The Historicity of Early Biblical Figures

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I don't expect everyone to watch this, though it's only 20 minutes -- but I found it to be really, really good.

So I'll just post it, and open it up to anyone who cares to comment or debate.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

At 7:50 mins.into the video....

Apparently the Hyksos were the Israelites, and the timeline is explained in the following
video, directed(?) by James Cameron....

Also, there was a king of Egypt named Jacob-Baal. (Why have a Hebrew name?)

 

[danieldemol]

I don't expect everyone to watch this, though it's only 20 minutes -- but I found it to be really, really good.

So I'll just post it, and open it up to anyone who cares to comment or debate.

Great clip, although I would have preferred more details on which Rabbis see Genesis as allegorical.

 

[Harel13]

although I would have preferred more details on which Rabbis see Genesis as allegorical.

Agreed. It's like stating that rabbis agree that Jesus was the messiah without stating sources. Who said? When? Where? What was the context? Otherwise it may be quote-mining. It may also not be, but such details are important.

Personally, something that bothered me about that bit was that, while some rabbinical sources may view Genesis and the story of the Flood as not-literal, the video made it sound like those same rabbis also hold that Adam, Eve, Noah and their descendants were also not real people, which is incorrect, to say the least.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Early in the presentation I heard: "Most Jewish rabbis will explain to you ..." At this point I simply lost respect for the presentation. The remainder seemed to softly vacillate between simplistic and sloppy.

 

[Wandering Monk]

As far as I can tell, the only Biblical historical figures that have any empirical evidence for their existence start in about the 11th century BCE.