Chat with a creationist

[Minimalist]

Nobody is saying that there must have been a "Hebrew bible" prior. I am saying there must have been scriptures in circulation.

That is precisely what these jackasses are saying. The fact( perhaps I should emphasize that) FACT remains that we do not have a single example of any of these writings which you are insisting were in "circulation." We have no examples of tomb inscriptions or artwork nor do we have references to any of it from surrounding cultures. The only place this shit exists is within the pages of the book itself..... sort of like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.

Ignore the idiot above...he is another fool desperate for his fairy tales to be true.

Khirbet Qeiyafa is a ruin of what is believed to be a fort near the Elah Valley.



As you can see from the map it is more or less on the border between the coastal plain, which from 1155 to about 705 was dominated by the Philistines. The cities of Ashdod and Ashquelon are clearly marked. What is also clear is the change in the topography from the flat coastal plain to the rough hills and valleys of Juda.

Gershon found a pottery sherd with some lettering on it. He said it was "Hebrew" but even that is not his whole point. His "reasoning" goes something like this.

Because the ostrakon was written in Hebrew ( assumption #1) that means that Israelites built the fort ( assumption #2) to protect their kingdom from the Philistines ( assumption #3) and this means that there was a highly developed city of Jerusalem (assumption #4) ruled by King David (assumption #5) covering a vast area just like the bible says (assumption #6.)

Now, assumption #1: This is from another thread in the forum.

On 7 January 2010 Prof. Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa issued a press release in which he claimed to have deciphered the inscription as a legal document:

1 you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2 Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3 [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4 the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5 Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.[4]

Prof Galil's translation is in contrast with that given by Prof. Hagai Misgav, supported, with variations, by professors Yardeni, Ahituv, and Schniedewind, at a conference on the inscription held at Hebrew University in October 2009:

1 Do not do [anything bad?], and serve [personal name?]
2 ruler of [geographical name?] . . . ruler . . .
3 [geographical names?] . . .
4 [unclear] and wreak judgment on YSD king of Gath . . .
5 seren of G[aza? . . .] [unclear] . . .[8]


It is almost as if they are reading different languages which raises an interesting question. How certain can we be of any translation of an ancient text?

American paleographer, Christopher Rollston, has a lot more to say about this inscription.

http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/?p=56

Now, when you read the translations above you have to be careful to remember that anything between brackets [ ] is not actually there. It represents a guess of the translator and the wild-assed differences of the way the words come out probably relate more to pre-concieved notions of the translators.

As Rollston states in his web site: "3. The script of this ostracon is definitively NOT Old Hebrew. For a discussion of the Old Hebrew script, please see my BASOR article. Rather the script of this inscription must be classified as Early Alphabetic (or Proto-Phoenician). "

The bald-faced assertion of Gershon that this language is "Hebrew" is unsustainable. (Of course, that never even slows down the nut jobs.)


Assumption #2: Flows from the idea that the initial premise is correct which Rollston says it is not. Even if it were, so what? Archaeology has demonstrated that Judah in the 10th century was a poverty-stricken shithole incapable of asserting any power on the world stage. As Israel Finkelstein noted the site of Kh. Qeiyafa was probably built by the Philistines. The Philistines were an agricultural entity by this time and we have evidence of their cities and towns. We have nothing for the so-called Judahites. History has shown us that settled, urbanized, civiliations build defenses against nomadic raiders. The Romans built extensive defenses along the German border but the Germans built nothing to defend themselves against the Romans. That's the way it works. Gershon is trying to construct an entire culture out of a single worn and (basically) illegible ostrakon. And xtian shitheads are delighted with the idea because they are desperate to have their fairy tales vindicated.

Assumption #3 is ass backwards. The Philistines were the ones who had economic assets to protect, not the Israelites.

Assumption #4 is the heart of the matter. Why would the Judahites build a fort to protect Jerusalem if it WERE a shitty little hilltop village? Its a good question but the answer is again 180 degrees off. Archaeology has found nothing for 10th century ( or 9th century for that matter!) Jerusalem which indicates that there was anything of significance there at all. But a fort sitting on a road works in both directions. The Philistines had the manpower and economic resources to build it AND they had things that were worth protecting from marauders. Once the Philistines were disposed of by the Assyrians there is no reason why the Judahites could not have moved in but that does not mean the Judahites built it. American rebels took Fort Ticonderoga from the British but it was still a British-built fort!

Assumption #5: The initial readings of the Tel Dan stele caused bible-thumpers everywhere to cum in their pants that there was a shattered hearsay reference to "David." Subsequent scholarship on the Stele has dealt that idea a serious blow. Remember what I said about the brackets [ ] above. Tel Dan is full of them. A scholar named George Athas has done extensive work on the stele and his conclusion is that bytdwd is not "House of David" but more a toponym. "City of David" but in the sense that "Rome" was named for Romulus and Athens was named for "Athena." The enshrinement of a mythical figure not a person. But that is a subject for a whole new thread.

Assumption #6 is merely an outgrowth of all the others. It still ignores the fact that there is not the slightest shred of evidence for any sort of Davidic-Solomonic empire in the 10th century. The people were supposedly ruled by them do not seem to know anything about it!

Gershon is trying to stretch a poorly preserved ostrakon to make all of the above true. I won't call him an idiot but I will say he stretches credulity well beyond the breaking point.