Wallener

Not true. I'm a Torah-observant Jew.

There is none. We made the story up to cement our own cultural mythology. Sorry for the misunderstanding, the texts were never intended for a Goyyish audience. We would have put bright yellow warning stickers on the scrolls, but stickers hadn't been invented yet...

Sven

I suppose you mean the last ice age - there were several, in case you don't know. This was about 20 000 years ago IIRC. There's no evidence at all that humans were able to build boats that large at this time.

"a link in a link"? Provide it. You claim, you present the exact sources. *shrug*

Oh, you mean the same lack of documentation we have from Egypt? From Sumeria? From all the ancient civilizations in middel and south America?
They all also had to use chizels.

Freud? Sigmund Freud? :huh:

Which work are you talking about? For the third time: What are your resources?

You confuse the general meaning of theory with the scientific one. A theory isn't a guess, this would be rather called a hypotheses. A theory in science is a large body of facts and explanations of these facts.

If you did, I think you would care even less.

When someone is asked for sources for wild claims and does only provide a few crackpot websites, people are getting rude. *shrug*

Oh, nice, an admission of close-mindedness.

Nice, there's no problem with this. But then don't pretend that something is fact. *shrug*

Sven

One could say the same about Odysseus. And Gilgamesh. And the Angel Moroni. *shrug*

Amaleq13

I'm assuming nothing. I'm simply responding to what you have written and what you wrote gave no indication of the awareness you now claim.

If you have found no proof establishing the existence of these entities and you are aware of the logical problems involved in any attempt to prove a negative, I don't understand why you continue to believe there is a reason to think these entities existed. Where in the Wikipedia article do you find evidence that suggests Moses existed or the Exodus actually occurred?

The Exodus seems to me the easiest of the three to doubt given the complete absence of the sort of plentiful archaeological evidence such a long journey by so many people would undoubtedly leave. We can find ample evidence of far fewer people living even longer ago but no trace of this enormous, meandering migration? Something is clearly wrong with that story.

There were probably several vital leaders of the tribe that came to be called the Hebrews but I know of no compelling reason to think that the stories in the Bible about Moses should be accepted as historical.

With regard to Jesus, I suspect that any historical figure has been so mythicized that we can never know anything about him. A surprisingly strong argument can be made that no such figure ever existed. I tend toward agnosticism, myself, though I find G.A. Wells a plausible middle ground.

Does it seem impossible to you that many people could spend so much time and energy on someone who never existed? Given what the figure represents to the faithful, it seems entirely possible to me. How many of those people started out with the assumption that Moses existed?

Based on everything you've written, I don't understand why you aren't, at most, agnostic with regard to the historicity of Moses, Jesus, and the Exodus.

True American

This is what I was talking about.
Refering to Noah...

Gilgamesh Epic
Discovered in Nineveh, the Gilgamesh Epic (700 B.C.) was recorded on clay tablets and translated by George Smith in 1872. Mr. Smith is quoted as saying, "I am the first man to read this text after two thousand years of oblivion." The discovery of the tablets and the translation of the Gilgamesh Epic rocked the world. Now, "scholars" believed that the Bible story of Noah and the Ark was inspired by the Gilgamesh Epic.
Some of the thousands of tablets discovered, narrate the flood account from the perspective of ancient Babylonians. Notice a few items from the following section of the Gilgamesh Epic: 1) A fourteen day downpour (as opposed to forty), 2) The theme of multiple gods (as opposed to one), 3) A raven (as opposed to a dove) and 4) Mount Nisir (as opposed to Mount Ararat which is 350 miles away from Mount Nisir). This quote is taken from the book, The Search for Noah's Ark, by Charles Berlitz.
"I caused to embark within the vessel all my family and my relations, The beasts of the field, the cattle of the field, the craftsmen, I made them all embark. I entered the vessel and closed the door ... From the foundations of heaven a black cloud arose ... All that is bright turned into darkness ... The gods feared the flood, They fled, they climbed into heaven of Anu, The gods crouched like a dog on a wall, they lay down ... For six days and nights Wind and flood marched on, the hurricane subdued the land. When the seventh day dawned, the hurricane was abated, the flood Which had waged war like an army; The sea was stilled, the ill wind was calmed, the flood ceased. I beheld the sea, its voice was silent, And all mankind was turned into mud! As high as the roofs reached the swamp! ... I beheld the world, the horizon of sea; Twelve measures away an island emerged; Unto Mount Nisir came the vessel, Mount Nisir held the vessel and let it not budge ... When the seventh day came, I sent forth a dove, I released it; It went, the dove, it came back, As there was no place, it came back. I sent forth a swallow, it came back, As there was no place, it came back. I sent forth a raven, I released it; It went, the raven, and beheld the subsidence of the waters; It eats, it splashes about, it caws, it comes not back."

Sven

Thanks! See, this is how it works: You provide concrete information and everyone is happy.

Unfortunately for you, this does not substantiate your claim in any way; remember, you said: "[...] the plate CHIZELED by Noah."

Interesting that you mention it: I've just read Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others a few months ago (note that this book is to the most part a translation of the tablets, not a commentary on the validity of the stories; that they are myth is simply the consensus and does not even have to be mentioned). And I think most people posting here in BC&H are also well aware of it and have at least read parts of it.

So, how is this consistent with "the plate CHIZELED by Noah"?
It's also interesting that these folks set scholars in quotation marks only because they don't agree with them.

So, how is this consistent with "the plate CHIZELED by Noah"?

[snip quote]

And I hope you are aware that every scholar working on these clay tablets is well aware that the stories recorded on them are myths.

Chris Weimer

Just as I suspected, especially confirmed from your last post. I totally agree with you, True American, but disagree with the way you are wording it. Well, I do partially disagree with you, and will explain why. Let's start with Jesus. Jesus Mythicism rests on two principles, one that Paul saw Jesus as a heavenly figure, not Earth-bound, and two that the lack of documentary evidence for Jesus proves that he never existed. Well, the first one I totally disagree with, as the Pauline references to Jesus' humanly life haven't thoroughly been debunked (kata sarka means according to the flesh, y'all, hard to get around that one, but that's for another debate). And alone, a lack of documentary sources for someone or something doesn't mean she/he/it didn't exist. Maybe much of Jesus' personaly detail read like myth, possibly entirely fabricated out of Jewish and Roman Mithraic myths, but I see no plausible reason to doubt his existence altogether. After all, most other Jewish messianic cults had some sort of founder, why make Christianity the exception? And the Jewish wars with Rome of 70 and 135 CE probably put a lot of Israeli Christians out of circulation, leaving the Greek, Anatolian and Egyptian Christians to dominate the scene until the rise of the Roman episcopus.

For Noah, sources point to two equally valid theories. One is that Noah was just the Hebrew version of a long standing myth associated with floods that was adapted to fit Jewish origins. The second is that there was some boat builder who survived a catastrophic flood which inspired the story somewhere and over time the myth became archetype. I tend to go with the first one personally.

For Moses and the exodus, Joshua and the conquest, it was probably vague oral legend of the Hyksos and Sea People combined to seal Jewish history. There's actually evidence against a mass exodus of Hebrew people, and the odd hodgepodge of a story supports this theory.

True American

I was Agnostic most of my life.
I sang for a rock band for 22 years and did 16 U.S. Tours. It's amazing I didn't ever do Heroin. Luckily, I got out before the life killed me. It was a drug filled tiring life that really took it's toll on me.

Sometimes, though. Just sometimes, things happen to me that can't be explained. It's as if something or someone is indeed watching over me. So, I have begun to believe that SOMETHING is there as a higher power. I don't presume to know what it is, but my "BELIEF" is, there's something.

This alone is my personal reasoning in saying, certainly I can "Believe" that some of these things existed. The Bible, after all is supposed to be the book of absolute truth. So, you are certainly welcome to disagree, but "I" choose to believe these things existed.

I can't find facts either way on whether these entities existed. I do know that there are theories about who Moses was and the timeline of his actual life. I do know we've been looking for Noah's Ark for centuries. I do know they have found certain things like the Shroud Of Toran. I typically stay away from religious arguments because my beliefs differ from just about everyone's and they aren't worth arguing over. Religion just isn't that important to me.

Funny thing is though, I have never spent so much time researching these subjects. I find them interesting in that; Christians can't show hard evidence in their existence any more than non-believers can find hard evidence in their non-existence. So aren't all the naysayers just as clueless as those who are claiming existence?

Every single respectable source I find claims this ...

JESUS
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The historicity, teachings, and nature of Jesus are subject to debate and controversy among Christians and outside Christian communities. There are very few known textual references to Jesus from the 1st century, other than Christian texts. The historical significance of mentions of Jesus in works significantly post-dating the first century is disputable. While most historians and scholars have either assumed or concluded that Jesus probably lived, a number have seriously questioned this — and many have found the issue undecidable by historical means alone.

So, though I've been getting pretty hammered and have been giving you the sources I am finding, I have seen nothing from any of you to show me anything solid. So, therefore, I will simply have to say that I will believe what I believe and you can freely believe what you wish to believe. There doesn't appear to be any solid data giving me any other choice but to say, we could both be right, we could both be wrong. Therefore, it isn't a case of facts, is it? It's a case of BELIEFS.

I've seen on discovery channel where they have uncovered Galili. The city where Jesus supposedly walked the streets. They have uncovered Peter's House. Of course, this might be proof that Peter existed, but still... Jesus remains a mystery. So, what can ya do?

True American

You're gonna be a ballbuster right to the bitter end here aren't you? LOL
It's OK. I can handle the heat. I can also admit when I screwed up. I not only misworded my claim, I was completely wrong about the tablet being CHIZELED by NOAH! This, would be considered an Exageration. Pretty much like the exagerations provided in the Holy Bible.

You happy?

As for the myths...
Like I said before, you tell someone that "George is coming into town on the 1:00 train" and tell them to pass it on...

30 years later, you ask the person who has the last piece of that message what the message is and it will resemble...
"Jack is buying Reading Railroad and selling it for a profit of 1 billion dollars."

I believe that the stories in the Bible may not be Myths, so much as exagerations.
Kind of like my saying "NOAH Chizeled the tablets."

You've caught my first piece... "The Exageration!"
Then you read my source...

Are you catching on yet?

Sven

What do you think, if you had lived in Arabia, would you now believe in Allah? If you had lived in India, would you now be a Hindu?

[nitpick]It's Turin[/nitpick]
And it's a fake, BTW.

Nice! Ever wondered about living in Europe?

But one don't have to provide evidence for the non-existence of an extraordinary claim, that's the point.

Certainly not. Archeologists, for instance, have looked for evidence of a Conquest of Canaan - and found the exact opposite: an unbroken culture over many, many centuries, without any influence from the outside of the scale of a conquest. The only reasonable conclusion is that the conquest - and thus the Exodus - did not happen, at least by far not in the dimensions the bible claims.

Umm, sorry, wikipedia is not that bad, but certainly not "respectable" when it comes to scholary discussions.

That's why I'm a Jesus-agnostic. But this is only about his existence - I'm close to certain that he did not do any miracles and/or was resurrected.

Problem is, you have not given us any scientific resources.
Oh, and if we indeed have not provided any sources (I would have to reread the thread to check), I'm sorry. If you are really interested in this,
The Bible Unearthed is a very good start.

The facts are there, you only have to read up on them. See above.

:huh: How on Earth did they determine that it was his house?