(January 9, 2013 at 11:17 pm)Minimalist Wrote:Quote: I would rather suggest he was rewarded for betraying his army to save his own ass.
That idea always made more sense to me as well. Ever notice how the drawing of lots at Jotapata very closely resembles the drawing of lots at Masada? Of course, Josephus was not at Masada. He was already in Rome doing his bit for Flavian propaganda.
Quote:It does not say anyone was taken to Babylon.
No, but the Assyrians did deport conquered peoples to Assyria and replace them with others as a mechanism of control. (The US did the same thing by moving Indians off their land onto "reservations" where they had no ties to the land.) The Babylonians, being a successfully rebelling province of the Assyrian empire could easily have picked up the trick. Then again, we do have the Cyrus Cylinder which indicates that he did restore various peoples who had been overrun by the Babylonians. The Judahites are not mentioned, nor is yahweh but it was such an insignificant little shithole that it cannot have been foremost on his mind.
Read the Cyrus cylinder. It says nothing of people. It says sacred things were restored to their places. If I have to choose between Judeans being considered sacred things and the stones that represented the gods which were taken to Babylon the latter is a no-brainer. It has to be referring to the stones.
Quote:Archaeology does tell us that at the beginning of the Persian period a small number of people returned to "Jerusalem" and set up shop. Finkelstein puts the number at around 400 but this does mark a definitive break from the Babylonian administration which had been moved to Mispah when Jerusalem (or whatever it was called) was sacked and burned.
I have read Finkelstein & Silvermman, watched the former in documentaries and read interviews. I have yet to hear any arkie evidence of any people returning. I have no interest in anyone's opinion regardless of how nowned or renowned or even famous. I am only interested in their physical evidence. I have found none. I have heard no reference to any nor suggestion of existence of any. If you have come across something let me know.
Quote:I've never found an online version of The View From Nebo. It is by Amy Dockser Marcus who is a reporter, not an archaeologist, but she went around interviewing archaeologists for the book. Luckily, she did not waste her time interviewing "theologians."
Frankly interviewing anyone for their opinion absent presentation of physical evidence is worthless. The greatest diggers of the 19th c. and arkies of the 20th are still mostly believers. They may be making odd finds in their narrow digs but they commonly support religious traditions that confirm everything else as true. I have yet to come across anything that rises above worthless. Finkelstein does this. None of them have the independent wealth or balls to call it like it is.
To this day people are pointing to scratches on broken pottery as evidence of a literate culture. Total bull! It is almost all contracts. A literate culture without a single specialization for writing like even clay tablets? There is no literate culture in bibleland until a century after the Greeks. Before them only the Egyptians and Phoenicians.
The facts are inextricably mixed with the myth. Take the Hezekiah tunnel inscription mainly its name. First off it was removed to Turkey shortly after discovery so it has no context that can be recovered. Second it is clearly written in Phoenician. Third it makes no mention of Hezekiah or anything biblical. Fourth the bible story of the tunnel could have been invented any time after the tunnel existed. The inscription does not date the story or the tunnel or give it a biblical connection. Yet the otherwise competent arkies will cite it as though there were no problems with it.
