[_ Old Earth _] The creation of light

[BobRyan]

Was Abraham a real person?
Did the children of Israel have a real father?

Indeed questions at that level are at the "why I am an atheist" level of focus. Surely we can go with the Bible as a valid document on this site such that the "proof that it is not" must come from those who reject it.

If Israel wasn't a real person then there can be no children of Israel. And that's just scratching the surface.

Good point -- however starting from the POV that the Bible IS REAL until PROVEN otherwise we would need a much more substantive argument from the nay-saying group beyond simply imagining that Abraham did not exist -- something at a higher level than "I imagined the challenge so it must be substantive".

So it would be nice to see a "Bible says" in Gen 1 regarding light or ... and then some kind of substantive challenge to the Bible -- if that is the purpose of the thread.

Bob

 

[Rick W]

I gave you the links to Rohl and the related criticisms of his work because I had understood from your previous post that you were interested in pursuing the archaeological evidence for Jospeh's existence.

And again... the interest is finding an optimum starting point but since that seems to be an elusive objective then Hezekiah will do.
For archaeological proof of Hezekiah's reality search "Hezekiah's tunnel"

First step.
Do you believe David is a real person?
Or how about King Solomon?

Hezekiah (700 BCE)
Ahaz
Jotham
Azariah (Uzziah)
Amaziah
Joash
Ahaziah
Joram
Jehoshaphat
Asa
Abijah
Rehoboam
Solomon
David

 

[lordkalvan]

... the interest is finding an optimum starting point but since that seems to be an elusive objective then Hezekiah will do.
For archaeological proof of Hezekiah's reality search "Hezekiah's tunnel"

First step.
Do you believe David is a real person?
Or how about King Solomon?

Whether or not real persons named David and Solomon existed is not evidence that the personas of David and Solomon described in the Bible existed as so described. Whether or not I believe they existed is even less worthwhile as evidence. As far as the archaeological record is concerned, the best that can be said appears to be that the jury is still out.

The Wiki article on David indicates that the archaeological evidence for the existence of a King David is at best ambivalent, and more so as far as the biblical David is concerned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David#Historicity_of_David

Similar uncertainty seems to prevail with regard to Solomon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon#Historical_figure

It is certainly the case that genealogical relationships and divine authority have often been invoked by rulers to legitimize and justify their assumption of and continued hold on power. I would not be surprised that kings of Israel might invoke similar rights to succession for the same reasons.

 

[Rick W]

It is certainly the case that genealogical relationships and divine authority have often been invoked by rulers to legitimize and justify their assumption of and continued hold on power. I would not be surprised that kings of Israel might invoke similar rights to succession for the same reasons.

"kings of Israel"
This is quite a broad sweep so please excuse my confusion. There were almost 20 kings of Judah I believe. Do you think David or Solomon could have caused deception concerning their lineage to "justify their assumption of and continued hold on power"?

 

[lordkalvan]

It is certainly the case that genealogical relationships and divine authority have often been invoked by rulers to legitimize and justify their assumption of and continued hold on power. I would not be surprised that kings of Israel might invoke similar rights to succession for the same reasons.

"kings of Israel"
This is quite a broad sweep so please excuse my confusion. There were almost 20 kings of Judah I believe. Do you think David or Solomon could have caused deception concerning their lineage to "justify their assumption of and continued hold on power"?

I'm sorry if my imprecision led to confusion; it wasn't my intention. Perhaps I should have more properly written Israel, Judah, and Israel-Judah.

Do I believe it is possible that an historical King David or King Solomon might have used creative geneaologies to legitimize their power? Yes, without a doubt; kings (and queens) whose right to rule comes through inheritance have done this all the time. As Lord Acton commented, albeit somewhat cynically, all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Do I believe that an historical King David or King Solomon did do this? I have no idea and, as far as I can tell from the archaeological evidence, neither does anyone else.

 

[Rick W]

Do I believe it is possible that an historical King David or King Solomon might have used creative geneaologies to legitimize their power? Yes, without a doubt; kings (and queens) whose right to rule comes through inheritance have done this all the time. As Lord Acton commented, albeit somewhat cynically, all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

:smt017

I don't see how this could help anyone's cause to doubt the reality of people in a line but rather just the opposite.
It's no secret that power by inheritance was the method used in ancient times. Let's suppose we could prove Solomon used the method of deception to gain or hold the throne of power. The people would know exactly who the predecessor was and Solomon would have had to lie about his being related to a real person. Convicting any of the kings of this would indeed support the reality of at least some of those in the line of kings.

 

[BobRyan]

Potluck said
If Israel wasn't a real person then there can be no children of Israel. And that's just scratching the surface.

Bob said

Good point -- however starting from the POV that the Bible IS REAL until PROVEN otherwise we would need a much more substantive argument from the nay-saying group beyond simply imagining that Abraham did not exist -- something at a higher level than "I imagined the challenge so it must be substantive".

So it would be nice to see a "Bible says" in Gen 1 regarding light or ... and then some kind of substantive challenge to the Bible -- if that is the purpose of the thread.

And of course we see that the "just imagine some stuff and then the bible is false" idea carries a lot of weight with some posters.

L.K.
Do I believe it is possible that an historical King David or King Solomon might have used creative geneaologies to legitimize their power? Yes, without a doubt; kings (and queens) whose right to rule comes through inheritance have done this all the time. As Lord Acton commented, albeit somewhat cynically, all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Do I believe that an historical King David or King Solomon did do this? I have no idea and, as far as I can tell from the archaeological evidence, neither does anyone else.

Did David beat his wife? "I have no idea and neither does anyone else" -

Was John the baptizer a child abuser? "I have no idea and neither does anyone else" -

You see -- simply launching insinuation after insinuation is "sufficient" for many.

It is because there are those who live in a world of stories 'easy enough to make up but they are not science' so for them - this is just one more area to apply that policy.

Bob

 

[lordkalvan]

Do I believe it is possible that an historical King David or King Solomon might have used creative geneaologies to legitimize their power? Yes, without a doubt; kings (and queens) whose right to rule comes through inheritance have done this all the time. As Lord Acton commented, albeit somewhat cynically, all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

:smt017

I don't see how this could help anyone's cause to doubt the reality of people in a line but rather just the opposite.
It's no secret that power by inheritance was the method used in ancient times. Let's suppose we could prove Solomon used the method of deception to gain or hold the throne of power. The people would know exactly who the predecessor was and Solomon would have had to lie about his being related to a real person. Convicting any of the kings of this would indeed support the reality of at least some of those in the line of kings.

I fail to understand how your question and my answer impacted one way or another on the 'reality' of either the historical and/or biblical David and Solomon. Whether David or Solomon really existed or not is not relevant in answering the question that if they existed might they have used their power to create genealogies (or manipulate history) to legitimize that power. Whether the people knew exactly what was going on or not would likewise not be important in terms of what was written down. As far as I am aware literacy was not widespread.

 

[BobRyan]

OBVIOUSLY A king such as David can NOT claim to have a lineage to father or grandfather for the sake of "legitimizing the throne" because

1. David claims to be the FIRST king in his line not the SON of a king. Hint: It does no good to highlight the fact that YOUR family is NOT in the royal line of King Saul as a way to "legitimize your throne".

2. ANY contemporary to David -- (a person he might presumably want to dupe) -- would know his family since these tribesmen stayed pretty much in their home towns. So if his purpose is not to fool his own subjects -- WHO IS he trying to fool -- just Christians in 2008????!!

But for many non-Christians the idea of "making stuff up" seems so natural they can not imagine why everyone was not doing it and getting by with it.

Bob

 

[lordkalvan]

L.K.
Do I believe it is possible that an historical King David or King Solomon might have used creative geneaologies to legitimize their power? Yes, without a doubt; kings (and queens) whose right to rule comes through inheritance have done this all the time. As Lord Acton commented, albeit somewhat cynically, all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Do I believe that an historical King David or King Solomon did do this? I have no idea and, as far as I can tell from the archaeological evidence, neither does anyone else.

Did David beat his wife? "I have no idea and neither does anyone else" -

Was John the baptizer a child abuser? "I have no idea and neither does anyone else" -

You see -- simply launching insinuation after insinuation is "sufficient" for many.

It is because there are those who live in a world of stories 'easy enough to make up but they are not science' so for them - this is just one more area to apply that policy.

And refusing to confront the reality that absolute rulers manipulated power to their own ends by posing loaded questions that are wholly irrelevant is what, exactly?

I answered a hypothetical question hypothetically and emphasized that this was indeed hypothetical by pointing out that I was not aware of evidence supporting a conclusion one way or the other. Why do you have a problem with this? Do you have reasons for supposing that the situation posited by that hypothetical answer is in some way wholly impossible? Do you believe that monarchs with absolute power must have been paragons of moral and political virtue just because they feature in the text of a book considered holy by a particular religion?

Wife-beating for perceived 'wrong-doings' against codes of behaviour imposed by men was and is common in patriarchal societies where individual rights in general and the rights of women in particular are as near non-existent as makes no difference. I would think it entirely possible that an historical David may very well have beaten his wive(s). What reasons would you have for thinking otherwise?

I have no knowledge one way or the other whether John the Baptist may have been a child-abuser. Do you?

As I am sure you may have remarked yourself, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Ironically, you are quite happy to insinuate that Daniel 7 'predicted' the 'four major European empires' in the absence of any stated evidence whatsoever in order to validate your claims of biblical accuracy. Is this not a 'stor[y] easy enough to make up but ... not science'?

 

[lordkalvan]

OBVIOUSLY A king such as David can NOT claim to have a lineage to father or grandfather for the sake of "legitimizing the throne" because

1. David claims to be the FIRST king in his line not the SON of a king. Hint: It does no good to highlight the fact that YOUR family is NOT in the royal line of King Saul as a way to "legitimize your throne".

2. ANY contemporary to David -- (a person he might presumably want to dupe) -- would know his family since these tribesmen stayed pretty much in their home towns. So if his purpose is not to fool his own subjects -- WHO IS he trying to fool -- just Christians in 2008????!!

Again, the answer was a hypothetical reply to a hypothetical question. Did rulers cause genealogies and histories to be written to legitimize and enhance their rule? Yes. Might rulers such as David and Solomon have done the same thing? Yes.

The biblical David and the historical David (if he existed) are not necessarily one and the same person. How did the historical David establish and support his claim to power? In the Bible is David's claimed descent from Boaz, Obed and Jesse of significance in helping to legitimize his right to rule? How might those who ruled after the historical David have legitimized their power?

I would be interested in the archaeological evidence that supports your claim under (2).

 

[Rick W]

How might those who ruled after the historical David have legitimized their power?

Father/son relationship.

____ slept with his fathers; and ______ his son reigned in his stead.

Over and over again.


It would be next to impossible to fake sonship. The birth of a prince would be a big event signifying succession to the throne. Without doubt a prince would be a prominent figure within the kingdom.

 

[Rick W]

Published: August 5, 2005

NYTimes.com
King David's Palace Is Found, Archaeologist Says

Either way, they are impressed by its likely importance. "This is a very significant discovery, given that Jerusalem as the capital of the united kingdom is very much unknown," said Gabriel Barkay, an archaeologist from Bar-Ilan University. "This is one of the first greetings we have from the Jerusalem of David and Solomon, a period which has played a kind of hide-and-seek with archaeologists for the last century."

 

[Rick W]

http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jerusa ... usalem.asp

THE CLAY DISC

Mazar believes that the palace was used for Jewish monarchs until the destruction of the First Temple 450 years later. To indicate this, she speaks excitedly about a tiny clay item she found at the site (found on the 17th of Tammuz, the fast day commemorating the siege of Jerusalem before its destruction). It is called a "bulla," a clay disc, inscribed in ancient Hebrew script with the name of the sender as a "return address," used to seal papyrus scroll "mail." The bulla bears the name of Yehuchal Ben Shelemiah,
* who is mentioned in Chapters 37 and 38 of the Book of Jeremiah. Yehuchal was one of two emissaries dispatched by King Tzidkiyahu to Jeremiah, asking him to pray for the people during the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. In an about-face, Chapter 38 tells that Yehuchal was one of four ministers who asked the king to kill Jeremiah, claiming that he was demoralizing the besieged nation with his prophecies of doom and destruction.

The bulla found on the site of the palace indicates that the building was used by the king, or at least by his ministers, until the destruction of Jerusalem soon afterwards. (In fact, a nearby cistern uncovered in what might have been a king's courtyard is speculated to perhaps be the pit Jeremiah was lowered into, as recorded in Jeremiah 38:6).

"For me, finding the bulla was tremendous," says Mazar. "Yehuchal was no longer just some name in a biblical account that I might not even have been sure was true. He was a real person. We now have his business card. The account is a real account. It is very rare to find such precise evidence for a narrative in the Bible."

 

[lordkalvan]

How might those who ruled after the historical David have legitimized their power?

Father/son relationship.

____ slept with his fathers; and ______ his son reigned in his stead.

Over and over again.


It would be next to impossible to fake sonship. The birth of a prince would be a big event signifying succession to the throne. Without doubt a prince would be a prominent figure within the kingdom.

Why do you think it would be so impossible? Why do you think the births of royal children were so often public events, with half the court and assorted power-brokers in attendance? The list may well be entirely accurate, the relationships precise and the succession legitimate, but on its own it is not evidential. I have mentioned elsewhere Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regnum Britanniae, which was intended wholly to legitimize and glorify the Norman kings' right to rule in Britain (specifically, England). Virgil rewrote history in the Aeneid, Livy in his history of Rome, and Ramses II unabashedly caused the story of the Battle of Qadesh to be inscribed on numerous monuments so as to tell a story somewhat at variance with the historical reality. Rulers and their spokesmen have done this all the time. Today we call it 'spin'.

 

[Rick W]

Evidence that Ahaziah and Joram were indeed real people.

Tel Dan Stele
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele

7) riots and two thousand horsemen. [I killed Jo]ram son of [Ahab]
8) king of Israel, and I killed [Achaz]yahu son of [Joram kin]g
9) of the House of David. And I set [.......................................................]

 

[lordkalvan]

Published: August 5, 2005

NYTimes.com
King David's Palace Is Found, Archaeologist Says

Either way, they are impressed by its likely importance. "This is a very significant discovery, given that Jerusalem as the capital of the united kingdom is very much unknown," said Gabriel Barkay, an archaeologist from Bar-Ilan University. "This is one of the first greetings we have from the Jerusalem of David and Solomon, a period which has played a kind of hide-and-seek with archaeologists for the last century."

Yes, I have seen these reports before. The IHT report mentioned some doubts about the reliability of Eilat Mazar's conclusions:

Nur el-Din, a professor of archaeology at Al Quds University, says that Palestinian archaeologists consider biblical archaeology as an effort by Israeli archaeologists "to fit historical evidence into a biblical context," he said. "The link between the historical evidence and the biblical narration, written much later, is largely missing," he said. "There's a kind of fiction about the 10th century. They try to link whatever they find to the biblical narration. They have a button and they want to make a suit out of it."

Other Israeli archaeologists are not so sure that Mazar has found the palace - the house that Hiram, king of Tyre, built for the victorious king, at least as Samuel II, Chapter 5, describes it. It may also be the Fortress of Zion that David conquered from the Jebusites, who ruled Jerusalem before him, or some other structure about which the Bible is silent.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/04/news/david.php

I have read elsewhere that, amongst archaeologists specializing in the same area of inquiry as Mazar, The relevant Wiki article comments:

.....Israel Finkelstein and other archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have flagged concern that, regarding the city wall,

"As she admits, the chronological data recovered in her excavations indicate that the sole Iron Age fortification system extending in this area was in use during the 8th−7th centuries BCE. However, according to the biblical sources the Solomonic city-wall must have passed here, hence [she maintains] the fortification system in question must be Solomonic in date."

Finkelstein et al add, summarising Mazar's dating of the Large Stone Structure,

"The biblical text dominates this field operation, not archaeology. Had it not been for Mazar’s literal reading of the biblical text, she never would have dated the remains to the 10th century BCE with such confidence."

Mazar was also cautioned by one epigrapher following the 2008 confusion over the inscription on the Shelomit seal,

"In the mad dash to report biblical artifacts to the public or connect discoveries with the most obscure persons or events reported in the Bible, there is sometimes a tendency to compromise the analytical caution that objects of such value so dearly deserve."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilat_Mazar

 

[lordkalvan]

Evidence that Ahaziah and Joram were indeed real people.

Tel Dan Stele
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele

7) riots and two thousand horsemen. [I killed Jo]ram son of [Ahab]
8) king of Israel, and I killed [Achaz]yahu son of [Joram kin]g
9) of the House of David. And I set [.......................................................]

I note that the Wiki article that you reference discusses at some length the fact that a number of scholars disagree with the conclusions you reference. It certainly remains an interesting and significant archaeological find, however, illustrating the difficulties in interpretation and understanding that abound with such artefacts.

 

[Rick W]

I note that the Wiki article that you reference discusses at some length the fact that a number of scholars disagree with the conclusions you reference. It certainly remains an interesting and significant archaeological find, however, illustrating the difficulties in interpretation and understanding that abound with such artefacts.

With what do they disagree?
I see no mention of disagreement concerning Ahaziah and Joram but only with the reality of David.

 

[Rick W]

One must also try to understand the political climate the archaeological endeavors are operating under. There are reasons some don't want anything concerning David or Hebrew antiquity in general to be revealed. The Muslim Waqf for instance bulldozed and paved 6,000 sq ft of the Temple Mount. Many artifacts were clandestinely tossed in garbage dumps and pieces with ancient inscriptions were cut up with a stone cutting saw hidden on the site. Some of this made the news a while back. Nor do I think it prudent to be in a hurry to place a lot of confidence in the opinions of Palestinian archaeologists.
My point is not to discredit genuine and honest skepticism but rather a caution in regard to the possibilities of motives other than archaeological truth.