spamandham

This is a highly biased approach. You accept the flimsiest of evidence if it supports your delusion, but alter the standard to "disprove" to counter.

Evidence a reasonable person would accept against the veracity of the Hebrew texts:

- serpents don't talk
- donkeys don't talk
- gods do not come down from the clouds, wrestle with people, and muck with their lives
- rivers do not turn into blood


There is nothing at all compelling about the book you worship. It's trivially easy to understand how an ancient tribal culture would come up with that stuff, and intertwine some bits and pieces of real history into their legends.

Minimalist

There is NO evidence, other than the bible fairy tales which were written centuries later, that any group of "Hebrews" were ever in Egypt.

The closest we get are the Hyksos who were Semites but who were rulers...not slaves. By all means, if you have any actual evidence that has somehow escaped the archaeological community lets see it. (Hint: Any book which starts "In the beginning" will not be taken seriously.)

spin

There were definitely Jews in Egypt. The Persians put them there at Elephantine, where there was a colony of Jewish soldiers for well over a century. There seem to have been others elsewhere. It was during the period after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, that Egyptians, forced to live with the Jews in their country, equated them with the earlier group, who they claimed were driven out of Egypt because they had leprosy. The Egyptians, as Josephus helps us to understand, branded the Jews, for polemic reasons, as having already been driven out of Egypt.... :constern01:


spin

IamJoseph

That is an eronous simplication of the issue.

Here's the problem. A stat which appears untrue can be subjective, or dependent on current knowledge which may be either lacking or missing something we do not have access to as yet. The more impacting factor here is, is anything in that same writings also true and authentic?

Correct me if I'm wrong - is the factor of a correct and authentic stat not transcendent of another which is rejected? Its like saying a certain car model was only produced between 100 and 105 years ago, and its wheels were pink: the former stat is found correct - but the later stat is rejected. Conclusion: the report is more correct than not.

If we have authentic stats concerning the Hebrews in ancient Egypt - and also many which are non-conclusive or non-existent - we are left an enigma: there is no way the correct stat could be retrosective or a past and copy - it does not exist esewhere and could not come later! The car analogy applies.

IamJoseph

How could you not have a first, is the more impacting question. Even if you use premises like adaptation, or the wind blowing trillions of seeds, or the rains falling - ultimately there was one singular first - even by a nano instant.

Its not ubsurd but absolute. There was one bulldog first which exhibits the relevent criteria - our ability to discern this does not impact.

Was there a first drop in a heavy downpour - or does this become negated because we did not see it occur?

Now let's assume there was a first human for a test of Genesis.

Q: Can that first human be male - and also produce a female? Or will that first human have to contain both gender propencities?

Genesis says the latter applies, and this is the crieria how one measures Genesis, as opposed we cannot prove the name of the first human - we have no video evidence of it.

IamJoseph

Then there should be 1000s of such descriptions elsewhere - if its commonplace. I never saw you evidence those examples. Its not like everyone knows that there was a king in Egypt - its not generic, traditional stuff because we have none else.

If you examine the story of Abraham, this info is an exclusive reporting and not available anyplace else, and it has 1000s of historical stats within its words and verses - some may be generic and traditional, some may not. This makes the report unique, even where one believes the entire report or not, even if we cannot prove Abraham was a historical figure. Here we find a pivotal reporting of a pivotal chunk of history, which has impacted on three religions for the longest period of time: is the report false, and why? Does contain some historical veracity - and how did that occur?

The omissions are transcendent - not the selective. How did the report have the first mention of the city of Ur and a death sentence of anyone rejecting a certain king's decree? How come the names are scientifically validated to that space time?


If a single, isolatory stat is correct and contemporary - there is no way to conclude as you do with any veracity.

The negation of the writings, and the lack of equivalence elsewhere, does that. IOW, when you apply those writings to the israelites, you are deeming them super thinkers. Instead, I am referring only to the veracity of the texts - which I find is enlightening, to the extent there is nothing I know which is comprable. The texts become even greater if it is proven false - it makes those desert wondering Israelites way ahead of a 4000 year humanity by fooling them!

IamJoseph

And its not possible to grasp your voice, store it in a black box, then send it anywhere you want any time you choose. This is magic!

How do you know that serpents don't talk - in a different realm [they were later cast down to earth - the texts!]; how do you know that snakes did not walk upright in a different realm [the texts!] - else why say they will NOW cease being able to walk? Turning a river into blood seems a synch with any hi-tech skills - so all you are saying the skills described were advanced for its time, as opposed impossible; its main wonder is that certain areas in Egypt were not effected! I can't explain all those miracles - I am disussing only enigmatically blatant historical factors - which you do not.

How do donkeys know an earthquake is approaching before you can; do they communicate with their offspring? My point is, if you discuss what is presented as outside the norm in the text [miracles] - then you have to judge it in that context also. You cannot swap selectively. If you wish to discuss a provable or dis-provable historical stat - you also have to do that in a historical context. So is the first recording of the river tigris also rejected - is the name CAIN and ADAM made up later? - when? - any evidence this name appeared elsewhere? - what about Hava [Eve] - the letter 'V' does not appear till the hebrew arrived?

What enabled the ancient Israelites to make advanced, historical alphabetical books - when they came later than far mighter nations all around them? What made the Greeks abandon their established advanced philosophy and settle for the hebrew bible as Europe's foundation - the greeks were the smartest for their times? What made all the pre-islamic Arabs settle for the premise of Abraham and Moses 2500 years later? Why is the world's judiciary excusively based on the Hebrew laws? How does all this become clarified with your concusions?

No, its not just another ancient tribal cuture. That's the problem here. The other cultures don't do the same. If you want to reject all theologies as one - that is an error, and shows an unscientific criteria. For the Hebrew writings to stand, it has to contend with more attackers and antiforces than any other writings in geo-history: 3.2 B adherants of the NT & Quran; anti-religionists; others who have been subjected to mis-rep of this writings for 2000 years; ever changing neo sciences. So are you going to say that too is a generic, commonplace syndrome - then why are we discussing it in every intellectual forum?

Pragmatista

Did this bulldog have parents that were not bulldogs (by whatever the relevant criteria are)? I have no problem with saying that over the history of dog breeding, there was a time period before which there were no bulldogs, and after which there were bulldogs. This could happen as a result of normal sexual reproduction and deliberate breeding.

This claim is qualitatively different than the first bulldog scenario. Genesis says that a human was spontaneously generated, and then a second human was spontaneously generated from a portion of the first, and then the two had babies, from which the earth was populated with people. With bulldogs, it was a gradual process of sexual reproduction over several generations. With humans, the test of genesis, is its claim of sponataneous generation.

IamJoseph

Spontaineous is post One. Thereafter, by virtue of a program to emulate, the widespread perform the same basic function, thus the notion of spontenaity. It means there was a first bulldog with male/female within it. The gradual process does not impact here. This also applies to all components, dynamic and non-dynamic, biological and non-bio.

Ultimately, its import is there is no absolute, singualr 'ONE' in the universe; everything originally began with a duality. It means the BB could not expand of itself, save for an external impact; the premise of 'expand' is post-duality. Genesis has astonishing science.

Pragmatista

Nonsense. We're talking about a dog variety that was deliberately bred, possibly within the time span of recorded history for all that I know about dogs. The first bulldog had a mother and a father who did not, themselves, qualify as bulldogs. The breeder did not create a first bulldog with male/female within it, then create a female from part of the first bulldog, then breed all subsequent bulldogs from this pair.

I have shown you that bulldogs did not begin with a duality. They began within a population of male and female dogs. As for the BB, look up "inflation." We don't have a sufficiently detailed theory of the BB, even to say that there was a singular beginning.