Baalazel

Ok, short of you and me doing archeology in the Middle East together we must find another route to travel. I will quote Thomas L. Thompson from Mythic Past. If you like I will buy a copy and send it to you. I will scan the relevant passages and e-mail them to you. I will read them onto a disk and snail mail it to you. However you choose to actually look at the evidence I will provide it to you.

“I have argued that there is no room for an historical United Monarchy, or for such kings as those presented in the Biblical stories of Saul, David and Solomon. The early period in which the traditions have set their narrative is an imaginary world of long ago. It never existed as such. In the real world of our chronology, only a few dozen very small scattered hamlets and villages supported farmers in all of the Judean highlands. Altogether they numbered hardly more than two thousand persons… There could not have been a kingdom for any Saul or David to be king of, simply because there were not enough people.”

So you see that evidence can be drawn from what does not exist. If the prior requirements for an event do not exist the event does not take place. If no population large enough to support a kingdom existed the kingdom could not have existed. If the kingdom did not exist the king did not exist.

There is no evidence that David was ever a king in Israel. If David was not a king in Israel the Bible makes the false claim that he was. If that claim is false there is no throne of David and no Messiah to sit on it. If there is no Messiah all your protests to the contrary are so much hot air.

Give us a book. Give us an author. Give us some source we can take hold of. In all this you have not once been able to convince any of us that you are even minimally aware of the advances in Biblical archeology in the last fifty years. Such things do not exist in a vacuum. They are readily available to anyone who makes the slightest effort to educate themselves. Make a trip to Barnes & Nobles.

BTW, Thompson teaches at the Biblical Studies program at the University of Copenhagen.

Baal

Baalazel

JayW, could you make an attempt to keep up. The Israelites were in Sinai for FORTY YEARS. This is so central to the stories of the origin of Israel that it is known by children in Vacation Bible School. It is a fundamental teaching in every Sunday school class in every church in every nation on Earth. Why should we take your word for anything you say about the historicity of the Bible if you can flub something as simple as the sojourn in Sinai?

Baal

Gullwind

Well, they may have been in the Sinai for two years, but they were at Kadesh Barnae for thirty eight years.

Of course, no trace of them has been found there, either. Imagine the latrine pits for two million people. You'd think something like that would stand out.

JayW

never made the claim that it was to the same degree as the bible clams. The Ipuwer Papyrus does,however, describe a very disastorous time. Archeologists do too. They all happened at the same time. There were not natural occurances that happen from year to year. I though i wrote that princes were dashed against palace walls, crops failed completely, fruit trees died, the Nile River was bloody, water was unfit for drinking, all of whicjh happened at one time. There is evidence of it. Archeologists have stated so. I thought I said that too. I have no idea if all their cattle died,but all their crops did according to the text. Archeologists claim that the loss of crops caused famine and economic disastor for several years. In the first place I never said that the text was speaking about the Biblical texts, only that Egypt has suffered a calamity on a grand scale.

You are still placing a lot of faith in one person's opinion. You could red some archeology books and find out whether Thompson is right or not. Do you base your scientific knowledge on one man's opinion? Do you believe the first piece
of materila written by someone who claims it's true. I have given you information that came from a lot of archeologists. I didn't expec you to believe any of it,and in fact, was not surprised whn you refused to even consider any of it. It's not anti Biblical and therefore has no credence according to you. If you ever intend to approach archeolofy with an open mind, you might want to inform Thompson that an inscription has been found a tell Dan in Northern Isreal that refers to Hadad defeating the King of the House of David.

Gullwind

You say there's evidence. Show me a source that says they all happened at the same time. The Ipuwer Papyrus has some parallels, but doesn't mention everything that the bible does.

The point is that there is no evidence of the specific events described in the bible. No one is disputing that Egypt suffered events like the plagues. We're saying that there is no evidence that the Ten Plagues described in the bible happened in that way. Going back to the bank analogy, you seem to be saying that since the guy has an account at another bank, and though he has never deposited $1,000 at once, he has deposited $50 several times so we should assume that he really did what he claimed.

All the Tel Dan inscription shows is that at some point a couple hundred years later someone was calling themselves the House of David. Not exactly convincing proof for the David of the bible.

JayW

I don't understand what the ptoblem is. I never said that it verified the Bible. In fact I said that none of it proves th Bible is correct, only that there is a possibility the events happened. I hve never tried to prove evidence proves the Bible is correct. I have never clamed I could.
I don't understand the problem with david either. I know that you must realize that a house is another way of sayng kingdom. Nooe called Himself the house of David. The inscription came from Syria,and ws written by king hadad of Syria. It was not written by an israelite. It was not written by someone who was a decendent of David. It was written by a king of syria in reference to defeating a king of Israel. Regardless of who that King was, or what date the inscription was written, if there was a king of the dynasty of Davd, there had to be a King David. There was no other King David in Israel, and especially not during the reign of King Hadad of Syria.The same is true of the Assyrian inscription that mentions Omri and the House of Omri. All kings of all nations mentioned the dynasty of the last great King of that nation they were writng about. The inscription that mentions the king of the dynasty (house) of david was written by a Syrian. He believe that there had been a king david at one time, whether you do or not. It on't matter whether or not you believe ny of it is convincing. There are some with an open mind enough to be interested in archeological discoveries. I learned a long tme ago, it is useless to offer any kind of evidence to a critic. They have preconceived ideas of what will be true and what won't. I have listd some books on archeology,and have a library of many more. You are welcome to learn somethng from them if you so desire. It's up to you if you want to learn about history. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

Baalazel

And yet you still refuse to provide one title of one book by one author in support of your claims. I will take it then as meaning that you are unable to support anything you say. I am not the only one here who has asked for sources from you. I am not the only one here to have given you ample opportunity to provide them. I am sure I am not the only one here who has come to the conclusion that your arguments are worthless and tiresome.

Baal

Gullwind

The think the problem is that you seem to be confusing assertions with evidence. Many of the events in the bible SHOULD have left evidence behind. If we don't find that evidence, in the places where it should be, then that lack is evidence that the event didn't happen.

But you have offered numerous assertions as if they supported the biblical accounts, such as Egypt suffering plagues. They don't support the biblical versions.

Fine. I never said David didn't exist. But the mention of a similar name does nothing to prove that the David of the bible existed. Once again, you are offering what you call "evidence" in support of the biblical claim. Sure, there may have been someone named David, but if that's all, it doesn't help the biblical claim much, does it?

Omri is the first thing in the bible that actually has some solid evidential support. Everything before that is simply assertions.

On the contrary. I once changed my mind on this subject 180 degrees. I once believed that every time science tried to disprove the bible, it ended up proving it. Then I did some actual research and found out how wrong I was. It was an enlightening experience. I recommend it.

Ezkerraldean

well, put very simply, the entire science of geology came into existance because the biblical flood story fails to explain anything. YEC contradicts the entirity of geology. absolutely all of it. the earth is old (and sure as hell older than 6000 years!), and there is no evidence for a global flood 4000 years ago.

(i'd rather any YEC responses were something other than the usual grand canyon shite, or misrepresented evidence of pleistocene post-glaciation floods used as noah's flood evidence. are YECs totally unaware of anything else?)

robto

I find this argument, which has been used over and over in this thread, rather odd coming from supposed skeptics. Surely you know that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence? If you're trying to find something that falsifies the Biblical record, you'd better have some positive evidence, not just a lack of evidence, if you want to convince anyone.

I would propose the following well-known example for the OP. There is good evidence that King Herod died in 3 BC or so, and that Quirinius became governor of Syria in 6 AD. So Matthew 2:1 and Luke 2:2, taken together, are falsified by the archaeological record.