Sauron

However, if an earthquake had occurred, there would be other evidence to substantiate it. The fact that none has been found furhter exposes the sodom and gomorrah story as a morality fable and not actual history.

Magus55

How so? thousands of earthquakes happen daily, with no signs of the actual quake. Im sure after 3000 years, any signs of an earthquake might have been lost. This was also a supernatural event - so we don't know for sure whether God used the oil by the city to cause the fire, or created fire from nothing to rain on the cities, but we still found the ruins of the cities with ash and fire burning the roof first, with people trapped inside.

Magus55

I see, some things go against common sense and reason, yet atheists claim the Apostles wrote the Bible as a fictional story, and boldly went to their death to promote a lie. That goes against common sense and experience, yet atheists still believe it.

RED DAVE

From Magus55:

I have never been able to understand this argument.

a) The only evidence the apostles died is from legend. Except for Stephen, not even the gospels so state.

b) Millions died boldly for Hitler. What the fuck does that prove?

RED DAVE

Celsus

Hi LadyShea,

Nice topic. I hope Apikorus will respond because he's much better at this than me at this.
That is correct. Hebrew and Hebrew culture were part of a larger ethnic group of West Semitic people. This included various Canaanite people such as the Amorites, Moabites, and Edomites. The parallels in the beliefs, particularly in cosmogony, primeval history and laws are well attested--there is nothing unique about the Hebrew culture. El was both a Canaanite chief god, and the name of Yahweh, prior to his revelation to Moses at the burning bush. What we know of El from Canaanite myth predates Hebrew myths by several centuries, and it's fairly obvious that the Canaanite chief god developed into the Hebrew god YHWH. The laws and moral codes are similar to Old Babylonian (cf. Hammurabi's Code c. 18th century). While we have evidence of these practices by their neighbours (e.g. Mari tablets), we have almost nothing about Hebrew customs and unique religious beliefs.

The Ebla tablets date from the mid 3rd millenium, where over 16,000 tablets and fragments were discovered, and show the continuity in the evolution of language--from "Eblaite" to Ugaritic (2nd millenium) to Hebrew (1st millenium). The Ugaritic form of what was to become the Hebrew language flourished about the mid-15th century till the 1200s. One consideration to bear in mind is that the Bible, in its present form, is an extremely late addition to the Ancient Near East (ANE region)--even the traditionally old sources such as J and E of the Pentateuch are being considered at later and later dates (originally, J was proposed to be of 9th century origin, and now this is accepted by almost no one in professional Biblical criticism). Hence, scholars place Amorite and other groups as the sources of these Biblical beliefs (e.g. the Mari tablets have precursors to the form that would eventually become Biblical prophecy).

Also important is to consider three broad schools of archaeology: The Biblical Archaeology school, the Rejectionists, and the Minimalists. The Biblical archaeologists always started from the assumption that the Bible is inerrant, and then tried to fit all the data with the Bible. This is equivalent to the Creationists, and they have been steadily losing ground since their heyday in the middle of the last century. The Rejectionists explicitly reject this method as unscientific, and instead simply try to build as full a picture of the ANE as possible, and the Bible is considered wrong till proven otherwise. They are pretty much the mainstream of scholarship these days (Finkelstein would fall under this category for example). Finally, there are the Minimalists, sometimes known as the Copenhagen school, who view the Bible as historically as we would deem Shakespeare's version of Julius Caesar. They consider the distinction between myth and history as meaningless to the people of the ANE, and see no value in the Bible as a historical source. The Minimalist stance is on the fringe of archaeological scholarship, but their challenges should be considered seriously.

It's also important to bear in mind what archaeology can and can't prove. It does not tell us all about the people who lived in that region--we never have the full story. Evidence from one site may even contradict evidence from another. So archaeology will never prove the Bible true or false, because it is by nature, full of gaps. However, it can establish plausibility about Biblical stories. Where biblical stories do give rise to archaeological evidence (e.g. the Exodus and conquest of Canaan), we can say that the plausibility of such an event happening in the way the Bible records it is close to zero.

I haven't read anything by W.F. Albright. However, I can say that while his contribution to archaeology is monumental, almost nothing that he wrote (much of it in the 50s I think? He worked in the Middle East in the 20s and 30s) can be taken for granted anymore.

As lpetrich already recommended, The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman is an excellent but scholarly introduction. A simpler book is Matthew Sturgis' It Ain't Necessarily So: Investigating the Truth of the Biblical Past. And the comprehensive work to get, accessible to the lay reader is Amihai Mazar's Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: 10,000 BCE - 586 BCE Vol. I. (Ephraim Stern's Vol. II is good too). I'm still waiting for my copy.

Joel

lpetrich

I personally think that the Minimalist view, that the whole Old Testament is some post-exilic or Hellenistic fiction, is bullshit. There is too much archeological evidence of the two pre-exilic kingdoms, even if their history is not quite as depicted in the Bible.

For example, the Assyrians under Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem in 701 BCE, though without success. The Bible and Sennacherib's "Taylor Cylinder" part company on further details.

The Bible states that an angel zapped many of Sennacherib's troops (2 Kings 19:35-36), while Sennacherib's cylinder states that his troops brought back lots and lots of loot and kept King Hezekiah holed up like a "caged bird".

The Bible's account seems like some plague, while Sennacherib's cylinder seems like it was written by some predecessor of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf. One usually wants to conquer a city, not keep its inhabitants trapped inside.

Likewise, King Mesha's stele, the Moabite Stone, brags about his victory over Israel, while 2 Kings 3 states that his attack was routed, and that he ended up sacrificing his firstborn son on the city walls. Sahafian historiography on both sides, it seems.

Viti

Magus55, you have been around long enough to know you need to provide evidence for your assertions. Please back this statement.


leonarde, thank you for the links...but they are biased sources. Can you find any peer-reviewed articles? I know I can't...every article I can find stating Sodom and Gomorrah have been discovered and identified has been from a Christian site.

Viti

Ipetrich, I am new to the subject, but have always assumed the Old Testament was simply the oral traditions of the Hebrews, written down some time later. This would allow for some real places and real events mixed in with legend and folklore wouldn't it?

leonarde

Lady Shea,
I can understand why you MIGHT think that most of the sources I posted are "biased" (ie they have a religious affiliation) but the BBC?????

Cheers!

leonarde

Partial post by Sauron:Wait a moment!

1) everyone agrees that there is a major seismic fault to the east
of the Dead Sea.

2) the site I posted and which Sauron reposted says:

What "other evidence" are you looking for?

Cheers!