Scripture and History, the same or different?

[polonius]

I am again introducing a topic which might have reader interest. Or not.

The question being addressed is if history and scripture are compatible. Is what scripture tells us happened really historical true?

Any thoughts?

[For_The_Kingdom]

Where did the Jews live before they had been captured and enslaved by the Egyptians?

Your question is loaded. The Jews were never "captured and enslaved" by the Egyptians. And just to have a little fun with it, I will ask you; where in the Bible does it say that the Jews were "captured and enslaved by the Egyptians".

[Divine Insight]

Where did the Jews live before they had been captured and enslaved by the Egyptians?

Your question is loaded. The Jews were never "captured and enslaved" by the Egyptians. And just to have a little fun with it, I will ask you; where in the Bible does it say that the Jews were "captured and enslaved by the Egyptians".

So where did the Jews come from originally then? Are you claiming that the Jews are actually Egyptians?

[For_The_Kingdom]

Where did the Jews live before they had been captured and enslaved by the Egyptians?

Your question is loaded. The Jews were never "captured and enslaved" by the Egyptians. And just to have a little fun with it, I will ask you; where in the Bible does it say that the Jews were "captured and enslaved by the Egyptians".

So where did the Jews come from originally then? Are you claiming that the Jews are actually Egyptians?

If you actually wipe the dust off your Bible and read it, you will see that the Israelites wound up in Egypt after Joseph's brothers sold him to some Egyptians..and later on after Joseph became the second most powerful person in the land (second to Pharaoh), he sent for his father Jacob (who was living in Canaan) and his brothers and their entire families.

Then 400+ years later after the Israelites living in Egypt had multiplied and became numerous, that is when they were forced into slavery. That is how they wound up in Egypt.

No charge for the education my man.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 13 by For_The_Kingdom]

Then the Bible makes no sense.

Returning home would hardly be "The Promised Land".

So these fables don't make any sense. The story isn't coherent. Which comes as no surprise to me.

You have still failed to explain where the rest of the Jews were during all this time.

So you haven't resolved anything. The problem still remains.

You also haven't resolved the problem of a God who commands men "Thou shalt not kill" and then turns right back around and commands them to commit complete genocide including the killing of women and children.

So no soup for you. You haven't resolved anything.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

The question is a bit misplaced; after all, we could ask, is Herodotus and history compatible? Most historians will say "yes and no". That is, after careful analysis they consider some portions to be historical and some not.

And even then, you can ask of a modern historian, "Is he/she compatible with history?" and you will equally get mixed answers by his/her peers.

The attempt to pit "real history" against "biblical accounts of history" is not taken seriously by real historians. The whole idea of "real history" is, by them, largely considered a myth.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

The question is a bit misplaced; after all, we could ask, is Herodotus and history compatible? Most historians will say "yes and no". That is, after careful analysis they consider some portions to be historical and some not.

And even then, you can ask of a modern historian, "Is he/she compatible with history?" and you will equally get mixed answers by his/her peers.

The attempt to pit "real history" against "biblical accounts of history" is not taken seriously by real historians. The whole idea of "real history" is, by them, largely considered a myth.

The problem with your approach is that you are comparing secular history with a religious mythology that claims to be about a supernatural omnipotent God who is supposedly trying to communicate with humans to make humans understand that they must either obey his directives and commandments lest they will be condemned to death or far worse.

There's simply no comparison there.

A God who is going to condemn people who don't believe in the stories that are written about him doesn't have the luxury of being as vague, ambiguous, and errant as secular historians are with secular history.

So there's no excuse for this God to be this lame.

It's really that simple.

So you can hardly compare a supposedly divine message to humanity with secular history and expect that to stand as an apology for this religion.

It fails miserably.

[polonius]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

The question is a bit misplaced; after all, we could ask, is Herodotus and history compatible? Most historians will say "yes and no". That is, after careful analysis they consider some portions to be historical and some not.

And even then, you can ask of a modern historian, "Is he/she compatible with history?" and you will equally get mixed answers by his/her peers.

The attempt to pit "real history" against "biblical accounts of history" is not taken seriously by real historians. The whole idea of "real history" is, by them, largely considered a myth.

RESPONSE:

No. It's very simple. If it happened it's history, if it did not happen it's not history.

Of course to support their belief system, some have to try to convince us otherwise.

[polonius]

Where did the Jews live before they had been captured and enslaved by the Egyptians?

Your question is loaded. The Jews were never "captured and enslaved" by the Egyptians. And just to have a little fun with it, I will ask you; where in the Bible does it say that the Jews were "captured and enslaved by the Egyptians".

RESPONSE: Actually the story began 430 years before the purported Exodus with Joseph being kidnapped and bought to Egypt by camel riding merchants. Unfortunately, the camel wasn't introduced to Egypt until about 750 BC.

Conclusion, the first books of the Bible were actually written after about 750 BC.

[polonius]

http://www.answering-hristianity.com/ab ... pels-3.htm

… We have here a good example of the credulity of Western man. For two thousand years he has been reading about this convulsion and “darkness over all the earth� without ever questioning it or demanding proof of it. Yet had it happened, would not some of those able historians have recorded it? Why did they not?� (Deceptions & Myths of the Bible, Lloyd Graham p. 349)

[polonius]

Where did the Jews live before they had been captured and enslaved by the Egyptians?

Your question is loaded. The Jews were never "captured and enslaved" by the Egyptians. And just to have a little fun with it, I will ask you; where in the Bible does it say that the Jews were "captured and enslaved by the Egyptians".

So where did the Jews come from originally then? Are you claiming that the Jews are actually Egyptians?

RESPONSE: Nope. The Jews or Hebrew always resided in Canaan never in Egypt

The Bibles story is fictional. Check current references particularly from Tel Aviv University.

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, a book published in 2001, discusses the archaeology of Israel and its relationship to the origins and content of the Hebrew Bible. The authors are Israel Finkelstein, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and Neil Asher Silberman, an archaeologist, historian and contributing editor to Archaeology Magazine.
Finkelstein and Silberman argue that instead of the Israelites conquering Canaan after the Exodus (as suggested by the book of Joshua), most of them had in fact always been there; the Israelites were simply Canaanites who developed into a distinct culture.[19] Recent surveys of long-term settlement patterns in the Israelite heartlands show no sign of violent invasion or even peaceful infiltration, but rather a sudden demographic transformation about 1200 BCE in which villages appear in the previously unpopulated highlands;[20] these settlements have a similar appearance to modern Bedouin camps, suggesting that the inhabitants were once pastoral nomads, driven to take up far farming by the Late Bronze Age collapse of the Canaanite city-culture.[2

See Wikipedia: Bible Unearthed

What had initially attracted my interest in meeting Dr. Herzog was an article he wrote back in 1999 in Ha’aretz, a leading centrist Israeli daily, that precipitated a firestorm of debate among Israeli intellectuals and the general public. The article was entitled Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho, and it opened with these words:

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai. Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people – and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story – now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people’s emergence are radically different from what that story tells.