do not live on mountains. The people who made the story up might have been trying to make a point, or trying to engage in what we now call "nation-building" - creating a sense of community in people.

The 10 commandments start off by saying that there is one God, the one who brought the Israelites out of Egypt. That's controversial to many people. It goes on to require that the Sabbath be kept holy. That would put a big crimp in American commerce and sports.

Most people who speak reverently of the 10C haven't actually read them or thought about what they mean.

I don't know that there was a Hebraic oral tradition, or that this tradition contained any amount of historical accuracy.

mata leao

dear toto- if you didnt know there even was a Hebraic oral tradition you might wish to study that a bit more. I dont mean that disrespectfully. There is quite a bit of scholary work concerning that oral tradition.

Amaleq13

This should have been an excellent opportunity for you to share the specific evidence of a reliable oral tradition.

What specific evidence convinces you of this conclusion?

mata leao

glad you asked; in the both patrilineal and matrilineal ancient hebrew geneological reckoning the oral tradition was viewed as sacrosanct in its fidelity to accuracy because so much depended on absolute truth, accuracy and detail: levitical lineage and eligibility for priesthood and priestly successsion, land tittles, inheritance rights, and tribal affiliation as well as birth order-all depoended upon a strict use of oral tradition,witnesses, aand witnessed symbolic ritual-such as the suitor binding his betrothed's wrist with his with twine (as a witness to all of proposal and promise of marriage), the ritual attentandt to the passing ot inheritance rights to the firstborn male , the location of and construction of altars and memorials and graves of patriarchs and prophets, ...etc also, more mundane issues such as the location of wells and watering places for herds, contracts for sale/buying of animals and for labor of details of young Hebrew males who were consigned out by heads of household to help in herding, etc.....in addition to very detailed geneologies, the oral tradition successfully conveyed the history and culture of the Hebrew people intergenerationally, including the teachings of the priests and prophets, the prophecies and the religious rules,rituals and guidelines. G.E. Wright,"The Oral Tradition of the Hebrew Race",A.H. Sayce "Monument Fact and Higher Critical Fancies"; DR. Howard Vos "The Reliability of Oral Tradition "; Dr. Cyrus Gordon "The literary culture of ancient Canaan";W.James "Law Codes of the Ancient Semitic Peoples",,etc
Interesting, to this very day law courts in Israel use and rely on family records of geneologies which assimilate the oral tradition. In Israeli courts, levitical lineage, tribal affiliation, jewish cosanguinity, and matrilineal and patrilineal heritage may utilize testimony from witnesses who relate oral tradition as well as past recorded geneology records. Litiagtion concerning right of return, aliyah, etc has actually used ancient oral tradition as admissible in Israeli courts, due to the tremedous respect for the reliability and fidelity of the oral tradition and its transmission intergenerationally.

Diogenes the Cynic

There is such thing as "matrilineal ancient hebrew geneological reckoning." The ancient Hebrews regarded maternal bloodlines as legally irrelevant and never kept those records.

Also, you were asked to present your evidence that an oral tradition for the whole Moses-Sinai-tablets tale ever existed at all. What we have in Exodus is a syncretic literary composition (a composition which has been proven by physical evidence to be ahistorical) not a transcription of an oral tradition.

You never answered my question as to why ancient tribal legends from Palestine deserve any more special credence as accurate historical narratives than the tribal legends of Australia or North America.

mata leao

wrong Diogenes, when war or famine or corruption of bloodlines or lack of male heirs became an issue, matrilineal geneological reckoning was and IS still used,though obviously not favored. The diaspora and greatly fragmented tribal affiliations also led to this practice. Exodus has not been proven to be ahistorical and your question is off point. Someof the oral tradition of the Chrokee and Lakota tribes is very accurate,even down to a list of names of those who perished in the trail of tears and the actual places their "spirit dances" were held. The issue in the OP is not an analogical juxtoposition of different oral traditions but rather a bald faced opinion that "No ten commandmandts tablets ever existed". The hebraic oral tradition as exegeted by peer reviewed world class scholars clearly establishes that the "cultural milieu meta-belief" that the tablets existed corporeally and were revered and were part of an elaborate ritual worship that was sacred and inter-generationally known and followed. If you would kindly consult some of the sources I provided you would see that there is a reasoned scholarly basis for the existence of and reliance upon the ten commandmants in hebrew culture. Including, the use of the ten commandmants as a basis for positive law, extending from ancient times into first century palestine and to modern times.

Sauron

You'll have to provide a source for this claim. As far as I know -- and Diogenes, yummyfur, Apikorus, and Carrier know more about Jewish historical practices -- it was *never* the case that Jews traced family lineage matrilineally.

But on the off-chance that they did, I am sure it was a quite exceptional event. So you would need to show that the matrilineal excuse you are offering coincided with such extreme circumstances.

Exodus is ahistorical; the specific items that Diogenes listed cannot be verified at all, in spite of being in teh bible. What is worse, there is contrary evidence -- evidence that could not exist, if these things had occurred.

A good place for you to get an education would be "The Bible Unearthed", by Finkelstein and Silberman. There are several reviews of it here; use the Search function to see what other people have said about it.

Which is not the same thing at all, since:

a. the oral traditions of those tribes co-existed with a literate culture that was also transcribing those events;

b. and in the case of the Cherokee, being in possession of their own written alphabet prior to the Trail of Tears;

c. the events being described orally were only separated by a few decades, or at most one century, before being written down;

d. what is being alleged in the Hebrew texts is divinely inspired infallibility of the oral traditions - not a general sense of accuracy;

However, Diogenes did not say that. He might believe that, but what he said was that there is no evidence for any such tablets.

Apparently you enjoy connecting words you don't understand into long sentences. Fine.

1. Cite the "peer reviewed scholars" and their work in this area;

2. Specifically note the affirmative claim for the existence of tablets, as well as the methodology for discovery;

What sources?
What scholars?

Djugashvillain

mata laeo, in your short time here you have consistently failed to source your claims. Vague references, as I have told you before, do not count as sourcing. In another thread, when called out on this, you apologised and said you would go to the library in the morning and find the sources. It's been two days--what of it? Instead of making more unverified claims, verify earlier ones. Calling people flat-out wrong and failing to source your claims but vaguely alluding to authority makes me think that you have never read a peer-review journal<edit>.