steve_bnk

What does the fact the names may refer to real people signify?

In context the bible is an ancient history containing myths and history a small group who were minor regional players. Not nearly so grandiouse as the bible would imply.

The Greek historian Herodiostus was known to creatively fill in the b lanks based on first hand and what he heard. It was the norm considering the times and technolgy.

Plato wrote about Atlantis in The Dialogues, and it has been a siurce of debate ever since up through today. There are true believers in Atlantis today. Doesn't make it real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis

'...Atlantis (in Greek, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, "island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC. According to Plato, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune"..

Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions. In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of ancient Athens and Atlantis stem from a visit to Egypt by the legendary Athenian lawgiver Solon in the 6th century BC. In Egypt, Solon met a priest of Sais, who translated the history of ancient Athens and Atlantis, recorded on papyri in Egyptian hieroglyphs, into Greek. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC[1] or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC...'

Plato heard a story from someone woi heard a story in Egypt...etc,.

Noah vs Gilgamesh

http://www.icr.org/article/noah-flood-gilgamesh/

There are three aspects to the bible.

First is the religious and social rules of a small band of ancient people.

Second is the history probably put to pen form oral history. Certainly embelished to create a cutural self image. In a snse the writers did fabricate what we have as the Jewish religion. We have no idea what the Jews were really like other tha the bible..

Third are the myths and allegories. Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah, Job, Tower of Bable, Jonah. All amcient culturees and had pre odern science had creation myths.

The story of Christ who is of human/divine birth taking on the sins of the wprld, dying in the process of saving the world, and going to be with the god(s) was not new in form when the New Testamet was written.

The bible is a cultural invention no different than any other culture.

Minimalist

You are being very polite there, Toto. Albright insisted that the Conquest Model was accurate too and modern archaeology has trashed the idea completely.

Albright is like the guy who opened a dress shop in 1914 in Kansas that went on to become a major department store long after his death. Somewhere in corporate headquarters they have a picture of him as their "founder" but his relevancy to modern operations is nil.

Toto

"Common sense" is often a refuge for those who refuse to actually analyze the text more deeply than the most superficial level.


The advertisers presented stories as if they were factual, while manipulating the audience on a deeper emotional level.


As is your comment.



You have to do better than "possibilities."


But related.

stephan huller

I can't believe that an intelligent forum (or one which pretends to be so) can actually consider the possibility that the author of the Pentateuch had a source for the various names at the time of Noah. It is impossible to even consider this seriously. Let's consider for a moment what sources could have been available to the fifth century author. A testimony of Shem? I don't see how Ted can claim he is not an evangelical. No Jew, Catholic or Orthodox person takes any of these stories seriously. They were acknowledged to be dubious privately by 'believers' as early as the third and fourth centuries.

As I have already said, since the material was written c 500 BCE it isn't worth taking seriously. You'd have to pretend that it was made as a 'revelation from God' which - as I have repeated mentioned elsewhere was NOT the opinion during the Second Commonwealth. The Sadducees held that the Pentateuch was a wholly human invention. The only thing God gave to humanity were ten commandments.

My point isn't to reinforce the belief that the ten commandments come from God but rather that there is no rational basis to accepting any of Genesis 10 as authoritative. Even the argument of divine revelation fails. Irenaeus takes a middle position arguing that Ezra wrote the Pentateuch but according to a revelation from God. Is that what you want to claim? That at 500 BCE 'absolute truth' was revealed to a human being in the name of someone living centuries earlier and about fabulous things which never occurred in prehistoric antiquity?

Please. This is a complete waste of time.

TedM

quick response--trying to stay away..

We already know that the Creation story, the Flood Story, and the Tower of Babel have precedents in Sumerian or Bablylonia history, do we not? Why in the world do you think that names might not have some source too?

There's your problem. You can't seem to go back further than the 5th century BC. Why couldn't these stories have been originally much older?

My impression is that our understanding of human history is laughably miniscule, so I allow for the possibility of some basis for these kinds of accounts.

No you don't.

What's your argument though against it other than to appeal to doubters expressing their opinions? You haven't presented one, have you?

Toto

No, there are precedents in Babylonian legends and stories. That's not history.


...



Our understanding of physics and genetics is quite advanced. There was no world wide flood that wiped out the human race except for Noah and his sons, however old the story is.

...You can't shift the burden of proof so easily. Have you presented any positive reason to think that this has some basis in historical reality?

If you want to argue that there was a world wide flood as described in the Bible, go to the Evolution-Creationism forum and try it there. If you want to argue that there were some vague events at some indeterminate time that might have formed the basis of the legend, so what?

If you are looking for detailed scientific reasons for why the current genetic variation in humans could not have arisen from a family of six a few thousand years ago (or whenever you date the flood), try the Evo-Cr forum.

outhouse

the 70 gods were sons of El and his consort Asherah, yahweh and baal were both sons, all from Cannanite mythology.

Of course which evolved into Israelite mythology

stephan huller

Ted,

As Toto notes, the Deucalion story is well established in pagan lore. The Jewish author's source was a Babylonian myth. Unless you posit the idea that pagan legends are reliable the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate the existence of some other evidence which supports your hypothesis.

stephan huller

What I don't like about Ted's approach is that he hasn't done the basic groundwork to establish WHEN the narrative was written. This is clearly the first step. Then when you look at the evidence and see that not only atheists and skeptics but the most enlightened believers throughout the ages looked at the evidence and had to admit that:

a) God did not write the narrative
b) Moses did not write the narrative

Indeed the inescapable conclusion is that someone living c. 500 BCE wrote a religious narrative in the name of someone else (although this could be disputed because of the account of Moses's death) drawing from a variety of sources including the contemporary pagan myths. The Babylonian and Persian 'hand prints' are all over Genesis. The fact that you refuse to recognize them is of little consequence. Ignorance is not an argument.

TedM

What I don't like about the response of posters here is the presumption that I believe the Flood was historical, the presumption that I believe that Genesis 10 is historical, etc. and that somehow I'm trying to argue to support those presumptions.

Why do you guys do that?

Can't you read? You guys are so used to arguing and Toto is so constantly paranoid about my motivations that you can't just take anything at face value. Yes, I need to do more research to understand this. That's what this thread is--my research. Get it?

Re read my OP. I'm not going to do it for you.

Zwaardjik seems to be the only one who can read here.