dongiovanni1976x

I am so glad you got to see it Lee. Tell me now, can you see this wall? Is it dry? Does the lead archaeologist from Tyre claim it is Phoenician and does it show evidence of bombardament? Do you still think that sacara, the tourist was misled or might she have seen this very wall? Do you still think that Dr. Patricia Bikai, Dr. Martha Joukowsky, Dr. Maruice Cherab, Dr. Katzenstien, Dr. Pierre Bikai and Dr. Frost were wrong and that Nina Jidejian's silence on the subject means the wall does not exist?

When have I ever contested that the southern portion of the city was under water or not. I have repeatedly agreed with you but pointed out that by locating this very portion of the city you have invalidated the prophecy because it is not lost and the entire rest of the city is above water- as you have found it by finally getting to see it for yourself.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Right, until a person demonstrates their case, don’t sign up for their conclusions.

Well, you indeed held this perspective, now it seems I was unconvinced by your arguments, and so did not adopt your conclusions.

Um, wait, you are making no claims here? Surely you are, one claim would be that my view is not just undecided yet, instead you claim my view is wrong. Thus defend your claim!

But I hold that the transition is from the physical city to the people, here.

No, the people were descending to the pit, not to the sea bottom.

Ezekiel 26:20 … then I will bring you down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of long ago. I will make you dwell in the earth below, as in ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, and you will not return or take your place in the land of the living.

This was a way of referring to the underworld, to the abode of the dead.

Yes, two of them!

Um, no, I don’t think he actually said that. David Woodward said “archaeologists think this is the very gap through which Alexander passed,” or words to that effect, though he also said such statements about various places in other cities, such as the temple at Delphi, such as the gate somewhere else.

I’m not sure now, the wall didn’t seem to be near any jetties.

Erm, Chehab! His name is Chehab, I think. But yes, I saw none of these people in this presentation (well, Dr. Chehab lived before there were films, even), and I had heard of them all before, and did even believe them all convinced in their conclusions. And I also still wonder if these walls are disputable, I have not heard back from the hotel that made the claim that there were Phoenician walls to see, and I also again encourage you to present your case to the tourist agencies who do not mention any such walls.

All right then, so in 1992, they thought the walls Phoenician, before this time, and after this time, yet before the History Channel special in 2001, apparently they did not.

The absence of a general claim of these walls being Phoenician in 2006 would tend to indicate that the consensus now is that the walls are not from the ancient fortress.

You are right, I forgot you had said this is arguably true. But I feel a little surprised that you didn’t speak up when I was getting hammered for saying there might have been an earthquake in the area that caused part of the island to sink. Other skeptics can be allowed to get their view wrong, as long as they are arguing with a theist?!

Regards,
Lee

Gullwind

Fine. That still doesn't demonstrate a transition to the intangible trading empire.

This just reinforces the case that "never found" (following immediately after this verse) is referring to the city and its people, not the trading empire.

Do you have any reason for reading "never found" as referring to anything other than the city and its people other than the presuppostion that the prophecy was fulfilled? What would convince you that the prophecy failed?

Johnny Skeptic

Well, I said:

You replied:

I replied:

So, regarding your comment “Right, until a person demonstrates their case, don’t sign up for their conclusions,” you have not demonstrated your case that the Tyre prophecy was dated before the events, and that is has not been revised. There is no rule of logic or law that says that all assertions are true unless proven false. I don’t have any evidence that the Tyre prophecy was dated after the events, or that it has been revised, but you don’t have any evidence that it was dated before the events, and that is has not been revised.

I never expect a fundamentalist Christian to give up Christianity because of anything that I say. In fact, I expect that they won’t. Committed Christians and skeptics seldom change their minds. The undecided crowd and the nominal Christian crowd are my main intended audiences, and surely most of those people will not put any confidence in anything that you have to say about the Tyre prophecy until you have provided credible evidence that it was dated before the events, and that it has not been revised. In addition, surely most of those people will not put any confidence in anything that you have to say about the Babylon prophecy. It is you who withdrew from the thread on the Babylon prophecy because you knew that you could not reasonably prove that the Iraqis had adequate incentives to rebuild Babylon. You conveniently left off most of what I said about the Babylon prophecy, so here is what you left out:

Now then, Lee, do you wish to debate the Babylon prophecy some more, embarrass yourself some more, and withdraw just like you did before? I hope that you do. The Babylon prophecy is one of my favorite debate topics. So is the Tyre prophecy.

Please quote my claim. I already showed where you AGREED with me when I said “The issues that you are debating are completely irrelevant unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the version of the prophecy that we have today is the same as the original version.” Did you or did you not say “I agree?”

You claim that God created the heavens and the earth. I have never said that he didn’t. You claim that the Tyre prophecy was written before the events, and that it has not been revised. I have never said that the Tyre prophecy was not written before the events, and that it has been revised. I am not trying to convince people what happened back then, BUT YOU ARE. What I am trying to do is to convince people that many if not most of your arguments about Bible prophecy and other issues are built solely upon faith, not upon logic like you pretend it is. This is typical of inerrantists like you. Biblical inerrancy is easy to refute. Would you like debate it in a new thread?

If I made an initial claim and told you that I had a flying pig, it would not be up to you to disprove my claim. It would be up to me to produce my flying pig. Similarly, if you made an initial claim that the Tyre prophecy was written before the events, it would be up to you to provide credible evidence that such is the case. You haven’t done that, although you have had years at the Theology Web and here to do it.

Who do you think you are kidding about the issues of dating and possible revisions? All of the skeptics know that if you had some evidence that you found to be convincing, you would have posted it long ago. You never miss an opportunity to embarrass skeptics if you believe that you have an opportunity to do so.

dongiovanni1976x

Erm, Peter! His name is Peter. Lol (Sorry I just had to get you back for my Cherab mistake)
Earlier in the documentary Mr. Woodward asked, Peter Woodward then is shown walking along the inner wall with Dr. Badawi…
I quoted you the sources for all of these scholars. I never said they were in the film. I provided them as independent testimony that was all in agreement. Unlike your theory which says they are disputable based upon nothing at all. In fact you baffle me when you cling to this implausible idea because fo the silent ignorance of some tourist site, Huh?! There was NEVER a time that ANYONE contested that this wall was anything other than Phoenician. NEVER EVER EVER.

What are you smoking? The documentary is from 2004 and never has the consensus changed since 1966- EVER.
Lee, no where in the documentary does it mention an earthquake- Where did you hear this? I just watched it 3 more times to be sure and listened very carefully and never heard what you quoted:
Can you point me to where this was said in the film…

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

I agree that that is not plainly evident in the text, yet I think by extension it does mean what they did, for the Tyre was a merchant empire, and who of those who bought and sold would seek the people, and not what they meant? Unless they had more discernment than most, and valued people more than possessions, but I would hold that was not in view here, such noble-minded seekers of the Tyrians.

But I don’t hold that “never found” refers to anything other than the city and its people. But maybe you meant the opposite, if so, as before, I would say that “never found” means not the location, but the city/trading center, as in “I lost my house in a fire”…

I would think that is what the people understood, why seek some other settlement on the island, Ezekiel even said there would be fishermen there, spreading their nets. But the reason Tyre was valued was because of their trade, and that would be what people would seek, and what they would miss, and all this is not based on presupposition.

Yes, I agree.

Yet when the skeptics finish by saying, “Well so what if you prove your case?” then I think the embarrassment is on the other side.

I agreed! I still agree.

I did not actually set out to defend that here. One point is enough for one thread!

Peter, David, well, at least they rhyme, no? No?

Well yes, sometimes nothing is something! If astronomers do not speak of canals, if they don't make it a point to say they don’t believe they are on Mars, and people did once think this, and the topic is important enough to deserve mention in any survey of Mars, we may quite possibly, conclude they now have a different conclusion.

Hey, I just did!

But I agree that no one has said “It’s not Phoenician” that I have read of.

My DVD says "Art & Design copyright 2001", though, and Nina's second edition is copyright 1996.

It’s right at the end of the chapter before “The Siege of Tyre” at 110:30 by my DVD’s clock. Peter(!) Woodward also says the mainland city was considered part of Tyre there, as well…

Regards,
Lee

Gullwind

So you admit that the text does not specifically say what you want it to. You have not demonstrated that "by extension" it suddenly stops referring to the physical city and means something intangible instead, coincidentally at the same point at which the prophecy would fail if it still referred to the physical city.

But we don't say that the work-at-home business that was run out of the house that burned down was never found. I don't see how that analogy is relevant.

Then we have a contradiction, don't we? We have a bare rock where fishermen spread their nets on one hand, and we have the ocean depths covering it on the other. You have argued that both of these refer to the physical location.

Bottom line. You can't accept the "never found" phrase as referring to the physical city, even though you admit the text doesn't indicate anything else because that would mean the prophecy failed. You have said that a failed prophecy means the bible is not God's infallible word (post #326). That sounds like a presupposition to me.

noah

We do know that Phoenician Tyre, the island part of Phoenician Tyre, has been found. If Lee is referring to the Phoenician Tyre never being found. I don't know which era of Tyre Lee feels will never be found since we know Tyre exists today and Lee refuses to give us a date for this great unrecorded, unnoticed cataclysm that sank Tyre sometime somewhere in history despite the fact that we have excellent records of all the seismic activity in this region dating back more than 2000 years.

I emailed Dr. Sader ( American University of Beirut ) and asked whether any Phoenician layers and artifacts have been uncovered in any excavations done on the island of Tyre. She said Dr. Bikai reached the Phoenician layers in the 70s and that Phoenician artifacts had been uncovered on the island too.
I asked her whether Tyre had ever sunk because of an earthquake or for any other reason. She said not that she knew of.
Her is her email to me:
Sader's email sits nicely with the fact that the remains of the Phoenician port called the "Egyptian Port" can be and are observed just offshore a few hundred feet or so as this article states:
"great stone breakwaters and jetties of the ancient Phoenician port" means that Phoenician Tyre has been found and has been seen. End of prophecy

Dr. Sader's email to me of course confirms (like it ever needed to be "confirmed") Salim's email to me in which he said that on his visits to Tyre, the island, that he had seen the "sandwich of history" which included the Phoenician layers. Here is that part of his email to me:
Salim. as I have said, is of Phoenician origin and runs a website dedicated to the study of his Phoenician heritage. Salim says Tyre never sank and does not understand why Lee thinks it does.

As if that weren't enough, Lee has the additional difficulty of proving that Tyre was ever made a bare rock. The best Lee has been able to muster here is to use his conclusion as his argument saying if Tyre's underwater, there's no way to know if it's a bare rock, which isn't an argument let alone proof that Tyre was ever made a bare rock. Lee here, as elsewhere, misses the obvious. You must use evidence to support your claim. Not your claim itself. It is an insult to the intelligence to hear someone use their claim to prove their claim. I suppose Lee hopes we won't really read his posts. I can think of no other reason Lee thinks he can get this one by us. Unlesss of course his purpose here is truly mischief.

Lee mentions Nina Jidejian, owns her seminal book on Tyre and even (mis)quotes her book on Tyre sometimes. Yet Lee has yet to account for the fact that Nina Jidejian says nowhere that Tyre sank.

Lee also has yet to account for the fact that no scholar or authority on the subject of Tyre has ever mentioned Tyre's sinking because of an earthquake.

Lee seems to think he doesn't need to take responsibility for proving his claim.
As readers of this thread know, Lee has no proof of his claim yet he has manged to make this thread stretch for some 18 pages.
When asked directly to provide some proof, any proof in fact, to support his claim, Lee hides behind non-responses like "Well, again, we both have evidence". For example Don asked Lee to provide some geologic or geomorphic proof of his claim that Tyre sank because of an earthquake:
As if it somehow constituted an answer, Lee replied:
What Lee doesn't realize is that this ongoing refusal to provide any proof of his claim is an admission that he can't prove his claim. No amount of "what ifs" and equivocations can hide the fact that his claim is impossible to substantiate.

And folks, Lee knows it.

Lee "admits" no one can be certain that Tyre sank which in itself debunks any idea of verifiable god given prophecy fulfillment, an idea Lee likes to maintain is happening in its thousands. I put "admit" in quotation marks because we can be certain that Tyre never sank. Period. Besides, as I have said, arguing for ambiguity is hardly the stuff of credible apologetics (an oxymoron if ever there was one). If the best you can hope for is "no one can be certain", then you haven't got a case of verifiable prophecy fulfillment. At all.

Lee's "proof" so far, apart from backfiring links of course, and uninformed speculation, has been to hide behind demands he makes of us to prove the objections we raise to his claim that Tyre sank. Lee fails to acknowledge that when you make a decisive claim, like he is making here, an extraordinary claim, in fact, you must account for normal alternative possibilities.
You must have done enough research on the subject to adequately refute and explain away objections people make to your claim.
In other words, if you tell people you have seen an alien spaceship for sure and that you are absolutely certain you saw an alien spaceship , you must be able to provide some kind of proof to people that you saw what you say you saw. If someone says you probably saw saw an aeroplane and not an alien spacecraft you must be able to tell them conclusively why what you saw was not an aeroplane. If they say "yeah but I saw some planes flying around in that area that day, you must be able to tell that person why it was a UFO you saw and not a plane and do so offering some kind of proof of your own.
You don't just stand there and tell them to prove they saw planes flying in the area that day. You don't start asking them how they know it was planes they saw or whether the planes they saw were flying high enough to be planes or whether planes are allowed to fly in that area on the day the person saw them flying there or whether the planes had propellers or wings or sounded like planes or whether the planes had enough fuel to fly from the airport to the area the person saw them flying in.
No. You provide definitive proof of the UFO. You take responsibility for proving your claim regardless of the objections raised by those skeptical of your claim.

Lee doesn't seem to realize that denying the obvious doesn't prove his case, rather it hurts his case. Followers of this and the other Tyre threads will recall the many photographs of Tyre proving its existence posted by various forum members which Lee has chosen to ignore.
Lee has also chosen to argue that a peninsula is not a peninsula unless it looks like Florida as though this somehow helps his claim. Anybody with a dictionary or grade three geography knows a peninsula need only be a body of land almost entirely surrounded by water. There is no "Lee Merrill definition" of peninsula. We are all still waiting for Lee to provide some evidence to support this "Lee Merrill" definition of peninsula.
Don't hold your breath folks.

It would also help Lee if he were to research the relevant disciplines relevant to this and other topics before he made claims relating to them. As Sauron (and I) has pointed out, Lee has so far, on a purely ad hoc basis, made claims which require substantial knowledge and research in the following areas:

* ancient military tactics;
* ancient siegecraft;
* iron age mediterranean maritime skills and practices;
* civil engineering of the ancient near east;
* genetic engineering and forensic DNA examination;
* geology;
* archaeology;
* Islam and semitic languages;
* geomorphology
* seismology
* history

When we go out and actually do the research on these claims Lee's only response is to make more ad hoc claims in response to our research. Some of it is really silly. Just recently, Lee tried to argue that islands don't have wells. All Lee had to do was five minutes of research on Google to see that islands do have wells. Similarly, if Lee were to present the definition of a peninsula to us as proof of his defintion of peninsula, and do the same with his other claims, he would save himself a lot of embarrassment.

dongiovanni1976x

I just went to "scene selection" and chose "The Siege of Tyre". I will go view it again after work today. Thanks for the clarification.

lee_merrill

No, it's the scene before "The Siege of Tyre," at the end of that previous scene, maybe that's how you had missed it.

Blessings,
Lee