Gundulf

No, but textual criticism can give us a pretty close idea as to what the original was.

Not sure what you mean by 'credible' evidence, here. Are you granting inerrancy/inspiration for the sake of the argument? I'd be the first to agree that even if God did exist, that if he did NOT in fact reveal himself in some remotely trustworthy way (inspiration, etc.), then just about every religious belief is a shot in the dark.

If, for the sake of argument, the Bible, besides being written by humans, is in fact also revelation from an omniscient being, then this would be 'credible' evidence.


What 'historical' evidence would there be that would convince you otherwise? Any claim like this is theological and based on revelation, not 'history' proper...

ksen

Yes.

Feel free to PM me some questions about PCC and I'll tell you what I know.

I don't know what to think of this since this is the first I've heard of it. :huh:

I suppose it's possible and if it were it probably wouldn't change how I view the Bible.

Asha'man

Hiya Gundulf.

The archeology you need to read is Finkelstein and Silberman's The Bible Unearthed.

According to the Exodus, those wandering nomads numbered around 3 million, and spent 38 years camped at a single location within the desert. Given the utter lack of other artifacts in the desert, that encampment should stand out like a sore thumb. They should have left traces of latrines, broken pots, fires, bones, discarded articles of clothing, etc, but nothing has ever been found. In fact, traces of nomadic passages through the Saini have been detected both before and after the date of the supposed exodus, but not a trace near the 13th century BCE.

More importantly, archeology is particularly good at detecting the mass movements of culture. If 3 million hebrews moved from Egypt to Canaan, and killed everyone they met within Canaan, there should be a clear and abrupt disruption in the style of artifacts found. Pottery styles should suddenly show an Egyptian influence, for example, but they don't. The same would be true with buildings, clothing, writing, etc. Instead, we have a full spectrum of artifacts showing a perfectly normal continuity of culture, indicating that Canaan did not suffer any sort of mass invasion around the 13th century BCE.

We can also examine the remains of Canaan cities for signs of conflict. Generally, you can see large amounts of charred wood after a battle, as well as collapsed buildings. Since wood is present in the debris, carbon dating provides a good secondary dating method to place the age of the battle. Again, while many cities in Canaan show signs of conflict over the ages, they don't all show conflict around the same time, in the 13th century BCE. (Not to mention such problems in the story like the city of Jericho, which was nearly uninhabited and unfortified during this time.)

So, in addition to a complete lack of evidence that supports the Exodus and conquest of Canaan, we have fairly solid evidence that points against it. But the evidence keeps piling up.

If the Hebrews didn't come in to Canaan in the 13th century as conquerers, where did they come from? The evidence shows the Jewish culture developing very slowly across the 10th thru 7th centuries BCE, out of Canaan natives. Religious artifacts for Yahweh are found side-by-side with a host of other Canaanite gods, in the very same temples. Slowly, Yahweh begins to take on a different role, being pushed to the top of the rankings, and then eventually worshiped alone.

Anachronisms within the text of the Exodus indicate that it was probably written no earlier than the 7th century BCE, and was simply projected back into the 13th century BCE by the authors. The story mentions Egyptian forts along the border, for example, that weren't built until at least the 8th century BCE. Most likely, the story was written just after the Assyrian conquest of Israel. The remaining Jews within Judah needed to justify ownership of the land, and historical conquest of a 'God given' land was considered adequate justification. The story of Moses was a convenient fiction that establishes exactly this style of ownership, but it appears to be entirely fiction.

Dave Hawkins

ksen ...The only way the Tablet Theory [See 8th paragraph in my debate post] changes my view of the Bible is that it strengthens my view of it even more. It makes perfect sense to me that God would have directed Adam and his descendants to write down the key events of history and pass them on, eventually to be compiled by Moses in the Torah.

*******************************

Asha'man ... Have you read Rohl? Please see my blog for a book review (I am adding to it weekly). Rohl presents much evidence which vindicates the historicity of the Biblical Exodus account.

Also, have you not heard of Hebrew University Archaeologist Trude Dothan's account of the military outpost she found on the direct route from Egypt to Canaan? This site is dated to the 14th century BC and is believed to be one of many such sites dotting the route from Egypt to Canaan. (Dothan, T., "Lost Outpost of the Egyptian Empire," National Geographic 162:6, December 1982: 739-69, cited in Price, R. The Stones Cry Out (or via: amazon.co.uk), 1997, pp. 135-136)

James Brown

Curious. Are you suggesting that Adam wrote his autobiography on clay tablets? Then he handed them off to Cain, who recorded his murder of Abel and his private conversation with God? Then Cain, having been banished, first handed the tablets back to Adam, who kept them until Seth came along? And on and on? That Noah, in addition to gathering animals from around the world, also lugged a cart of clay tablets onto the Ark? And that somehow, this growing collection of tablets found its way to Ur so that polytheistic Abram could haul them back to Canaan? That all the patriarchs contributed their own autobios, although none of them ever wrote in first person, and they all used similar writing styles? That Jacob, when he fled Esau's wrath, made sure to collect this growing pile of family history tablets before hiding in the wilderness? That Joseph made sure to take the tablets with him to Egypt when he was sold into slavery? That Hebrew slaves kept and organized this veritable mountain of clay tablets while they were suffering abject humiliation, none of the tablets ever having been broken during hundreds of years of being hauled from here to there? And after all this, Moses, while wandering lost in the desert, gathered up all these tablets and condensed them into the Torah?

Meanwhile, the Torah never once mentions this fantastic pile of ancient literature, nor any strict command from father to son to be responsible for the literal ton of bricks. There's no command by God or anyone else about maintaining the ongoing record, either. Nearly every written command of God was violated by the patriarchs in some form or fashion, but this unwritten command was strictly observed by dozens or hundreds of characters without a single break in the chain.

Archaeological evidence indicates that Writing systems evolved from pictograms and ideograms developed by the Sumerians and shortly thereafter by Egypt, with Semitic alphabets not developing for over two thousand years later. Yet you have Adam in the garden being the inventor of a fully developed alphabetic language, which was then failed to be adopted by any other culture in Mesopotamia for millenia?

Sorry, but your theory doesn't make sense, it has no physical support at all, and in fact contradicts what physical evidence we do have about ancient writing. I'd like to see just one ancient text scholar advocate your theory.

Johnny Skeptic

Well, you ought to know that in the first century, it would have been impossible for people who lived far away from Palestine to hear the Gospel message unless God told them about it. Good evidence that God told people in China about the Gospel message in the first century would be surviving copies of written records, and surviving archaeological evidence. It is not likely that God told anyone in China about the Gospel message in the first century because if he did, he would probably have told everyone else about it all over the world in all centuries.

Regarding what the Bible says about homosexuality, why do you believe that the writers spoke for God and not for themselves?

Dave Hawkins

JamesABrown ... I did not say anything about alphabetic writing by Adam. Most likely it was pictographic. And the Genesis Record indicates the next record after Adam was written by Noah (See Gen. 6:9, which, according to the Tablet Theory indicates that the preceding section was written by Noah), who was born approx. 120 years after Adam died. So there is no indication that Cain wrote a record as you suggest. And while we know that Abraham's previous culture (Ur) used clay tablets, we know that the Egyptians--with whom Abraham had much contact--did not. They used papyrus, then the Israelites used vellum.

You raise some good questions and these all need to be examined. Thanks.

Asha'man

Rohl claims to have a location for the Garden of Eden. He is, therefore, a crackpot, and no further reading is required.

Asha'man

Moses could not possibly have read any of the tablets that pre-existed the Ark, or followed by less than a hundred years. They were hopelessly scrambled by that little incident at the Tower of Bable.

Dave Hawkins

Asha'man ... several things ...

1) You made an assertion about Egyptian forts not being built until the 8th century BCE, thus impugning the historical reliability of the Book of Exodus. What support do you offer for this assertion? I countered your assertion with Hebrew Univ Archaeologist Trude Dothan's work cited above.

2) You say Rohl is a crackpot because of his supposed discovery of Eden. I cannot comment on that since I have not studied it, but I would be interested to hear why you think he has not discovered it. And whether he is right or wrong about Eden has nothing to do with some of the excellent evidence he has uncovered confirming the historicity of Exodus and other OT books.

Rohl's main thesis, of course, is that archaeologists have been looking in the right places for evidence of Biblical events, but in the wrong time period. He points to Champollion's incorrect reading of Name Ring 29 on Shoshenk I’s campaign city list leading to the (probably incorrect) identification of Shishak with Shoshenk I and makes a strong case from many lines of evidence. Interestingly, if Rohl's New Chronology (~200 year adjustment) is adopted, many Biblical enigmas are solved. If we make Rohl's adjustments, this will cause us to look in the 13th Dynasty instead of the 19th Dynasty for evidence of Exodus events and we do, in fact, find just that. There is a papyrus in the Brooklyn Museum containing a royal decree from Sobekhotep III (13th Dynasty) authorising transfer of slave ownership ... names include Menahem, Issachar, Asher and Shiphrah (name of Hebrew midwife) ... all Hebrew names. Shallow burial pits with no evidence of careful interments have been found all over the city of Avaris (in Biblical Goshen) dated to the end of the 13th Dynasty, suggesting a confirmation of the Death of the Firstborn account in Exodus. Also, Manetho wrote that in the reign of Dudimose, last king of the 13th Dynasty (the Pharoah of the Exodus under the New Chronology), ‘a blast of God smote us’ (i.e. the Egyptians).

The richness of Solomon's culture, the Israelite conquest of Jericho, letters from King Saul and Joseph's palace, tomb and cult statue also appear if Rohl's New Chronology is adopted.

Maybe his search for Eden is 'crackpot-ish' ... I don't know. But he has certainly contributed valuably to other areas of Biblical archaeology.

3) Your assertion regarding the Tower of Babel assumes that the single language in existence prior to Babel was lost. But there is no reason to assume this from the Genesis narrative. For example, God could have allowed 1/3 of the population to keep the original language and changed another 1/3 to a different language, and the third 1/3 to yet another. This would be a logical approach since God's stated purpose was to cause the population to spread out over the earth, which, of course could have easily been accomplished by changing the language of 2/3 of the population and leaving 1/3 unchanged. Incidentally, Sir William Jones, the "Father of Modern Linguistics," is credited with the discovery that Sanskrit is related to Latin and Greek among other things. George Stanley Faber says ...
And guess where Jones found vestiges of all three of these primeval languages in one place? Iran ... which in his day included at least the eastern part of Iraq. Again, a confirmation of the Biblical account of the Flood, the new Civilization at Babel, and the Dispersion due to the Confusion of Languages.