lee_merrill

But the Mavs were playing last night, and the Hurricanes tonight, so what's a sports fan to do?

spin

But obviously they were not. The Phoenicians are clearly a part of the Canaanite background. The Sea Peoples cut a trajectory which included the Asian coast of the Aegean, the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, the Hittite kingdom disappears, Cyprus goes, Carchemish falls, as does Ugarit, to stop on the south Levantine coast to prepare an attack on Egypt which failed, leaving them sitting on that coast. With nothing better to do they settled there, slowly taking over Egyptian possessions in the area.

The process was of several groups of dispossessed Indo-European tribes pushed there way into Greece, some of them continuing on, and collecting other groups on the way. One group, the Denyen (mentioned in the Amarna letters as Danuna), are thought to have lived in the area around modern day Adana in Turkey when they were swept along in the Sea Peoples movement (perhaps eventually becoming the tribe of Dan -- note Jdg 5:17, Dan remaining in ships, despite arriving -- we are told -- by land from Egypt).

Some of the peoples brought with them obviously Greek culture, both ceramic and that seen in their port construction. They settled further south than where the Phoenicians were generally found. This could simply be that the Sea Peoples took over the southern Phoenician sites, not yet distinguishable from other Canaanites such as the Hebrews. We know that over the century after the Sea Peoples were defeated by Ramses III at the eastern delta of the Nile, the Egyptians slowly lost all their possessions in Palestine to the new population of Sea Peoples. The Egyptians didn't reassert their hold over Palestine until the reign of Shoshenq I.

The Sea Peoples, as I said started off trampling through Greece. In fact some of the various peoples crossed over to Italy and settled there. Hence we have in the Egyptian record a group called the Shekelesh, who were the Sicels of Sicily, and the Sherden or Sardinians.

There are traces of various Sea Peoples who settled on the Levantine coast in some of the Egyptian literature. It is important to note that the Philistines and the Danuna and their fellow groups, had settled in the area as overlords, eventually assimilated the characteristics of the local cultures and were in turn assimilated by those cultures. They first absorbed the Phoenician language and then Aramaic, though by that stage it would have been extremely difficult to really distinguish who were of Sea People origin and who weren't.

None of this of course impacts on your last statement, " So the Phoenicians are still there", which is certainly true.


spin

lee_merrill

Actually, this is the first I have heard of this, and no, I don't hold this position.

But saying it's so, and pointing to another verse, doesn't show that verse 20 means the city. I would say "to the people" means people, and "dwell" (buildings don't dwell!) means people too, etc.

By the way, I order the "True Story of Alex" DVD, I have yet to watch it, but it says on the back cover that Alex died of battle wounds. Now from all I have heard, he died of a fever, and not from battle wounds, so what is going on here with the History Channel?!

Regards,
Lee

Johnny Skeptic

Ok, we agree that we need both, but for years at the Theology Web and at the Secular Web all that you have conveniently debated is whether or not prophecies have failed. Based upon your own comments no one should pay any attention to Bible prophecy until it has been reasonably proven that they have not failed AND that they have not revised. Is that right, Lee? The first thing that you should do with any prophecy is to reasonably prove that it was written before the events and that it has not been altered. Otherwise, you are completely wasting your time since skeptics can always bring up the issues of dating and possible revisions. Surely you will never convince ANY undecided readers at this forum until you fulfill these necessary basic requirements. In prophecies where dating and possible revisions are issues, no matter what claims you make I can say that is doesn't matter at all because of the reasons that I just stated. If you are not confident that you can date the Tyre prophecy before the events and reasonably prove that it has not been revised, I suggest that you pick a prophecy that does not depend upon dating and possible revisions. As you know, there are such prophecies in the New Testament.

Once alerted, only the gullible and the unwary would ever be deceived by your current evasive tactics. I will remind new readers of this from time to time so that you won't be able to deceive them.

Gullwind

I didn't point to another verse. I pointed to the entire passage! I mentioned that verse 20 is part of the same sentence as verse 19, so you need to show where the focus changes from "you" meaning Tyre to "you" meaning something else.

So what you are arguing is that somewhere the focus changes from the city to the people, and then changes again to the trading empire. All without any of the normal transitional elements indicating such a change. You just doubled your workload.

lee_merrill

Yes, I would agree with you.

Erm, you can rebuild Babylon, or reinhabit it! That cannot be post-dated, nor can various other similar prophecies...

Well, no, I think you have to prove your view that they were post-dated. And if it seems likely we can't tell, then we should postpone any decision.

Ahem!

"But verse 20 is part of the reference to the physical city sinking. It's part of the same sentence as verse 19..." (Gullwind)

But "dwell" is not naturally applied to dwellings! I would consider that a transitional element, as also the other considerations I have mentioned here...

Regards,
Lee

Gullwind

You neglected to quote the rest of what I said, where I acknowledged that. You still haven't addressed my point.

Given that the passage has just stated that Tyre (the physical city) would sink, I don't see where dwelling with those in the pit is out of place. It certainly doesn't indicate a transition to the trading empire, which is where you have to get to.

lee_merrill

Well, all right...

"I mentioned that verse 20 is part of the same sentence as verse 19..."

But the Bible is full of long sentences, Genesis chapter one is just one long phrase in Hebrew, every verse in Hebrew begins with "and", and this continues into Genesis chapter 2.

Yet cities don't dwell, that is my point, dwellers dwell, and "with those who dwell" makes this quite clear that people are meant, not buildings.

Now Don, I have watched the very Alexander video you have used as a reference, and I have a question.

I have a question.

Peter Woodward says, while standing on the jetties, "I'm standing on the southern edge of the island of Tyre. Later earthquakes caused this area to slip into the sea, but this line of rocks marks where the walls of the ancient city once stood."

I think you may know what my question is now.

Regards,
Lee

Johnny Skeptic

Did you read that folks? By Lee's own words, don't pay any attention to what he says about any prophecy where dating or possible revisions are unresolved issues. That of course includes the Tyre prophecy, so don't pay any attention to what Lee says until he addresses those issues.

I meant prophecies where dating and possible revisions are an issue. Regarding the Babylon prophecy, it was you who withdrew. If you want to debate it some more, I would enjoy embarrassing you now just like I did then. I told you that the Iraqis do not have any attractive incentives for rebuilding Babylon, and that attractive incentives would be a reasonable guarantee that if Babylon were rebuilt, the Christian church would become substantilly smaller, and/or that the U.S. would adopt a friendly foreign policy towards the Iraqis. You ought to be well aware that there is not any credible evidence that either or both of those results would occur. It was your position that discrediting the Bible ought to be attractive to the Iraqis, but what good is it to discredit a book if the people who believe in the book will not give up their beliefs and/or change their foreign policy? As I recall, I asked you to provide some names of some Christians who would give up Christianity if Babylon were to be rebuilt. I think that you found about two at the Theology Web, and you counted yourself too. I asked you on several occasions to ask your pastor for his opinion, and to poll the members of your church, but you conveniently didn't do it. I suppose that if you polled 1,000 Christians in twently different churches, fifty per church (I will be generous and agree that they be fundamentalist churches), that not even a total of 10people, or 1%, would give up Christianity if Babylon were to be rebuilt. I studied the Babylon prophecy in about four Bible commentaries, including one that was edited by F.F. Bruce, but none of them stated anywhere near what you stated. I guess that you are not aware how strange some of your views are even among many if not most fundamentalist Christians. If you contacted the U.S. State Department, they would laugh at you. I asked you to contact them, but you wisely chose not to. Your arguments only appeal to the gullible and the unwary. Do you by chance have any corroborative evidence from some Bible scholars regarding the Babylon prophecy, or did you and Josh McDowell dream these arguments up on your own?

But you previously said otherwise. I said "Based upon your own comments no one should pay any attention to Bible prophecy until it has been reasonably proven that they have not failed AND that they have not revised. Is that right, Lee?" You replied "Yes, I would agree with you." It is not up to me to prove anything because you and the Bible are the initial claimants, just like in a court trial. Common sense and civil law state that he would asserts first must defend first. There is in fact no logic that states that all assertions are true unless proven false. In fact, the opposite is the case. Following your own same line of reasoning, if I told you that I had a flying pig, and you questioned my claim, I could fairly tell you that it was up to you to disprove my claim. Do you see how silly your argument is?

Gullwind

And how does this support your point? You still need to show where the transition from the physical city to an aspect of the city is.

Okay. For the sake of argument, I'll concede this point. Let's say this part is referring to the people of the city sinking with it down to the bottom of the sea.

Now, given that we have gone from the physical city sinking to the (presumably physical) people sinking with it, why do you think the very next verse that says "shall be found no more" does not refer to either the city or the people, but to the trading empire? Isn't it reasonable to think the writer just might have meant that a city that was going to sink beneath the waves was very likely to never be found again?