God Yahweh Allah was a volcano.

[The Grand Nudger]

No Moses, no leaving egypt with a group of refugees. Now make your interpretation work without those contrivances. Things happen all of the time, all over the world. Reinterpreting the events of the distant past to conform to a narrative is an exercise in creative interpretation of both the text, and history. That things "could have happened that way" does not mean they did. In this case, we know they did not.

[Hannah]

Things happen all the time all over the world? Oh my god! That was the missing piece of the jigsaw! Thank god we have you around. Right...I will now go off and use your valuable information and re-hash my theory with it.

[The Grand Nudger]

I would actually love to see your theory rehashed with no exodus. That's my entire point. It's not something we need an explanation for, we know that it didn't occur. That a natural disaster happened in one part of the world, that could in theory explain the exodus narrative is irrelevant, when we know the narrative is a work of fiction.

That's what I mean by saying that things happen. There are vast resources of events in history one could draw on in support of any position whatsoever, if enough leeway is given to time, uncertainty, and location. We don't need to do this in the case of exodus, because we have actual data, which rules out the Santorini armchair theory. It makes for good TV though, obviously.

Notice that I'm not arguing that the hebrews would not have been aware of these events, or that the exodus story could not have been influenced by events like Santorini. Only that exodus is not a story that is based on those events as a historical reference. It may very well be that there was a group of refugees exactly as you have described, but these people would not have been hebrew, because we have directly contradictory evidence as to where they came from that leads us to the conclusion that the hebrews were most likely canaanites.

[Hannah]

I would actually love to see your theory rehashed with no exodus. That's my entire point. It's not something we need an explanation for, we know that it didn't occur. That a natural disaster happened in one part of the world, that could in theory explain the exodus narrative is irrelevant, when we know the narrative is a work of fiction.

That's what I mean by saying that things happen. There are vast resources of events in history one could draw on in support of any position whatsoever, if enough leeway is given to time, uncertainty, and location. We don't need to do this in the case of exodus, because we have actual data, which rules out the Santorini armchair theory. It makes for good TV though, obviously.

Notice that I'm not arguing that the hebrews would not have been aware of these events, or that the exodus story could not have been influenced by events like Santorini. Only that exodus is not a story that is based on those events as a historical reference. It may very well be that there was a group of refugees exactly as you have described, but these people would not have been hebrew, because we have directly contradictory evidence as to where they came from that leads us to the conclusion that the hebrews were most likely canaanites.

If you said less you might convey more. You contradicted yourself in your post. I never said the Bible should be used as a historical reference. I do, however, believe there is a vein of truth in it but that that vein has been elaborated, mystified and glorified. To say it's useless and shouldn't be used to try to work things out is as bad for free thinking as a Christian who refuses to believe any part of it could be wrong or even elaborated. This is a riddle and everything needs to be considered.

By the way, two thirds of the Habiru names were Semitic. Have you read up about them? It's very interesting reading.

[theVOID]

I think the suggestion the story of the ten plagues of Egypt being entirely coincidentally reminiscent of the possible fallout of the santorini eruption to be as crazy as the suggestion that it was down to divine intervention. Holy shit......is this forum full of people as illogical as the Christians I've had the misfortune of trying to debate with recently?

You're being vague and speculative. Is it possible? As far as my knowledge of ancient history is concerned, sure. Have you given me any sufficient reason to believe your conclusion is likely true? Absolutely not.

And, for the record, the options available are NOT; (1) It was divine intervention, (2) It was all a volcano. There are many possible explanations even when assuming the biblical narratives are based on real recorded experiences, there are a great many more explanations given their fictional origins.

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If you said less you might convey more. You contradicted yourself in your post. I never said the Bible should be used as a historical reference. I do, however, believe there is a vein of truth in it but that that vein has been elaborated, mystified and glorified. To say it's useless and shouldn't be used to try to work things out is as bad for free thinking as a Christian who refuses to believe any part of it could be wrong or even elaborated. This is a riddle and everything needs to be considered.

By the way, two thirds of the Habiru names were Semitic. Have you read up about them? It's very interesting reading.

Do you have any methodology for picking which parts have a "vein of truth" and which do not? While I agree that thinking it is entirely fictional is downright absurd the notion that we can easily determine which parts are based on some historic event (such as your volcano example) and which parts are mythology is likewise absurd.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's the point, we have very accurate histories on the middle east without referencing the bible. There are points in the bible where we see examples of current or past events being used in the narrative. We expect to see this, because the bible was written by human beings, the stories were told by human beings etc. What I'm trying to impress upon you is that any work of literature is likely to have references to events that happened within human memory, that does not make them a reference source. It is the bibles track record of obfuscating the actual history of events that make it worthless as a historical reference.

You are assuming that it has value as reference, at least in the story of exodus, however embellished. It does not. It names Kings, describes regions, but is otherwise unconnected to the factual record. The only instances of substantiated fact are used as literary devices, to establish authenticity (which it fails to do nonetheless). The writers of the bible were not concerned with the actual historical record, nor could they have been (because the scientific ability and technology that allows us to determine these things today was sorely lacking in the bronze age). It is a book of prophecy, firstly, with a creation myth as an introduction. We used to believe it was a prophecy made after the fact. We now however have reason to believe that the account of Exodus, and the Kingdom that followed are revisionist history.

[Cinjin]

I never said the Bible should be used as a historical reference. I do, however, believe there is a vein of truth in it but that that vein has been elaborated, mystified and glorified. To say it's useless and shouldn't be used to try to work things out is as bad for free thinking as a Christian who refuses to believe any part of it could be wrong or even elaborated. This is a riddle and everything needs to be considered.

There are vein's of truth to the Brother's Grimm Stories that reflect the people and times in which the book was written, but that doesn't mean that the riddles held within it should be 'considered' as anything more than anecdotal when discussing real human history.

We all realize that myth and legend are most often developed from a tiny fraction of truth. The only real problem I have is your application of this fact to legitimize stories in the Bible that have little to no evidence.

I'll give you this though, your thread is readable and I have enjoyed it considerably more than the last 10 I was reading.

[Hannah]

Oh dear....I seem to be spending more time justifying my right to make my claim than people seem to be spending on assessing its validity. I'm not an expert and I'm sure most of you will have more knowledge than do I, but I have this hunch so please bare with me.

Ok...so imagine the Bible was completely ficticious and should not be used to determine any historical events. Fine. We don't need it to do that. Our aim is to establish whether or not Yahweh is real. The best thing we can get from the Bible is a look inside the heads of the people who inspired its stories to determine whether it was potentially divine or meerly supersticious.

When you read Exodus (plus other verses throughout the Bible) you realise it was the mountain of god that first got them started. As you read it, with their naivity in mind, you see that they didn't realise what they were looking at. They describe it but they never use its name. It was way outside of their mental vocabulary. This thing was so profound it inspired a revolutionary religion to be established and the people who followed it lived very differently to the people who did not. It instilled a sense of fear like no other god, it gave the impression of being all-powerful and all-knowing (omni-present came later), it's wrath was visible daily, its dissenter could be seen being devoured by fire, it raged and fumed and talk of the lake of fire created meekness like never before. Animals were sacrficed to the devouring fire in front of the congregation. Compare that to the sacrifice of animals (and sometimes babies....Molak) in manmade fires of the pagans. It doesn't compare. The tabernacle was, I believe, positioned over a lava river/vent and only Moses could enter the 'Holy of Holiests' and came out flushed red.

The thing is, if it was all completely made up it still exposes the authors' belief that there could be something divine about a volcano and its vents and gas leaks. The Bible paints the picture of people who believed in lots of pagan gods and performed different practices but who came together when they worshipped the volcano.

The timings, the places, the names, etc, are not important. Getting into their minds is.

[The Grand Nudger]

No, there's nothing wrong with making a claim like that. We do and have. I'm simply stating that in this case, we have a model, and it is supported by compelling evidence. The Hebrew concept of god is not in this case volcano worship (though volcano worship is common the world over). We see the formation of the Hebrew concept of god in the record, as part of an ongoing serious of encounters and assimilation of and into regional cultures. The model we have has been weighed against the theory that you are advocating (and many others) and has been found to more closely conform to the body of evidence that many disciplines of the sciences have amassed in this regard.

Lemme give you a qoute from the "Exodus Decoded" wiki that demonstrates the idea I'm trying to impart here.

"Jacobovici uses circular logic for his assertions. In the absence of any other evidence, Jacobovici attempts to find a real-world explanation for a Biblical phenomenon. Then, from the fact that a phenomenon could be caused by a certain event, Jacobovici surmises that a Biblical phenomenon was caused by exactly that type of an event."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus_Decoded

Your narrative is remarkably similar, I assume because you are working from actual historical events (as Jacobovici claims to have done). The entire narrative becomes circular reasoning if you attempt to explain it by scientific methods. It didn't happen that way because it could have happened that way. You need to have solid evidence of the event in question, not a proof of concept.

[Hannah]

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Psalm 18:8 Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.

Psalm 50:3 Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages.

Psalm 97:3 Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side.

Daniel 7:10 A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.

Revelation 4:5, "And out of the throne proceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and voices."

Psalm 18:12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning.

Job 26:14 And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?"

Job 36:29 Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion?

Job 37:4 After that comes the sound of his roar; he thunders with his majestic voice. When his voice resounds, he holds nothing back.

I could go on for days but surely I can get one atheist on here to say what not one Christian could say elsewhere....'Yes, it looks like Yahweh was a volcano.'

Yep? Nope?