-Jay-

:crying: Dave's being mean!!!

Seriously, Dave. I'm just trying to keep the discussion at a level you're comfortable with. After all, so far you've set the bar so low that all anyone can do is trip over it.

Rohl? Really? In 175 years since Champollion nobody in the field saw fit to recalibrate his findings? Do you really believe that there's some grand anti-Christian conspiracy to suppress or distort all of Egyptology? What color is the sky in your little world, Dave? Your entire argumentative technique smacks of one that involves merely regurgitating what you've read on YEC/Fundamentalist websites. Have you actually read any of this yourself? Have you actually formed any of your own opinions?

Over and above that, you've got to deal with the absolute lack of evidence that somewhere between 600,000 and 2.5 million people roamed the desert for 40 years. That's FIVE times the population of modern Seattle. And there's nothing to suggest that the were ever there. Modern archaeological techniques can find temporary campsites of dozens of people. That 2.5 MILLION people camped in the desert for 40 bloody years would be missed isn't just naive, it's absolutely insane.

So, Dave, who's position is desperate? You've got exactly squat, bub.

regards,

NinJay
2 =/= 14

VoxRat

Ah, the old catch-all, anti-intellectual mantra: any person's training and expertise in a subject is a reason to discount that person's opinions in that subject. "Scholarship" - as recognized by universities and professional scientists and academicians is nothing more than an elaborate con game played by the Evil Atheist Conspiracy.

So the last thing you want to do if you want to understand biochemistry is read a biochemistry text, the last thing you want to do if you want to understand geology is read a geology text, the last thing you want to do if you want to understand archeology is read an archeology text. No, no... that would just contaminate your pristine mind with those messy fact things! No, much better to pay attention only to the fringe "alternative reality enthusiasts" that confirm the preconceptions gleaned from your bible and your pastor.

By the way,
2 =/= 14.
Hat tip to NinJay for a good way to sign off every Message To Dave, till he comes through with the explanation he promised Sept. 26

PhilosopherJay

Hi AfDave,

Thank you for information regarding this papyrus.

You presented this papyrus as part of a list of new information that archaeologists had not known about before when they assumed that the Exodus was fiction. However, F.W. Albright presented this information in 1954 in "Northwest-Semitic Names in a List of Egyptian Slaves from the Eighteenth Century B. C. W. F. Albright. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 74, No. 4. (Oct. - Dec., 1954), pp. 222-233."

Albright certainly did believe in the Exodus as the majority of archaeologists did at that time. In a 1999 article, Down with History, Up with Reading: The Current State of Biblical Studies, Gary A. Rendsburg of Cornell University pointed this out (http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/j...urg/index.html) :

Thirty years ago there was general agreement in the field of biblical studies, then dominated by the towering figure of W. F. Albright, but with a host of other luminaries, now all deceased, in accord: Theodor Gaster, H. L. Ginsberg, Harry Orlinsky, G. R. Driver, Roland de Vaux, Otto Eissfeldt, Benjamin Mazar, Yigael Yadin, and others. Of that generation of giants, the only one still alive today is my own teacher, Cyrus Gordon, still active, though finally slowing down at the age of 91.

The consensus was formed around three general issues: a) the history of ancient Israel, b) the sources of the Torah, and c) the biblical text. First, and most importantly, the history. The consensus believed that the Bible is a reliable guide to the history of ancient Israel. Everything from the Patriarchs to Ezra was real.

Rendsburg notes that the shift away from this view in the field had only come in the last thirty years (starting circa 1970). Thus the archaeologists who rejected the historicity of the Exodus were quite aware of the existence and discovery of the manuscript.

According to the Albright article, he had found nearly thirty names that were Northwest Semitic in the manuscript (pg. 232). This was slightly less than the 37 out of 94 names that had previously been identified as semitic. Apparently all these names had previously been identified as semitic because the Egyptian writer of the list had identified them as Male Asiastic or Female Asiatic. Albright found that half of these names, although identified as belonging to Asiastics were good Egyptian names.

I do not know if linguists have substantiated Albrights' methodology of transcribing the Egyptian words and transcribing the Cuneiform words and matching them. For example, he says that the akhadian name aya'abu means "Where is my father" "dissimulated and contracted" this becomes the Hebrew name "Iyyob" which ends up being "Job" in the scriptions. He finds Hay'abi'ilu in the Egyptian texts and translates it "Where is my father, Oh God". Based on this he concludes that we have a semitic name similar to Job on in the manuscript. It seems to me probable that he is correct, but I would like to get more modern linguists to weigh in on it.

Okay, so, assuming Albright is correct, we know that in 1740 B.C.E. one Egyptian household contained 30 people with Northeastern Semitic names. They might have come from Canaan, Syria or Mesopotamia. Is this evidence for the Exodus story? In one sense it is because any evidence that foreigners from the Northeast were slaves in Egypt helps historicize the idea that Hebrews were slaves in Egypt. On the other hand, one would expect Egyptians to get slaves from neighboring territories. Looking at any slave-based society, we would expect to find a certain percentage of slaves from neighboring inhabited populations.


Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Johnny Skeptic

My reply was to the following that you said:

The chain of logic is not important if you are trying to use archaeology to reasonably prove that God had something to do with the Exodus, assuming for the sake of argument that the Exodus occured. If you want to reasonably prove that God had something to do with the Exodus, you will have to reasonably prove that the Ten Plagues occured, and that God caused them. If all that you want to do is to reasonably establish that the Jews were held captive in Egypt, and that the Egyptians eventually let them go for reasons that did not have anything to do with God, I will grant for the sake of argument that the Jews were held captive in Egypt, and that the Egyptians eventually let them go. From a Christian perspective, the Ten Plagues is the key piece of evidence, not anything else. Otherwise, all that you are discussing is secular history.

It is utterly ridiculous for anyone to assume that an omnipotent being would show favoritism towards a motley group of aggressive people like the Jews and turn his back on the rest of humanity for thousands of years. Why would God have favored the Jews?

Johnny Skeptic

Readers will enjoy thread at a web site at http://forum.egyptiandreams.co.uk/vi...0465f4d0e99886. The thread is at the Egyptian Dreams Discussion Board. The title of the thread is "David Rohl, alternative timeline of dynasties." The home page of the Egyptian Dreams Discussion Board is at http://forum.egyptiandreams.co.uk/. It appears that the organization deals entirely with Egyptian history. David Rohl is criticized by some of the readers, some of whom appear to be quite well-informed.

ericmurphy

How many seafarers were there a hundred thousand years before the present?

David B

There's a big difference between the number of seafarers 100,000 years ago, which you talk of now, and the number of seafarers over the last 100,000 years, up until the time of Columbus, as implied in the post I responded to.

In the latter case, there's lots.

David B (has some experience of making landfall in small boats)

Faid

Simple question, dave:

WHY?

Can you explain WHY an archaeologist with evidence that could change everything we know about Egyptiology, instead of being hailed as a major reformer, would be dismissed as a "radical"?

(Without evaluating his evidence first, that is?)

Has the Evilutionist Gestapo infiltrated Archaeology as well, dave?

Is that your opinion? YES or NO?

Pappy Jack

And, in terms of establishing a basis for the chronology of Dynastic Egypt, on what basis do you evaluate their contributions as more or less worthwhile in determining the validity of that chronology?
And other than Rohl, what sources do you have that support the conclusion that (1) Champollion made such an error and (2) that Rohl's analysis is correct. What consilience does Rohl's New Chronology have with other archaeological findings in the Near East?
Then I take it that you have chosen to ignore or dismiss all the evidence that you have been given on this thread and on other threads and forums. I am still waiting to hear whether you have yet found out what Rohl's opinion on Predynastic Egypt is. What are your thoughts on Flinders Petrie's (pre-C14) relative datings for the Predynastic period? What are your thoughts on Gertrude Caton-Thomson's (pre-C14) work at Hammamia and El-Badari? What do you make of the Fayum A remains? What are your conclusions about the three periods of settlement at Merimda Beni Salama? There's lots more, but chew on these for a while.
Dave, do you mythologize the Greek heroes and their gods? Why? Do you mythologize the Dynastic Egyptian creation story and gods? Why?

For my part, I don't mythologize the flood and dispersion because they are already, self-evidently, myth: the evidence for either is as near to zero as makes no difference. Your problems are that you don't understand the meaning of the word 'evidence' and are wedded to an interpretation of the world (and Universe) that is founded on biblical inerrancy. So your arguments and models (for want of a better word) are driven by the need to support that inerrancy rather than to explain observed reality.

Pappy Jack

None whatsoever. 0.1% is more likely. An advanced culture such as Dynastic Egypt probably took 30-60 generations to double its population. See here, for example.