Who is the Satan?

Faith & Science Conversation
41

@ManiacalVesalius,

“it seems these two verses don’t ever distinguish between any types of Canaanites…” << Such a beautiful quote. And what was it that you and I were disputing? You said that the scribes would want to identify the individual communities of the Canaanites…

And what was my position? No, the scribes did a minimum of distinguishing between the Canaanites. In fact, I was expecting that there would be some distinctions! But what we see is virtually no important distinctions!

Gezer, Arad, and all the Canaanites in between “along the coast”! I made a pretty persuasive case - - and I didn’t even try to!

As for the timing of Exodus, you write: “But why is it unsustainable? The story, if it is correct, says pharaohs army got crushed at the split sea.”

So, what you are saying is: the Old Testament is not good enough history to note the Egyptian hegemony over a 200 year period… but it is good enough to accurately depict the destruction of a Pharaoh and his chariots? An army is not 100% chariots, you know… it is a sub-division… an important one, but not the only tools of war.

Even if Pharaoh and his chariots were destroyed… it doesn’t take 40 years to raise another chariot fleet. And even once the Exodus party moved on… the Egyptians were still marching their forces all the way to Syria… they had an administrative and tax center at Beth Shean, and a garrison along the coast.

Archaeologists have shown that the garrison gate was burned twice over a 10 year period… with the 2nd one (around 1130 BCE) associated with the total destruction of the fort. Once the troops were wiped out or forced to flee… all the Egyptian civilians at Beth Shean (and lording over the peasantry here or there in the more settled centers) that didn’t make a bee-line for the Egyptian frontier were probably swallowed up in the general Philistine upheaval.

Prior to the Philistines, Egyptian forces regularly took taxes, food stuffs and even hostages of important Canaanites to ensure “domestic tranquility”.

But say, are you arguing my points for me? If the Philistines were on the coast, and God destroyed an Egyptian fleet of chariots… doesn’t that support my thesis?

You could say it didn’t happen that way… and that there were no Philistines yet on the coast. And this is where I would say: so you are going to say the scribes were wrong about the Philistines in Genesis and in Exodus?

Is there anything in these books that you do believe?

Phillistines are mentioned in Exodus, leading into Joshua, leading into Judges …

So… when exactly do you think the Philistines ever do arrive?

42

Well, you said that. I said that since the people before the Philistines living in Philistia were living in Philistia, they would have simply been called Philistines. But you claimed that the OT would actually just call them Canaanite’s and distinguish them from Canaanite’s living elsewhere. So it seems I am right.

And what was my position? No, the scribes did a minimum of distinguishing between the Canaanites. In fact, I was expecting that there would be some distinctions! But what we see is virtually no important distinctions!

That was exactly what I thought!

So, what you are saying is: the Old Testament is not good enough history to note the Egyptian hegemony over a 200 year period…

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/554/1*ogiN87jNoWparjm_JPBuFg.png

I didn’t say that at all. I just said that an argument from silence isn’t particularly convincing since there’s all sorts of reasons why some particular detail wouldn’t be mentioned.

But say, are you arguing my points for me? If the Philistines were on the coast, and God destroyed an Egyptian fleet of chariots… doesn’t that support my thesis?

How so?

So… when exactly do you think the Philistines ever do arrive?

I don’t remember the exact date. Isn’t it something like 1200 BC?

1 Like
43

Oyy… @ManiacalVesalius

Let’s start this over for a moment:

I said that Genesis referred to the philistines because the story involving Abraham was written after the Philistines arrived on the coast.

You said that a latter day scribe would “edit” the Bronze Age story by giving the Canaanites of that area the name Philistines…because … I don’t know why they would do that.

There is nothing you or I have provided that lends credence to what you said.

But I have demonstrated lots of chronological problems with these seams between Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges and Samuel.

Now… say again why you think you were proved correct?

44

@ManiacalVesalius

It would be reasonable to say that the first Philistines arrived 1200 BCE to wage battle against the Egpytians.

After losing, they seem to have “seized” a part of the Levantine coast. Whenever they arrived, by 1130 BCE, they destroyed the Egyptian garrisons in the Palestine/Levant, and Egypt stayed bottled up in the Nile River Valley (at least from the Eastern direction) for some 200 years.

45

It is interesting that the discussion left out the references to Satan in Job and Zachariah 3, where Satan has clear access to Heaven and is the accuser. Stan is very beautiful to man and if you are on the lookout for a snake or serpent you will completely miss him.

The video references ancient drawings of cherubin, which I find amusing because if someone in the future found our drawings of Jesus and Satan and used them as evidence as to what they really looked like. Our images of Jesus are completely inconsistent with Isaiah 53:2 and our images of Satan are actually the Greek god Pan.

The last line of the video that the snake will be crushed by the son of Eve I feel is the first Messianic prophecy in the Bible

46

You said that a latter day scribe would “edit” the Bronze Age story by giving the Canaanites of that area the name Philistines…because … I don’t know why they would do that.

Ugh, I didn’t say anything was edited. The story was written sometime around the middle of the first millennium BC, and the original author wrote “Philistines” since that’s how they were known at the time. I’m also simply putting this as a possibility.

You said, in response, that they wouldn’t have been called Philistines but just called Canaanites and distinguished from the other Canaanites. But we’ve seen that the Bible never distinguishes the “types” of Canaanites. So your theory as to why they would have been called Canaanites doesn’t work.

So my following question stands from earlier: if they weren’t going to be called Philistines, what else would the Bible have called them?

47

This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.