Current Biblical Archaeology

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:09 pm

i am having some trouble locating GOOD articles on the exodus and the occupation (the key word is GOOD).

Look in the FICTION section of your library.....if you haven't burned all the books.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:16 pm

archaeologist wrote:i have already pointed out the fact concerning the silver scrolls. tobe brief--the silver scrolls are th oldest known artifact that contains an inscription of scripture--several thousands of years old--- the scripture engraved is the same as the modern printed versionsof the Bible.

The silver scrolls:

The larger of the two scrolls was only about three inches long when it was unrolled. The smaller one was just over two inches long. Barkay said the thin fragile silver of each scroll was etched with 19 lines of tiny, Hebrew script. It was years before researchers realized that the inscription was an almost exact representation of the priestly blessing found in Numbers. Careful study revealed that the Hebrew characters used were distinctive of the 7th century B.C.

The 7th century BC (meaning the period between 600 and 700 BC is thus a mere 2,600 years old and meshes perfectly with Finklestein's observation that literacy only became widespread in Judah with the establishment of full statehood which began around the reign of King Hezekiah at the end of the 8th century BC. You have taken a grand step forward in proving Finklestein's point of view by correctly identifying that artifact as an early example of Hebraic writing. Congratulations, arch.
Finklestein doesn't need any help from you but I'm sure he'll take it.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:34 pm

Look in the FICTION section of your library.....if you haven't burned all the books.

at least i am being honest as i am unable tofind much on the topic under the search headings i am using . I am looking for material from both sides of the argument.

You have taken a grand step forward in proving Finklestein's point of view by correctly identifying that artifact as an early example of Hebraic writing

i think you are stretching the evidence there. all it proves is that the scrolls were written in the or 7th century b.c. on silver and that silver making andengrving were inuse long before Christ came to this world; not that writing developed at that time. finkelstein is wrong on that aspect and his position is undefensible if that is all he uses to prove his point.

again, he uses the absences of proof or denies the proof that is found to prove his point, which in turn, is just bad scholarship.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 5:09 pm

No. THAT is where you are wrong. Jerusalem has been continuously lived in for several thousand years. Everyone knows where it is and they have found Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age levels. What those levels show is that Jerusalem was an insignificant little hilltop village at the time when your silly-ass bible claims it was the capital of a great empire. It was not.

Those are the FINDINGS of modern archaeology and no reputable archaeologist is disputing those findings.....only wacko bible thumpers like you.

Thus, it is up to YOUR SIDE to now find evidence proving that modern archaeology is wrong. I'd settle for some inscriptions about David the King conquering half of the known world or Solomon the Wise cutting babies in half.....or even the Queen of Sheba's panties but it is time for you to stop quibbling about the findings of modern archaeology and get your ass in gear to show that they are wrong. Take your time. The ball is in your court.

wtrfall · Post by **wtrfall** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 5:54 pm

What are The Facts about Jerusalem and archaeological research?

Although much research and excavation have been carried out, few
concrete facts have been determined.
There are several reasons for this. First of all, it is hard to excavate an areathat has had almost continuous occupation (C.E.)
Also, the city was several times destroyed, and new cities built often from the same ruins, these piling up in some places 30 m, and obscuring the contours and making the interpretation of evidence a precarious task.
The best discoveries have come from the SE hill (now outside the city walls). The main source of information we have is from the bible.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:25 pm

Read "The Bible Unearthed" by Finklestein and then get back to me.

It's all there. It is not all that difficult to excavate. That is the fallback position for people who are upset by the lack of proof for bible fairy tales.

wtrfall · Post by **wtrfall** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:52 pm

I am reading your posts quotes on it chunk by chunk.

here I am currently: I am researching Shishak:
in the fifth year of Rehoboam (successor to Solomon)
This would be 993 B.C.E.
He invaded Judah and captured cities there and went
on to Jerusalem, but the people surrendered, and thus the city was spared being ruined. @ Ch 12:1-12

Archaeological evidence: Stele fragment from megiddo, with mention of shishak's victory.
also, we have the relief on a templ wall at Karnak with the list of the cities and villages conquered.
many places that can be identified with biblical sites were located in the territory of the ten-tribe kingdom. Shishak campaign was gain control of the important trade routes located in this area. His conquest, easy because it was a "little" tribal nation at this time.

The bible, for its part, knows only one target for Shishak's campaign. In the terse report of 1 Kings 14:25-26, the pharoah's only mentioned objective is to attack Jerusalem, the capital of the Davidic dynasty. At this point in the Deuteronomistic History, Jerusalem has been a powerful and prosperous capital for about 80 years. David had reigned there as king of all Israel and had established a great empire. His son Solomon succeeded him and greatly embellished the capital city, constructing an elaborate palace and temple complex. Since Solomon's wealth was legendary it is little wonder that the bible reported Shishak's great haul of temple booty from his attack on Jerusalem including "the shields of gold which Solomon had made."

Biblical scholars have long considered the Shishak invasion mentioned in 1 Kings to be the earliest event described in the bible that is supported by an extrabiblical text. Yet Jerusalem-target of the pharoah's march into the highlands-does not appear on Sheshonq's Karnak list.

How can this be? Finklestein goes on to say:

Quote:
At the time of the Sheshonq campaign Judah was still a marginal and isolated chiefdom in the southern highlands. Its poor material culture leaves no room to imagine great wealth in the temple-certainly not wealth large enough to appease an Egyptian pharoah's appetitie. From the archaeological evidence we must come to a conclusion that undermines the historical credibility of this specific biblical narrative. The reason that Jerusalem (or any other Judahite town or even village) does not appear on the Karnak inscription is surely that the southern highlands were irrelevant to Shishak's goals.

I still do not see any disproof of the bible??
what am I not seeing. Please help.

wtrfall · Post by **wtrfall** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:06 pm

Archaeological finds confirm the biblical account and show Ahaz listed as one of Assyria's faithful vassals in an inscription. In Finklestein's view there was no treachery involved as Israel and Judea had never been one people/ one nation: this was simply smart power politics on the part of Ahaz.

SO there is Archaeological finds that confirm biblical accounts?

it cant be all BS then no?

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:08 pm

Unless you want to end up like arch you need to start at the beginning.

First of all, The Bible Unearthed was Finklestein's earlier book, pubished in 2001, I believe. I am quoting from his 2006 work, on David and Solomon which is far more specifically tailored to the time after the rise of the Kingdom of Israel. When I finish with Dever's book I planned to go back to the Bible Unearthed just to annoy the shit out of arch.

Finklestein's point is that Jerusalem was not mentioned on Sheshonq's Karnak inscription because it was such an unimportant target that there was no point in his diverting so far inland from his line of march. Megiddo is on the coast road.

Now, to anticipate your obvious question, why would the bible writers invent a fictionalized account of a foreign leader humiliating Jerusalem?
The answer is simple and is part of a literary device that they used repeatedly. Blaming Rehoboam for being a shitty king who lost the Great Empire they had conjured up, he was punished because god sent Shishak to punish Israel...just as god sent all manner of foreign conquerors, from Hazael to Nebuchadnezzar to punish kinds who did not do exactly what the fanatical Yahweh-alone priest cult wanted. For a god who at one time had supposedly been capable of destroying Sodom and Gamorrah or parting the Red Sea, this later version of Yahweh has turned into a bit of a wimp because he needs to have foreign kinds do his dirty work for him.
Maybe Yahweh lost his touch in the intervening centuries?

wtrfall · Post by **wtrfall** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:20 pm

wow you must be an atheist or something ha?
why are you soooo angry sounding and hatefull about Jewish/christian/bible/religious/God?
If your not you sure sound like it.
Sorry, I can't help asking you this,
I am curious by nature.
Do you really think the whole bible is made up? or only some of it? and do you feel tht way about other historical writings too? ?

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:22 pm

wtrfall wrote:
Archaeological finds confirm the biblical account and show Ahaz listed as one of Assyria's faithful vassals in an inscription. In Finklestein's view there was no treachery involved as Israel and Judea had never been one people/ one nation: this was simply smart power politics on the part of Ahaz.
SO there is Archaeological finds that confirm biblical accounts?
it cant be all BS then no?

There is a school of thought, the true Minimalists who would say that it is all a creation of the Hellenistic Age (when the Jews were dominated by the Seleucid Empire which was part of Alexander's Empire).

Even I do not subscribe to that school because they dismiss archaeological evidence such as the Tell Dan stele which indicates that there is some, actual, history incorporated in the bible. The bible, however, was not written as a work of history nor was it written for export. It was written to control a nation of goatherders and make them worship god in such a way as to maintain the primacy of the temple in Jerusalem. The main beneficiaries of this policy were the priests who ran the temple and, coincidentally, wrote the freakin' bible.

In their earlier exchange of work, Finklestein and Dever ended up disagreeing about the relative beginning of historical accuracy for the bible by about 125 years. Dever was willing to consider the possibility of a United Monarchy (c. 925 BC) but he now seems to have given up on that idea or at least he has not mentioned it, thusfar, in his current work and I am almost finished with it. Finklestein, operating on the belief that "winners" (or at least survivors) write history, finds the beginning of a reliable historical framework to have emerged in Judah, which attained full statehood after the northern kingdom of Israel was overrun by Assyria) around 725 BC.

Now, don't get excited by the phrase 'reliable historical framework', either.
Gone With the Wind was built on a reliable historical framework (the American Civil War) but was still a work of fiction. Finklestein finds that with the emergence of a full Judahite state (as an Assyrian vassal, btw) that archaeology can begin to verify some of its historical references. Oddly, these tend to be things which are geopolitical (treaties, alliances, wars that didn't go so well) in nature rather than the supernatural nonsense that the bible puts out.

I repeat my earlier suggestion to read Finklestein's books in order.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:23 pm

wtrfall wrote: wow you must be an atheist or something ha?
why are you soooo angry sounding and hatefull about Jewish/christian/bible/religious/God?
If your not you sure sound like it.
Sorry, I can't help asking you this,
I am curious by nature.
Do you really think the whole bible is made up? or only some of it? and do you feel tht way about other historical writings too? ?

Because of all the damage they have done throughout history by putting out this line of shit.

But don't take my word for it.

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787)

"When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." - Benjamin Franklin (from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780;)

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of... Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."- Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error
all over the earth." - Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." - James Madison (Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785.)

"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?" - John Adams

wtrfall · Post by **wtrfall** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:39 pm

Well I can understand how you could feel that way,
but remember bad priests were exposed in the bible.

I am sure some of the writings of the bible were written with some personal attitudes or the predominate thinking of the day.
But if there is a God we cant blame him for the way humans
portray things?

And of course we see the disgusting things
committed by so-called holy priests of today. especialy things done to innocent children. (It almost makes me wish there was a hell to burn them in) but I dont believe in hell.

Personaly, I think the bible is a good reference. perhaps in the future we will find more evidence.

I am finding the book references you are giving very good.
I wish I had the book myself. But I am printing out to read them.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:46 pm

The "other guy's" priests can be bad. Your priests are always god's gift to humanity.

All religions are like that.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:47 pm

I am finding the book references you are giving very good.
I wish I had the book myself. But I am printing out to read them.

Check with your library or order them from Amazon.com.

You cannot understand anything by reading excerpts.