Abraham and Jewish History?!?

[theVOID]

I went to a friend of mine, a biblical scholar, and he asked me a powerful question; Why should we not believe Abraham existed?

Because there is no evidence for his existence...

People want evidence for Abraham's existence, but isnt that absurd?

I am the spokesman of the one true god of the universe and you should worship him or you are going to burn and scream and suffer forever.

Want evidence? Too fucking bad, wanting evidence is absurd.

Should we expect evidence?

Yes.

My skeptic mind had no answer,

You don't have a skeptical mind.

after all, there are large gaps in history, massive gaps, perhaps we should be a little more careful when dismiss historical characters, such as Abraham?

For fucks sake...

Do you believe that every character from every story set in the past exists?

And do you not just see the fallacy you committed? Hint, you put it into italics. It's called a bare assertion.

Another thing to take into consideration, is the fact that the Jews had a very very very strong oral tradition. We should NOT dismiss oral, espicially if there is no reason too.

1. Every fucking culture in times of pre-literacy had a strong oral tradition. Because of this do you believe every story passed down from pre-literate cultures?

2. We DO NOT believe things because we have no reason not to believe them, we believe things because there are good reasons to believe.

Oral tradition is what people used, a fine example of this is the rainbow serpent, in Aboriginal's mythology they believe a rainbow serpent created Australia (or the world?) we know they believe this through oral tradition, they didnt write, they drew and had symbols.

And do you believe because of this that a serpent created Australia, or that they believed a serpent created Australia? I already know the answer.

And that right there is your double standard...

From oral tradition we know they believed in a guy called Abraham, that DOES NOT meant that Abraham actually existed.

we take their oral traiditions as being credible

No we fucking don't, only you do, and at the same time you reject the oral traditions of every other ancient culture that doesn't already agree with you.

The double standards you have are beyond ridiculous.

However, for some reason, people dismiss the Bible as quick as they can,

*yawn*

and largely have no reason why,

Because there is no fucking evidence for any of the most important claims that it makes.

they dismiss Jewish history (Although they dont dismiss other culture's history) as being 'made up' by the Religous leaders,

STRAW MAN ALERT.

I do not dismiss Jewish history, I dismiss the claims made for which there is no reason to believe.

I dismiss all other such claims made by any other group equally.

being copied from the Epic of Gilgamesh

Noah's ark might stem from Gilgamesh it might not, that has nothing to do with why I believe the story is complete bullshit. Case and point being all of the other cultures who amazingly survived through the flood period with no fucking mention of it, not even in their oral traditions, which of course you don't dismiss because they are so inherently reliable...

Why should we believe that Abraham did not exist?

Because there is no good reason to believe he existed. If you think that the fact a character or claim is part of an oral tradition is a good reason to believe it is true then to be consistent you would have to believe in the existence of every fucking character and every claim from every oral tradition ever to exist.

You are the epitome of the double standard.

[Cerrone]

lets talk about this. I am writing an essay on Romans 13 (obeying the law) it is rather fascinating...

If you've got something on your mind, let's hear it.

Where is your EMPIRICAL evidence, that Socrates existed?

I could ask the same about Jesus, Moses, Abraham and god. I can't believe you that it like that, wasn't it obvious that'd be my answer?

If all men raped women, it wouldnt be a sterotype, since all men dont rape women...

If ALL men did, then they would. My point was that entire nations christians have done horrible things, and that christian behaviour encourages that stuff i.e indifference, delusion and passivity towards your own government or institutions whilst at the same time venting their hatred on the enemies of their government (and it follows through today, look how you so readily condemn muslims). The reason it that socially it comes back to the absence of people taking responsibility for themselves and being indifferent to the crimes others commit, when if they took responsibility they could prevent them. This in itself is encouraged by christianity; a cowardly christian when he obeys his bible will turn the other cheek when he see's a man beating up another man and won't try to intervene, and that's just taking the easy way out like so much other selfish "moral guidance" christianity offers up.

Are you like modern readers, who dismiss all the crimes in the world committed by pagan and other religions, but when a Christians does something you go, 'OMG look Christians are evil!' Mongolia had a lot of Christians (dare I say Christian soldiers), however, it wasnt Christian, Christians under Islam regime gladly accepted the Mongols as their new leaders, is that a problem?

What pagan crimes are you talking about? It wasn't pagans and polythesists who forced people to believe in their religion, it wasn't them who killed and tortured anybody who disagreed or refused to convert, and it wasn't them that caused all the problems in the world. Look at the history when christianity came to power in Rome, it was followed by the Dark Ages of brutal warfare, poverty and plauge when tried and tested herbal medicene of the ancient world was denounced as witchcraft by the church and people were ordered to pray to god to become cured of illness and disease... and it didnt work.

I'm still surprised that you keep bringing up the Mongols to try and validate christianity... have you ever even read a history book? The Mongols were an "empire" of nomadic butchers and thieves who took great delight in slaughtering and robbing first from the chinese and then the other tribes and cultures around asia. And because a handful of them were christian you think this makes them any better?

In any case.. in answer to

when a Christians does something you go, 'OMG look Christians are evil!'

You judge a man by his actions; that's where I was coming from, and it is a fact that because christianity teaches man that god made the world to exploit and that all non-christians are devil worhsippers that the behaviour trend of christians has been to exploit and murder ceaselessly.

If that was your answer, it wasnt historical or archaeological, it was a theological answer...

---

Yes and no; it was a personal ideological answer (dare I say political) based on anthropology and historical evidence. But theological? I don't think so lol.

[Minimalist]

How so?

Dare to learn!


http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Ar...0684869136

In "The Bible Unearthed," Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman display a rare talent among scholars--the ability to make specialized research accessible to a general audience. In this book the authors reveal how recent archaeological research forces us to reconsider the historical account woven into the Hebrew Bible. Among the conclusions they draw are:

1) The tales of patriarchs such as Abraham are largely legends composed long after the time in which they supposedly took place. This is seen in anachronisms such as the use of camels, not domesticated in the Near East until nearly 1000 years after Abraham's time, in many of the stories.

2) There is good reason to believe that the Exodus never happened. Had migrants to the number of even a small fraction of the 600,000 claimed in the Bible truly sojourned in the Sinai Peninsula for 40 years, archaeological evidence of their passage would be abundant. In fact, there are no traces of any signifant group living in the Sinai at the supposed time of the Exodus.

3) The Israelite "conquest" of Canaan, such as there was, was far from the military invasion of the books of Joshua and Judges. Many of the cities described as being conquered and destroyed did not even exist at the time, while those that did were small, unfortified villages, with no walls to be brought down, by blowing trumpets or otherwise.

4) While there is evidence that a historical David existed, and founded some sort of ruling dynasty known by his name, there is good reason to believe that he did not rule over the powerful united monarchy described in II Samuel. One reason for doubt: Jerusalem, portrayed as the great capital of a prosperous nation, was during the time of David little more than a village.

5) Neither Israel nor Judah emerged as organized kingdoms until significantly after the supposed period of the united monarchy. Israel does not appear as a recognizable kingdom until the time of the Omrides of the 9th century BCE, while Judah does not appear as such until the late 8th century BCE, at the time of kings Ahaz and Hezekiah.

[theVOID]

I think I have my next book on the "to read" list

Cheers Min.

[Minimalist]

When doing so it is important to remember one thing. Finkelstein's assessment of the origin of these stories is done by political and archaeological realities of the time. There was a political entity centered on Jerusalem. As a convention Finkelstein refers to the name of this king as "Josiah" but we have no evidence in the record that such a person existed. Finkelstein uses the territorial ambition of Jerusalem's king ( whoever he might have been ) in the waning of the Assyrian empire as the basis for his conflict with 26th dynasty Egypt. However, we have nothing to indicate that these people were at all "Jewish" as the term later came to be defined. They were Canaanites probably ( but not certainly) using a henotheistic system in which Yahweh was the primary god, consorting with Asherah, and with other members of the Canaanite pantheon hanging around.

"Judaism" at such and at best seems to have been a product of the Persian-era policy of replacing Babylonian overlords with their own. These people were given a story to justify their position as rulers of the new Persian province of Yehud and from there came all the other horseshit as the priests wrote themselves into the existing folklore of the land.

However, Finkelstein's basic premise remains sound. Other than the late 7th century BCE it is hard to find a time when Egypt and the "Kingdom of Judah" were competitors...let alone enemies in the first millenium.

[solja247]

I'll ask this again. Who takes the the dreamtime credibly? Who is this "we" that thinks it is true?

Its not a very good example. I am not sure what other cultures had oral history (I imagine the Egyptians and other empires would of, untill writing became a more efficent way to transcribe history)
I believe 100% that the Aboriginals believed that the rainbow serpent created their world they lived (and sprits). I also believe in the time of Moses a Jew already knew the story of the garden of Eden, as it was passed down by oral tradition.

---

Because there is no evidence for his existence...

Why?
Give me evidence of other people who lived 4000 years ago, we know very little historical figures back then...

You don't have a skeptical mind.

I am slightly skeptical, I used to be more, but I realiesd that being a skeptic was infutile and pointless, I saw the light

1. Every fucking culture in times of pre-literacy had a strong oral tradition. Because of this do you believe every story passed down from pre-literate cultures?

I believe there is an essense of truth...

No we fucking don't, only you do, and at the same time you reject the oral traditions of every other ancient culture that doesn't already agree with you.

Like what?

Case and point being all of the other cultures who amazingly survived through the flood period with no fucking mention of it, not even in their oral traditions, which of course you don't dismiss because they are so inherently reliable...

I dont really know if I believe in a litteral flood but a lot of other cultures DO have a flood story...

If you've got something on your mind, let's hear it.

Romans 13:1-7 is addressing that although, Christians have to obey God and citzens of God's kingdom, Christians thought they didnt have to obey the law or their Roman rulers, Paul says they have to and even goes as far as too say they are set up by God. Paul says this for political civility, not so much saying that if you speed or disobey the emporer, you will go to hell, but so that Christians didnt think they were above the law, thats the jist of it. When I finish my essay I would be happy to share it...
If you want more information read James Dunn's commentary on Romans...

The idea of eternal hell, which you said before, is a pagan belief, the bible does not support this idea in zero verses...More Christians are seeing that hell according to the bible, is a place where the 'bad' people go and are destroyed for all eternity...

Thats just a summary, I can expand if you want me too...

I could ask the same about Jesus, Moses, Abraham and god. I can't believe you that it like that, wasn't it obvious that'd be my answer?

If people want to dismiss a historical Jesus, they should dismiss Socrates, he has even less evidence of existing than Jesus...

What pagan crimes are you talking about? It wasn't pagans and polythesists who forced people to believe in their religion, it wasn't them who killed and tortured anybody who disagreed or refused to convert, and it wasn't them that caused all the problems in the world. Look at the history when christianity came to power in Rome, it was followed by the Dark Ages of brutal warfare, poverty and plauge when tried and tested herbal medicene of the ancient world was denounced as witchcraft by the church and people were ordered to pray to god to become cured of illness and disease... and it didnt work.

Christians in the Persian empire were largely persecuted by Zorostrian preists. Some pagans would kill their children and sacrifice it to their gods, do you think Christianity is worse than that?

And because a handful of them were christian you think this makes them any better?

I never said that. My point was that Christians held a lot of power in Mongolia and did not persecute any religions...

You judge a man by his actions; that's where I was coming from, and it is a fact that because christianity teaches man that god made the world to exploit and that all non-christians are devil worhsippers that the behaviour trend of christians has been to exploit and murder ceaselessly.

Not at all. Where does it say we should exploit the world?
Note: Use the Hebrew word, not the English word...

Dare to learn!

Like wise

2) There is good reason to believe that the Exodus never happened. Had migrants to the number of even a small fraction of the 600,000 claimed in the Bible truly sojourned in the Sinai Peninsula for 40 years, archaeological evidence of their passage would be abundant. In fact, there are no traces of any signifant group living in the Sinai at the supposed time of the Exodus.

Actually there is a case that 600,000 people is a mistranslation. That, infact, it should be, '600 families.' Which would make the number about 20,000 not 600,000 men...

When doing so it is important to remember one thing. Finkelstein's assessment of the origin of these stories is done by political and archaeological realities of the time. There was a political entity centered on Jerusalem. As a convention Finkelstein refers to the name of this king as "Josiah" but we have no evidence in the record that such a person existed.

lol. evidence? the skeptics will always dimiss everything unless there is evidence! There is no Hitites! There was no David! There was no X,Y or Z.
Did the Hitities come into existence after 20th century? or had they been there all along?

Minimalist, do you know how they differentiate between a Jew and a non-Jew establishment?

[theVOID]

I am not sure what other cultures had oral history (I imagine the Egyptians and other empires would of, untill writing became a more efficent way to transcribe history)

All cultures that survived and that we know anything about in times of pre-literacy necessarily had an oral tradition... Did you really even need to ask that question? About two seconds of rational thought devised that answer, oh wait, you're incapable of rationality, nevermind.

I believe 100% that the Aboriginals believed that the rainbow serpent created their world they lived (and sprits).

And I believe 100% that the Jews believed they had an ancestor called Abraham... What's your point?

I also believe in the time of Moses a Jew already knew the story of the garden of Eden, as it was passed down by oral tradition.

Sure, and that has absolfuckinglutely nothing to do with whether or not such a thing actually happened.

[Cerrone]

I am slightly skeptical, I used to be more, but I realiesd that being a skeptic was infutile and pointless, I saw the light

In other words you caved into the pressure of the instituations around you.

Romans 13:1-7 is addressing that although, Christians have to obey God and citzens of God's kingdom, Christians thought they didnt have to obey the law or their Roman rulers, Paul says they have to and even goes as far as too say they are set up by God. Paul says this for political civility, not so much saying that if you speed or disobey the emporer, you will go to hell, but so that Christians didnt think they were above the law, thats the jist of it. When I finish my essay I would be happy to share it...
If you want more information read James Dunn's commentary on Romans...

The idea of eternal hell, which you said before, is a pagan belief, the bible does not support this idea in zero verses...More Christians are seeing that hell according to the bible, is a place where the 'bad' people go and are destroyed for all eternity...

Thats just a summary, I can expand if you want me too...

Thats utterly bizzare and proves my point about christians being bound by a doctrine teaching them to blindly follow their rulers as passive slaves.

Eternal hell is not a pagan belief, find me a couple of pagan religions around the levant who thought that, because I can tell you with absolute sincerity that the egyptians didn't think that, and no other religion had more influence on the damn hebrews than theirs.

If people want to dismiss a historical Jesus, they should dismiss Socrates, he has even less evidence of existing than Jesus...

Unlike jesus, Socrates actually wrote things down and left a legacy spanning from Greece to Nubia and Iberia.

Christians in the Persian empire were largely persecuted by Zorostrian preists. Some pagans would kill their children and sacrifice it to their gods, do you think Christianity is worse than that?

The Zoroastrian persecution of christians only existed after Rome converted its empire to christianity, and throughout the time Rome was constantly at war with the Persians/Syrians/Parthians. The Persians were suspicious of christians living in their cities in the same way that an open communist living in America during the cold war would have been considered suspicious.

And as for you saying "some pagans would kill christians children"
LOL
"asians can't drive the kind of stereotyping you're doing here" you said to me before.

I never said that. My point was that Christians held a lot of power in Mongolia and did not persecute any religions...

You didnt say that at all; the wikipedia evidence you provided said that the Mongol raiders -some of whom may have been christian- slaughtered the entire population of cities and settlements they targeted and when they came upon a christian who had surrendered in these settlements they spared its life. So they murdered everybody regardless of religion and then showed favoritism to christians. Sounds like genocice with a pro-christian bias to me.

Not at all. Where does it say we should exploit the world?
Note: Use the Hebrew word, not the English word...

Not even worth continuing this line of debate, you obviously haven't understood the message of monothesium or christianity and how it differed from polytheist religions.

Feel free to explain the hebrew and the enlglish words, i'm a mere roman gentile and haven't seen fit to learn hebrew. If they'd only make some books worth reading i might be more inclined...

Minimalist, do you know how they differentiate between a Jew and a non-Jew establishment?

does this joke end with ...and the barman says "get the fuck out!!" ?

[theVOID]

Why?
Give me evidence of other people who lived 4000 years ago, we know very little historical figures back then...

Hang on buddy, i'm not the one claiming that some character from pre-history actually existed, you are.

I don't give a shit who lived or who was myth, they all mean fuck all to me. Even if there is no evidence for a single character in pre history that doesn't make the pathetically weak case for Abraham existing any stronger.

Look at Zoroaster for example, we have copies of the 18 poems of the Avesta central to his religion which credit him with authorship, which is still 1000 years after he supposedly lived, as well as accoutns from many authors in 500BCE~27AD talking of the religion and their speaking of the founder being Zoroaster. There is archaeological evidence for a civilisation of Persian descent living in central asia in the area described in the religious stories passed down

This is fuck all evidence that allows us only a rough idea that there lived a religious proto-iranian culture in central asia from 2000-1500BCE of whom the later descendents claimed that a "Zoroaster" founded their religion. This is fuck all, and the details of the religion are almost entirely myth, but it's still more evidence for Zoroaster than we have for Abraham.

I am slightly skeptical, I used to be more, but I realiesd that being a skeptic was infutile and pointless, I saw the light

So you went from being skeptical to believing the contents of stories passed down from primitive, barbaric, sand-dwelling illiterate Jews living in bronze age pallestine for which there is no evidence at all for the vast majority of it ever having happened?

And you think skepticism is futile...



Skepticism is a standard that evaluates evidence to deem it sufficient in forming a conclusion or warranting a belief. It's not futile, unless you suffer from some emotional insecurity that makes you think you desperately need to believe these stupid fucking mythology is true.

I believe there is an essense of truth...

Right... so do I, to the extend that I believe that there were cultures that believe certain things based on their stories passed down from generation to generation, most of which were obvious allegory and never intended to be taken as being factually accurate. Beyond that there is no reason at all to think that any specific event or character in the stories happened at all and even less reason to favour any one account from any one culture as being more reliable than any other.

Like what?

Any other culture at all from pre-literacy. The chinese, the egyptians, the greeks, the polynesians, the afrikaans etc. None of these cultural traditions is any more reliable than any other.

The fact that you take jewish tradition seriously for no other reason that it agrees with your chosen religion just demonstrates that your intellectual incompetence is of epic proportions.

I dont really know if I believe in a litteral flood but a lot of other cultures DO have a flood story...

Yeah and 1) they all lived to talk about it 2) None of the floods were global 3) They all take place at different times with a few exceptions (of which the Jews are not part). The story in the Torah can't possibly be true if the global flood happened, because according to the silly Jewish tradition only a handful of people lived.

It's clearly bullshit made up gradually over a few thousand years and taken way too seriously by a bunch of primitive, unthinking asshats that managed to convince generation after generation to blindly accept all this bullshit as true with absolutely no fucking reason to do so, right up to you in 2010 half-thinking that a global flood actually happened and willing to accept all sorts of stupid ancient myths all in the name of being consistent with your acceptance of the even more stupid Abraham myths.

How does your brain not implode whilst attempting to reconcile all of this nonsense and failing to avoid the egregious double standards waiting at every turn?

[Minimalist]

Give me evidence of other people who lived 4000 years ago, we know very little historical figures back then...

4,000 years ago is c 2000 BC. Answer: Egyptians, Nubians, Canaanites, Sumerians, Phoenicians, Akkadians, Elamites, Hurrians, Chinese, Peruvians (Caral), Jomons ( Japan), the Aspero and Valdivian cultures on the West Coast of South America, Australinan aborigines, Paleo-Indians (North America), Syrians, Hittites, Minoans (Crete), Mycenaeans (Greece), Kassites (Persians), The Bell Beaker culture in Western Europe, just to name a few.


I realize you are looking for accounts of individuals but there are two points about this. One, in some of the cultures which left written records we have this information, most notably about Egypt. But the second point is that these peoples left their impressions IN THE GROUND. We have their artifacts.

The Jews are fiction prior to the Persian period ( 530 BC). We have the fables they stole from other cultures or the lies they told about themselves and their god but there is NOTHING in the ground which suggests that they ever existed until the Persians invented them.

Dare to learn.