What if God IS a farce?

by LouBelle 110 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Dansk

  Could you please explain why?

  Sure!

  The Egyptian historian Manetho, 3rd Century BCE, described a massive brutal invasion of foreigners from the east, the Hyksos, who eventually ruled Egypt with immense cruelty for over 500 years. Manetho goes on to describe how an Egyptian king brought their rule to an end by defeating them and pursuing the survivors all the way to Syria.

  However, a more reliable Egyptian source speaks of how Pharaoh Ahmose sacked Avaris and chased the Hyksos to their main citadel in southern Canaan, which he stormed after a long seige.

  Thanks to archaeology, it is now known that the Hyksos invasion was gradual rather than a military campaign and that they were, in fact, Canaanites. The Egyptians at the time still had bad memories of invasions from the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. So, here you have what we today would call Xenophobia. They were sick of these unwanted foreigners and forcibly expelled them - but there's a big difference in kicking Canaanites out and God sending plagues to help over 600,000 Israelites out of bondage in the country.

  Ian
• 

  BurnTheShips

  They were sick of these unwanted foreigners and forcibly expelled them - but there's a big difference in kicking Canaanites out and God sending plagues to help over 600,000 Israelites out of bondage in the country.

  The Biblical account has the Hebrews coming into Egypt from Canaan also, which from the Egyptian perspective, would make them Canaanites, which jibes well with your description of "kicking out Canaanites".

  Please note that the accounts are narrating events from two different points of view! On the one hand, the Egyptian, which would presumably be stressing the angle of them driving out these nasty foreigners by force, and the putative Hyksos/Hebrew side, that they left Egypt, not because they were driven out, but because they were led out by their national deity!

  The fact that the Hyksos ascendancy was relatively bloodless, as you yourself note, harmonizes well with the Biblical account of the arrival of the Israelites and their settlement into Egypt. The Bible makes no mention that the Hebrew shepherds took Egypt by force. Hyksos, by the way, means "Shepherd Kings".

  There is a current theory that the Egyptians were not able to resist the Hyksos because of weak Pharaohs and the country being afflicted with famine. This famine incidentally, recalls to mind the "7 years of famine" in the Joseph story in Genesis-who supposedly brought the rest of the Israelites into the country.

  .....Moreover, another Egyptian author -– Lysimachus -- who wrote in Greek and represented the Jews as sick and impure persons whom a king of Egypt had expelled from the country.... Hecataeus of Abdera and Diodorus Siculus -- recorded Egyptian traditions about the origin of the Jews as people expelled from Egypt by the populace when that country was affected by pestilence (but without identifying the Jews as afflicted by the disease)

  There are many interesting parallels. Coincidence?

  Burn
• 

  Open mind

  If God is a farce.........

  Then this guy's gonna look really dumb.

  Oh wait....

  Never mind.

  Open Mind
• 

  Dansk

  Hi Burn,

  There are many interesting parallels. Coincidence?

  The fact is, interesting parallels or not, the Biblical account is false! It's also interesting that Egypt's neighbours have nowhere written about God bringing his people out of Egypt. With all the native people writing on monument walls and papyrus, etc., one would think some archaeological evidence of a great exodus would have surfaced by now -- but it hasn't!

  By the way, Hyksos actually means "rulers of foreign lands." The translation you have is an enigmatic Greek form of an Egyptian word mistranslated by Manetho.

  Ian
• 

  Dogaradodya

  Hi, LouBelle!

  Nice to meet you even just in cyberspace. We have a mission.

  Warm regards,

  Dogaradodya
• 

  Superfine Apostate

  > Then all men will have to acknowledge that their actions
  > - good and bad - are completely their own responsibility.
  
  i disagree.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Dansk,

  It appears to me you are simply dismissing the information above because it does not correspond with your settled idea about the Exodus story.

  You appear to indicate that the lack of a clear, decisive external confirmation of the biblical account is itself a disproof. It is not. No rational person believes that the unproven is automatically false.

  I have shown above that there is historical information that lends credence to a large emigration of semitic people with contemporaneous events that parallel aspects of the Biblical story. It is very possible that these same people are the people who later created the Exodus story.

  I have not mentioned the Egyptian Ipuwer Papyrus:

  "Nay, but the heart is violent. Plague stalks through the land and blood is everywhere . . . Nay, but the river is blood. Does a man drink from it? As a human he rejects it. He thirsts for water . . . Nay, but gates, columns and walls are consumed with fire . . . Nay but men are few. He that lays his brother in the ground is everywhere . . . Nay but the son of the high-born man is no longer to be recognised . . . The stranger people from outside are come into Egypt . . . Nay, but corn has perished everywhere. People are stripped of clothing, perfume and oil. Everyone says 'there is no more'. The storehouse is bare . . . It has come to this. The king has been taken away by poor men."

  Burn
• 

  Dansk

  Burn:

  I have shown above that there is historical information that lends credence to a large emigration of semitic people with contemporaneous events that parallel aspects of the Biblical story. It is very possible that these same people are the people who later created the Exodus story.

  And I have shown that while such parallel events may have taken place they are not due in any way to the hand of God. It is well known that the Hewbrew scribes borrowed accounts from other peoples and wove them into their own "historical" account as a rallying call to the people.

  Louise's thread title is "What if God IS a farce". The onus is on those who believe in God to prove he exists. Thus far, out of all you have shown me, I have seen nothing that would make me conclude there is a Creator God.

  Ian
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Louise's thread title is "What if God IS a farce". The onus is on those who believe in God to prove he exists. Thus far, out of all you have shown me, I have seen nothing that would make me conclude there is a Creator God.

  What a turn of events. Hilarious! You cited a lack of evidence for the Biblical narrative as a reason why "God is a farce". Here I'll quote you:

  It doesn't matter to religionists that archaeology cannot find any evidence what so ever of a mass exodus out of Egypt or that Hewbrew slaves were even there or that there was a huge kingdom of David or that Joshua oversaw a powerful nation, etc. If such things existed the people would have left evidence, such as buildings, masses of pottery, inscriptions, etc. It's all nonsense! Nothing, not even a tiny fragment, has been found!!

  Nothing, you said.

  I have shown something. I have shown that there is evidence and that the premise is false.

  may have taken place they are not due in any way to the hand of God.

  You have not shown this, and you cannot.

  Cheers,

  Burn
• 

  Dansk

  But Burn,

  If God exists and the Bible is his word why does he put fables in it and have them spouted as truths?

  Assuming you accept the Bible as the word of God, why would he have a global flood story put in when no such global flood ever occurred?

  Why would God have it put in his holy book that Moses led a huge exodus of thousands out of Egypt when no such event took place?

  These are just two of numerous stories that the Bible reader is expected to accept as being true. Don't you see? How can one believe in God if it has been proven, which it has, that these Bible accounts never occurred.

  Let's just say, for example, that the Hyksos were the Israelites. Why the need for an inflated story about God sending ten plagues to free his people who were enslaved, cross the Red Sea and have Pharaoh and his army destroyed in it? Why not just tell the truth and have it known that the Hyksos were chased out of the country and that no miracles occurred?

  Ian