Posts by City Fan

55

Adam and Eve.....and Egypt

by gumby in

how many of you believe in the adam and eve story?

how many of you believe the bible explanation as to ...why we are suffering and dying?

to begin with, the legend of

I think books such as Maccabees, Jubilees, Esdras etc can give us a lot of good background information and expansion of the biblical narratives. To show how important these books were to the Jews it is interesting to note that, at Qumran, 15 or 16 copies of the book of Jubilees were found compared to say 1 copy of Ezra and 8 of Daniel. In fact from the dead sea scrolls only more copies have been found of Isaiah, Psalms and Deutoronomy than of Jubilees.

Why were we not taught this fascinating stuff at the KH?

You're so right. At least here we can all question each other and put forward ideas without fear of getting DF'd. I've learnt so much more about biblical history and background since leaving than I ever did at those repetitive meetings.

55

Adam and Eve.....and Egypt

by gumby in

how many of you believe in the adam and eve story?

how many of you believe the bible explanation as to ...why we are suffering and dying?

to begin with, the legend of

City Fan

Hi there aguest.

I think you've used a lot of assumptions and guesswork in your post. I don't think someone like yourself who believes in a literal global flood and someone like myself who believes it to have been a localized flood will ever agree on the details of this subject. And I don't think you have really understood any of my arguments but that could be my fault!

A map depicting what era? I again refer you to my question: what were the boundaries of those days?

Of course I know that in ancient times the Turkish/Armenian border did not exist, I'm simply asking you to look at a modern map at this area as that is where mount Ararat is. And unless mountains have moved since, then that is where it was millenia ago. By all means try and find a more ancient map but you'll find the positions of Ararat and Babylon exactly the same. Bounderies may move, but cities and mountains don't.

And since there was water all throughout that region, it would be logical to assume that initially folks settled where there was water... that there would have been settlements down the entire valley... which veers east... yes?

Well no actually. The Tigris valley runs north/south. To go from Babylon to Nineveh you would travel almost directly north.

would not such travel southeast be constituted as "east"? Because the only directions used for those times were east, west, south and north...

Well if as you said Nimrod travelled north to get back to where they first settled then they would have travelled south to get to Babylon in the first place. Wouldn't they? By your argument southeast could just as easily mean south. In response to my evidence from the Greek Septuagint translation you wrote:

THEY (the Masoretes) were supposedly the "experts"... from the time of Moses. THEY vehemently disagreed with the Septuagint... to the point of writing commentary on the discrepancies called the "Masorah" or "Masoretic Text."

The Masoretic text doesn't disagree with the Septaguint on this verse. You have two possible translations from the Maroretic 'from the east' or 'eastward' but what I am saying is that 1000 years or so before the Masoretic text Hebrew scribes had already translated this verse into Greek as 'from the east'. You could also say that the Masoretes had their own agenda as can be shown by their change to Deutoronomy 32:8, for example, to hide it's polytheistic origins. But that's another topic.

who are we to believe? The Greek-speaking Jews who said the Hebrew writings said one thing, or the Hebrew speaking Jews who said it said another?

Considering the 70 or so Jews who translated the text into the Greek Septaguint were Hebrew scholars from Israel, I can't see the point of this argument. The next part of your argument is all guesswork and supposition and again the geography is all wrong. Again have a look at a map and see where Nineveh lies in relation to Babylon. For my argument about there not being enough time for populations to grow to the point at which several cities could be built you wrote:

Shem... begat Arpachshad when he was 100... two years after the flood (so, he was 98 at the time of the flood)... and was 135 when Arpachshad begat Shelah... and 165 when Shelah begat Eber... and was 199 when Eber begat Peleg. So, we've got just under 200 years, right there.

I think you'll find there are only 101 years from the flood to the birth of Peleg, not 200.

Even so, the others would have been built DURING his kingdom. And seeing that the languages were thereafter so confused that the people left off from building and were scattered, would imply that the others were built BEFORE the Tower at Babel. Because once the Tower started... and languages were thereafter confused... he would have had quite a time building the others.

This is exactly my point. How could such a small band of wanderers build all these cities or even towns in such a short space of time. So I'm not sure why you half quoted me as saying " As for growing to a size where they CAN travel" when my full sentence said "where they can travel westward and build 6 cities", my point again being that there was not enough time for them to build these cities.

55

Adam and Eve.....and Egypt

by gumby in

how many of you believe in the adam and eve story?

how many of you believe the bible explanation as to ...why we are suffering and dying?

to begin with, the legend of

City Fan

Hi there LT

I would have to disagree with you, but not with 100% certainty!!!

Yes he could have been renamed during his lifetime, but why only him?? Weren't other people alive when this event occured. It's just a bit more logical (to me anyway) to say that Peleg would be given that name at birth to remember an event that had just happened, or even maybe that had happened within a few years of his birth. If it happened towards the end of his life say in his 180th year then surely it would be too late to have renamed himself?

By the way LT we share something in common!

All the best!

87

Who are the A/As on the board?

by starfish422 in

not alcoholics anonymous, mind you.

:) atheists/agnostics.

i know there are some of us here; who's with me?

City Fan

I'm agnostic with a bit of Taoism thrown in. Works for me.

55

Adam and Eve.....and Egypt

by gumby in

how many of you believe in the adam and eve story?

how many of you believe the bible explanation as to ...why we are suffering and dying?

to begin with, the legend of

City Fan

Hello Aguest,

So? how are which to know which is true? ?as men migrated FROM the east,? or ?as men migrated eastward??

Yes I would use common sense. Whichever is used, they are both wrong. The region of Ararat is almost due north of Babylon. When I said it was also a little east of Babylon I meant it was a very little east of Babylon. Look at a map and see where the Turkish/Armenian border lies in respect to Babylon. Also, as you correctly stated, Nimrod would have gone 'North' to build Nineveh even though Nineveh is farther west than Ararat! To travel from Ararat to Mesopotamia you would have to travel down the Euphrates valley which runs North/South.

It is interesting to note that the Septuagint translation 250BCE of the Hebrew into Greek renders the translation ?from the east?. I would think these Greek speaking Hebrews would know the correct translation of this verse.

I would also choose to use ?from the east? as a correct translation as it is far easier to travel from the east towards Babylon than eastward across the Jordanian/Syrian deserts.

because from the Mesopotamian valley, where Noah and sons first settled

Could you give me the bible verse reference for this statement?

I would say that based on what is written? it would have been the descendants of Shem.

You?re right. One of Shem?s descendants was Elam which is a region of Persia .

Why do you think this? Is the distance that great?

I?m not really talking about distances but numbers. Let me give you an example. If Peleg was named in memory of the division of languages at Babel then this event, according to the bible, occurred in the first 100 years (give or take a year) after the flood. Even with very rapid population growth we?re only talking about a couple of thousand people alive by this stage. What I?m saying is that for a group of people to migrate east, settle, then grow to a size where they can travel westward and build 6 cities, it would take a much longer time period than 100 years. Not only does Nimrod, or someone else, organise this small group of people to start to built the tower of Babel but even when they have been scattered across the earth he can still build Nineveh and several other cities.

By the way, do you think God?s idea of confusing languages at Babel to stop mankind doing ?whatever they proposed to do? actually worked?

6

The Israelites never escaped captivity.

by Makaveli in

jw
friends

a major event accepted by christians, jews and muslims around the world is that moses led an exodus from the clutches of pharoah and egypt into the promised land.

many doubters of this story conclude that this was merely a peasants revolt, not one led by some kind of god.

fortunately, we have new evidence that suggests otherwise.

City Fan

Hi there Makaveli

These tablets shown that the so called promised land of Canaan during the supposed time of the exodus was a province of Egypt ; therefore IF the Israelites had managed to flee from Pharoah, just managing to get away from his army after the parting of the Red Sea, they would have simply been passing from one Egyptian ruled province to the next.

Not only that but the Amarna letters show that the city states of Canaan were also pathetically weak. In one of these letters from the king of Megiddo to Pharoah, he asks for only 100 Egyptian troops to protect him from an attack by the king of Shechem. The Egyptians had several garrisons in the area including Galilee and Jaffa and it's difficult to see them standing by as a group of refugees from Egypt conquered these cities one by one. In fact the only independent reference to the Israelites at this time is the Merneptah victory stele which shows how Egypt defeated the Israelites.

Archaeological evidence shows that city states at this time had little or no defences, simply because the area was protected by a series of Egyptian forts in northern Sinai.

55

Adam and Eve.....and Egypt

by gumby in

how many of you believe in the adam and eve story?

how many of you believe the bible explanation as to ...why we are suffering and dying?

to begin with, the legend of

City Fan

Gen 10:25 could refer to dividing of peoples at Babel but could refer to dividing the earth itself by water. The verb Peleg is translated as stream or channel and an archipelago are many islands divided by water. The word 'earth' here could mean land or ground.

I've seen a flood apologist argument that follows this line of thinking. God's command to multiply and fill the earth would have been a lot easier if sea levels were considerably lower than today's levels. There would then be land bridges between continents now separated by water. Once people had crossed these land bridges then sea levels rose and the earth was divided.

During the last ice age a land bridge appeared between North America and Asia. Sea levels have risen over 300m since the end of this ice age creating islands and separating continents.

If we stick to the traditional way of interpreting this verse then he was named Peleg to remember the dividing of the earth and its peoples and languages at Babel. I don't think the division could have been after his birth as he would be given that name by his father Eber at birth or just after. So according to the bible the division of language at Babel happened sometime in the first 100 years after the flood.

The geographical problem remains that the men who built Babel migrated from the east which was from the wrong direction.

55

Adam and Eve.....and Egypt

by gumby in

how many of you believe in the adam and eve story?

how many of you believe the bible explanation as to ...why we are suffering and dying?

to begin with, the legend of

City Fan

AGuest,

so that the languages were confused most probably during the third generation... that of Nimrod... if not, during the second generation (Cush)...

Let's just go with your assumptions for a moment. What you are saying is that the tower of Babel was built by Noah's sons and some of his grandsons. Is this what Genesis 11 tells us?

Genesis 11:2 says "And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there." According to the bible there was no one else on the earth apart from Noah's family. But there is a problem with the geography of this verse. To get from the region of Ararat to the plains of Shinar they would have travelled south/south-east, Ararat being north and a little west of Babylon. So who were these 'men' who migrated from the east?

Which of Noah's decendants went east? Well according to Genesis chapter 10 Japheth became the father of the coastland peoples of Ionia. Ham became father to the peoples of Egypt, Ethiopia and Canaan. Shem's decendants correspond to the peoples of the near east including Elam, Assyria and Aram (Syria). We can only assume then that decendants of Shem would have travelled far enough east to be the men who migrated from the east to settle in Shinar. This would have taken many, many generations not two or three.

This also fits in well with verses such as Genesis 10:32 which says "These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations; and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood."

According to this verse mankind spread across the earth after the flood not after babel.

13

The abomination that causes desolation

by Blue in

good afternoon everyone,.

does anyone know what daniel the prophet meant when he talked about the abomination that causes desolation?

the book says that when we come to understand what the abomination that causes desolation is to flee to the mountains.

City Fan

Here's part of an essay I wrote on Daniel chapter 11.

After his defeat by the Romans, Antiochus IV turned his attention to the province of Judea. Antiochus sold the office of high priest and persecuted the Jewish people to conform to Greek culture, faith and traditions. He set up an image of Zeus at the temple altar, demanded sacrifice to it and later desecrated the temple by sacrificing a pig on it. 1 Maccabees 1:57 states that "On the fifteenth day of the month of Casleu, in the hundred and forty-fifth year, king Antiochus set up the abominable idol of desolation upon the altar of God". This date was in December 167BCE.

Most of Daniel 11 is a precise summary of the Syrian wars between Egypt and the Seleucid empire up until the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, written in a visionary style common with Jewish writers of the time. The writer then gets in trouble by trying to predict the end of Antiochus and gets his death completely wrong.

The book of Daniel is similar to many of the Dead Sea Scrolls such as the Habakuk Commentary where the author takes earlier bible prophecies and applies them to his particular time period i.e. the second century BCE. These authors also believed they were in the 'last days'. So at Daniel 11:30 the author is saying that the 'ships of Kittim' prophecy at Numbers 24:24 was fullfilled when the Roman fleet under Caius Popilius Laenas destroyed Antiochus IV Epiphanes fleet in 168BCE. So these verses are meant to be fullfillment of prophecy rather than being prophecy about the future.

Basically the abomination was the pig sacrifice and temple desecration, and has nothing to do with any other event.

55

Adam and Eve.....and Egypt

by gumby in

how many of you believe in the adam and eve story?

how many of you believe the bible explanation as to ...why we are suffering and dying?

to begin with, the legend of

City Fan

AGuest

The reason there are similarities is LANGUAGE - prior to Babel, the people spoke ONE LANGUAGE

Really? The account in Genesis 11:2 says that the people who built the tower of Babel "journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there." These people must have been the decendents of Noah whose generations were recorded in the previous chapter.

Genesis 10:2-4 records the names of the sons and grandsons of Japheth before verse 5 says "From these the coastland peoples spread. These are the sons of Japheth in their lands, each with his own language, by their families, in their nations."

So according to the biblical account not only did the people of the earth have different languages before babel but they had also spread across the earth.

As for the Genesis creation account try reading Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 and then stop. Then read Genesis 2:4 to the end of chapter 3. You'll find two different creation accounts. The first uses only Elohim for god and the second uses only Yahweh Elohim. The order of creation in the first story is PLANTS - ANIMALS - MAN & WOMAN and the order of creation from Genesis 2:4 is MAN - PLANTS - ANIMALS - WOMAN.

Also look at how the second creation story starts at Genesis 2:4 "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created". The first five words of this phrase are used 10 times in Genesis and always introduce stories about particular families e.g "these are the generations of Isaac". This verse suggests that heaven and earth were deities who had offspring. To the Egyptians heaven and earth were the dieties Geb (earth) and Nut (heaven) who had three sons Osirus, Horus and Set (Seth). The feuds between Adam and the serpent and Cain and Abel were based on the feuds between Osiris and the serpent Set. In the Egyptian Osiris Cycle the god Re is shown bruising the head of the serpent Set.

The genesis accounts are a good attempt to give a monotheistic view of previous polytheistic creation myths, but verses such as Genesis 2:4 show their true source.