Interesting Find in Turkey

[AngelThMan]

So AngelThMan, if the stories of the bible were passed down verbally then at what point did they conceive the stories? Were they conjured out of superstition? Perhaps god showed up in the middle of evolution and said "hey guys, listen to this!". Or maybe god planted the ideas magically into their head?

Divine inspiration, of course.

[tavarish]

LOOK AT THE TREES = GOD EXISTS.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Sure to burn the asses of fundies everywhere.

You know what you are ? You're a romantic, that's what you are.

Fundies won't skip a beat, on two broad grounds:

(1)They never allow anything as prosaic as evidence interfere withe their superstitions.

(2)The date(s) commonly given for the Exodus vary from ca 1500 to 1100 BCE,depending on whom you choose to believe.The fundies will simply claim the Babylonians pinched the stuff from the Torah,which was of course required reading in Babylon. ME? I think the Exodus is myth.


Interesting if you also compare Hammurabic Law with Mosaic Law. (ca 1790 BCE)

[Minimalist]

So the writing of the bible began with the stories that were passed down verbally.

Absurd.


The oldest stories were stolen from older and wiser cultures, notably Mesopotamia. The flood myth, for example.

http://worldliteratures.suite101.com/art..._atrahasis


Since about 1980 archaeologists have steadily dismantled the pretty notions built up by "biblical archaeologists" ( a fancy name for preachers masquerading as scholars!) in the preceding 100 years.
There are plenty of books published about this, " The Bible Unearthed," "The View from Nebo," "Did God Have A Wife," etc. I'm sure the mere thought of them would scare the living piss out of you.

The date(s) commonly given for the Exodus vary from ca 1500 to 1100 BCE

And there is not a shred of evidence for any Jews/Hebrews/Israelites as slaves in Egypt at either of those dates or anything in between.

Somewhere around 1550 BC a pharaoh named Ahmose I drove Semitic invaders back to Canaan. They were called the Hyksos and they were rulers, not slaves. They were defeated in Canaan setting up effectively 4 centuries of Egyptian hegemony over Canaan, down to about 1150 BC when Egypt began its long spiral to oblivion.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

And there is not a shred of evidence for any Jews/Hebrews/Israelites as slaves in Egypt at either of those dates or anything in between.

Just so.

Egyptologist and popular writer and Christian Jacq argues that Egypt did not have a slave culture until after the Greek conquest by Alexander in 332BCE. This argument has been given more credence by the recent discovery of the remains of worker's villages at Saqqara (1994) Major digs are still in progress at Saqqara.

[Minimalist]

Absolutely right. The Egyptians used a system of corvee labor for their internal building projects mainly as a mechanism for keeping the population busy during the flood season. That was also the best time to move heavy stones downstream from the granite quarries near Aswan.

The Egyptians had a charming habit of killing captives rather than enslaving them. In this, they were far from alone.

Which is not to say that slavery was unknown in Egypt but it was not the institutionalized way of doing things that it became under the Greeks and, especially, the Romans.

[Tiberius]

When I went to Egypt earlier last year, we were told that it was a myth that slavery was abundant in Egypt. The people who built the pyramids and other tombs were paid workers, and they even found evidence that the head worker had gone to the Pharaoh to demand more pay and food or else they would strike.

[downbeatplumb]

When I went to Egypt earlier last year, we were told that it was a myth that slavery was abundant in Egypt. The people who built the pyramids and other tombs were paid workers, and they even found evidence that the head worker had gone to the Pharaoh to demand more pay and food or else they would strike.

Yeah up the workers.

[Minimalist]

When I went to Egypt earlier last year, we were told that it was a myth that slavery was abundant in Egypt. The people who built the pyramids and other tombs were paid workers, and they even found evidence that the head worker had gone to the Pharaoh to demand more pay and food or else they would strike.

It seems to have been a story told to Herodotus by his guides during his visit to Egypt. He wrote it down that it took 100,000 slaves 20 years to build the pyramid and once he wrote it down it has taken centuries to undo the damage!

[AngelThMan]

Nice! This will surely stir up some controversy. I wonder what the excuse (from fundies) will be this time.

I'm not a fundie but I can tell you that the timeline doesn't quite work. 670 BC is way after the bible was started, which dates back to a religion that's 5,000-6,000 years old. Who copied who?

Hate to tell you but you ARE a fundie.

To you everyone who believes in God is a fundie. This way you get to launch the cliched atheist attacks reserved for fundies.