by TerryWalstrom 7 Replies latest watchtower bible
I find the approach, the reasoning, the dialectic rather fascinating.
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-Exodus-Does-archaeology-have-a-say-348464
A religion, basically, wrestles with Science
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Did slaves build the pyramids?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8451538.stm
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The only reason I bring this up is because I have dear close evangelical friends who are--how shall I say it---
rather opinionated beyond their pay grade :)
For the account in the Torah is the basis of our people’s creation, it is the basis of our existence and it is the basis of our important Passover festival and the whole Haggada that we recite on the first evening of this festival of freedom.
So that makes archaeologists reluctant to have to tell our brethren and ourselves that there is nothing in Egyptian records to support it.
Nothing on the slavery of the Israelites, nothing on the plagues that persuaded Pharaoh to let them go, nothing on the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, nothing.
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-Exodus-Does-archaeology-have-a-say-348464
Well there is no Garden of Eden and no one couple responsible for the rest of humanity. I guess we should throw out the DNA results and just trust the Old Testamemt cause after all it's written down.
While we are doing that lets throw out the notion that there was no great flood.
Like your evangelical friends who are--how shall I say it---rather opinionated.
We need to trust in Jehovah or YHWH keeping in mind that he was so busy drowning an entire world that he forgot to tell us his real name.
The Egyptians great pyramid and all of the people would been covered by this same great flood.
Your new Christy Christians can only believe one way...it's in the bible. The thinking is done.
"How could all that have been manufactured and assembled in the arid Sinai wilderness?"
It's interesting that Israel still claims "ownership" of the Biblical site of Sinai and its mount, when the Bible account of the exodus (which they admit as being the only account) clearly stated that Sinai was in Arabia. (Exodus 3:1,12; Galatians 4:24,25) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midian
The Bible Unearthed. Archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its sacred texts .Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.
Did the Exodus happen? Was there a conquest of Canaan? Did David and Solomon actually rule over a vast empire?
These are some of the complex problems of biblical redactions and biblical history.
Blueblades
There is from a scientific and academic perspective something very wrong with much of Biblical archaeology and Biblical scholarship: the conclusion is already present before the evidence begins.
The notion that the Bible stands alone as a divine creation is at the bottom of both of these areas of 'learning'. To discover contrary evidence would dismiss the whole religious experience whereas that is the very purpose of Biblical research; to prove to one and all that God is behind it.
The real solution in overcoming these defects of bias which is now pursued by the academic researchers, is a deliberately non-partisan investigation of the archaeology and text (epigraphy) evidence but does not use myth as part of that evidence. The archaeologists Silberman and Finkelstein (mentioned above) have done a sterling job in not only demonstrating that there was no exodus but have given a cogent explanation how the myth came about.
I'm sure we are aware that the rewards religious people grant themselves is the pride in their faith. Pride of course is a dubious quality and faith is inherently misapplied to the imagined author of the Bible and its magic stories.
There are two bubble bursters, both historians and epigraphists who to my (limited) knowledge stand out as significant in separating "Bible faith" momentum from the historical viewpoint, they are Thomas L Thompson and John van Seters. I have read extensively Thompson's works on the Levantine inscriptions and early Jewish history, and van Seters was very important in overturning time honoured Biblical assumptions.
Israel today is a secular state, however most Jews still enjoy being emotionally and culturally bound up with its foundation myths justifying its existence. True or not, the stories are given a function in everyday life in Israel.
The Holy Bible= Jewish Mythology written by Jewish men about the Jewish nation.
Once you read the bible after accepting ttatt the more you will realize that it is nothing more than lore and legend!
ttatt also opens our eyes to ttatb (the truth about the bible)
just saying!
Try telling all this to an Evangelical, however.
Impervious.
The mind of a JW: sealed.
Ah, I was there. I know. So were we all--once.
Awful, isn't it? A clogged drain for a brain.
