Comment Thread for The Resurrection of Jesus - Apologiaphoenix vs Gary

[Mikeenders]

Again, you're reading the text in a very presentist sense. The early Christians did not read Genesis in the strictly literal fashion that you seem to read it in. Biblical literalism comes from Martin Luther. Before him, it was fairly common to interpret the Bible in metaphorical or typological ways, hence the focus on the prophecies Jesus fulfilled. .

More utter ridiculous nonsense Stein. You really are showing you don't know what you are talking about and are worthy of no respect whatsoever as a biblical scholar. We do not just start reading Adam was a real person, six day creation was factual or there was a genesis flood that literally killed off all human life but on the ark with Luther . to put the beginning of that to martin Luther is just vast blithering nonsense. to claim biblical literalism was not just promoted but COMES FROM Martin Luther is just plain downright stupidity.

Gary actually makes a point here (which he of course sees as a problem for other christians since be buys rejecting Higher criticism as rejecting a real science). IF you are willing to assert that Daniel , Exodus, Genesis , Joshua , Chronicles and Kings are all just narratives to make some other point then there's really no compelling reason you cannot make the same claims of the New testament.

Of course where Gary flops and his point falls flat on his face is that Higher criticism is no real science and rejecting tea leaf reading presents no issue whatsoever to Christianity. I think what Gary really gets from all your nonsense of floating guesses and assumptions and building steeples on top of wobbly building material is that he has a point - when what he should be gathering is that there is more than one person on the planet besides himself given to assumptions and faulty conclusion based on assumptions - which should surprise no one.

What Gary should be looking at but won't because its personal embarrassment to him is that time and time again the FACTS blow his points up like his recent claim there was no settlement at Kadesh (a conclusion you drew yourself but refuse to address the latest data on)

P.S. Typological is not an automatic contradiction to literalism

[psstein]

Mike, if you want to insult me, then get in the arena with me.

The early Church Father Origen distinguished among three levels of reading the Bible: the literal, the metaphorical, and the transformational. The literal meaning was considered the least important. Luther was the first major proponent of literalism, and prior to him, it more or less didn't exist in any major way.

If you're stuck in the very wrong belief that much of the OT was designed as strict history, then you really don't know what you're talking about.

Ignoring criticism is done at your own risk. I'll tell you that most of what I believe as a Christian is based on what I know as a scholar.

[Gary]

IMO - yes. Further to that, no conflict with evolutionary theory is implied.


Flesh and blood snake? - no.


In a broad expanse of the land? possibly. World wide - not possible. Look for a near extinction event, from not less than 140 000 years ago (well, maybe 125 000) up to nearly 200 000 years ago, encompassing the lower Omo River valley. If such an event is impossible, Noah can't be supported as an actual event. (there are one or two unlesses, but they're kind of wobbly, and based on current findings, would mean that Noah wasn't H Sap Sap).


No.


Almost certainly not.


Barely possible.


I'll accept it unless evidence is produced to support the contrary argument.

Then why, dear Tabby, believe that a brain dead body was resurrected in the first century, to walk out of its grave with a superhero body, to eat a broiled fish lunch, and to later levitate into outer space??? There is NO EVIDENCE for this tall tale either, Tab, other than second century hearsay and the conjecture of biased "experts"!!!

[Gary]

Sometimes this thread is like the twilight zone. Reading Stein and Gary you almost want to head out to the library and go look up all these records we have from various countries running commentary on events in countries outside of their own. they act like we are talking about 1995 ad wondering why we have no record of a newspaper picking up a story - rather than events three thousand years ago by people without digital records, electricity running water or printing presses - and like they are oblivious that recording materials haven't survived well over three thousand years as say digital data on hard drives would.

Thats the real idiocy of this absence of evidence claim when it gets to things like papyrus - to use an analogy - its like you think you can make a solid statement of fact about what someone hasn't written when the person wrote in fading ink.

I can live and get people thinking some parts of the story are embellishment - after all the miraculous parts leave no record - but to claim blatant obvious fact on a canvas of history that vanishes more with each century and to do so 3,000 years later is irrational. If people say this is the best we can guess that's fine but to drop the words of uncertainty and replace them with certitude or near certitude is dishonest and misleading to say the least.

Wake up, Mike. Your position is nonsensical

Even if we move the story to a later century as you would like, the very idea that a couple million Egyptian slaves would escape Egypt, by running away to Canaan, is just preposterous! Canaan was an occupied territory of Egypt! Canaan was dotted with Egyptian forts and garrisons. The Canaanite population were living under the direct control of Egypt. So the Israelites escaped Egypt to flee to...Egypt???

Outrageous.

It's like someone fleeing Nazi Germany to escape to...Nazi-occupied AUSTRIA!

It makes ZERO sense.

Egypt was the greatest power on earth. If Pharaoh and his "entire" army was dead, what stopped the surrounding countries from plundering the wealth of Egypt, or at least attempting to do so? And if you believe Tabby's assertion that only Pharaoh's charioteers were wiped out, that would still leave the Egyptian military severely weakened, inviting attacks from its surrounding neighbors. But here are the facts, folks: We have zero evidence of a decline in the power of Egypt during this time period. We have zero evidence that surrounding countries took advantage of Egypt's weakened state and stole territories from her. The powers in Mesopotamia and modern Turkey did not move on Egypt's territories in the Levant.

Why???

If the Hebrew God had devastated the Egyptian population, the Egyptian military, and the Egyptian economy, as the Bible asserts happened, Egypt should have been easy prey to plunder, or at a minimum, an weakened power from whom to steal territory...but the facts are...NONE OF THIS HAPPENED, FOLKS!

It's just a fable! It DIDN'T happen!

Jesus believed a fable to be historical.
Jesus made a mistake.
Jesus was a man.
Jesus was not a god.

[Mikeenders]

Mike, if you want to insult me, then get in the arena with me.

What arena is the question. I've been waiting for weeks for some evidence and for you to deal with a few issues then you announce you can't after saying you would. Its a joke that you think you can even think about being in an arena. You've been in the first row of seats gesticulating as if you even know how to throw a good punch but not put one foot in.

The early Church Father Origen distinguished among three levels of reading the Bible: the literal, the metaphorical, and the transformational. The literal meaning was considered the least important. Luther was the first major proponent of literalism, and prior to him, it more or less didn't exist in any major way.

Okay so your idea of getting in the arena is to repost drivel and nonsense as if its fact again. got you. So until the 1500s people didn't believe in a literal Adam, the fall of man or a flood. I mean do I have to waste time showing that idiocy wrong? OR is the issue you don't know how to communicate because saying there were literal, metaphorical and transformational ways of looking at scriptures depending on verse in no way shape or form makes biblical literalism something that CAME FROM from Luther. Further any applications of various means of reading the text ought to come from the text itself as an indication. You can for example make an argument that the garden story is metaphorical because elements of it give rise to that idea (serpent talking etc) but to read I king and 2 kings and claim it is not an attempt at some sort of literal history is total poppycock. Its not interpreting the text its changing it. its not exegesis its eisigesis.

Maybe your particular denomination is comfortable with rewriting the book. Its a fair point that theology often affects outlook. I've met a fair share of catholics that are fine just as long as the Papal doctrine isn't written as metaphorical However to even beg that resisting imposing metaphorical meanings wherever we chose is rejecting any real historical data or scholarship rather than simply once again your argumentation based on assumptions and consensus is and remains nonsense

If you're stuck in the very wrong belief that much of the OT was designed as strict history,

Theres the gesticulating again and cowering from entering the arena of facts vs assumptions. stop wasting time Stein blow me away with the proof you have that KIngs,chronicles and even Joshua are all metaphorical to suit your alleged narrative theory and are not real attempts at real history. skip the attempts at strawmen that anyone has ever said the OT is strictly designed for history and get down to business. Put something on the table besides conjecture for once because its becoming apparent that you think that points of conjecture are in fact facts . during this thread everything you have presented is nothing but assumptions, argumentation, more assumptions, more argumentation = fact. its like you don't even know what the meaning of the word fact is any longer.

Ignoring criticism is done at your own risk

More strawmen. I have never stated anywhere criticism is to be ignored. What i have stated is we need to distinguish between facts and assumptions. We are free to question and even float our pet theories but when the time for speculating is over we should do what all honest people do, all people who care about integrity rather than tickling their minds (even if they have chosen tickling as a career path) and not use the language of either certitude or near certitude where we don't have real data. the fact that you have to do all this hand waving to avoid such a basic concept is telling

I'll tell you that most of what I believe as a Christian is based on what I know as a scholar.

I don't care and its irrelevant. the issue is evidence not your sense of ego identifying yourself as anything. I respect scholars based on knowledge and any forum poster online claiming to be a good scholar that tells me dating is not a big issue in the debate over exodus,states he will but then announces he won't address new data and claims biblical literalism comes from a man in the 1500s is demonstrably showing the quality of his knowledge and lack thereof. SO lets get down to it. Put the facts on the table. Claims of being a scholar get no respect when you muff the basics. Veiled and even not so veiled attempts as in your case to invoke arguments from self authority as evidence is meaningless on an internet forum.

[Mikeenders]

Wake up, Mike. Your position is nonsensical

Said the guy who just got his head handed to him claiming Kadesh had no settlements at the time of the exodus. I might acclimatize myself to reading more than one or two lines from your post in a week but after that fiasco you are in time out from me bothering much with your posts. Send Finkelstein a box of tissues - with the flow of data proving him wrong increasing each month he is probably running low. Don't dip into his box. seeing as how the exodus was supposed to be where you trounced Nick but instead was shown to be wrong on Kadesh I can understand your own use for the tissues

[tabibito]

OK - Here's a "what the" moment.

The Ipuwer Papyrus is a single papyrus holding an ancient Egyptian poem, called The Admonitions of Ipuwer[1] or The Dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All.[2] Its official designation is Papyrus Leiden I 344 recto.[3] It is housed in the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands, after being purchased from Giovanni Anastasi, the Swedish consul to Egypt, in 1828. The sole surviving manuscript dates to the later 13th century BCE (no earlier than the 19th dynasty in the New Kingdom).

The Ipuwer Papyrus describes Egypt as afflicted by natural disasters and in a state of chaos, a topsy-turvy world where the poor have become rich, and the rich poor, and warfare, famine and death are everywhere. One symptom of this collapse of order is the lament that servants are leaving their servitude and acting rebelliously. There is a dispute around interpretations of the document as an Egyptian account of the events described in the Exodus.

I won't draw any conclusions about an exodus connection without a bit of delving - but this is the first time I've found any mention of the papyrus in question.

[tabibito]

The first plague (turning the Nile to blood). The Nile River, which formed the basis of daily life and the national economy in Egypt, was devastated as millions of fish died and the water was unusable. Pharaoh was told by God, “By this you will know that I am the LORD” (Exodus 7:17). The Ipuwer Papyrus says, “Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere” (2:5–6). “The river is blood. . . . Men shrink from tasting—human beings, and thirst after water” (2:10). “That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin” (3:10–13).

The fifth plague (the death of livestock). God protected His people from this plague, while the cattle of the Egyptians died. God was steadily destroying the economy of Egypt, while showing His ability to protect and provide for those who obeyed Him. Pharaoh even sent investigators (Exodus 9:18–35) to find out if the Israelites were suffering along with the Egyptians, but the result was a hardening of his heart against them. The Ipuwer Papyrus says, “All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan” (5:5). “Behold, cattle are left to stray, and there is none to gather them together (9:2–3).

The seventh plague (hail and fire). This hail was unlike any that had been seen before. It was accompanied by a fire which ran along the ground, and everything left out in the open was devastated by the hail and fire. Again, the children of Israel were miraculously protected, and no hail damaged anything in their lands (Exodus 9:35). The [I][I]Ipuwer Papyrus says, “Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire” (2:10). “Lower Egypt weeps. . . . The entire palace is without its revenues. To it belong [by right] wheat and barley, geese and fish” (10:3–6). “Forsooth, grain has perished on every side” (6:3). “Forsooth, that has perished which was yesterday seen. The land is left over to its weariness like the cutting of flax” (5:12).

The ninth plague (darkness). For three days, the land of Egypt was smothered with an unearthly darkness, but the homes of the Israelites had light (Exodus 10:22–23). The Ipuwer Papyrus says, “The land is without light” (9:11). Hmmm... that one looks like a stretch. "Land without light" could very easily be a reference to hopelessness.

The tenth and last plague (the death of firstborn males). Every household that did not apply the blood of the Passover sacrifice saw the death of the firstborn (Exodus 12:23). The Ipuwer Papyrus says, “Forsooth, the children of princes are dashed against the walls” (4:3 and 5:6). “Forsooth, the children of princes are cast out in the streets” (6:12). “He who places his brother in the ground is everywhere” (2:13). “It is groaning throughout the land, mingled with lamentations” (3:14).

The Ipuwer Papyrus also contains a possible reference to the Hebrews’ departure from Egypt, laden with treasures: “Gold and lapis lazuli, silver and malachite, carnelian and bronze . . . are fastened on the neck of female slaves” (3:2; cf. Exodus 12:35–38).

Further, there is a possible description of the pillar of fire: “Behold, the fire has mounted up on high. Its burning goes forth against the enemies of the land” (7:1; cf. Exodus 13:20–22).Not buying this as a connection at all.

Egyptologist David Rohl, who doesn’t claim to be a Christian, has written two books on how biblical accounts relating to Egypt, Joseph, and Moses are astonishingly accurate. He believes Joseph and Moses were historic characters and cites Bronze Age slave lists containing Hebrew names, the grave goods of an underclass discovered at Avaris (the biblical Goshen), and Egyptian “plague pits” full of skeletal remains.

This is just outright weird ... I'm not buying the connection with exodus necessarily: it seems to be a foray into eisegesis. But the references to Hebrew slaves (or more likely, Semitic) flies in the face of every claim to the contrary on atheist sites.

[Mikeenders]

Egyptologist David Rohl, who doesn’t claim to be a Christian, has written two books on how biblical accounts relating to Egypt, Joseph, and Moses are astonishingly accurate. He believes Joseph and Moses were historic characters and cites Bronze Age slave lists containing Hebrew names, the grave goods of an underclass discovered at Avaris (the biblical Goshen), and Egyptian “plague pits” full of skeletal remains.

This is just outright weird ... I'm not buying the connection with exodus necessarily: it seems to be a foray into eisegesis. But the references to Hebrew slaves (or more likely, Semitic) flies in the face of every claim to the contrary on atheist sites.

There is a whole lot of these happy "coincidences" out there which is why I stated things like Pattern of Evidence are still worth it to look at because regardless if you reject the overall premise of Rohl no one really claims the facts he brings up are fabrication. Its also the reason why dating is HUGE and probably the single greatest issue in the debate on Exodus (and saying otherwise is just blithering drivelling idiotic nonsense). When you put the sum of these facts together (And my understanding there is more coming that hasn't been published yet) to me there only are three options

A) you have one whale of a coincidence that defies statistic probability that the biblical story just happens to be mirrored with a few hundred of years history of events that happened in Egypt. What are the odds you write a story and in SEVERAL areas your story matches what is recorded in Egypt (without of course any embarrassing references to defeat of their Gods)?

B) Someone with uncanny (for the time ) knowledge of Egyptian records carefully crafted a story to reflect what happened in Egypt (and elsewhere) over those hundreds of years (why they would craft such a story carefully to follow the records and then make several uturns that defy the record would be unexplained)

C) the story is historical

Depending on dating the claims that no records of anything related to The exodus vanish. This is why Thera is so interesting. We have a cataclysmic event (at least for those within hundreds and hundreds of miles of the eruption) and the dating of it is unknown within a time period of over a hundred years. the reasons we can;t date the eruption accurately is because of problems in the chronology that we have. Thera pinpoints those inadequacies without even having a biblical discussion. As you probably already know the overlap of the possible range of dates for the eruption of Thera overlap the period of the exodus so some people even claim the eruption explains some of the events noted in Exodus.

[Gary]

Said the guy who just got his head handed to him claiming Kadesh had no settlements at the time of the exodus. I might acclimatize myself to reading more than one or two lines from your post in a week but after that fiasco you are in time out from me bothering much with your posts. Send Finkelstein a box of tissues - with the flow of data proving him wrong increasing each month he is probably running low. Don't dip into his box. seeing as how the exodus was supposed to be where you trounced Nick but instead was shown to be wrong on Kadesh I can understand your own use for the tissues

I reiterate my statement: There is no evidence of any settlement at Kadesh-Barnea during the time period that the BIBLE says the Exodus took place. You are inventing new dates to try to fit the story with the evidence. However, the story specifically states it took place in the mid-fifteenth century. This is the position of the overwhelming majority of Biblical scholars as I have previously pointed out. Your position is the fringe of the fringe. It deserves not one second of serious consideration.

"The date of the Biblical exodus-conquest is clear. 1 Kgs 6:1 and 1 Chr 6:33–37 converge on a date of 1446 BC for the exodus and the Jubilees data and Judg 11:26 independently converge on a date of 1406 BC for the beginning of the conquest."

[Gary]

OK - Here's a "what the" moment.

The Ipuwer Papyrus is a single papyrus holding an ancient Egyptian poem, called The Admonitions of Ipuwer[1] or The Dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All.[2] Its official designation is Papyrus Leiden I 344 recto.[3] It is housed in the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands, after being purchased from Giovanni Anastasi, the Swedish consul to Egypt, in 1828. The sole surviving manuscript dates to the later 13th century BCE (no earlier than the 19th dynasty in the New Kingdom).

The Ipuwer Papyrus describes Egypt as afflicted by natural disasters and in a state of chaos, a topsy-turvy world where the poor have become rich, and the rich poor, and warfare, famine and death are everywhere. One symptom of this collapse of order is the lament that servants are leaving their servitude and acting rebelliously. There is a dispute around interpretations of the document as an Egyptian account of the events described in the Exodus.

I won't draw any conclusions about an exodus connection without a bit of delving - but this is the first time I've found any mention of the papyrus in question.

Another claim debunked even by evangelical Christian archeologists. This claim was presented in a documentary. The Associates for Biblical Research have debunked it here:

The $3.5 million documentary The Exodus Decoded made its US debut August 20 on the History Channel. Previously it had been broadcast on the Discovery Channel in Canada in April and was shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival in July. Produced and narrated by Simcha Jacobovici, the film purportedly provides new evidence to demonstrate the Exodus really happened. Some of Jacobovici’s points are old hat, having been proposed before, while others are indeed new. But, alas, the presentation suffers from the same fate as other similar “documentaries”—dates are revised willy-nilly to make everything neatly come together to explain the events of the Exodus. In the end, Jacobovici does more harm than good since he mishandles the archaeological evidence, hence providing fuel to skeptics who wish to undermine the Exodus.

The information is conveniently organized by “Exhibits.” Let us examine the Exhibits one-by-one to check their credibility.

Exhibit G: Ipuwer Plagues Papyrus. Jacobovici now calls on the Ipuwer Papyrus, which he believes provides evidence for a plague of “ice and fire mingled together.” The seventh plague of hail, he says, is volcanic hail induced by Santorini as described in the Ipuwer Papyrus. Again, we have a chronological problem. Although Jacobovici states that many scholars date the Ipuwer Papyrus to the Hyksos period, the fact of the matter is that most Egyptologists date it to the First Intermediate Period (ca. 2100 BC) or the late Middle Kingdom (ca. 1700 BC) (Shupak 1997: 93), well before Jacobovici’s Exodus date of 1500 BC.

(Ipuwer Papyrus, National Archaeological Museum, Leiden, Netherlands. It tells of ordeals and calamities blamed on an unnamed king, perhaps Pepy II (ca. 2300–2206 BC) of the Sixth Dynasty, and predicts better times under a coming, ideal monarch.)

Source: http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post...s-Decoded.aspx

[Gary]

There is a whole lot of these happy "coincidences" out there which is why I stated things like Pattern of Evidence are still worth it to look at because regardless if you reject the overall premise of Rohl no one really claims the facts he brings up are fabrication. Its also the reason why dating is HUGE and probably the single greatest issue in the debate on Exodus (and saying otherwise is just blithering drivelling idiotic nonsense). When you put the sum of these facts together (And my understanding there is more coming that hasn't been published yet) to me there only are three options

A) you have one whale of a coincidence that defies statistic probability that the biblical story just happens to be mirrored with a few hundred of years history of events that happened in Egypt. What are the odds you write a story and in SEVERAL areas your story matches what is recorded in Egypt (without of course any embarrassing references to defeat of their Gods)?

B) Someone with uncanny (for the time ) knowledge of Egyptian records carefully crafted a story to reflect what happened in Egypt (and elsewhere) over those hundreds of years (why they would craft such a story carefully to follow the records and then make several uturns that defy the record would be unexplained)

C) the story is historical

Depending on dating the claims that no records of anything related to The exodus vanish. This is why Thera is so interesting. We have a cataclysmic event (at least for those within hundreds and hundreds of miles of the eruption) and the dating of it is unknown within a time period of over a hundred years. the reasons we can;t date the eruption accurately is because of problems in the chronology that we have. Thera pinpoints those inadequacies without even having a biblical discussion. As you probably already know the overlap of the possible range of dates for the eruption of Thera overlap the period of the exodus so some people even claim the eruption explains some of the events noted in Exodus.

You are a fundamentalist non-expert trying to fit the evidence into your ancient fable, instead of following the evidence to a scholarly conclusion.

I accept evidence. There is evidence for the existence of Israelite kings Ahab, Omri, Josiah and others. I accept their historicity. You on the other will not accept any evidence that proves that your inerrant Bronze Age holy book made a mistake. You are a fundamentalist, the most dangerous and most untrustworthy of all "researchers".

[Mikeenders]

I reiterate my statement: There is no evidence of any settlement at Kadesh-Barnea during the time period that the BIBLE says the Exodus took place. You are inventing new dates to try to fit the story with the evidence..

I reiterate your stupidity and ignorance is noted. The general scholarly consensus (to the degree there is any) as to the time of the exodus is what that article relates to. the dating does in part come from the Bible due to its mention of Per‐Ramesses in the Biblical text. Go and learn what you are talking about and come back. If you wish to now join conservative early date scholars then you will fall into even more trouble claiming there is no evidence and you might as well sit down and read some Rohl. You are so rattled by your nonsense being exposed as nonsense you are blundering over and over again not even knowing what consensus or fringe is. Go read a book and stop embarrassing yourself

Either way once again you lose in claiming facts or your laugable the debate is over claims. Oviously the other take away from the article is that research continues and is not settled. Your still in time out but congrats on keeping your posts to two sentences so I would bother reading them.

[Mikeenders]

Another claim debunked even by evangelical Christian archeologists. This claim was presented in a documentary. The Associates for Biblical Research have debunked it here:

ROFL...HAHAHAHA...Gary is now reduced to appealing to evangelical Christian archaeologist that he stated before cannot be trusted for anything due to their bias. On the bright side if you wish to see comedic entertainment we can now all appeal and link to ABR and see Gary to do a unicycle 180 turn.

[37818]

Gary,

The Patterns of Evidence places those events maybe as much as some 200 years before 1446 BC. There is evidence that suggests the common Hebrew reading of 1 Kings 6:1 is not its original reading BTW. See Adam Clarke commentary for example.