aa5874

Your post is just absurd. It is fiction to claim the NT and Church writings is about a man.

How can it be that even though his biographers were of undisciplined and undiscriminating minds who left us obscure and imperfect information which at times contradict, and corrupt the truth, yet a meek man with majestic demeanour can be discovered?

What has been discovered is that the so-called biographers wrote fiction and there is no historical evidence to support them and their Jesus.

How can the biographers be discredited and still be relied upon as the source for a man when they presented a God/man?

A person cannot use the findings and writings of Galileo to argue that the earth is flat, so also, you cannot use the NT and the Church writings to argue that Jesus was a man since the NT and Church writings are about a Supernatural GOD/MAN.

There is no man in the NT, ONLY, a GOD/MAN.

wavy_wonder1

I don't recall saying anything about 'saving', and I don't see what 'leaks' have to do with recovering authentic history from the texts, (whatever their scale) such as the memory of some sort of liberation from Egypt of at least some elements constituting the early Israelite confederation. First, it has historical plausibility. The exodus is set under Rameses II, and we know from Egyptian sources that he undertook public works projects using Semitic laborers, and there were Semitic thralls used for similar purposes throughout the New Kingdom period. There is also independent witness to the Egyptian origin of several Semitic peoples from the Hyskos period in other sources, the best preserved (other than the bible) being Phoenician sources; ¹ the exodus is also one of the earliest and most universal traditions in the bible and was accepted as a universal credo by the Israelite confederation even if all the contingents didn't participate in it. (absorption into the leading tribal element's name and history is common in these kinds of societies) The best explanation for these data appears to me that something's there besides some one making it all up and succeeding in convincing an entire nation to accept it as part of their history, and that at least that much can be supported or 'checked' for validity even if the details are irrecoverable.

What does this have to do specifically with specifically backing Moses' historicity? Little to nothing. But the exodus story being pure fantasy (see spamandham) was used as a point against it. I'm just arguing that it's not so easily dismissed.

Nothing. I was merely addressing the claim that the ark was never existed. It was spamandham who took this as another point against Moses' existence.

Okay, I don't see the relevance of this to the exodus story or to Moses since the inscriptions date only to monarchical times, and the cultic center at Teman was used by non-Israelites as well (and therefore probably best represents syncretistic religion); and I don't agree (and this has nothing to do with the Moses point) for one moment with those scholars who interpret the inscriptions' mention 'Yahweh of GN and his/its asherah' as the consort of Yahweh. The word asherah is probably a common noun referring to a cultic object, namely the wooden symbol well-known from the bible, and could belong to the region itself, hence the possible translation 'its' rather than 'his'. Personally the best study I have found is Jeffrey H. Tigay's.²


You missed the point, which was that characters can be completely made up and I don't deny it. But the mere fact that characters can be made up is no indication that they actually are and I have already mentioned several lines of evidence that are reason enough to take the idea seriously at the least. (obviously not in detail given the scope of this thread, and as a non-specialists something I feel is beyond my ability to do adequately although I could make the attempt in another thread)

And there is the 'possibility' that I could be a red monkey. See what I just did there? You're missing the point.


Finis,
ELB



¹ My source for this is Donald B. Redford [1992] Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (or via: amazon.co.uk), Princeton: PUP, 408ff.

² 'Israelite Religion: The Onomastic and Epigraphic Evidence' in Miller, et al, eds. [1987] Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, pp. 172ff. This was expanded in his book You Shall Have No Other Gods: Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions (or via: amazon.co.uk)

spin

What makes you think that there is any authentic history in the texts in this matter?? Do you have any historical evidence you can tie to them to validate core information?

I can show you statues of King Gudea of Lagash, treaties signed between Egypt and Hatti, records of conquests and public deeds of numerous kings of Assyria, representations of Persian kings, coins of Alexander... a swath of evidence for events in the past. Evidence is the only thing you need (not literary criticism).

As you don't know anything about the earliest transmission of the traditions involved you cannot know what you are talking about.

So is Trimalchio's feast. Plausibility is a necessary requisite for propaganda and much literature. It is an insufficient criterion for history.

And you decided this how? (Perhaps because he founded Raamses, but it was Necho who founded Pithom. This tells you about the age of the text.)

What sort of Semitic laborers? You're rather empty-handed so far.

There were Semitic elements among the Hyksos and you know that the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt to settle in the Levant, become absorbed and leave traditions of leaving Egypt.

When you say early traditions do you mean before the common era or something else? How do you know when they were derived?

If you were referring to the Merneptah stela, you need to consider that he is reflecting a status quo in Palestine that Merneptah found: a small established tribal group in the central north. This group was therefore already established there before Merneptah's reign. So, what do you do, scrap the 40 years of wandering to try to keep a realistic possible timescale?

Hyksos.

You are approaching this backwards. It's easy to dismiss this material. There is apparently no historical evidence to draw upon to support it. Your task, if you take on a defence of vestigial historical content, is to show that there actually is history.

See previous comment.

Retrojection leads to mystification. You can't manipulate old based on new. Time is an arrow: it goes in one direction. The past makes the present; the present usually only repaints the past in its own image.

You are supposed to see a little bit of light dawning when you say "the cultic center at Teman was used by non-Israelites as well".

Once again mystification through retrojection.

Asherah is a well-known goddess in semitic tradition, as seen as early as Ugarit. Biblical editors wanted to repudiate her, equating her with the cultic symbol (like equating Jesus with the cross), but still left traces in the bible. In 1 Kgs 15:13 Maacah made an abominable image for Asherah. In 1 Kgs 18:19 we are told Asherah had 400 prophets. In 2 Kgs 21:7 a graven image of Asherah was made.

There has been a lot of literature written on Asherah including by Tilde Binger and by Judith Hadley. (But ultimately you are just pulling your own string here: it's certainly not relevant to your attempts to salvage Moses.)

Let's talk about who missed the point. You think you are trying to do history. History works on evidence, of which you seem to have none.

You said: "the mere fact that characters can be made up is no indication thatthey actually are and I have already mentioned several lines ofevidence that are reason enough to take the idea seriously at the least." The first part I agree with. The second part is fantasy.

Evidence. Evidence. Evidence. That is what you need. Not the cockamamie subterfuge you are indulging in. Moses may have existed, but nothing you have said or done here has added one iota of substance to that existence.

Tropes can exist for millenia. The Arabian Nights features material that can ultimately be derived from Egyptian tales, from Greek tales, even from the Epic of Gilgamesh. We are lucky that we can trace some of the sources for this material. How much of it cannot be traced? Starting by removing those things you are forced by circumstance to remove will not get you any closer to any possible historical content in a tradition. You can throw out made up characters and doubt the figures of millions, but you are no closer to a historical reality.

At the moment, the most cogent approach I have found to the exodus tradition is that it reflects the expulsion of the Hyksos, an event which entered Canaanite tradition when the remnants of the Hyksos peoples ended up in the Levant. The later Judean culture, which manifested itself from the time the Assyrians started causing trouble for Samaria, inherited it as a part of its own tradition.

Yup. This:

The pot trying to call me a kettle.

The point is, you just aren't doing anything in the field of history. You cannot assume the sorts of things you assume, because those assumptions have no necessary validity. Look at your diatribe about there being "too much you have to explain away for no reason in [your] opinion to deny Moses' historicity". This has nothing to do with history at all. Too much to explain away? All you are doing is manipulating text. Totally evidence free. As I said: "Pu-lease! Literary criticism is not very helpful for historical research." Your "too much .. to explain away" explains nothing and is no substitute for evidence.


spin

Doug Shaver

Your assumption that there is some authentic history to be recovered needs justification, and you have none.

So does Gone With the Wind.

Exodus does not identify which pharaoh was on the throne during the time of the events it reports.

We know from sources independent of GWTW that the city of Atlanta was burned by Union forces during the American Civil War. That does not mean that the book is a source of any kind of historical information.

jgoodguy

Any kind?

Like Southern attitudes toward blacks in the 1930s and 1860s. Civil War Battles, antebellum life, antebellum social structure, the occupation of the South, the rise of the KK the existence of slavery et. al.

If it was our only source and known to be fiction, historical information could be found. However historical analysis could determine that that Scarlet existed with the resulting camps of Historical Scarlet and Mythical Scarlet.


The problem is that there are 3 possible Jesuses, the Historical, the Mythical and the Limbo because of the crappy historical evidence.

The Limbo is the one were we say that there is no primary evidence of the existence for a Jesus and he exists in a limbo of neither proven to exist nor proved not to exist. The almost universal lack of evidence in 1st century CE Judea and the lack of evidence elsewhere prevents an argument from silence for his non existence.

The Limbo Jesus is not satisfactory because too many people have agendas for his existence or non existence and we are afflicted with the Historical Jesus and the Mythical Jesus.

aa5874

Of all the myths, Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost may be the most well-documented.


Examine the Gospels, the Epistles, Revelation, Acts of the Apostles, the writings of Ignatius, Clememt, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, the Diatessaron, Irenaeus, Tertulian, Origen, Jerome, Eusebius, Severus, Chrysostom and other Church writings.

The record for the MYTH JESUS, the offspring of the Holy Ghost is NOT crappy, it is very well detailed from conception to ascension.

jgoodguy

Gotta primary evidence for this? Nope. Then all you got is informed speculation by some smart folks that is not held in as high regard as informed speculation by some other smart folks.

aa5874

Are you implying that there exist no Gospels, Epistles, Revelation, Acts of the Apostles, the writings of Ignatius, Clememt, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, the Diatessaron, Irenaeus, Tertulian, Origen, Jerome, Eusebius, Severus, Chrysostom and other Church writings?

People can only analyse the writings that are extant.

It can clearly be seen that Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, was described mythically like Achilles, Romulus or any fabled Greek/Roman deity in the extant writings.

Now, when I say Jesus was a Myth, I mean Jesus was a MYTH based on the extant writings, not my imagination, just as a juror who gives a verdict based on the evidence PRESENTED DURING THE TRIAL.

As soon as other pertinent information is discovered about Jesus I may have to re-consider, but as of now, Jesus was a MYTH based on extant information.

Doug Shaver

It is a source for those things, but only because we have other sources by which we can corroborate them.

Yes, it could, but the only reason we know that is that it is not our only source.

spamandham

This is always the case for characters with no historical foundation. Depending on what you mean by 'prove', reasonable people can draw tentative conclusions without an airtight case.