A Flood of Nonsense

exchemist said:

How do you think the Greeks regarded what we call the Greek myths?

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There was a saying in Greece, "If we cease to believe the gods then they don't exist."
This wasn't the case with the bible. This book is Jewish history - all the stuff about the early nation,
the kings, the nations around them etc were plonked into this book. And guess what, lots of it are
quite credible, ie the Edict of Cyrus concerning captivity; the House of David; Isaiah the Prophet;
the Assyrian conquest etc etc etc..

sooda said:

Some Greeks.. certainly not all.


Did the Greeks really believe in their gods? : AskHistorians
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17...
Not to the extent that modern religions believe in their gods. Ancient Greeks believed in the existence of the Olympian pantheon, but also acknowledged that there were other gods in other pantheons, as well as making comparisons between their own gods and others.

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I really wouldn't put too much stock into Reddit comments. But even then, the first sentence of the answer and the remainder do not support each other.

There is nothing in Ancient Greek religion - Wikipedia to suggest that Greeks didn't believe in their gods. Of course, there would have been atheists back then too.

Six thousand years ago, few would have questioned it (The Genesis stories). There was no other viable alternative.

Wandering Monk said:

Um, so what? Are you suggesting that primitive people knew more about the universe than we do today?

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Of course not.

How did you arrive at that question from anything I posted?

ecco said:

I really wouldn't put too much stock into Reddit comments. But even then, the first sentence of the answer and the remainder do not support each other.

There is nothing in Ancient Greek religion - Wikipedia to suggest that Greeks didn't believe in their gods. Of course, there would have been atheists back then too.

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Did the Ancient Greek Philosophers actually believe in ...
Did the Ancient Greek Philosophers actually believe in their Gods and Myths?did-the-ancient-greek...
Socrates' piety towards the traditional gods is hard to take seriously in view of this. Yet if Plato did not believe in the traditional Greek gods there is quite definitely a religious element in his thought. In Laws, X, his last dialogue, atheism is to be punished and suppressed (907e ff.) by the Nocturnal Council.

PruePhillip said:

There was a saying in Greece, "If we cease to believe the gods then they don't exist."
This wasn't the case with the bible. This book is Jewish history - all the stuff about the early nation,
the kings, the nations around them etc were plonked into this book. And guess what, lots of it are
quite credible, ie the Edict of Cyrus concerning captivity; the House of David; Isaiah the Prophet;
the Assyrian conquest etc etc etc..

Click to expand...

Except nothing was ever written that were earlier than the reigns of King Josiah.

There are no texts and no inscriptions contemporary to Moses, David or Solomon that showed these characters actually exist in those respective times.

Saying that the kings of Judah belonged to the “House of David” is completely meaningless, when you have no contemporary evidences that King David lived at that time.

I can name numbers of cities throughout the Aegean and parts of the Mediterranean, where people claimed they were descendants of Heracles (Hercules), of Achilles or of Aeneas.

I have created a website called Timeless Myths, where I have received a number of emails, where some people claimed to be a descendant of Arthur, or of Lancelot, or of Joseph of Arimathea (from the gospels and the grail legend).

As to the Assyrian conquests and parts of Kings, we do have Assyrian records (Royal Annals) in which it collaborated that Tiglath-pileser III were indeed contemporary to Ahaz and Pekah, so yes, they are historical figures, but as to Isaiah, there are no such collaborations of the Jewish and Assyrian sources.

So without external and independent sources, I find the existence of Isaiah to be dubious and less than credible.

gnostic said:

Except nothing was ever written that were earlier than the reigns of King Josiah.

There are no texts and no inscriptions contemporary to Moses, David or Solomon that showed these characters actually exist in those respective times.

Saying that the kings of Judah belonged to the “House of David” is completely meaningless, when you have no contemporary evidences that King David lived at that time.

I can name numbers of cities throughout the Aegean and parts of the Mediterranean, where people claimed they were descendants of Heracles (Hercules), of Achilles or of Aeneas.

I have created a website called Timeless Myths, where I have received a number of emails, where some people claimed to be a descendant of Arthur, or of Lancelot, or of Joseph of Arimathea (from the gospels and the grail legend).

As to the Assyrian conquests and parts of Kings, we do have Assyrian records (Royal Annals) in which it collaborated that Tiglath-pileser III were indeed contemporary to Ahaz and Pekah, so yes, they are historical figures, but as to Isaiah, there are no such collaborations of the Jewish and Assyrian sources.

So without external and independent sources, I find the existence of Isaiah to be dubious and less than credible.

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I think there is sketchy evidence for Isaiah the prophet. And two records of the House of David.
My reading of the Psalms and David's life seem to correlate. And the reign of Solomon seems
to accord with his three books - written in order - Song of Solomon, Proverbs and Ecc.. He
went from being a wise man to a tyrant over 40 years, and that shows in his three books.
Jews were prized for their intellectual acumen in the ancient world - the thought of them not
knowing how to read and write in the Bronze Age is risible.

PruePhillip said:

I think there is sketchy evidence for Isaiah the prophet. And two records of the House of David.

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I am not talking about the existence of “House of David”, but that of King David himself.

There are no written records in Israel or other kingdoms that date to David’s supposed reign.

Something that were written or inscribed on something, century or centuries later, are not contemporary.

You do understand what contemporary means, don’t you?

PruePhillip said:

My reading of the Psalms and David's life seem to correlate. And the reign of Solomon seems
to accord with his three books - written in order - Song of Solomon, Proverbs and Ecc.. He
went from being a wise man to a tyrant over 40 years, and that shows in his three books.

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David didn’t write Psalms, nor did Solomon write Proverbs or Songs.

The authorship have been respectively ascribed to David and Solomon, but attributions doesn’t mean actual authorship.

There are no early version of Psalms, Proverbs or Songs that can be dated to the 10th century BCE.

The only things found written in the 10th century BCE, are some inscriptions on the Zayit Stone and the Gezer Calendar. Neither of them mention any name of any king.

It is the same with the Torah or the Pentateuch, the books supposedly written by Moses himself, except that we have no literary evidences that any of these writings existed in the Late Bronze Age.

The alleged authorship is what people call “attribution”. Attribution is where people give names to texts they didn’t write.

The four canonical gospels were written anonymously. Names, ie Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were “ascribed” to these gospels by the church of the 2nd century CE.

leov said:

Story tells us that there was some generic mishap that produced evil race of people that was not fixable "5Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ", Noah was perfect genetically and God decided to create new humans from scratch using Noah blood line.

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Didn't turn out too well. The flood of the Bible was obviously a waste of time.

PruePhillip said:

Jews were prized for their intellectual acumen in the ancient world - the thought of them not
knowing how to read and write in the Bronze Age is risible.

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Sorry, but there are no evidences that Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Leviticus existing in the Late Bronze Age (1500 - 1050 BCE).

And 10th century BCE would put David and Solomon (if they existed historically) in the Early Iron Age, or close to the transition between making bronze and iron tools.

For instance, according to 1 Kings, Solomon was a wealthy king, with large wealth and large army, with thousands of stalls, thousands of chariots and 12,000 horses. See 1 Kings 4.

There are no physical evidences anywhere in Israel that had that many horses used for chariots, no evidences of massive numbers of stables and stalls, no evidences of large number of chariots, in the 10th century BCE.

Do you not see that what it say in 1 Kings 4:26-28, isn’t collaborated with any physical evidences in the 10th century BCE?

Israel and Judah weren’t known for their military might, but that of Solomon is simply fictional invention with embellished numbers.

Nowhere Man said:

Didn't turn out too well. The flood of the Bible was obviously a waste of time.

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Almost

leov said:

Almost

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What is your version of the flood?

gnostic said:

Sorry, but there are no evidences that Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Leviticus existing in the Late Bronze Age (1500 - 1050 BCE).

And 10th century BCE would put David and Solomon (if they existed historically) in the Early Iron Age, or close to the transition between making bronze and iron tools.

For instance, according to 1 Kings, Solomon was a wealthy king, with large wealth and large army, with thousands of stalls, thousands of chariots and 12,000 horses. See 1 Kings 4.

There are no physical evidences anywhere in Israel that had that many horses used for chariots, no evidences of massive numbers of stables and stalls, no evidences of large number of chariots, in the 10th century BCE.

Do you not see that what it say in 1 Kings 4:26-28, isn’t collaborated with any physical evidences in the 10th century BCE?

Israel and Judah weren’t known for their military might, but that of Solomon is simply fictional invention with embellished numbers.

Click to expand...

Subduction Zone said:

What is your version of the flood?

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Subduction Zone said:

What is your version of the flood?

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I said it above, a Gnostic type story, mix some history, some myth to make moral teaching points.

leov said:

I said it above, a Gnostic type story, mix some history, some myth to make moral teaching points.

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In other words it never happened. That is a reasonable answer.

Subduction Zone said:

In other words it never happened. That is a reasonable answer.

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I really do not know, and it is not important.

gnostic said:

Sorry, but there are no evidences that Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Leviticus existing in the Late Bronze Age (1500 - 1050 BCE).

And 10th century BCE would put David and Solomon (if they existed historically) in the Early Iron Age, or close to the transition between making bronze and iron tools.

For instance, according to 1 Kings, Solomon was a wealthy king, with large wealth and large army, with thousands of stalls, thousands of chariots and 12,000 horses. See 1 Kings 4.

There are no physical evidences anywhere in Israel that had that many horses used for chariots, no evidences of massive numbers of stables and stalls, no evidences of large number of chariots, in the 10th century BCE.

Do you not see that what it say in 1 Kings 4:26-28, isn’t collaborated with any physical evidences in the 10th century BCE?

Israel and Judah weren’t known for their military might, but that of Solomon is simply fictional invention with embellished numbers.

Click to expand...

"No evidence" does not mean "did not exist."
The Jews embedded their "evidence" in one book - the bible.
The Bronze Age presented in the OT was mostly not known to latter age Israel - many of the
practices would have seem strange to Babylonian age Jews for instance (ie pilgrim land
owned for burials in foreign land.)

PruePhillip said:

"No evidence" does not mean "did not exist."
The Jews embedded their "evidence" in one book - the bible.
The Bronze Age presented in the OT was mostly not known to latter age Israel - many of the
practices would have seem strange to Babylonian age Jews for instance (ie pilgrim land
owned for burials in foreign land.)

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Does that mean spaghetti monsters exist? Just because there is no evidence does not mean they do not exist.

Wandering Monk said:

Does that mean spaghetti monsters exist? Just because there is no evidence does not mean they do not exist.

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Better buy a colander, just to be on the safe side.

leov said:

Gnostic type story, some truth mixed with myth to express moral sdes.

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These texts are far older than the Hebrews.

Ugarit - Ancient History Encyclopedia
Ancient History Encyclopediaugarit
Mar 22, 2012 · Despite composing a minority of the corpus, the most famous of the Ugaritic texts are the mythical poetic texts, such as the Baal Cycle, due to the light they shed on the Hebrew Bible. Found among the texts of Ugarit are the typical Ancient Near Eastern texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Mesopotamian Flood Story.

PruePhillip said:

There was a saying in Greece, "If we cease to believe the gods then they don't exist."
This wasn't the case with the bible. This book is Jewish history - all the stuff about the early nation,
the kings, the nations around them etc were plonked into this book. And guess what, lots of it are
quite credible, ie the Edict of Cyrus concerning captivity; the House of David; Isaiah the Prophet;
the Assyrian conquest etc etc etc..

Click to expand...

And a lot of it is totally incredible.

And history isnt a god, is it?
Neither is Greek history.

PruePhillip said:

"No evidence" does not mean "did not exist."
The Jews embedded their "evidence" in one book - the bible.
The Bronze Age presented in the OT was mostly not known to latter age Israel - many of the
practices would have seem strange to Babylonian age Jews for instance (ie pilgrim land
owned for burials in foreign land.)

Click to expand...

"No evidence" does not mean "did not exist."

At the risk of being tiresome, we point out that this is
a strawman, and NOBODY claims that!!!!

If we look to actual evidence, not the lack of it here and
there, we find that for example ALL relevant evidence
in many many fields of research, if applied to the
"flood" question, all all all of it will show that "flood"
is wholly inconsistent with data.