Freethought & Rationalism Archive

renassault · 05-13-2011, 01:17 PM

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Originally Posted by spin

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Originally Posted by renassault

The evidence is actually fairly convincing that it can be counted on many hands, including the ones (like someone here

) who don't know how to count. I didn't want to list it all mainly because I had to waste another 30 min finding the sources, but I do remember bib-arch.org talking about an outpost in 10th century BC, Al-Qadesh I think, you can find that yourself if you're that doubtful, which was under full governmental control and had found Hebrew inscriptions there, clearly showing a strong centralized government in Judea at the time.

No content here.

Do you not know how to read? What is Al-Qadesh to you? There was a Hebrew inscription talking about things that had to be done sent to (or from) the person in charge there with Judah as the central place of authority. I clearly remember the article saying "if this is what was happening at an outpost in the wilderness area, imagine what was going on in Jerusalem".

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Obviously you know nothing tangible about the Tel Dan inscription. If you feel injured, you might like to produce something meaningful rather than facile allusions. To help you along BYTDWD is one word, just like BYT)L and BYT$M$, and even BYT(NT [Bethel, Bethshemesh and Bethanath].

The inscription that I know mentions the house of David and not some unknown village your little theory requires, has been mentioned to me by scholars I've talked to who are not Bible-believers. No one except biased people like you (and none are serious scholars/archaeologists) believes in such a reconstruction. I mean, if you want to stretch the imagination this far to have your views work, go ahead, but don't propose them for someone to buy that theory. BYT (Beth=house) and DWD (David) is quite clear to me. And I can quite honestly wonder how you decided they were one word (and where this ancient unknown city/village is) when everything was written together with no space or punctuation. Not to mention that there is no problem for bytdwd to be one word. This city/village BYTDWD was so important (which the context does not support: the king from BethDavid? or the King from the house of David) for the Moabite enemy to mention that no one mentions it throughout the OT or anywhere and no one knows about it.

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Not a major city, but the major city in the area. Jerusalem was pint-sized in comparison. It doesn't compare in significance.

The kingdom of Judah didn't crop up in the literature until Assyria had already begun to trample Samaria. When the cat's away the mice will play. Take out the power of the area, as Assyria was in the process of doing, and that gives room for the mouse to roar.

For Judah (in the Sennacherib Steele - Hezekiah of Jerusalem) to pay 30 talents of gold and 300 of silver it certainly must have been important way before Assyria came. This being said, Jerusalem is mentioned as a city of importance by the Sennacherib Steele (689BC) and not like the 46 cities and villages which Sennacherib destroyed along the way, which by the way he says belonged to the Kingdom of Judah. He also took 200,150 prisoners from the Kingdom of Judah. Lachish was not the major city, it was the second most major city after Jerusalem, I don't know where you get your sources from.

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Hezekiah and his father are historical, no doubt about it, but it was the historical moment for there to be a power rising south of Samaria. Before that Samaria had reached down through the Shephalah to have a trading station in the Negeb at Kuntillet Ajrud. Not much scope for a tiny Judahite kingdom then.

You do realize Lachish belonged to the Kingdom of Judah and was the second most important city. You can't really rise in power 1 month after the fall of "the" major city in the area. Samaria could have had trading posts anywhere, it was not war 24/7, I'm sure they all used the trading routes they had before.

spin · 05-13-2011, 10:02 PM

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Originally Posted by renassault

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Originally Posted by spin

No content here.

Do you not know how to read?

Mastered that one a while back.

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Originally Posted by renassault

What is Al-Qadesh to you?

Why don't you thrill me with an explanation of "Al-Qadesh"?

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Originally Posted by renassault

There was a Hebrew inscription talking about things that had to be done sent to (or from) the person in charge there with Judah as the central place of authority. I clearly remember the article saying "if this is what was happening at an outpost in the wilderness area, imagine what was going on in Jerusalem".

All you need are some ancient texts to back it up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by renassault

The inscription that I know mentions the house of David and not some unknown village your little theory requires, has been mentioned to me by scholars I've talked to who are not Bible-believers.

BYTDWD, which you refer to as "house of David" is not a reference to a family at all. There is no separation between the the two parts of the word. Try to get your hands on this article.

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Originally Posted by renassault

No one except biased people like you (and none are serious scholars/archaeologists) believes in such a reconstruction.

And it's a good thing that you'd know. I have to rely on what scholars and archaeologists write. But you, in your apologetic zeal have convinced yourself, while knowing nothing about the material, that you can brave your position out.

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Originally Posted by renassault

I mean, if you want to stretch the imagination this far to have your views work, go ahead, but don't propose them for someone to buy that theory. BYT (Beth=house) and DWD (David) is quite clear to me.

Just as Bethel, Bethshemesh and Bethanath should be. They are literally "house of El", "house of Shemesh" and "house of Anath", but they are indeed names of places. Let's include Bethdagon. One might add Bethlehem, given that Lachmu is a known god of the area and there are no early historical pointers to suggest otherwise. Post hoc etymologies are obscurant (as "house of bread" would appear to be).

Now how many Hebrew phrases can you cite in the Hebrew tradition starting with "Beth" and followed by a name that do not conform with being a toponym that suggests a temple-centered town?

Now the city of Jerusalem was in pre-Hebrew times called Urushalim, the "foundation or city of Shalim" (yet another deity). This should have become Irshalim in Hebrew, just as the city is sometimes called Ir-dwd, literally the "city of the beloved", but translated as the "city of David". Presumably there was a temple to the same deity in the city, which naturally would allow the toponym, BYTDWD.

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Originally Posted by renassault

And I can quite honestly wonder how you decided they were one word (and where this ancient unknown city/village is) when everything was written together with no space or punctuation.

Do wonder about it. I came to the decision by reading relatively recent scholarly material.

[T2]"[I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab] king of Israel, and I killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin]g of BYTDWD."[/T2]
Israel and BYTDWD are paralleled to indicate the same sort of thing, both toponyms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by renassault

Not to mention that there is no problem for bytdwd to be one word. This city/village BYTDWD was so important (which the context does not support: the king from BethDavid? or the King from the house of David) for the Moabite enemy to mention that no one mentions it throughout the OT or anywhere and no one knows about it.

If you'd read Athas you'd know that BYTDWD probably referred to Jerusalem. Here's what the Athas abstract says:

[T2]In relation to the inscription, context demands that the word BYTDWD should not be understood as a dynastic label for Judah, but rather as a toponym for Jerusalem as a city-state.[/T2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by renassault

For Judah (in the Sennacherib Steele - Hezekiah of Jerusalem) to pay 30 talents of gold and 300 of silver it certainly must have been important way before Assyria came. This being said, Jerusalem is mentioned as a city of importance by the Sennacherib Steele (689BC) and not like the 46 cities and villages which Sennacherib destroyed along the way, which by the way he says belonged to the Kingdom of Judah. He also took 200,150 prisoners from the Kingdom of Judah. Lachish was not the major city, it was the second most major city after Jerusalem, I don't know where you get your sources from.

Archaeology, something you seem to shun. Lachish was enormous compared to Jerusalem.

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Originally Posted by renassault

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Hezekiah and his father are historical, no doubt about it, but it was the historical moment for there to be a power rising south of Samaria. Before that Samaria had reached down through the Shephalah to have a trading station in the Negeb at Kuntillet Ajrud. Not much scope for a tiny Judahite kingdom then.

You do realize Lachish belonged to the Kingdom of Judah and was the second most important city.

It's all a matter of size... and you do realize that there is no contemporary evidence for your claim.

Quote:

Originally Posted by renassault

You can't really rise in power 1 month after the fall of "the" major city in the area. Samaria could have had trading posts anywhere, it was not war 24/7, I'm sure they all used the trading routes they had before.

That's not really how things worked back then. You have an anachronistic view of trade procedures of the era. Kuntillet Ajrud was a Samarian waystation on an important trade route from Gaza to southern Jordan, meaning the location was under the suzerainty of the power of Samaria and they exerted some control of the trade route.

semiopen · 05-14-2011, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by renassault

Do you not know how to read? What is Al-Qadesh to you? There was a Hebrew inscription talking about things that had to be done sent to (or from) the person in charge there with Judah as the central place of authority. I clearly remember the article saying "if this is what was happening at an outpost in the wilderness area, imagine what was going on in Jerusalem".

BAR has been acting squirrelly lately.

The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism By Yosef Garfinkel

This is the June 2011 edition, so there hasn't been any scholarly response. The link I was originally emailed included comments which seemed to refute many of the points Garfinkel made.

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The argument that Judah was an agrarian society until the end of tenth century B.C.E. and that David and Solomon could not have ruled over a centralized, institutionalized kingdom before then has now been blown to smithereens by our excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, where we have been in the field for the past four summers.

It's nice to be proud of one's work, but Garfinkel also has an agenda.

This has been discussed in the past here, but I think this is the first time someone has called it Al-Qaida .

lpetrich · 05-14-2011, 10:41 AM

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Originally Posted by renassault

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Originally Posted by lpetrich

It's not exactly vague when you look at the details. I can name one overall conception of history that does not fit into this schema. The modern one, developed as a result of modern science.

Umm, you totally missed my point. The point is that regardless of how you label it, Jesus Christ -> Paul -> Church Authors is history, not a product of someone's trifold construction as you claim. And modern science has nothing to do with this nor does history contradict it.

What do you mean when you call it "history"?

I'm guessing that you think that if you could go back in time in a time machine, you'd see everything happen as described. Is that correct? If not, then imagine yourself performing a time-machine thought experiment. What would you expect to see?

My point is that the modern-science conception of humanity's emergence is very different from most older conceptions in some very important ways. Where are the old conceptions that picture having some very lowly ancestry?

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That's completely different. We're talking about someone's history versus what happened. We're not talking about the beginning of mankind (which you, as all of us, weren't there to be talking about it as if you know). This isn't an evolution/creation debate.

Some ancient "histories" do indeed feature the origins of humanity. The Bible and Greek mythology, for instance.

As to our not being around to watch, so what?

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I think it's better if we eliminate parallelomania instead of acquainting ourselves with skeptical historians. Of course the Romans are gonna give their early founders a bunch of crazy stories, like Romulus and Remus being raised by a wolf.

So you think that it's a "crazy story" that someone was the son of a god and a virgin?

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The point is that your application can be applied to anything the imagination wants. I can apply this to your posts in this forum, starting with the "glorious" ones in the beginning and coming down to these. It's all about how much you're willing to twist to fit things when you have such broad generalities.

Be my guest, but you'd need a BIG imagination for that.

renassault · 05-14-2011, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by renassault

Do you not know how to read? What is Al-Qadesh to you? There was a Hebrew inscription talking about things that had to be done sent to (or from) the person in charge there with Judah as the central place of authority. I clearly remember the article saying "if this is what was happening at an outpost in the wilderness area, imagine what was going on in Jerusalem".

BAR has been acting squirrelly lately.

The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism By Yosef Garfinkel

This is the June 2011 edition, so there hasn't been any scholarly response. The link I was originally emailed included comments which seemed to refute many of the points Garfinkel made.

Quote:

The argument that Judah was an agrarian society until the end of tenth century B.C.E. and that David and Solomon could not have ruled over a centralized, institutionalized kingdom before then has now been blown to smithereens by our excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, where we have been in the field for the past four summers.

It's nice to be proud of one's work, but Garfinkel also has an agenda.

This has been discussed in the past here, but I think this is the first time someone has called it Al-Qaida .

Lol! I did not call it Al-Qaida.. but it was definitely close haha. But yeah, that's the article I'm referring to, that's the name of the place they were excavating. I really don't know what refutations have been made against Garfinkel other than the fact that you're saying he has an agenda, but regardless of what one's agenda is, if his conclusions are logical, that's how the facts are. So, in my opinion, until such arguments are provided against his position, as far as I'm concerned, the minimalist theory has indeed been blown to smithereens.. so far.

semiopen · 05-15-2011, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by renassault

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

BAR has been acting squirrelly lately.

The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism By Yosef Garfinkel

This is the June 2011 edition, so there hasn't been any scholarly response. The link I was originally emailed included comments which seemed to refute many of the points Garfinkel made.

It's nice to be proud of one's work, but Garfinkel also has an agenda.

This has been discussed in the past here, but I think this is the first time someone has called it Al-Qaida .

Lol! I did not call it Al-Qaida.. but it was definitely close haha. But yeah, that's the article I'm referring to, that's the name of the place they were excavating. I really don't know what refutations have been made against Garfinkel other than the fact that you're saying he has an agenda, but regardless of what one's agenda is, if his conclusions are logical, that's how the facts are. So, in my opinion, until such arguments are provided against his position, as far as I'm concerned, the minimalist theory has indeed been blown to smithereens.. so far.

Fair enough, I've made worse mistakes on here.

I'm not sure how serious Garfinkel was being in his article. He makes some dubious claims, but to me it seemed more to either keep funding interest in his project or perhaps to start a lively discussion. He didn't bring up anything new and my impression was that the minimalists had the upper hand in this debate last year.

Khirbet_Qeiyafa

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The site is understood to have been a Judean city occupied for a period of only about 20 years sometime between 1050 and 915 BCE, before being destroyed.[3] The tenth century is the period ascribed to the kingdoms of David and Solomon. The site is dated by pottery styles and by two burned olive pits tested for carbon-14 at Oxford University. First reports dated it to between 1050 and 970 B.C., the period most scholars consider to be during the reign of King David[4] but these have been challenged with dates for activity at the site suggested as having occurred after 1050 and before 915 BCE. [5] The excavations were carried out by archaeologists Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor of the Hebrew University beginning in 2007.

The 20 year occupation period is notable, and coincidently the site is about 20 miles from Jerusalem. Not very long and not very far; in the debatable case that it was David's one isn't filled with awe over the might of Judah. Assuming it was Judean, the difference between a cheiftainship and kingdom in this case seems technical, it would make Judah slightly less of a backwater a little earlier than previously thought.

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Dr. Christopher Rollston of Johns Hopkins University accepting that Israel had a monarchy and some sort of a “state” at this point warns that "these recent attempts to sensationalize the ostracon should be rebuffed," and makes the following claims:

The script is definitively not Old Hebrew, but rather Early Alphabetic/Proto Phoenician; (Note: this is a comment about the script, not the language)
Those claiming the language to be Old Hebrew are going beyond the evidence;
It is commonly agreed that although literacy was present during the 10th century throughout the fledgling Southern Levantine states (Israel, Moab, Ammon), it was confined to a particular group of elites (i.e., scribes). Moreover, scholars such as Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman have dated certain portions of the biblical text (namely poems such as Exodus 15 and Judges 5) to periods prior to the 10th century, and it is therefore not surprising to discover a 10th century BCE Old Hebrew epigraph; and:
The ostracon is poorly preserved and difficult to read and various renderings have been proposed. "It seems to me that it is prudent simply to state that at this time the interpretation of this inscription is at a preliminary stage."[10]

Note that this thing was found in 2008 and nothing (with writing) since then. I doubt if Dr Garfinkel will be reduced to working in the Tel Aviv McDonalds this summer, but it is reasonable to imagine that his backers might be getting nervous.

This is sited in the Wiki

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Here would be a second reason to be skeptical of Yossi Garfinkel's conclusions: He announced them, swiftly and dramatically, despite the fact that he had only four olive pits on which to base his dating, a single inscription of a highly ambiguous nature, and a mere 5 percent of his site excavated. In other words, says archaeologist David Ilan, "Yossi has an agenda—partly ideological, but also personal. He's a very smart and ambitious guy. Finkelstein's the big gorilla, and the young bucks think he's got a monopoly over biblical archaeology. So they want to dethrone him."

Well, at least I'm not the only one thinking that Yossi has an agenda.

If it's ok, I'd like to mention again that the negative comments on this article that I can't find seemed really effective when I first glanced at it.

Anyway, I don't see the minimalists blown to smithereens here.

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