Larsguy47

Yeah? And did you ever hear of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel? That was long before Abraham. So what this region was called or the people associated with it, even locally is a matter of historical record, regardless of how prominent they became and names they adopted later. So thanks for that "reference" I can see there is no issue here. You told me exactly what I needed to hear.

LG47

gupwalla

Lars, you had a pretty good argument going there, and then took some gigantic steps backwards by invoking one of the least credulous bits of the bible to support your original claim, which isn't all that far-fetched, and with which I generally agree. I think my ancient Sunday school teacher back in the fourth grade would believe, too, even though she is a Baptist and purportedly subscribes in inerrancy and all that. She always referred to the text as "Song of Songs," said it was only tradition that associated it with Soloman, and tried as delicately yet as firmly as she could to dissuade us from reading any of it. I think she wanted to prevent any of us from developing a biblically inspired fixation with big breasts. For me, at least, it must have worked.

Thankfully for historians and everyone else involved, the Deuteronomist was pretty good with names and dates from David's kingship on (probably indicating, following Friedman, that Dtr was a member of a later king's court, possibly or even probably at the time of the Exile, though not necessarily indicating, contra Friedman, that Jeremiah was the author).

That said, your given dates for the reign of Jedidiah the Peacemaker (Peacenik for short) are pretty close on the mark. We don't even need to date the spilled supper to support those dates, though any confirmation is always useful for pinning things down.

As for the dates of the texts themselves, please please please pay attention to the linguistic scholars who are ostensibly the experts in that field. The text was not written in one fell swoop; it was written, copied, stitched, redacted, and annotated over many decades or perhaps centuries. The final edits to the Torah and Histories happened during the Exile, as rival priests of the Northern and Southern kingdoms tried to preserve what was left of their previous cultures and offer some hope to their people that they would one day return.

Thus, it is correct to note that the Jewish scriptures as we know them date from the Exile, but it is also correct to note that large portions of the texts were extant long before, and some portions even show signs of having an oral history stretching even further into the past. (How's that for splitting the baby?) Later authors would naturally have substituted more modernized names for the sake of familiarity, though I am not willing to concede that they were above just making stuff up if it served the narrative.

Larsguy47

Well, as others have said, the city name could have been expressed in modern terms to identify the city. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a written record to use to adapt from. Plus that designation may indicate more than one well-known city named "Ur".

Thanks for the reference. But just because you buy a new Bible just printed a month ago doesn't mean it was made up last week.

LG47

3DJay

Speculate about other Urs, all you like. There's only one Chaldean Ur. The Chaldeans didn't live up North.

Are you saying writers just modernized/changed the "Word of God", whenever they felt like it?


FACT: What could be described as a Tower of Babylon was being rebuilt/restored/added to, in the 7th century and early 6th century... http://www.livius.org/es-ez/etemenanki/etemenanki.html

FACT: The Chaldeans don't show up on the historical radar, until the 9th century, and don't come to power until the 7th century.

FACT: The Gilgamesh flood story was still being told by the Neo-Assyrians in the 7th century ... http://xfacts.com/iraq2003/1.html

FACT: The 7th century Chaldean creation and eden story... http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/stc/stc01.htm

FACT: Numerous biblical cities/towns of Israel weren't settled until the 8th/7th century...

"If we look for a single period when ALL THE TOWNS IN THE LIST were likely to have been occupied, the trail leads directly to the eighth century...From the archaeological evidence, which is considerable and impressive, we conclude that these particular forty-eight or forty-nine towns COULD NOT HAVE BEEN PART OF ONE SYSTEM EARLIER THAN THE EIGHTH CENTURY B.C." (pp. 492-494. Robert G. Boling and G. Ernest Wright. Joshua [A Commentary]. New York. Doubleday. Anchor Bible Series. 1982. ISBN 0-385-00034-0)

According to Joshua 21:37, a place called Mephaath was set aside from the tribe of Reuben and allocated to the Levites. Archaeology suggests that this city is no earlier than the 7th/6th centuries BCE according to the pottery debris found there. Today the site is called in Arabic Umm er-Rasas, but excavations have found a mosaic of the city, bearing the site's name in Late Roman times, "Kastron Mefaa" (cf. p. 1491. Vol. 4. Michele Piccirillo. "Umm er-Rasas." Ephraim Stern. Editor. The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. New York. Simon & Schuster. 1993)

"This basic picture of the gradual accumulation of legends and stories- and their eventual incorporation into a single coherent saga with a definite theological outlook- was a product of that astonishingly creative period of literary production in the kingdom of Judah in the 7th century BCE. Perhaps most telling of all the clues that the book of Joshua was written at this time is the list of towns in the territory of the tribe of Judah, given in detail, in Joshua 15:21-62. The list precisely corresponds to the borders of the kingdom of Judah during the reign of Josiah. Moreover, the placenames mentioned in the list closely correspond to the 7th century BCE settlement pattern in the same region. And some of the sites were occupied ONLY IN THE FINAL DECADES OF THE 7TH CENTURY BCE." (p.92. "The Conquest of Canaan." . Israel Finkelstein & Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York. The Free Press. 2001. ISBN 0-684-86912-8)

FACT: The Medes conquered Northern Mesopotamia (Assyria), bringing with them Zoroastrianism, in the 7th century Zoroastrianism and its Influences on Christianity and Judaism

FACT: There's not the tiniest fragment of the Hebrew OT, prior to the 7th century.

FACT: There is little evidence, prior to the 7th century, of Hebrew text, period. What there is, is generally called proto-Hebrew, by some...and not all that different from Phoenican. And, there is no evidence of Biblical scripture, in any prior language (Egyptian, Akkadian, etc.).

FACT: Sargon I, of Mesopotamia, had a similar baby story as Moses.

FACT: Hammurabi, of Mesopotamia, had similar laws as can be found in the Moses story.

FACT: The "Elohim" were around in the 8th/7th century, in Mesopotamia... http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/924.html

There is a lot of evidence that could lead one to believe that the OT was written when the Israelites were in Babylon. There's ZERO evidence, that it was written earlier.


Peace

Larsguy47

This is your problem. You see everything so strictly. "Chaldean" could have been a reference to the people who lived in that city. You know that some cities were populated by various groups. You could have a Canaanite city in the middle of Jewish cities, etc. Tyre and Sidon were never conquered per se by the Jews and remained Canaanite cities. Now if Tyre took over the world later, that doesn't mean that original city wasn't founded by them before them and associated with them. You con't have to be a world power to found a city.

This is much like the Jews building "Pi-Rameses" and so many thinking it had to be named after a pharaoh after he began to rule, when in fact, it could have been named after the land baron of that area, an area always called the "land of Rameses". So if this was the "land of Rameses" what's the big deal about building a city named after him, "Pi-Rameses" meaning "house of Rameses"? If he's the land baron and it's his new house, he doesn't have to pharaoh to have the city named after him. But that's difficult to explain to some people. If it's not written in stone with an iron pen with an archaeologist tied to the other end, some people simply can't think outside that box for a second.

LG47

3DJay

Well, I can't go around believing every collection of Mythology, in the world, now can I. If someone proves Hercules existed, then I'll believe it...until then, I simply don't believe it. Same goes for the stuff in the Bible.

Glad you agree that there's ZERO evidence, and that it requires "thinking outside the box"...i.e. imaging some reality, that isn't based on facts...FAITH.


Peace

Toto

NOTE: You might have noticed that Larsguy47 has been banned. His appearance here seems to be part of an elaborate hoax. Not all of the details are clear yet, but there's no point in trying to argue against him. I will leave this thread open for now.