It appears those primarily address sediment cores rather than ice cores. Interesting though.
You are right. The following is a link to the first of a three part article(from icr) that discusses more of this information and relates it to the ice cores.
No, you didnât give me any at all which said anything about the Pentateuch.
This is irrelevant. Weâre discussing what the Bible says, not Jewish tradition.
[quote=âBill_Smith, post:73, topic:36748â]
âŚbut it is a reasonable guessâŚ[/quote]
Guesses arenât facts. So what we find is that your beliefs about the Bible include pure guesses.
Yes you do. You believe it because youâve been taught it.
No. the evidence indicates otherwise. The Bible itself tells you otherwise. Here are some facts you have to explain about the Pentateuch if you believe it was written by Moses.
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Genesis 10:11-12. This refers to the city of Calah as âthat great cityâ. Calah did not exist until 1750 BCE, and was a mere village until the ninth century BCE, when it became âthat great cityâ during the reign of Assurnasirpal II, who made it the capital of Assyria. It could not have been called âthat great cityâ until after the reign of Solomon, long after Moses was dead.
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Genesis 11:28, 31. These verses refers to âUr of the Chaldeansâ. The Chaldeans did not occupy Ur until around the tenth century (1000 BCE). The only pre-exilic use of the phrase âUr of the Chaldeansâ in the Old Testament is in Genesis 15:7, which was clearly written at least as early as the eleventh century (obviously not by either Moses or Joshua), by which time the term âUr of the Chaldeansâ was already the common term for the area. The only other use of âUr of the Chaldeansâ is in Nehemiah 9:7, a post-exilic book.
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Genesis 1-11 not only contains strong literary parallels with Mesopotamian texts, it also contains very strong anti-Mesopotamian polemic. Could you list all these features please?
This verse says nothing about leprosy, and it cannot possibly have referred to leprosy.
No they arenât. Idol worship isnât mentioned at all.
So all that âword for wordâ stuff is irrelevant then? Your answers prove what I was saying earlier about Biblical literacy.
I would have to say that your âfactsâ are mistakes. You can look up the conservative scholarship answers to all your points if you want to. I think you are relying on faulty scholarship. For example, liberal scholarship used to ridicule the Bible for mentioning the Hittites, confidently claiming that were no such people. Later archaeological finds showed the arrogant claims of the scholars were wrong and the Hittites were one of the larger empires of the time. We were just ignorant of one of the three largest empires of that period with our limited knowledge. The Bible on the other hand, had eyewitness testimony written by people who were living then and, of course, knew of the Hittites. More importantly, the Bible had God helping the writers, and he had a pretty good understanding of history.
Your facts about Calah and Ur are just mistakes, unless of course we need some refinement in translation - which is possible. However, I lean toward mistakes because I consistently find liberal scholarship to be illogical and absurd when I check it out with the facts.
As for the âword for wordâ stuff, it is not irrelevant and my answers agree with that. Just because I may only know 99.5% of the words accurately, does not mean that I donât take those words seriously. Not being sure of the other words(?0.5%?) doesnât affect what I think of the ones I know.
P.S. Leprosy is indeed mentioned, although it may also/instead refer to other diseases. Youâre right about Ezekiel. It is about false prophetesses.
Then please provide some evidence.
No I canât. Iâve been reading conservative scholarship for years. Most conservative scholarship doesnât even mention these facts, largely because they are unaware of them (due to lack of Bible literacy).
Firstly youâre simply claiming the scholarship is faulty because it doesnât agree with what you already believe. Secondly, please provide at least five quotations from people who said that the Hittites never existed.
But have you checked this out with the facts? If so, please present the evidence that these are âmistakesâ.
What confuses me is that this is exactly what liberal scholarship says, but you claim to reject liberal scholarship. Additionally, it makes no sense in the context of your previous insistence on knowing the Bible âword for wordâ and all its âjots and tittlesâ.
[quote=âBill_Smith, post:86, topic:36748, full:trueâ]
P.S. Leprosy is indeed mentioned, although it may also/instead refer to other diseases.[/quote]
It isnât mentioned at all. It isnât possible for leprosy to be mentioned, because leprosy did not exist in the Middle East during this time. It was introduced over 1,000 years later, most likely by the Greeks. This is another example of basic Bible literacy.
Thank you, that proves my point. Of course âfalse prophetessesâ is a bit vague and doesnât actually explain all the content in the text, but to understand that would require a lot more research on your part.
Are you seriously claiming that liberal scholarship did not ridicule the Bible for mentioning the Hittites until the archaeology proved them wrong and the Bible right?
I asked a very specific question. I am sure you will have no problem answering it.
I donât have a quote for you, but Archer has said, âThe references to the Hittites were treated with incredulity and condemned as mere fiction on the part of late authors of the Torah; the same was true of the Horites and even the historicity of Sargon IIâ.
Now, do you seriously claim that liberal scholarship did not ridicule the Bible for mentioning the Hittites until the archaeology proved them wrong and the Bible right?
Ah, you donât have a quote for me, just an unsubstantiated claim by someone else. Can you see the problem here? Gradually you are going to start wondering why you canât even find five quotations from actual scholarship which âridiculed the Bible for mentioning the Hittitesâ.
Yes. And the more you search for evidence for your original claim the more you will wonder why you canât find it, just as you will grow increasingly puzzled when you search in vain for evidence that pre-exilic Hebrews encountered leprosy. This is what actual Bible literacy is about.
I think if you look you will find lots of examples of liberal scholars saying the Hittite references were wrong. When I get a chance, I will maybe take the time to get a quote for you, but I donât think Archer is mistaken. I could quote others who say the same.
Let me ask it another way. Do you think liberal scholars ever said the Bible was mistaken when it mentioned the Hittites and that archaeological finds proved them wrong and the Bible right?
Great, please just get a nice collection of all those quotations from liberal scholars (as I said, five will do), and post them here. I canât wait to read them. You see, Iâve actually looked and I canât find any.
I think critical scholarship (not âliberal scholarsâ, though you would consider them to be the same thing), said something about what the Bible said about the Hittites, and itâs completely different to what you think. The only reason why youâre making this claim about âliberal scholarsâ is because youâve been told it and you believe it because it agrees with your prejudices. Youâve never actually seen evidence for this claim yourself. Itâs just like your understanding of other information about the Bible; you actually thought the Law of Moses mentioned leprosy, even though this isnât possible. This is what Bible literacy is about.
So did they believe the Bible was wrong when it mentioned the Hittites, claiming it was anachronistic and did archaeology prove them wrong?
It seems you misunderstand how this is supposed to go. You are the person who made the claim, and I have asked you to support that claim with evidence. Instead of doing that, you are now asking me to express my opinion of new claims with slightly different wording. It appears that you really donât know the facts about your original claim, and now youâre hoping Iâll do the work for you. Thatâs not how this works. Thatâs not how any of this works. Please present the evidence for your original claim, or simply acknowledge you have no evidence for it and should not have made it.
I found another quote to substantiate the claim that liberal critics were proved wrong about the Bible by archaeology.
Albright said, âUntil recently it was the fashion among biblical historians to treat the patriarchal sagas of Genesis as though they were artificial creations of Israelite scribes of the Divided Monarchy or tales told by imaginative rhapsodists around the Israelite campfires during the centuries following their occupation of the country. Eminent names among scholars can be cited for regarding every item of Gen. 11-50 as reflecting late invention, or at least retrojection of events and conditions under the Monarchy into the remote past, about which nothing was thought to have been really known to the writers of later daysâ
He went on to say, âArchaeological discoveries since 1925 have changed all this. Aside from a few die-hards among older scholars, there is scarcely a single biblical historian who has not been impressed by the rapid accumulation of data supporting the substantial historicity of patriarchal tradition.â
Now the Hittites were no doubt one of the items in Gen 11-50 that eminent scholars said was a late invention. I may not find a quote from one of them, but I suspect Albright knew a little bit about what the liberal scholars were saying.
So after reading this( along with what other scholars like Archer said), you really donât believe that liberal scholars belief on the Hittites was refuted by archaeology and the Bible was proved to be right?
Wait a minute, now you are completely abandoning your original claim and saying something else. Why are you doing this?
Sorry, but you canât use Albright as evidence for something which he never said. I am sure he knew what liberal scholars were saying too, so if he didnât say they were denying the existence of the Hittites, you canât claim he said it.
What belief about liberal scholars was refuted by archaeology? This is what you keep avoiding. Hereâs what you need to do.
- Make a claim about what liberal scholars said about the Hittites and the Bible. Preferably one claim, and stick to it.
- Provide direct quotations from these scholars which show they really said this.
- Demonstrate that this was later disproved by archaeology.
This should be really easy if your claim is accurate.
I originally said the liberal scholars ridiculed the Bible for talking about the Hittites because they didnât exist.
Next I refined it to say they ridiculed the Bible because they said they didnât exist at the time the Bible mentions them.
Finally I quoted Albright and Archer to show that indeed the liberal scholars claimed that the Biblical mentions of the Hittites was anachronistic and that archaeology proved the scholars wrong and the Bible right.
You havenât refuted these claims. You tried to refute it by saying it wasnât true because I couldnât find a quote by a liberal scholar ridiculing the Bibleâs mention of the Hittites. I could not find a quote - maybe I will someday - but it doesnât matter. I have already proved my point with the quotes from Archer and Albright. The point I proved is that liberal scholars said the Bible is wrong, there were no Hittites when it claimed and that archaeology proved they were wrong.
The main point of my original claim is that liberal scholarship makes absurd claims. The fact that they denied the accuracy of the mention of the Hittites in Genesis and were proven wrong by archaeologists demonstrates my point of their poor scholarship.
P.S. It is obvious that the quote from Albright includes the Hittites since it was such a major archaeological find related to Gen. 11-50. I donât think you can reasonably deny this.
Your point about the Hittites is like a time-capsule. Yes⌠that was a big surprise⌠for a while.
The Hittites described in the Old Testament donât appear to be the Hittites of Anatolia at all!
Examine their locations, where they are encountered⌠the ultimate coincidence is that the people we thought were Hittites might not even be âNeo-HittitesââŚ
Now that is a surprise!
Yes. But you were unable to find any evidence for that claim. Do you understand why?
Yes, and you were unable to find any evidence for that claim either. Do you understand why?
No. You quoted Albright saying absolutely nothing about the Hittites, and you quoted Archer making a claim for which he presents no evidence. Why canât you find me a single statement from any of these liberal scholars who said what you claim they said?
On the contrary, itâs not that I havenât refuted them, itâs that you havenât provided any evidence for them. No evidence at all, for any of the claims youâve made. I donât have to refute claims for which no evidence is presented.
No, I said I didnât believe it because I havenât seen any evidence for it. I asked you repeatedly for evidence and you were unable to give me any. So I still donât believe it. Simple.
What do you mean it doesnât matter? Of course it matters. When you make a claim and youâre asked to support it, and you then have to acknowledge you canât find any evidence for it, then of course it matters.
No. You quoted Albright saying absolutely nothing about the Hittites, and you quoted Archer making a claim for which he presents no evidence.
You havenât proved it at all. You havenât presented a single item of evidence for it. Not a single statement by a single liberal scholar.
The real issue is that you tried to prove âliberal scholarshipâ makes absurd claims, but in the example you chose turned out to be disastrous because you have been unable to find any evidence for it. This is just proving exactly what I said earlier about basic Bible literacy. And how about that leprosy?
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