The Bible Is Mostly Not Factual

[Minimalist]

They are into belief. "Facts" are terribly inconvenient for them so they are ignored.

Religious stupidity has its own rules.

[Chaostheosis]

I keep thinking Ms. H. G. Wells from Warehouse 13. As for Dawkins...what a media whore.

Please, explain how Dawkins is a Media whore?

I mean, that's a pretty big statement to make about someone without back up isn't it?

[JesusHChrist]

You know who's a real media whore?

The Pope. Now, THAT'S a media whore.

[archangle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfDJbi5gfC0

Bible scholar on a panel tells audience, much of the Bible isn't factual, including Moses and King David. Theist sputtering and indignation ensues. "But the Bible has TROOOOTHS!" they wail. Richard Dawkins also gets in his piece.

Dr. Francesca is new to me. I must investigate further.

While she is an atheist, she does say elsewhere she is friendly to religion.

I guess nobody's perfect.

so the Jews didn't have a general/leader that lead them to a land and they conquered that land? really?

what is your proof?

[Tonus]

What is his proof that something didn't happen?

[JesusHChrist]

so the Jews didn't have a general/leader that lead them to a land and they conquered that land? really?

what is your proof?

You'll have to take that up with Francesca. She's the one with the PhD in the topic.

But, yes that seems to be the scholarly consensus these days.

[Statler Waldorf]

so the Jews didn't have a general/leader that lead them to a land and they conquered that land? really?

what is your proof?

but…but….Francesca says those things never happened and she was there!...er...I mean...and she has a Ph.D. and even though she’s an atheist she’s completely neutral on the matter!! How did you miss that?

[Minimalist]

so the Jews didn't have a general/leader that lead them to a land and they conquered that land? really?

what is your proof?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/704190/posts

• The conquest: One of the formative events of the people of Israel in biblical historiography is the story of how the land was conquered from the Canaanites. Yet extremely serious difficulties have cropped up precisely in the attempts to locate the archaeological evidence for this story. Repeated excavations by various expeditions at Jericho and Ai, the two cities whose conquest is described in the greatest detail in the Book of Joshua, have proved very disappointing. Despite the excavators' efforts, it emerged that in the late part of the 13th century BCE, at the end of the Late Bronze Age, which is the agreed period for the conquest, there were no cities in either tell, and of course no walls that could have been toppled. Naturally, explanations were offered for these anomalies. Some claimed that the walls around Jericho were washed away by rain, while others suggested that earlier walls had been used; and, as for Ai, it was claimed that the original story actually referred to the conquest of nearby Beit El and was transferred to Ai by later redactors.

Biblical scholars suggested a quarter of a century ago that the conquest stories be viewed as etiological legends and no more. But as more and more sites were uncovered and it emerged that the places in question died out or were simply abandoned at different times, the conclusion that there is no factual basis for the biblical story about the conquest by Israelite tribes in a military campaign led by Joshua was bolstered.

This piece was published in Haaretz - in Israel, in 1999, and touched off a firestorm which continues to this day. It was not news to archaeologists who had known all of this since this 70's but it pissed off the fundies and the orthodox jews something fierce. Fuck all of them!

The author, Ze'ev Herzog....

Ze’ev Herzog (Hebrew: זאב הרצוג‎, born 1941) is an Israeli archeologist, professor of archaeology at The Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University specializing in social archaeology, ancient architecture and field archaeology.

is an accomplished archaeologist.

You, are not.

[JesusHChrist]

but…but….Francesca says those things never happened and she was there!...er...I mean...and she has a Ph.D. and even though she’s an atheist she’s completely neutral on the matter!! How did you miss that?

Your obfuscation does nothing to change the fact that the consensus among experts in the relevant fields is the Exodus did not happen. Francesca is in the mainstream.

How does it feel to keep having reality tear your pet delusion to shreds?

I've noticed the Mormon apologists respond in essentially the same manner -- attack the person rather than refute the evidence.

[archangle]

so the Jews didn't have a general/leader that lead them to a land and they conquered that land? really?

what is your proof?

You'll have to take that up with Francesca. She's the one with the PhD in the topic.

But, yes that seems to be the scholarly consensus these days.

No, that is not the consensus at all. The consensus is that the Jews may have come from Egypt.