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He is Risen - The Evidence

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Perhaps you can demonstrate that this conversation wouldn't be another one of those "I ask the questions. You answer" one sided conversation, by answering my questions. :)
But your whole argument rests on the supernatural operating in reality, so the reality of the supernatural is a threshold issue. I accept that faith may be untroubled by such questions, but ─ please correct me if I'm mistaken ─ you're saying the resurrection was an historical event, an objective fact.

And I'm saying, show me the reality of the supernatural then.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Would like to see your list of historians and dates of their work. Also, of course Ehrman wouldn’t believe the gospel narrative, he is an apostate.

You've pretty much disqualified yourself from a rational discussion with the weirdest circular logic ever. But for anyone who does understand rational ideas...

Ehrman isn't an "apostate" (this is outrageously circular) he's a scholar who studies scripture in the most academic way possible and realized it's mythology. He isn't a person who was like "I reject Christianity so I'm going to get a degree and renounce it"? He studied it AS A FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN? He simply realized he was completely wrong. Evidence will do that.
Pretty much all biblical historicity PhDs agree the Bible is mythology formed around a teacher named Jesus who may or may not have been an actual person.
In the 70's Thomas Thompson was the first to have peer-reviewed work that is now consensus that Moses and the Patriarchs are myth.
There are specialists in different areas, they all agree the gospels are myth.
Elaine Pagels works on the Gnostic gospels, origins of Satan, Revelations
Goodacre is the specialist on the Q source, Purvoe is the Acts scholar whos' work has demonstrated Acts is historical fiction.
Carrier is the most recent Jesus historicity study, I'm just going to quote him as he knows better than I do:

"
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.

No. We aren’t interested in that.

When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death."
Historicity Big and Small: How Historians Try to Rescue Jesus • Richard Carrier

There are many more.

It's becoming increasingly clear that whenever I start out sourcing any bible historian the response is often going to be some form of - "Oh yeah well that historian doesn't believe my religion is true but he's the anti-Christ/apostate/wacky/ a clown/ a heretic.."








When I look at some other sources from 0-100 AD they do talk about Jesus and don’t think any reject He was a real person or the gospels weren’t authentic.

The only sources to 100 AD are Paul who knows nothing except Jesus died and rose again THEN appeared to people. The gospel authors messed up that one.
Anyways, Paul claims a "vision". Like Joseph Smith and his vision of Moroni or Muhammad and his vision of Gabrielle this is not likely true.
The only other source is Mark who is likely writing a fictional narrative based on Paul and other sources.




Contemporary historians can dismiss certain things because the people passed on. A fact 2000 years ago is still a fact today, that doesnt change just because of the passage of time.
By the way, just look at how some people are rewriting history and deny facts in our recent history. Ex.1619 project and others so it doesn’t surprise me.

Contemporary historians do not "dismiss" history? That is the opposite of what they do. Building a conspiracy theory that people spend their entire lives as a scholar of a historical period then suddenly dismiss a character for reasons unknown is complete crank.
They evaluate evidence. Demigods from religions are not considered historical. There is no evidence that any of them are real. There is plenty of evidence that they are made up or borrowed stories however.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Go look at Muhammed, his body is still in the tomb.
Jesus Christ... Risen and in Heaven, His grave is empty.
Simple,
On the other hand are you saying you agree that Jesus rose from the dead?


Muhammad is not the Jesus of Islam. He is the Paul of Islam. Paul had a vision/contact with Jesus. Muhammad had a vision/contact with the angel Gabrielle.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Ehrman isn't an "apostate" (this is outrageously circular) he's a scholar who studies scripture in the most academic way possible and realized it's mythology. He isn't a person who was like "I reject Christianity so I'm going to get a degree and renounce it"? He studied it AS A FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN? He simply realized he was completely wrong. Evidence will do that.
Clarification: Education and honesty will do that. There are many Christians that have seen the evidence and they will simply deny it.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Chronology
The Bible is a historical book, preeminently so among ancient writings.


That is simply not true.

William Denver biblical archeologist,
"
Yet many people want to know whether the events of the Bible are real, historic events.
We want to make the Bible history. Many people think it has to be history or nothing. But there is no word for history in the Hebrew Bible. In other words, what did the biblical writers think they were doing? Writing objective history? No. That's a modern discipline. They were telling stories. They wanted you to know what these purported events mean.

The Bible is didactic literature; it wants to teach, not just to describe. We try to make the Bible something it is not, and that's doing an injustice to the biblical writers. They were good historians, and they could tell it the way it was when they wanted to, but their objective was always something far beyond that."








The histories of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, and others are, in the main, fragmentary; their earlier periods are either obscure or, as presented by them, obviously mythical. Thus, the ancient document known as The Sumerian King List begins: “When kingship was lowered from heaven, kingship was (first) in Eridu. (In) Eridu, A-lulim (became) king and ruled 28,800 years. Alalgar ruled 36,000 years. Two kings (thus) ruled it for 64,800 years. . . . (In) Bad-tibira, En-men-lu-Anna ruled 43,200 years; En-men-gal-Anna ruled 28,800 years; the god Dumu-zi, a shepherd, ruled 36,000 years. Three kings (thus) ruled it for 108,000 years.” = Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by J. B. Pritchard, 1974, p. 265.
....
The Bible, by contrast, gives an unusually coherent and detailed history stretching through some 4,000 years, for not only does it record events with remarkable continuity from man’s beginning down to the time of Nehemiah’s governorship in the fifth century B.C.E. but also it may be considered as providing a basic coverage of the period between Nehemiah and the time of Jesus and his apostles by means of Daniel’s prophecy (history written in advance) at Daniel chapter 11. The Bible presents a graphic and true-to-life account of the nation of Israel from its birth onward, portraying with candor its strength and its weaknesses, its successes and its failures, its right worship and its false worship, its blessings and its adverse judgments and calamities. While this honesty alone does not ensure accurate chronology, it does give sound basis for confidence in the integrity of the Biblical writers and their sincere concern for recording truth.



Not what biblical archeologists say at all.

It's known that both creation myths mirror the 2 Mesopotamian creation myths and Noah's Ark is taken from the Epic of Gilamesh. But archeologists like William Denver and Carol Meyers have plenty of evidence that many Biblical stories are enlarged or made up.
William Denver
"The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people."

Israelites were not from Egypt but from Cannanite society,

"No Egyptian text mentions the Israelites except the famous inscription of Merneptah dated to about 1206 B.C.E. But those Israelites were in Canaan; they are not in Egypt, and nothing is said about them escaping from Egypt."

The conquest of Joshua is a myth,

"The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others."



Not a glorious kingdom stretching from Egypt to Mesopotamia,

"The stories of Solomon are larger than life. According to the stories, Solomon imported 100,000 workers from what is now Lebanon. Well, the whole population of Israel probably wasn't 100,000 in the 10th century. Everything Solomon touched turned to gold. In the minds of the biblical writers, of course, David and Solomon are ideal kings chosen by Yahweh. So they glorify them."

Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

Exodus is a national foundation myth:
NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS




We have also the testimony of the Jewish historian Josephus, who states that the prophecies of Daniel were shown to Alexander the Great when he entered Jerusalem. This occurred in about 332 B.C.E., more than 150 years before the Maccabean period. Josephus says of the event: “When the book of Daniel was shown to him, in which he had declared that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians, he believed himself to be the one indicated.” (Jewish Antiquities, XI, 337 [viii, 5]) History also recounts that Alexander bestowed great favors on the Jews, and this is believed to have been because of what Daniel said about him in prophecy.

Yes you have a Jewish person in the 3rd century who believes the prophecies in his religion are real.
You have a Roman megalomaniac and a narcissist who thinks he's the guy in the prophecy.

Is there a point in there. Are you entering this as evidence of something?





The Bible is uncontested, and trying to compare it to mythical documents. is in my opinion. stooping as low as one can go, and the height of desperation of critics. :)
.


It's now consenus that the OT stories are the mythology of the Israelites. Outside of fundamentalism all scholarship understands the OT stories as myth.

Meyers explains the reasons and likely origins for the early myths:
NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS

"
What was it that brought them together and gave them a new national identity, a new ethnicity? Many scholars, including me, would search in the theological realm. There is a belief in the Bible that the dream of escaping from Egypt and returning to an ancestral homeland could not have happened without supernatural intervention, divine intervention. And the group that had come from Egypt felt that one particular god, whom they called Yahweh, was responsible for this miracle of escape.

They spread the word to the highlanders, who themselves were migrants into the highlands, who perhaps had escaped from the tyranny of the Canaanite city-states or from an unsettled life as pastoralists across the Jordan River. And the idea of a god that represented freedom—freedom for people to keep the fruits of their own labor—this was a message that was so powerful that it brought people together and gave them a new kind of identity, which eventually became known by the term Israel."


Q: What spurs the transformation of a real person into such a legendary figure?

Meyers: We can see the Moses narratives as the products of a period of trauma. We see this at other times and places. Think about our own American history. In the difficult period of the Revolutionary War, there's a lot of trauma and turmoil. Should people fight for freedom and risk losing everything? Or should they remain dominated by European colonial powers? And one man, George Washington, emerges as a superhero, the one in whom people could put their faith, who would take them to new terrain, who would lead them to independence. If you look at the biographies of George Washington that were written before 1855, you would think he was a demigod. The mythology about him is incredible.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Virtually all scholars support the historicity of Jesus and reject the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed. Among these scholars was G. A. Wells, a well-known mythicist who changed his mind and ultimately believed in a minimal historical Jesus.

Most scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed. Historian Michael Grant asserts that if conventional standards of historical textual criticism are applied to the New Testament, "we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned."
In other words, Michael is actually calling out the hypocrites.

You are cherry picking scholarship. The argument is historicity vs mythicism. While many scholars are moving to a mythicist position it does not matter. Those who believe historicity still know the gospel narratives are fiction.
You are using scholars who do not believe the religion is true in a dishonest way.


The Bible had also stated how Jesus, was put to death, and that was also recently accepted by Bible critics.
Based on both Biblical, and extra-Biblical sources, the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.[/SPOILER]
:innocent: I hope you noticed what I just did. I don't usually repeat, but I think that was necessary. :)

There are no extra biblical sources that can be shown to be corroborating the gospel narratives. They are simply sourcing what Christians believe based on the gospels. Notice in another place you claim nothing in scripture can be proven to be false. You like to use that logic when it suits you. But when we obviously cannot determine what sources a historian is using suddenly you are fine with assumption and speculation? More cherry picking.

Did you observe the difference between the facts, and the "fiction"?
The facts were stated where? In the Bible.
The fiction, was from the mouth of the critics - the opposers of the Bible - Bible haters - Bible bashers - and would-be underminers of faith in the Bible... imo.

Now everyone who disagrees with the Bible being true are some form of "Bible hater". This is cult language and cult tactics.
Instead of allowing people to evaluate facts and evidence and simply come to a conclusion based on evidence they are framed as using some sort of hate.
It can't be that the evidence demonstrated that these stories are likely to be like all other myths, nope, it's always because the person is "bashing" or undermining.
Look at all the hate speech you just used in ONE SENTENCE against anyone who may come to a different conclusion?
Extremely cult-like.

So in conclusion, we - Christians, that is - are not waiting for historians and scholars to sit at a table and give us their opinions on what they think are facts. We already have the facts.
Actually what I think you should have been doing a long time ago, is coming to us, and asking, politely, "What does the Bible say about..." :p

I know it's great right. Also the Mormons have all the facts thanks to Moroni. Islam also has all the facts as do Jehova's Witnesses. So does Scientology. And Baha'i and the girl on Personal Development For Smart People forum who was channeling Jesus.
You all have all the facts, wow! All different facts. But at least you are all correct.


For example, this idea that man was on the earth more than 200,000 years. Is that a fact? No. It's an idea.
An idea they can't even agree on how it happened.

For example, you accept statements like this... people originated from apelike ancestors without question, or doubt... am I correct?
Yet these ideas are mere unproven ideas, based on a proposed belief.

Most Biblical narratives are also not in agreement:

"The empty tomb and the post-resurrection appearances are never directly coordinated to form a combined argument."
Vermes - The Resurrection

The theory of humans and other hominids has fossil records over millions of years? We see a slow evolution from an early hominid who walks a small amount to our closest ancestor Heidlbergensis who made tools, buried their dead and looked mostly human. In the same area we see the emergence of homo sapien.
Even if you believe that Yahweh magic powered humans from nothing that doesn't erase the fact that there were hominids slowly evolving closer and closer to homo-sapien? Do you just not know about hominid fossils or believe it's a trick by some demonic force to trick you?
 
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You've pretty much disqualified yourself from a rational discussion with the weirdest circular logic ever. But for anyone who does understand rational ideas...

Ehrman isn't an "apostate" (this is outrageously circular) he's a scholar who studies scripture in the most academic way possible and realized it's mythology. He isn't a person who was like "I reject Christianity so I'm going to get a degree and renounce it"? He studied it AS A FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN? He simply realized he was completely wrong. Evidence will do that.
Pretty much all biblical historicity PhDs agree the Bible is mythology formed around a teacher named Jesus who may or may not have been an actual person.
In the 70's Thomas Thompson was the first to have peer-reviewed work that is now consensus that Moses and the Patriarchs are myth.
There are specialists in different areas, they all agree the gospels are myth.
Elaine Pagels works on the Gnostic gospels, origins of Satan, Revelations
Goodacre is the specialist on the Q source, Purvoe is the Acts scholar whos' work has demonstrated Acts is historical fiction.
Carrier is the most recent Jesus historicity study, I'm just going to quote him as he knows better than I do:

"
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.

No. We aren’t interested in that.

When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death."
Historicity Big and Small: How Historians Try to Rescue Jesus • Richard Carrier

There are many more.

It's becoming increasingly clear that whenever I start out sourcing any bible historian the response is often going to be some form of - "Oh yeah well that historian doesn't believe my religion is true but he's the anti-Christ/apostate/wacky/ a clown/ a heretic.."










The only sources to 100 AD are Paul who knows nothing except Jesus died and rose again THEN appeared to people. The gospel authors messed up that one.
Anyways, Paul claims a "vision". Like Joseph Smith and his vision of Moroni or Muhammad and his vision of Gabrielle this is not likely true.
The only other source is Mark who is likely writing a fictional narrative based on Paul and other sources.






Contemporary historians do not "dismiss" history? That is the opposite of what they do. Building a conspiracy theory that people spend their entire lives as a scholar of a historical period then suddenly dismiss a character for reasons unknown is complete crank.
They evaluate evidence. Demigods from religions are not considered historical. There is no evidence that any of them are real. There is plenty of evidence that they are made up or borrowed stories however.
You’re whole argument is dismissed and irrelevant
as well as all who agree with you, you’re disqualified because you don’t even know the definition of an Apostate, which Ehrman clearly is.
You said all non believing historians deny Jesus Christ actually lived? This is a false statement and would say most do, they probably have a problem with the resurrection.
 
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Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
You’re whole argument is dismissed and irrelevant
as well as all who agree with you, you’re disqualified because you don’t even know the definition of an Apostate, which Ehrman clearly is.
You said all non believing historians deny Jesus Christ actually lived? This is a false statement and would say most do, they probably have a problem with the resurrection.
"Apostate" is an insult term that should not be used. I could make a similar claim about creationists calling them all "idiots" since their actions meet the definition. And I doubt if he said that all non believing historian deny Jesus. Let me do your homework for you and see if he said that.

EDIT: Nope, no claim about Historians denying that Jesus lived.
 
"Apostate" is an insult term that should not be used. I could make a similar claim about creationists calling them all "idiots" since their actions meet the definition. And I doubt if he said that all non believing historian deny Jesus. Let me do your homework for you and see if he said that.

EDIT: Nope, no claim about Historians denying that Jesus lived.
Apostate is the correct term for Ehrman, look up the definition.
This is what was posted by the person you reference:When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Apostate is the correct term for Ehrman, look up the definition.
This is what was posted by the person you reference:When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.
And I could say the same about the word I used for creationist. It is best to avoid terms only meant to insult. We could always ask the mods here. And you cannot use that term for other non believers here. You could not use it for any members just as I could not use my term for any members.

And where did he ever make the claim that all non believers claimed that Jesus did not exist? You may be conflating the term "mythicist" with a person that denies that Jesus ever existed. There is a whole range of beliefs in mythcism. Many think that Jesus existed, but that the Magical Jesus stories appeared later.
 
And I could say the same about the word I used for creationist. It is best to avoid terms only meant to insult. We could always ask the mods here. And you cannot use that term for other non believers here. You could not use it for any members just as I could not use my term for any members.

And where did he ever make the claim that all non believers claimed that Jesus did not exist? You may be conflating the term "mythicist" with a person that denies that Jesus ever existed. There is a whole range of beliefs in mythcism. Many think that Jesus existed, but that the Magical Jesus stories appeared later.
That’s the exact quote, but you’re welcome to say that yes Jesus was a real person in history. And then we can talk about how I know He is still alive.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
That’s the exact quote
What "quote"? I did not quote anyone. Nor did I claim that Jesus never existed. Your personal version of Jesus probably never existed, but there are so many different Christian versions of Jesus that one could safely say that it is dubious if any of those Christians existed. Just because magic Jesus did not exist does not mean that regular old Jesus did not exist.
 
What "quote"? I did not quote anyone. Nor did I claim that Jesus never existed. Your personal version of Jesus probably never existed, but there are so many different Christian versions of Jesus that one could safely say that it is dubious if any of those Christians existed. Just because magic Jesus did not exist does not mean that regular old Jesus did not exist.
Weren’t you answering for another member
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Weren’t you answering for another member

No, I was merely trying to help you understand another poster. He may answer for himself when he has time.

You made a claim that appears to have no merit. That means that we can dismiss it without any evidence.

Let's get back to the idea of Jesus as a myth. The claim of most Christ mythologists is not that Jesus did not exist. Only that the magical stories have no basis in fact and are stores that grew after he died:

Christ myth theory - Wikipedia
 
No, I was merely trying to help you understand another poster. He may answer for himself when he has time.

You made a claim that appears to have no merit. That means that we can dismiss it without any evidence.

Let's get back to the idea of Jesus as a myth. The claim of most Christ mythologists is not that Jesus did not exist. Only that the magical stories have no basis in fact and are stores that grew after he died:

Christ myth theory - Wikipedia
Let’s not go on to a new subject, but you have answered for another member, have falsely said I called God a liar, have falsely said my conversion was confirmation bias. This seems to me that you are placing yourself in the position of an all knowing god who can judge the hearts and minds of people. And I will end with that
 

nPeace

Veteran Member
But your whole argument rests on the supernatural operating in reality, so the reality of the supernatural is a threshold issue. I accept that faith may be untroubled by such questions, but ─ please correct me if I'm mistaken ─ you're saying the resurrection was an historical event, an objective fact.

And I'm saying, show me the reality of the supernatural then.
Your whole argument rests on what you and others don't believe.
Should I stop knowing or believing what I do, on the basis of what you don't believe?
I'm saying to you, show me that what you don't believe is not reality.
Show me that what you claim, is reality.

I am showing you that A) based on what persons claimed to be true - that they witnesses an extraordinary event; B) based on the fact that I do not, like you, tell myself, on a basis of 1) ignorance - since you clearly do not know, one way or other, 2) bias - since you seem to be in favor of one system of belief, or worldview, but against the Bible, and its adherents, 3) unreasonableness - since you seem unwilling to consider the already presented evidence, but insist on evidence you expect to get, as though the evidence must be centered around you, and what you want.
pouter.jpg

C) based on the fact that the Bible has proven itself to be reliable, trustworthy, and divinely inspired, D) based on the fact that I see evidence for God all around us, and do not doubt miracles, E) based on the fact that evidence for the resurrection does not take the form the irrational expect... and I could go on...
Based on these, and more, I have a picture of reality, that you do not want to see, and will never see, as long as you hold to the position that reality is only what you believe it to be.
Seems like we are in two different worlds, doesn't it... reality looks quite different where we are. ;)

So let me illustrate to you, where we are at this point, so that you understand why you would need to answer my question, and stop demanding that you get to ask the questions, and demand answers, while not answering questions put to you.

This is just an illustration.
If a man fell off a 60 foot cliff, and felt something holding him in such a way that he did not hurt himself.
This is just one of his many experiences of things that seem extraordinary, and unusual.
Would you tell the man, that he was only imagining?
Would you tell him that what he experienced is only in his imagination, and that unless science can explain it, it is not real?
Would you recommend that scientist throw him off the cliff again, to test whether he experienced what he claimed he did, or not, and to test for some possible natural explanation? Maybe a whirlwind passed at the same time the men fell?

Would you say, that unless a scientist can determine what happened, or the cause, then it is just imagination, and an unreality?
This is what I understand your argument to be, so what you would need to do, is show that such an idea is true.

In reality, it is not. So it would be impossible to have a reasonable conversation with someone holding such an unreasonable position, and demanding an answer that would satisfy that unreasonable stance.
Every response from such a person, would be unreasonable, and no answer satisfactory.

I would say, if you can prove that it is imaginary, then that is reasonable, because there could be an explanation other than what the man thought - hence imagined.
However, to claim that it is only imagined, without having any proof, is, to my mind, unreasonable.
It's like saying, whatever I believe, is true.
This is where you are right now.

Where I am, is only presenting the evidence. How you interpret that evidence is up to you.
I know what it tells me, and you are not in a position to tell me what I know. :)
Is any of this making sense to you?
 

nPeace

Veteran Member

That is simply not true.

William Denver biblical archeologist,
"
Yet many people want to know whether the events of the Bible are real, historic events.
We want to make the Bible history. Many people think it has to be history or nothing. But there is no word for history in the Hebrew Bible. In other words, what did the biblical writers think they were doing? Writing objective history? No. That's a modern discipline. They were telling stories. They wanted you to know what these purported events mean.

The Bible is didactic literature; it wants to teach, not just to describe. We try to make the Bible something it is not, and that's doing an injustice to the biblical writers. They were good historians, and they could tell it the way it was when they wanted to, but their objective was always something far beyond that."











Not what biblical archeologists say at all.

It's known that both creation myths mirror the 2 Mesopotamian creation myths and Noah's Ark is taken from the Epic of Gilamesh. But archeologists like William Denver and Carol Meyers have plenty of evidence that many Biblical stories are enlarged or made up.
William Denver
"The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people."

Israelites were not from Egypt but from Cannanite society,

"No Egyptian text mentions the Israelites except the famous inscription of Merneptah dated to about 1206 B.C.E. But those Israelites were in Canaan; they are not in Egypt, and nothing is said about them escaping from Egypt."

The conquest of Joshua is a myth,

"The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others."



Not a glorious kingdom stretching from Egypt to Mesopotamia,

"The stories of Solomon are larger than life. According to the stories, Solomon imported 100,000 workers from what is now Lebanon. Well, the whole population of Israel probably wasn't 100,000 in the 10th century. Everything Solomon touched turned to gold. In the minds of the biblical writers, of course, David and Solomon are ideal kings chosen by Yahweh. So they glorify them."

Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

Exodus is a national foundation myth:
NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS






Yes you have a Jewish person in the 3rd century who believes the prophecies in his religion are real.
You have a Roman megalomaniac and a narcissist who thinks he's the guy in the prophecy.

Is there a point in there. Are you entering this as evidence of something?








It's now consenus that the OT stories are the mythology of the Israelites. Outside of fundamentalism all scholarship understands the OT stories as myth.

Meyers explains the reasons and likely origins for the early myths:
NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS

"
What was it that brought them together and gave them a new national identity, a new ethnicity? Many scholars, including me, would search in the theological realm. There is a belief in the Bible that the dream of escaping from Egypt and returning to an ancestral homeland could not have happened without supernatural intervention, divine intervention. And the group that had come from Egypt felt that one particular god, whom they called Yahweh, was responsible for this miracle of escape.

They spread the word to the highlanders, who themselves were migrants into the highlands, who perhaps had escaped from the tyranny of the Canaanite city-states or from an unsettled life as pastoralists across the Jordan River. And the idea of a god that represented freedom—freedom for people to keep the fruits of their own labor—this was a message that was so powerful that it brought people together and gave them a new kind of identity, which eventually became known by the term Israel."


Q: What spurs the transformation of a real person into such a legendary figure?

Meyers: We can see the Moses narratives as the products of a period of trauma. We see this at other times and places. Think about our own American history. In the difficult period of the Revolutionary War, there's a lot of trauma and turmoil. Should people fight for freedom and risk losing everything? Or should they remain dominated by European colonial powers? And one man, George Washington, emerges as a superhero, the one in whom people could put their faith, who would take them to new terrain, who would lead them to independence. If you look at the biographies of George Washington that were written before 1855, you would think he was a demigod. The mythology about him is incredible.
I understand that you favor one hypothesis over the others.
I have no need for that hypothesis. Nor the next that may replace it.
The facts of the Bible are unchallenging.
Facts of scholarship and scientists in continually changing.
I believe when the fact lady sings, we'll see which fact remains.
What do you think?
 
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