Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Sorry, Mouse. I did not see your earlier reply until just now. Not sure how that happened.....

Anyway,

Philistia and Judah are bible places. They did not exist.

Egyptologist, Donald Redford, tells us that the Egyptians referred to Canaan as "the land beyond the sand," a picturesque if somewhat awkward way of saying it.

So this Redford character assumes there really was a place called Canaan and then claims an Egyptian name is Canaan and therefore Canaan existed. That is not even elliptical. It is a perfect circle as far as reasoning goes.

The geographic area was always there. What it was called is the issue. Egyptians many have called it what Redford said. No one but the unknown people who wrote the bible ever called it that. Because of that it cannot be distinguished from an invented name that no one ever called it.

The consequential problem is, even if we let believers get away with it, is the CanaanITES. With the ITES we expect to find a distinctive culture which left distinctive arkies remains like pottery and such. There is no such thing found.

Further apologist believers are constantly talking about "peoples" migrating into bibleland. To make a difference and bring a culture with them this is not a few families. This is tens of thousands of people. Look into real archaeology and discover there is no talk of any such migrations or mass movements. Only fake biblical arkies talk about it. Why? desperate attempts to salvage bible stories by weaving fanciful LIES about the nature of ancient times. The LIES are necessary to salvage anything from the bible stories.

There are Assyrian references to the Philisti and Palastu. The Egyptians called them the Peleset. I'm sorry that no one referred to them by their English names but that really would be asking a lot....seeing as how English did not exist at this time.

There are a few rules of names. P is quite conveniently a plosive. PH is a fricative. Those kinds of sounds do not drift between groups rather only within the same types of sounds even over centuries. Now the Greeks like Herodotus had perfectly good ways of spelling such sounds. In fact they did use PH for F and P for P. Herodotus writes Palestina. Mid 5th c. BC for that. The phonetic spelling was constant at least through the 2nd c. AD that I can say I have verified. I have also found 20th c. uses of the name with the same P not PH such as our own discussion. Given pronunciations are a drunkard's walk instead of returning to an older version I think it safe to say the P has always been a P. A related exception appears to be the migration of Joppa to Jaffa but only a period of more than 3000 years.

As you say, there is a mention of a Palastu which looks darned close. I am not aware of Philisti and would much appreciate a reference. However if both are found in the same Assyrian sources then it is most reasonable to consider they referred to two different places. As we know which was and still is Palestine Philisti was some place else.

In addition we have a firmly dated series of destruction layers in the mid 12th century at the formerly Canaanite (another name that was not used at the time but is conventional today) towns of Ashdod, Ekron, Gaza, Ashkelon and Gath.

That a name is conventional today is solely a bible convention. In using a bible name believers can make all kinds of audacious claims without having to admit to circular reasoning. I am sure you have read many of them. If on the other hand they were required to rephrase their claims with IF we assume this was called Canaan THEN ... the circular nature of the claim would be obvious.

For example you use what you call "formerly Canaanite towns" in place of the honest IF we assume these six were Canaanite towns THEN these six Canaanite towns show destruction around the same time. (A time when the New Kingdom of Egypt was taking over/ruled the region.) Your statement is not obviously a circular argument. The restated is an obvious circular argument.

Factually I have not heard of a Gath having been identified. Again a reference would be appreciated. This is the first time I have considered the culture of those places but I am quite certain Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashod represent three different cultures.

As to actually identifying cities one of my first insights into real arkies preserving their funding was reading a couple of the papers. The first sentence was "something, something thought to be the biblical city of something." The second sentence explained that it did not match the bible description of location and that nothing was at the bible location. The third sentence said to the effect, we ignored that and got down to real archaeology. The rest of the paper was real archaeology with not the slightest reference back to the first sentence.

Ever since that I have taken any naming of a bible city with a grain of salt until I can find the actual paper. So far not a single one (granted not many) have shown any cause to identify the city by the bible name. This applies to presently existing cities like Jerusalem too. There is no known connection I have come across which would connect the bible Jerusalem with the Greek era Jerusalem even in the matter of location. This of course starts with the premise the bible stories about Jerusalem have anything to do with any city on that hit at any time in history.

Below the layer, the remains are Canaanite. Above they are Hellenic which is an indication that the Sea Peoples had some Greek heritage.

Any name chosen for the land would be based upon the names found from archaeology and from ancient texts. Any remains found are Palestinian remains. That there were Mycenaean colonies (or Hellenic but not Greek) is quite well known. Perseus and Andromeda and the Medusa are set in Joppa or modern Jaffa. Hellenic culture appears to have started in southern Turkey and spread first eastward and then south along the Med as colonies. Only after its unexplained hiatus does it reappear in Greece.

The Sea Peoples, having battled Ramesses III either lost or fought to a draw. They either then withdrew to Canaan on their own OR were directed there by the Egyptians who subsequently withdrew from their base at Beth Shean apparently voluntarily.

I have never heard of any legitimate claim that the origin or identity of the sea people has been made. A reference to "their base" being identified would be appreciated.

Since they did arrive by sea, hence their name, the idea they arrived in any huge numbers making one ask after the kind of landing craft they used. The simplest explanation is they were sort of like Viking invaders of Britain. And when Egypt got its act together exterminated them.

However if they did withdraw it is proper to use the known historical name and say they withdrew to Palestine.

Sidebar: Are you aware there is an entire modern Zionist myth that Rome invented the name Palestine in the 2nd c. AD?

In any case, they overran the towns mentioned and we have a definitive shift in pottery styles at that time. They had no written language of their own so we do not know what they called themselves....only what their opponents called them. But whatever they called themselves - they were there.

The physical evidence is conclusive.

Only if you ignore the pieces you don't like.

I do work quite hard to avoid that error. I do not ignore people calling the region Canaan in order to claim the cities are Canaanite instead of Palestinian. Interpreting finds with the assumption the bible is correct is not rational.

Try this example with identifying cities. Although it is popularly believed Schliemann discovered Troy back in the 1870s it was only about five years ago, nearly a century and a half later, that there was general agreement the city he found even matched the description of Ilium. Still there is no consensus that any of the events in the Iliad actually occurred or that any of the people were real. The standards of evidence were and ARE that high in real archaeology. Bible stories do not get exemptions for the rules nor special treatment.

Compare that the ZERO skepticism among "biblical" archaeologists regarding any claim of any discovered city. Those folks have no standards of evidence at all. And yet you confidently named six cities and gave them a common culture which comes only from them. Consider this false confidence using the bible as a guide carries along with it assumptions that all the bible stories about those cities are true or true but exaggerated or some sort of reflection of real events.

I am doing nothing more than applying the real standards of the science of archaeology to claims of discoveries in bibleland. I would first prefer a century and a half if that it what it takes to verify a city is in fact the one mentioned in the bible stories. I would never take a confirmation of a city matching the description as having anything to do with the stories which mention the city.

But as I said bible diggers have no standards. They are not skeptical. Those few that sort of do have standards will fake it in the first few sentences of their publications. Needless to say believers never look passed the first sentence.

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Nope...all your evidence is false...written in the early 1920 by a commitee of athiest faking ancient text.

Name of the committee, its members and the rest of the details which will distinguish that statement from a lie. Please do.

Besides...where is your proof that authentics the documents your basing your agruments?? What's good for the goose...is good for the gander. The roman and greek empires. Never really existed...they were made up by european merchents of 1600 to control the trade routes. Everythings a lie. Nothing can be proofed. Everything is faked.

You are obviously quite desperate here. You are resorting grade school level claims.

I have made no claims whatsoever about Roman or Greek empires existing or not and I have no interest in your beliefs on any subject. I am only interested in what physical evidence you might have. I doubt I have missed anything that related to my theory of origin.

As for proof, that is a very specific word. It only applies to math and logic. It does not apply to science or anything else. If you wish to discuss the subject at least learn to use words properly.

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See what happens when you shake the rug too hard, Mouse? All sorts of assholes fall out.

What might be worst is that people who make a popular reputation for themselves will often backtrack and be as dumb as this guy. I just looked into the second Finkelstein book where he weaves a fanciful tale claiming to show Saul, David and Solomon were real people but the stories were distorted. With reading the Amazon "look inside" parts and the comments it appears it appears he is all argumentation with zero physical evidence.

In other words that guy might be Finkelstein. It is all so unfortunate.