Sodom and Gomorrah Discovered

[TimelessTheist]

Here I believe that monotheism became the standard during the exile possibly with the influence of Zoroastrianism, and the Torah itself does not come to full fruit and the scriptural standard until after the exile.

Before the exile there is no evidence of the Torah as it is known after the exile.

That's the JEPD theory, which has been well-refuted by many scholars. Eh, also, no Zoroastrian texts have been dated before A.D., so that won't work.

[tabibito]

The elephant in the room remains the accuracy and reliability of the accounts of events in the Pentateuch, such as Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham, Noah and the Flood, Adam and Eve and so one as reliable historical accounts.

I have already stipulated that large portions of the Pentateuch can reasonably be considered an attempt to reformulate events of the distant past based on very little information.
However, there is no longer any viable argument that henotheistic Judaism was not a distinctive religion well before the exile, and that the Pentateuch did not substantially exist well before the Babylonian exile.
All evidence suggests that by the time of David, the Pentateuch had been substantially formulated, but not in its final edited post Exile form.

The Mesha Stele dating from 830 BC records that the instruments used in worship to YHVH were captured and brought before the face of the god Chemosh by Mesha of Moab. The distinctive practices and worship of YHVH more than 200 years before the Babylonian exile are attested in the archaeological record. The god of the Israelites, named on the stele, is not El, but YHVH.

It will be interesting to see what comes of discoveries made in January this year in Jerusalem. Pottery shards show Hebrew was common in Jerusalem circa 1000 BC - but early days yet. So far only the inscription from a jar of cheap plonk has been identified. Maybe nothing relevant will come out of the discovery: just a matter of wait and see.

[Truthseeker]

Would someone please check my understanding and reasoning? Wikipedia explains that the convention used to be that "AD" is placed before year numbers, thus: AD 2014. Years before the supposed birthyear of Jesus Christ, on the other hand, has the BC designation placed after, thus: 800 BC. There is no year 0; AD 1, the supposed birthyear, follows 1 BC. The first 100 years before AD 1 would be the first century BC: 100 BC-1 BC. 800 BC is in the eighth century BC.

[tabibito]

1 - 100 - first century BC
101 - 200 - second
201 - 300 - third
301 - 400 - fourth
401 - 500 - fifth
501 - 600 - sixth century BC
silver scroll dates to somewhere in here
601 - 700 - seventh century BC
701 - 800 - eighth

1901 - 2000 - twentieth
2001 - 2100 - twenty first

(Couldn't resist)

Further note - these ARE ordinal counts, not cardinal (as you stated). In earlier times, at least into the 19th century, the year was commonly written in full as (for example) "the one thousand six hundred and eleventh year of our Lord."

[Truthseeker]

Religious choices should not be equated with the conclusions based the evidence, nor should religious choices bias one on how the evidence is interpreted. I am a theist, and agree with much of what showmeproof proposes from the references. Actually much of the evidence of apparent influence is among Semitic peoples of related cultures. ALL Babylonian, Canaanite, Hebrew, Phoenician, and others in the region are intimately interrelated Semitic peoples. Most Gentile influence comes with Christianity, and Hellenist Judaism.

Interpretations of the evidence should never be treated or seen as evidence! And do you not know that often a person would look at a body of evidence and form a conclusion but another person forms a rather different conclusion? How to decide which person is correct without researching that body by oneself?

[tabibito]

Interpretations of the evidence should never be treated or seen as evidence! And do you not know that often a person would look at a body of evidence and form a conclusion but another person forms a rather different conclusion? How to decide which person is correct without researching that body by oneself?

'twould be nice if it worked that way in practice. In most things, we are forced at some point to rely on better qualified people to state honest opinions. And in most things, we get blind-sided at some point by our own expectations or prior learning.

[Truthseeker]

I have no idea which of the people posting here, excluding me, is the best qualified. I do know--at least strongly suspect--that I am far from being the best qualified in terms of familiarity with the evidence and training as an archaeologist.

[shunyadragon]

Interpretations of the evidence should never be treated or seen as evidence!

Odd?!?!!? Do you believe this? Nothing I said indicated this. Showmeproof choosing atheism? or agnosticism? (I am uncertain) should not be based on his argument for the origins of Judaism beliefs. We share something similar, but not totally the same conclusions. Nonetheless, I remain a theist.

And do you not know that often a person would look at a body of evidence and form a conclusion but another person forms a rather different conclusion? How to decide which person is correct without researching that body by oneself?

Yes, it is very common for someone to come up with different conclusions based on the same evidence, particularly when it comes to history and archeology involving religions.

A prime example of the evidence for evolution in science, and the combative rejection of many from a religious perspective. science where there is much more uniform in the consensus of support among scientists concerning the conclusions based on the evidence then most other academic disciplines, but the combative controversial rejection by many intelligent educated people remains one of the enigmas of our modern. world. By profession I am a geologist, but also have some background in anthropology and academic history.

Well, I do a lot of researching the evidence in the academic publications concerning the archeology, history, linguistics, and anthropology of religions.

[shunyadragon]

There is a long background in my evolving religious view and the problems I have with the Old Testament being considered a historically accurate document in one way or another. This does consider only the problem as to whether it is a literal historical document, but it included this problem. I was raised in the Roman Church, Baptized in the Roman Church, because my father was Roman Church Irish. I attended Protestant churches also, because my mother was Protestant. studied the Roman church in St Francis college in Cost Rica and considered becoming a priest. In my studies contradictions arose that had no reasonable logical explanation, and they were Adam and eve, the Fall, Original Sin, the Flood as at the foundation of Christian theology. My search and study of the Bible for the past 40 years concluded that there was an illogical disconnect to base these foundation beliefs on the ancient literature of the Pentateuch.

[tabibito]

In my studies contradictions arose that had no reasonable logical explanation, and they were Adam and eve, the Fall, Original Sin, the Flood as at the foundation of Christian theology. My search and study of the Bible for the past 40 years concluded that there was an illogical disconnect to base these foundation beliefs on the ancient literature of the Pentateuch.

Adam and Eve and the flood are by no means foundation beliefs of Christianity, which has as its basis the life, death, and resurrection of the Christ.

With regard to Adam and Eve, were it not for the fact that their initial existence is recorded as being in Paradise (well - immediately after the creation of Adam, anyway), I would not accept any likelihood whatever of a factual foundation. The creation account can be squared with science without doing violence to the scriptural account. While it is implausible, it is not impossible. Whatever else may be said, the Bible chronology is impossible.



The account of the flood again would require that the Biblical chronology be wildly inaccurate, and even then all but impossible based on the geological record. Certainly it cannot have been a global event, and it would require a land mass on which every human (homo sapiens sapiens) then living sank to below sea level. This thread brought enough data to light that makes any other scenario impossible. Even at that, particularly in light of the difficulties of building an ark of the type described in Genesis, the story is implausible to the verge of impossibility. While a small group of people may have escaped a flood on a boat with a number of animals aboard, and a folk tradition built up around that event, enlarging it to epic proportions .... The story would not have enough in common with the Genesis account for that account to have any basis in fact.

Of course, these stories may all have been invented as morality tales, never intended to be understood as factual. If so, the piece that would allow those stories to be properly interpreted has gone missing - which would be an inaccuracy of a different type.

[shunyadragon]

Adam and Eve and the flood are by no means foundation beliefs of Christianity, which has as its basis the life, death, and resurrection of the Christ.

With regard to Adam and Eve, were it not for the fact that their initial existence is recorded as being in Paradise (well - immediately after the creation of Adam, anyway), I would not accept any likelihood whatever of a factual foundation. The creation account can be squared with science without doing violence to the scriptural account. While it is implausible, it is not impossible. Whatever else may be said, the Bible chronology is impossible.



The account of the flood again would require that the Biblical chronology be wildly inaccurate, and even then all but impossible based on the geological record. Certainly it cannot have been a global event, and it would require a land mass on which every human (homo sapiens sapiens) then living sank to below sea level. This thread brought enough data to light that makes any other scenario impossible. Even at that, particularly in light of the difficulties of building an ark of the type described in Genesis, the story is implausible to the verge of impossibility. While a small group of people may have escaped a flood on a boat with a number of animals aboard, and a folk tradition built up around that event, enlarging it to epic proportions .... The story would not have enough in common with the Genesis account for that account to have any basis in fact.

Of course, these stories may all have been invented as morality tales, never intended to be understood as factual. If so, the piece that would allow those stories to be properly interpreted has gone missing - which would be an inaccuracy of a different type.

It is apparent that you are taken a very liberal interpretation of the relationship of the Pentateuch and Christianity, but this view does not represent the doctrine and dogma of most of Christianity and the history of Christianity. GR Morton explains this essential dependence between the Pentateuch, which most claim it was intended to be factual and understood by the apostles, Paul and the church fathers as essential.

Source: Source: [url

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1997/PSCF12-97Morton.html][/url]
The Bible is unique among the world's religious writings in its dependence upon critical historical events. Without the creation, without Adam and Eve, without the historical events of the Fall, without the incarnation, and without the resurrection, Christianity is left in shambles. These events have traditionally been viewed as actual events in space-time and are intimately intertwined in Christian theology. In short, Christianity is a historically based religion and as such, the events depicted in the Scriptures must be historically verifiable.

There is one other important historical event mentioned in the Bible and that is the Flood of Noah. The Flood, while not crucial to the theological basis of Christianity (a Christianity lacking the text describing a historical flood would still be the same), is crucial to the veracity of the scriptural documents. The Flood story is related to us by the same document that informs us of three of the five crucial Christian doctrines. If science were to conclude that no flood occurred, then serious doubt would be cast upon the authority of the Scripture and, thus, on the historicity of the earlier temporal events: creation, Adam and Eve, and the Fall.

© Copyright Original Source

[tabibito]

Yes - There are claims that the apostles considered the accounts to be factual. In fact, I find it hard to believe that they didn't. Which is why I have said that if the Genesis accounts were intended to be moral tales, a critical piece of information is missing.

this view does not represent the doctrine and dogma of most of Christianity

As far as I know, you are aware that majority opinion does not establish a matter as fact. Majority opinion of most of Christianity is that the Holy Spirit does not confer on a person the capacity to stop sinning. That opinion is not only hokum, preventing anyone who believes it from accessing the power to stop sinning, it is so thoroughly in contravention of the gospel that the person believing it cannot exercise any gift of the Holy Spirit.

If science were to conclude that no flood occurred, then serious doubt would be cast upon the authority of the Scripture and, thus, on the historicity of the earlier temporal events: creation, Adam and Eve, and the Fall.

And given that is working from a flawed base definition of scripture, the argument is invalid.
The only scriptural content that is declared to be inspired of God is prophecy.
2 Peter 1:21 "No prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as the Holy Spirit moved them."

[Truthseeker]

Jesus said, "The people who live today are evil. They want to see a miracle for a sign, but no sign will be given, except the sign of Jonah." To be sure, people who really think like scientists (who try to discern the principles of the evolution of the universe based on the assumption that, as Carl Sagan put it, 'the Cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be') are very likely to reject any hypothesis that some event or another is a miracle. But if the Bible is essentially true (inerrant, if you will), rejecting the Bible is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

An obvious example that science is not always true is for you to hold up a book in the air. As long as you hold it up there, the Law of Gravitation is not applicable in that the book is not accelerating toward the center of mass. Of course you shrug your shoulders and go, so what? But one thing Jesus seems to mean in the quote above is that if you don't accept the Resurrection, then you won't see any miracle--especially anything that would convince you the God of the Bible does exist.

That said, I'm always skeptical of any evidence that is claimed to support the Bible. A chief reason is that someone might come up with a perfectly natural explanation of the evidence. I subscribed to this thread partly because I was curious about what was being claimed.

[Truthseeker]

The only scriptural content that is declared to be inspired of God is prophecy.
2 Peter 1:21 "No prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as the Holy Spirit moved them."

But that does not imply that the possibility that the Bible sans the prophetic parts is NOT inspired.

[tabibito]

Jesus said, "The people who live today are evil. They want to see a miracle for a sign, but no sign will be given, except the sign of Jonah."

“An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And while the evil generation he spoke of got no sign save that of Jonah, people of that time who were not of the evil generation spoken of were receiving signs of healing, water getting turned to wine, crowds being fed on a few fish and small loaves etc.

But if the Bible is essentially true (inerrant, if you will), rejecting the Bible is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Inerrant I won't. Errors are provable. Essentially true, even those parts that aren't imparting knowledge directly gained from God is acknowledged. There is no throwing out the baby with the bath water.

But one thing Jesus seems to mean in the quote above is that if you don't accept the Resurrection, then you won't see any miracle

Which totally ignores Jesus statement that there will be false miracles. Real miracles confirm the truth of the gospel which is not only that Jesus came that we might be released from the penalty for sin, but from sin itself. And yes, the gospel does include the account of the resurrection, among other matters. The Holy Spirit will not act to confirm a false gospel.

That said, I'm always skeptical of any evidence that is claimed to support the Bible. A chief reason is that someone might come up with a perfectly natural explanation of the evidence.

To some extent I sympathise. The Sodom and Gomorrah thing in this thread is a prime example. Nothing in the evidence distinguishes the act of God from a natural occurrence. Only the fact that it was prophesied makes the distinction possible. Even if a miracle is witnessed in the here and now, claims will be made of fakery or coincidental natural event. What has changed though? The same nonsense was being spouted about the miracles performed by the founding apostles. Jesus was accused of sorcery on that night before he was crucified - that is a matter of record in the contemporaneous Jewish annals.

But that does not imply that the possibility that the Bible sans the prophetic parts is NOT inspired.

"Prophesy to us you christ, who struck you?" Be careful to not mistake prophecy as restricted to a foretelling of the future.