Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Tenorikuma · 08-06-2013, 10:17 PM

Thanks for the reply. Sometimes I'm tempted to learn Danish just to have access to more of the writing by Lemche and other Copenhagen-based scholars.

I might have to order the paper and try muddling through with a dictionary.

semiopen · 08-07-2013, 05:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tenorikuma

Thanks for the reply. Sometimes I'm tempted to learn Danish just to have access to more of the writing by Lemche and other Copenhagen-based scholars.

I might have to order the paper and try muddling through with a dictionary.

The few Danes I know speak English with perfect American accents.

Probably that isn't useful to you, but I find it fascinating.

Cesc · 08-08-2013, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tenorikuma

Thanks for the reply. Sometimes I'm tempted to learn Danish just to have access to more of the writing by Lemche and other Copenhagen-based scholars.

I might have to order the paper and try muddling through with a dictionary.

If we're talking about Lemche, Thomas Thompson and Ingrid Hjelm I think the most interesting pieces they have written are in English, so you're off the hook. Unless you wanna be real thourough then you should learn Danish, but mind you, it's a bitch of a language to learn. And the only other thing you can use it for is reading Kierkegaard, and who wants to do that!

Cesc · 08-08-2013, 02:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

The few Danes I know speak English with perfect American accents.

We watch a lot of CSI.

Minimalist · 08-08-2013, 08:21 AM

Phillip R. Davies used a similar theme in "Memories of Ancient Israel" a few years back.

He gave an example of such cultural memory as the notion that the Western Allies were the primary force in defeating Germany rather than the Soviet Union. Certainly in 1944 Americans knew that the Russians were carrying the ball but 70 years of post-war propaganda has diminished the Soviet role and enhanced our own.

Robert Tulip · 08-08-2013, 09:28 PM

Israel Finkelstein in The Bible Unearthed presents strong evidence of the construction of Jewish history in the Old Testament. For example, King Josiah, who conveniently 'discovered' the previously unknown text of Deuteronomy, is purportedly prophesied in a book written before he lived. Deuteronomy puts a specific anti-naturalist slant on monotheism, illustrating how the exoteric texts had good reason to distort actual history, as we see with the Biblical accounts of King David.

There is a phrase ex pede, Herculem, 'from the foot, Hercules'. This is what these bibliolaters are doing in claiming this fragment provides any evidence for King David. While part-whole extrapolation works in biology, this Israeli Biblical example is farcical.

We see a strong dose of confirmation bias in proving the dream of the Israelite empire, even if not all the way from the Euphrates to the Nile.

Quote:

Ex pede, Herculem: "The philosopher Pythagoras reasoned sagaciously and acutely in determining and measuring the hero's superiority in size and stature. For since it was generally agreed that Hercules paced off the racecourse of the stadium at Pisae, near the temple of Olympian Zeus, and made it six hundred feet long, and since other courses in the land of Greece, constructed later by other men, were indeed six hundred feet in length, but yet were somewhat shorter than that at Olympia, he readily concluded by a process of comparison that the measured length of Hercules' foot was greater than that of other men in the same proportion as the course at Olympia was longer than the other stadia. Then, having ascertained the size of Hercules' foot, he made a calculation of the bodily height suited to that measure, based upon the natural proportion of all parts of the body, and thus arrived at the logical conclusion that Hercules was as much taller than other men as the race course at Olympia exceeded the others that had been constructed with the same number of feet." (translated by John C. Rolfe of the University of Pennsylvania for the Loeb Classical Library, 1927)

In other words, one can extrapolate the whole from the part. Ex ungue leonem, "from its claw [we can know] the lion," is a similar phrase, noted in Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia 1948.

The principle was raised to an axiom of biology by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, in On Growth and Form, 1917; it has found dependable use in paleontology, where the measurements of a fossil jawbone or a single vertebra, offer a close approximation of the size of a long-extinct animal, in cases where comparable animals are already known. The studies of proportionality in biology are pursued in the fields of morphogenesis, biophysics and biostatistics.

But not it seems in some examples of Biblical archaeology.

outhouse · 08-08-2013, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Tulip

Israel Finkelstein in The Bible Unearthed presents strong evidence of the construction of Jewish history in the Old Testament
.

Lets see some real quotes from Israel Finklestein work, your examples were lacking and almost incoherent.

Quote:

is purportedly prophesied in a book written before he lived.

Which book? which passage?

Quote:

as we see with the Biblical accounts of King David.

Yes we know they used allegory, mythology and metaphors writing their theology. This does not have anything to do with David or Josiahs historicity, or lack of it.

Robert Tulip · 08-09-2013, 01:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

real quotes from Israel Finklestein

Now now outhouse, no need to get hot under the collar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

work, your examples were lacking and almost incoherent.

Excuse me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Quote:

is purportedly prophesied in a book written before he lived.

See page 165 of The Bible Unearthed, indexed from 'Josiah, prophecy of rise of' for the reference to the prediction of Josiah three centuries before he lived. This is a feat on the scale of Robert Mugabe or Kim Jong Il.

Finkelstein quotes 1 Kings 13:1-2. Here I give some extra verses rounding out the story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Kings 13:1-5

The Man of God From Judah

1 By the word of the Lord a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. 2 By the word of the Lord he cried out against the altar: “Altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’ ”

[Verses 3-5 not quoted in TBU]3 That same day the man of God gave a sign: “This is the sign the Lord has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.” 4 When King Jeroboam heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Seize him!” But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up, so that he could not pull it back. 5 Also, the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the sign given by the man of God by the word of the Lord.

Finkelstein comments:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Israel Finkelstein

This is an unparalleled prophecy, because the “man of God” revealed the name of a specific king of Judah who would, three centuries later, order the destruction of that very shrine, killing its priests and defiling its altar with their remains. It is something like reading a history of slavery written in seventeenth century colonial America in which there is a passage predicting the birth of Martin Luther King.

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Which book? which passage?

See above. This is where George Orwell could have found a great prototype for the Ministry of Truth in 1984.

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Quote:

as we see with the Biblical accounts of King David.

Yes we know they used allegory, mythology and metaphors writing their theology. This does not have anything to do with David or Josiahs historicity, or lack of it.

You might like to read The Bible Unearthed outhouse. There is a big difference in the historicity of David and Josiah. Josiah rewrote the faith to eliminate feminine traditions, in support of his ruthless monotheist empire building. Finkelstein further comments on page 144-5 about how Josiah appropriated the Davidic legacy, explaining that "the historical reality of the Kingdom of David and Solomon was quite different from the tale."

Unfortunately the section on pages 128-9 of The Bible Unearthed - Did David and Solomon Exist? is not featured in google books, so I encourage you to get a copy.

http://alpha.fdu.edu/~jbecker/bible/historicity.html provides the following commentary:

Quote:

Did David and Solomon Exist?
There is no mention of David or Solomon in any Egyptian or Mesopotamian text. However, a fragmentary text, discovered in 1993, mentions the killing of a king of the House of David. This would have been in 853 BCE, about 100 years after David. So David and Solomon existed. The Tell el-Amarna tablets from the 14th century BCE suggest that the area where Jerusalem would arise was at that time only thinly settled, isolated, agriculturally marginal. It was probably dominated by outlaws known as Apiru. David's outlaw exploits look like the work of such outlaw bands. Whatever dynasty David established hardly changed the basic way these highlands were ruled.

Archeological evidence shows no difference in the way people lived in the highlands during the reign of Saul. And there is no evidence for David's conquests or for his empire. Wood samples from the burned ruins of David's supposed conquests turn out to belong a century later. The Canaanite culture continues uninterrupted in the valleys; the highland settlements are the same. There is no sign of Solomon's monumental building or that Jerusalem had acquired any importance. Buildings like the "stables of Solomon" and the palaces at Megiddo and Gezer that were attached to them occur nowhere else in the region during the time of David and Solomon. The Syrian palaces which were the prototype of these palaces only appeared in Syria at least 50 years after Solomon. More accurate carbon 14 dating of the ruins of the stables and palaces shows that they do not date from the time of David and Solomon, but from a full century later.

semiopen · 08-09-2013, 05:10 AM

Robert, thanks for livening up this thread.

However, your comments are confusing as outhouse suggests.

Finkelstein uses the prophecy you note as a strong indication that the passage in 1 Kings was written in the seventh century BCE. Obviously, it wasn't written three centuries (or whatever) earlier.

My guess is that you know this, but that is far from clear from your post.

Personally, I'd prefer to see the date consistent with the Babylonian exile or later, but certainly it can't have been earlier than Josiah's reign.

Robert Tulip · 08-09-2013, 06:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Obviously, it wasn't written three centuries (or whatever) earlier. My guess is that you know this, but that is far from clear from your post.

Sorry not to be clearer. I assumed some familiarity with Finkelstein. In my statement "The Bible Unearthed presents strong evidence of the construction of Jewish history in the Old Testament" I was using the term 'construction' to refer to Finkelstein's thesis of extensive fiction in the Old Testament, a rewriting of history to serve political motives with little basis in fact.

So when I said "Josiah, who conveniently 'discovered' the previously unknown text of Deuteronomy, is purportedly prophesied in a book written before he lived", I was using this to illustrate the fictional construction which undermines the Biblical account of King David.

I explain all this in more detail in my subsequent post.

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08-06-2013, 10:17 PM	#31
Tenorikuma Regular Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Japan Posts: 156	Thanks for the reply. Sometimes I'm tempted to learn Danish just to have access to more of the writing by Lemche and other Copenhagen-based scholars. I might have to order the paper and try muddling through with a dictionary.

08-08-2013, 08:21 AM	#35
Minimalist Veteran Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Arizona Posts: 1,808	Phillip R. Davies used a similar theme in "Memories of Ancient Israel" a few years back. He gave an example of such cultural memory as the notion that the Western Allies were the primary force in defeating Germany rather than the Soviet Union. Certainly in 1944 Americans knew that the Russians were carrying the ball but 70 years of post-war propaganda has diminished the Soviet role and enhanced our own.

08-09-2013, 05:10 AM	#39
semiopen Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Hillsborough, NJ Posts: 3,551	Robert, thanks for livening up this thread. However, your comments are confusing as outhouse suggests. Finkelstein uses the prophecy you note as a strong indication that the passage in 1 Kings was written in the seventh century BCE. Obviously, it wasn't written three centuries (or whatever) earlier. My guess is that you know this, but that is far from clear from your post. Personally, I'd prefer to see the date consistent with the Babylonian exile or later, but certainly it can't have been earlier than Josiah's reign.

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