Anat

Well, if we consider Exodus 2:23 "And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage." - Ramesses II enslaved them and had them build Pi-Ramesses; then he died and his heir endured the plagues and eventually drowned in the sea. According to Helo the plagues took several years (enough to replenish animal stocks and crops to have enough to destroy by the next plague), so that must have been Merneptah, except shortly afterascending to power he encountered Israel in Canaan (while they were supposed to be either still in Egypt or in the desert).

BrianJ

To be a wee bit pedantic, the Hebrew Bible doesn't actually explicitly state that the pharaoh drowned in the Sea of Reeds. (no big deal)


It is interesting that the Israelites were supposed to have spent 38 years at Kadesh-Barnea but there is no sign of the Israelites, or anyone else for that matter, at Kadesh before the tenth century BCE. Moshe Dothan's survey at Ain el-Qudeirat (M Dothan The Fortress at Kadesh-Barnea Israel Exploration Journal 15 (1965) pp 134-151) and Rudolph Cohen's survey from 1976-1982 ( R Cohen Kadesh-Barnea: A Fortress from the time of the Judaean Kingdom Israel Museum, Jerusalem 1983) illustrate this well, with Kadesh-Barnea being excavated to virgin soil, it has been demonstrated that there was no one living there for any substantial period of time before the 10th century BCE. Yet the Bible would have us believe that 2.5 million Israelites camped there for almost 40 years. A bit far fetched.

1 Kings 6:1 and Exodus 1:11 are impossible to harmonise.

Brian.

Doug Shaver

What does that have to do with archeological theories being cyclical?

bfniii

at the risk of reviving this topic





what johnny is failing to mention is that in the biblical errors thread, i discussed the nature of God at length. furthermore, i have invited johnny to discuss it again. he created a new topic in the GRD and i will be glad to pop over there in future. in other words, this statement is completely inaccurate.



i agree that i have made brief statements about personal experiences, for good reason.



johnny here proves my point. why discuss personal experiences? they aren't debatable. why ask christians here for the reasons they believe miracles happen? if you want to know that, go to the nearest church. this is a biblical criticism forum, not an evangelical website.

thank you for bringing up this subject that has nothing to do with the thread.

bfniii

examples?



i can't imagine why or how this analogy is helpful on the subject of the exodus. we don't have "DNA, fingerprints and videotapes". this isn't a court of law.

your analogy is predicated on the hidden assumption that you are somehow outside of the situation looking in and bear some standard that can label the information we know to be the equivalent of "DNA, fingerprints and videotapes".

BrianJ

Jericho was re-excavated using improved archaeoloigcal methods by Kathleen Kenyon.

But, most archaeological sites were continually excavated for more artefacts that would illuminate the history of the ANE.

Brian.

bfniii

you don't have a response to my points. that's all you had to say. no need for this dog and pony show.



no, you cite the people you agree with and then ad hominem your way through anything that you disagree with.

what you have really done is to pretend that information we have now is somehow "final" and there will never be any other information that comes along. certainly not any that refutes what we think we know now. you're pretending that the methods used now will be used forever and therefore the conclusions will never change. i guess you aren't able to deal with this.



because these issues are in dispute, despite what you are trying to sell here on this website. But if you're happy in this sorry avoidance...



i already have



folks, here is spin in a nutshell. instead of dealing with showing how something is non-scholarly, he just acts like it is not, with some bravado to make it look like he is authoritative. some people may be fooled by that, but i am not. it's spin's version of ad hominem.

btw, it's not like i cited some obscure, disrespected source.



i have not disregarded it and it is inaccurate for you to say so. i have said that some habiru were not on the "margins" of society. but you don't deal with that. you try this circus act of juggling terms so that you look "cool" to the locals.



i beg to differ. i can cite examples of your claque quoting it as well.



boy if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black.



what i know for a fact is that people think one thing one day, and a different thing the next. once again, some people may be snowed by your claim, but i am not. it's the equivalent of stating that astronomy has proven there is no life in the universe except on our planet. we used the best scientific equipment on mars and it's conclusive.



whatever.



i made a statement. take it how you will.



but you sure don't cite them all.



so the standard that passes the test of time is "peer-reviewed scholarly publications". by that logic, everything that has every been submitted to such a publication has always been and always will be true and irrefutable.



that is not the situation. the situation is pretending that something that looks a certain way right now will always stay that way. besides, it doesn't even address the chronological issues.



the king of smokescreens saying that i am using a smokescreen. irony?



"reputable scholars who participate in scholarly pursuit at a scholarly level writing scholarly papers about their scholarly research?" there's not one subjective thing about that statement. dog and pony show.



same old, same old



the word evidence doesn't mean what you think it does



1. i haven't refused to accept any evidence. i just don't make it out to be something that it is not, like you do
2. poll people here? farcical.

xaxxat

If I ever need to pick members for a dodge ball team, I know who my first choice will be...

RED DAVE

From xaxxat:
And if we're ever selecting a poster boy for xtgian humility we know where not to go.

RED DAVE

spin

I get the idea now, bfniii, that you aren't even thinking about what you are saying. You just have to respond. You think if you ignore others' analysies of your efforts they will as well.

I don't need to ad hominem the stuff you dredge up off the net. They usually condemn themselves. What is interesting for me is your natural aversion to scholarship.

Do you understand the mathematical notion of "asymptotic"? The gulf in our knowledge is always asymptotic. We are always approach the limits of knowledge, but we never get there. Yet we approach those limits geometrically. Our knowledge is gained geometrically. The amount of knowledge that we have now regarding Jericho for example is vastly more than what was available to Garstang. He simply didn't have what we have to depend on.

I don't really understand why you want to ignore scholarship and turn the clock back and depend on old less complete information. I don't understand why you show no interest in learning about the things you are talking about.

The only people who need to dispute the things that you are disputing are not doing so for motives of understanding.

I'm not happy in your attempts to shift the buck.

No, you haven't you've rehashed a tertiary source.

No. I can insult with the best of them. I'm trying to get a little reason out of you, but you're not fothcoming. If you are trying to deal with a scholarly issue, you usually don't cite from an encyclopaedia. You try to deal with the original materials. That's scholarship. When you cite someone, you cite someone who is manifesting scholarly practice. That's scholarly practice.

Respect depends on context.

I have said that you have trouble understanding the margins of society. In today's society itinerant workers are on the margins of society. It was the same in ancient times. At Mari nomads were looked on with great suspicion as being outside society, but they regularly worked for the people of Mari. You need to understand what you are trying to talk about and you don't.

Is that somehow dealing with anything?

What is that to me? I'll pan anyone here caught doing it.

Resorting to a non sequitur...

Do you?

I don't want them to be snowed by my claim. It's fine to go to the evidence and say, look at this: you're full of crap. I don't hold much in the tapdancing you're doing.

Poor analogy. If you want to use analogies you need to make them relevant and functional.

You have your fingers in your ears and are singing la-la-la in order to avoid getting your hands dirty learning something about archaeology. Hey, if you want to talk about the stuff, why not go the whole hog and do it seriously?

If a place is supposed to have a wall at a specific era, but when you have found the traces of all the walls in a known area and have no walls for that period, there we have come to the limit. Your analogy with Mars has no finite limits. If you want to know about dog anatomy, what do you do? Sit and observe the dog from a distance or do you perform an autopsy or a dozen. Which method will tell you most about dog anatomy?

So your negative reference to the Palestinians was of no value to the conversation and you are contrite.

You started by making this ludicrous claim about the Italian mission to Jericho in #168:

" 4. spurious to begin with. not the most objective dig"

You have ducked and weaved on it ever since.

I'll leave it in the dim hope that you'll come out with ssomething a bit more reasonable.

Naturally not. But if you have some scholars you would like to cite on the issue -- I mean cite, not just allude to vaguely -- please, I'd be happy if you did cite them.

Usually, yes. People go to them in any field of scholarly study.

Again you don't understand. Peer-reviewed means that your work is analysed by the best scholars of the time and with the knowledge of that time it is the latest and most relevant available. If it doesn't pass peer-review, then you know either the work is not up to scratch or they are missing out (usually the former). As it is in public eye it is free to be criticised by any scholar of the field, so you get the most knowledgeable people interacting with the material. It still may be wrong, but that's the beauty of peer-review, you'll always eventually be told when you are wrong.

It's sad that you have so little respect or understanding for the workings of scholarship.

Could you explain yourself? What exactly is "it" in the last sentence and whichchronological issues do you refer to?

No, projection on your part.

I guess you'd prefer non-scholars.

No response, eh? I'll ask again, which scholars do you see, scholars who are at the top of the profession, archaeologists or historians, jumping on the relocating of Ai? That isn't hard to respond to if you have any scholars. If you don't, it's just as easy to respond to.

How so, exactly?

Well, have you got any? Now is the time to put it forward. You haven't done so yet.

Why exactly?


spin
PS and I'm still waiting for you to respond to your rewriting of the Hebrew word (LP which is plainly 1000 in the contexts we have been discussing. Please give evidence to support your alternative understanding of why it isn't 1000.