The truth is not really decided according to a vote. Evidence has been found of Israel in Egypt and of the Conquest.
The consensus is that the Israelites came from Canaanite culture. The idea that a few fundamentalists know the "real truth" doesn't hold.
"Based on the archaeological evidence, according to the modern archaeological account, the Israelites and their culture did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the indigenous
Canaanite peoples that long inhabited the
Southern Levant,
Syria,
ancient Israel, and the
Transjordan region[9][10][11] through a gradual evolution of a distinct
monolatristic—later cementing as
monotheistic—religion centered on
Yahweh. The outgrowth of Yahweh-centric monolatrism from Canaanite
polytheism started with
Yahwism, the belief in the existence of the many gods and goddesses of the
Canaanite pantheon but with the consistent worship of only Yahweh. Along with a number of
cultic practices, this gave rise to a separate Israelite
ethnic group identity. The final transition of their Yahweh-based religion to monotheism and rejection of the existence of the other Canaanite gods set the Israelites apart from their fellow Canaanite brethren.
[9][12][13] The Israelites, however, continued to retain various cultural commonalities with other Canaanites, including use of one of the
Canaanite dialects,
Hebrew, which is today the only living descendant of that language group."
To believe in a creator does not mean that all the creation stories are true. The question of which is true is another question.
Science does not decide if a creator exists. It is not in it's area of study.
Right, there is no evidence there was a creator. This creation subject isn't related to mythology. Even if there was a creator it was not a God from a mythology.
Historians and anthropologists also use the naturalistic methodology and because of that end up with stories of what happened which have to contradict the Bible.
The creation story and the flood story were no doubt passed down in cultures of the day and were corrupted in the journey, that does not mean that the stories in the Bible were borrowed from anywhere.
It certainly doesn't mean they are true? It does provide ridiculously good evidence that the stories were copied. This is another consensus in historicity. It isn't even in question outside of fundamentalism. Both creation stories are taken from Mesopotamian creation stories, Job is Bablylonian, and so on. The apologetics that the flood story was actually Yahweh and corrupted but then in Genesis it was all clear is absurd.
Religion Identity and the Origins of Ancient Israel
K.L. Sparks (ordained Baptist Pastor, PhD in Hebrew Bible/Ancient Near East)
As a rule, modern scholars do not believe that the Bible's account of early Israel's history provides a wholly accurate portrait of Israel's origins. One reason for this is that the earliest part of Israel's history in Genesis is now regarded as something other than a work of modern history. It's primary author was at best an ancient historian (if a historian at all), who lived long after the events he narrated, and who drew freely from all sources that were not historical (legends and theological stories); he was more concerned with theology than with the modern quest to learn "what actually happened" (Van Seters 1992; Sparks 2002, pp 37-71; Maidman 2003).
As a result, the stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are better understood as windows into Israelite history than as portraits of Israel's early history
The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, eds. C. A. Evans, J. N. Lohr, and D. L. Petersen
A brief glance at the Flood narrative will illustrate some of these dynamics of form and historical context. In the wider narrative background of Gen 6–9 are the Mesopotamian flood traditions, known from the Old Babylo-nian myth of Atrahasis, the Middle Babylonian Flood tablet at Ugarit, the Flood narrative in the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic
tablet XI), and other sources.
As scholars have long observed, there are clear continuities between the older Mesopotamian Flood traditions and the biblical traditions.Stories of the Flood arguably traveled from Mesopotamian to Israelite culture via oral and written traditions, mediated by multilingual traders, travelers, and scribes. Once the traditions became native to Israel, the J and P writers independently reshaped the story throug their scribal-literary art. I will briefly sketch two instances of the reshaping of tradition in the J ver-sion..."
As I said the conclusions reached by many historians are based on the assumptions that the Bible is false and that the stories were written hundreds of years after they purport to have been recorded in the Bible.
100% wrong. Please name a historian who did this. The actual historians (not the conspiracy theory versions in apologetics) take extreme care to identify dates, sources and make the most accurate historicity as possible.
I cannot believe you actually just said this?
3Believing in a creator is pretty basic to humanity even if in the past other Gods were assigned the role.
It is those who want to say that chance and time produced all this that are the odd ones out and looking to science to show that you are correct is not in the purview of science.
Belief in a God is common and so common sense and science does not tell us otherwise.
That isn't even apologetics, just a giant fallacy? Should I make a list of common mythology tropes that are definitely not true yet appear in the majority of world myths?
Common sense is not designed to understand reality. It evolved to survive in nature. It doesn't give any indication of a vast amount of physical laws and before the scientific revolution generally led humanity to believe ridiculous things (it still does).
But again, a creator is not related to what we know is obvious mythology. Forget the OT, the NT is so obviously Hellenistic religion combined with Judaism that it's no different than saying the creator must be Zeus.
Producing the raw materials with certain properties and supplying the right conditions would guarantee that the life forms we see would be produced imo,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but only with a designer there to nudge in the right direction and to give life to dead matter.
Is what one might say if there were one planet in the entire universe. We now understand there are billions. You are ignoring obvious facts about nature to protect beliefs.
The research on self replicating compounds that can occur naturally has shown some amazing things. Pre-cursors to a basic RNA is part of nature. Using a gap in current science to invoke a God is so worn out. As if the things that we already see occurring naturally are not amazing enough?
But still, it doesn't further the argument. Then another person says Lord Krishna started life, Or Allah, these are just myths with no evidence. But there is evidence that they are myths. You cannot take a mythic story and then claim this is the correct version and claim it's the God responsible for life? No evidence on any level supports this.
If people want to hold a naturalistic view of the universe that is their prerogative, but there is no evidence for it in science or anywhere else imo.
At least with the Bible there is evidence in fulfilled prophecy.
There is only evidence for naturalism. I can't imagine what the heck you mean by this?
Your saying there is no evidence for naturalism (all there is is nature) but that a re-used myth is real?
At least with the Bible there is evidence in fulfilled prophecy.
Are you serious? First what about unfullfilled prophecy?
There are hundreds of sayings by Yahweh that did not come to pass:
Bible: Prophecy and Misquotes
How many times does Yahweh say the Israelites will rule everything and defeat all enemies? They just kept being invaded?
But you must know by now that all the prophecies are super vague? Or that during the 2nd Temple period when occupied by the Persians (who already had a world messiah, virgin born coming to save humanity, 1600B.C) the Israelites also suddenly started having the same predictions. The NT is a myth combining Judaism with Hellenism, all the religions did this, several before Christianity and the Greek writer used OT predictions to make their own savior. So claiming it's some kind of actual prophecy is not valid.
There is no evidence it's real. The only evidence is that it's a copied story.
are you really not aware tired old apologetics are just not really evidence at all? It's all been debunked.
