Withered

This quote was made in a thread in the EoG forum.
While this is not an attempt to call out any individual, i want to call out the actual statement.

I am not myself, in anyway particularly qualified to discuss archeology, geology or other historical related disciplines

However, i am hoping that someone here is.

So in the interest of furthering my own knowledge, and getting some really great conversation, i would like to ask a couple of questions.

first, if the flood, and the exodus are not immediately the first to things to come to mind, what other items are there that can be shown to directly contradict the bible's account of the relevant regions and time periods.

Second, if any theist is interested, we can pick from the list one or two items and discuss them at length in a thread dedicated to the topic.

Finally, i would like to stay away from prophecy related items,since the apologetics involved always seem to degrade into...crap.

L.

Keith&Co.

What about anachronisms? People being paid in darics some time before King Darius invented them?

NZSkep

yes, Ancient cultures writings soemhow completely missed the flood out.

for example: There are Chinese writings going back to way before the gloabl flood was supposed to happen (around 7000BC IIRC), and continue on the same after the flood was supposed to have happened.

for this to be the case there are only 2 possibilites
1) all the ancient chinese were wiped out by the flood, then some descendants of noah moved to china, promptly forgot whatever language they were using and started writing chinese using exactly the same characters as the people who were wiped out by the flood some years before.
or
2)There was no global flood.


I believe there is also a contradicition around the time of Jesus birth. I'm not sure of the exact dates but it goes soemthing like this:

The roman census ordered by Quirinius (that is supposed to be the one which reuqired mary and joseph to go to behtlehem) was in 6AD, and yet we know herod died in 4BC, 10years before hand. the biblical account has herod being alive at the time of the census.

Fortuna

Wait a second here. I'm no archeologist, but doesn't the history and existence of the Egyptian nation discount the possibility of Noah's flood ?

Consider that if all of Egypt were wiped out in the flood, how could there be a contiguous writing system, language, tradition of pharoh's etc. In fact, how could there have remained any memory of the pre-flood dynasties ?

Also, as I understand it from "The Bible Unearthed", the conquest of Canaan is disproven by the archeology of Canaan. I'm not at my home, so I don't have access to my copy of the book, but here is a quote from a website ;

Edited to Add ;

But that does not mean that the stories are not valuable, nor to say that they do not have purpose. In point of fact they serve a great purpose, they gave to a people returning from exile a national identity, a purpose, and most of all hope and the impetus to build a nation. It is only those who try to interpret them literally who misinterpret them.

I've always wondered why it is that those who try to take these stories literally will ironically interpret the story of Romulus and Reemis as a fable.

Baalazel

There is no archaeological evidence for the reigns of David or Solomon. That they did not exist does considerable damage to the Christian doctrine of the Messiah.

Baal

Withered

That is a good example of what i am talking about.
Something as simple as currency that can be accurately tracked and shown to poke holes in the bible supporter's claims.

Can you spare a link for this sort of thing? I love to read up on things like this, hence the thread.

L.

ETA: We are only a few posts in, and already, there are some good responses here. I wonder if, as this thread progresses, i can build a case of simple, straightforward examples to use in rebutting the bible when it is used as a foundation for faith among people i encounter in the world outside of iidb?

Solitary Man

Neither Josephus nor his Egyptian name are found among the extensive lists for Royal Vizier's any time around what the Bible purports it.

Keith&Co.

You'd probably like to see the SAB then?
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html

mg01

For the early OT the first thing you have is the Mosaic authorship claims. Arguments against this have been made for centuries and was one of the issues that lead to analysis of the text seeking answers to if not Moses, then who wrote it. Even the most die hard Biblical conservatives don't date anything prior to 1200, while the extreme liberals will claim the whole text was invented around 300-200. The moderate view is it was compiled after the Babylonian Exile around 450ish based on seperate works that range in dates between 900 and 600.

Language and writing itself is an issue. The Levant practically is a black hole from about 1200 to 900 as far as writing is concerned. In the time prior there are finds of Akkadian in key cities (Ugarit, Mari, Ebla, etc...), but the entire area was then devestated by conflict and migration in the 12th, 11th centuries. The oldest Phonecian/proto-Canaanite finds (the script that led to Arabic, Aramiac, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc...) don't appear untill around 1000, and widespread literacy not until 850.

In conjunction there are very few finds that can even be attempted to corleate with Biblical texts prior to the Mesha Stela. The biggest are the Merneptah Stela, the Tel Dan inscription, and the "Solomonic Gates". These finds fall far short of proving anything other than some sembalence of the preserved traditions may have had some basis in reality. The flipside is there really was a Solomonic/Davidic Dynasty that extedned "from the river in Egypt to the river in Babylon", none of it's remains have ever been found?

With respect to Genesis then you have texts written centuries after the events they describe. With respect to the "mythical period" of Gen 1-11, parallel motifs are found in neighboring contemporay cultures. Considering that the concenous from archeology is that the Iron Age Isralites emerged out of the Bronze Age Canaanite culture this is no surprise.

Also among the anochranisms through Genesis and Exodus are place names, or groupings of places that didn't all exist at the same time during the proported time of the events. Either someone extensively updating older texts in such a way that later readers could beter identify with the story, or it was written much later. (Most of these dates point to between the 9th and 6th centuries. Interestingly too most of them come from J. E's narratives are comparatively sparse when it comes to placenames. J appears to have gone to lengths to root his tale in a historical setting.)

Besides the anochranisms, the Patricarchal tales are also littered with etiologies. Entire stories exist just to lead up to a punchline as to how a place got it's name. Between the composite nature of the text some places get named more than once and for different reasons. This goes beyond just place names, Abraham, the "father of the Israelites", actually means, "father of a multitude", Isaac means "laughter" and gets his name because Sara laughed. In the story of the birth of Jacob's sons, all of them have etiological names derived from the context of their birth. When you see this over and over, it becomes obvious the stories are contrived to explain the name. There are also strong similariteis between the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all are born of a divine birth from a previously barren mother and share similar adventures (wife as sister story and meeting wife at well).

The biggest problem with the Exodus is it simply can't be dated. Any attempt to do so is riddled with problems. The biggest of which is in the period from 1300 to 1100, the range than covers most attempts, was a time of Egypts largest control of the Levant since Thuthmoses re-established it around 1800. Genesis-Exodus simply shows a tradition of trying to unite earlier patriarchal fokelore inherited from cultrual roots with a new element of a tradtion of YHWH from the south. Upon being introduced over time he begins to supplant the original Canaanite deities, particularly El and Baal, and perhaps even picking up some feminine attributes as well with regards to the references to "closing" and "opening" the womb, a feature usually associated with a goddess.

Joshua/Judges and the conquest was one of the earliest targets of archeologies from the late 1800s and early 1900s. While early attempts claimed suceess, (they found destroyed cities), problems later followed as dating became more accurate. In addition, Joshua is also littered with etiologies and anachronisms that begin to point to 7th-6th century authorship.

Omri, who was King of Israel in Sameria in the 9th century is mentioned in Assyrian records, is the first real tangible external reference of any Biblical account. Kings mentions Egyptian Sheshonq who raided the Levant in the 10th century and is also recorded at Karnaq in Egypt. Hezakiah is mentioned in Assyrian records as giving tribute to stave off invasion and capture of Jerusalem following the fall of Israel. Many tend to see this as the event that kicked off the "consolodation" of traditions carried primarily up to that point by the priesthoods from Shiloh, Hebron, Hershon, etc... Following this there was political reason to reconcile the different traditions relating to the operation of the priesthood at the temple.

The book of Kings is also easlily broken down into sections. There appear to be two works intertwined. One contains the king chronology and the other tales of various prophets primarily revolving around Shiloh. The chronology credits the "Records of the Kings of Israel" and "Records of the Kings of Judah" in a rigid framework. The fact that the is more detail with regards to the Kings of Judah (specifics on birth, mother, burial, etc...) and the dates and reigns regarding Israel can be derived from the information on Judah draws into question if the northern version existed at all. The composition appears to be a work produced in Judah in the 7th-6th century.

sugarhitman

There is no mention of nations before the flood in the Bible. Egypt was founded by a son of Ham, China has been proposed as being founded by Sin a descendent of Ham (The Chinese i've read, say that China was founded by a T'sin). If you read the Genesis account of the days before the flood you will find no mention of nations, Governments, Kingdoms etc. these come after the flood, particularly after the Tower of Babel.