Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult

[A_Nony_Mouse]

As you know the prism you like was found in the royal palace in the ruins of Nineveh. Would you tell me what has been found in the royal palaces of the listed people? Your correct response is, What palaces?

You want to compare the Assyrian Empire to "Israel" and the even poorer "Judah?"

I want to compare them to the kingdoms as described in the bible. If they were not as described in the bible then there is additional evidence the stories were made up. The issue I have raised in when they were made up. I have mentioned the use of real names for verisimilitude is nothing new and noted many examples such as Les Miserable which do so.

As noted using the king and place Jerusalem, even if in the same physical location as the present one, is not the one on the prism. The prism tells of its surrender. The Greek story says it was miraculously saved. The prism refers to 46 fortified cities as part of Judah. Archaeology have found nothing of the kind. Therefore the prism most certainly refers to a Jerusalem some place else not the one in the bible stories. The prism is NOT describing the land archaeologists have found around historical Jerusalem.

There are other problems with other cities such as the main players in Samaria which in the Greek is not Omri.

Because they DID build palaces but to think that they would rival Nineveh is setting the bar a tad high.

I think implying I said to rival Nineveh is pushing the bar out of reach. I am talking about finding anything corroborating these Greeks stories in bibleland. Believers are always coming up with something but they have an odd characteristic. One has to go far from bibleland to find anything (which has to be greatly twisted) to mention bibleland but nothing on location.

Imagine mentions of Egypt in Babylon, Assyrian, Greece and Rome but not a single thing along the Nile. What theory could explain that?

The folks who insist upon physical evidence would be surprised to find a single inscription of bible material in the cities mentioned on the prism. Hammurabi produced his laws in stone. How about the big ten in stone? How about anything equivalent? They are found in every other literate culture. What is now Israel and the West Bank is percentagewise the most dug place in the world. But no physical evidence. Any theory must address this fact.

"Palace" in this case meaning a place for the king and his immediate retinue to have a place to crash and party for a while before moving on.

Is it legitimate to ask you where you got that idea? Where the king or emperor or whatever lives is the center of government. Everything needed to run the kingdom or empire has to be there or close by.

Samaria, built by the Omride Dynasty, hardly deserves the sobriquet of "city" either. A lot of archaeological texts I have read seem to prefer the term "Administrative Center" meaning a palace, some storehouses, maybe a stable and a defensive palisade where the local populace could take refuge in case of an attack....by an army with no capability for serious siege operations.

Seems to me if one is going to invoke the prism then the meaning and usage of the words on the prism apply. Working with the idea the bible exaggerates is a common approach to trying to salvage it, to rip it from the jaws of reality.

However here the Assyrians are being invoked and their empire and what they meant by a fortified city or just plain city is what is meant. You cannot back off from the words on the prism. If it says 46 fortified cities belonging to Jerusalem and there is nothing like that to be found then it is not talking about the bible's Jerusalem.

It is true that there is a serious lack of monumental inscriptions by the 9th century Israelites.

I think "serious lack" is an odd way to say none at all. Nor inscriptions of any kind. Nor any buildings of interest.

It is even odder to limit this to the 9th c. when in fact it applies to everything prior to the 2nd c. It is not like the 9th c. stands out. It is the norm prior to Greek rule.

We do have some ostraca with general bookkeeping entries and some odds and ends which is consistent with Finkelstein's observations about the growth of literacy in primitive states. Does not help us a lot, though.

As I said, finding only broken pottery with a few scratched words shows there was no local literacy. There was no production of anything intended for writing. Not even clay tablets which by definition are dirt cheap. As to growth of literacy it is solely connected to the administrative needs of the local whatever, fiefdom to empire. Without literacy fiefdom is about as big as they can be.

Hezekiah, a century or so later did have some monumental inscriptions and the likelihood is that he had a "palace" but there is no indication of any temple.

I think it reasonable to ask what inscriptions you are talking about. The only one is the BS tunnel inscription. That undated and undatable are written in Phoenician. Yes, believers look to the bible for their circular reasoning to date it. The dating problem comes from the fact it was removed and sent to a museum in Turkey shortly after it was discovered. It was not properly dated at the time, it can't be put back. There are no do overs here.

There are no words on the inscription which can date it. The language was around for so long it is no help. This kind of tunnel is used at least one other place in bibleland so it is not unique. Any time after the inscription was made a story could have been written about it.

I do not find that at all surprising as even the OT itself tells us that the Canaanites worshiped at "high places." The only thing which claims that Hezekiah's countrymen were not merely Canaanites is the OT and we both agree on the reliability of that piece of shit.

I find it interesting that Canaanites are found only in the bible and not by archaeologists. Even your prism calls the region Palestine. It poisons the discussion to use a name invented by the folks who invented the bible stories and my point is who invented them and when.

No one has found any evidence of a people who were called or called themselves anything like Canaanite. In my reading the closest to the Phoenician word which means peasants or farmers. It was applied to the native population around the colonial city of Carthage, kanana. I wouldn't bet money on it.

Then one is free to ask what is a "high place" and discover there is no answer. High in terms of elevation above sea level does not fit a high priest. There are several real temples known in the region. None are on top of a hill. The only surviving descriptions from Roman times which imply the location of Herod's temple preclude the top of the temple mount as its location. But gee whiz mister translator you did pick the word high. Bottom line without physical evidence they are just words.

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Question for you: Taking into account all the known physical evidence what is your theory as to who wrote it and when and what do you believe its contents represent?

That would take a book.

I say Alexandrian Greeks in the 2nd c. BC. It hardly takes a book. It may take a book to explain it but a statement of a theory is simple.

Let us be honest here. You have no theory which addresses the known facts. No one does. Mine is based primarily upon the impossibility of in situ creation and the appearance of the stories being coincident with the Maccabean revolt which was an alliance with the Ptolemys against the Seleucids. With that everything fell into place.

I say my theory explains more facts than any other. It also addresses "deal breaker" facts like the illiteracy of the religious assumptions of authorship.

I say I am not competing against other theories but rather assumptions based upon religious tradition which never addressed the facts. There is no theory which comes within a light year of the religious tradition.