Evidence for The Exodus Indeed Was Found (1978) - MOD WARNING

What in the world are you trying to show here?

Not true. Most skeptics try to make the claim that all religions come from another. They
are wrong. Like you they look for similarities and try to make it to be a reason to believe
that all came from one.

Thankfully Judaism and Christianity didn't come from another source.[/QUOTE]

There is NO question that the Pentateuch was borrowed from Sumer, Egypt and the North Coast Canaanites. The Hebrews had no history or narratives about their origins until they were exiled in Babylon.[/QUOTE]

Matthew says 'Herod's brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah "A cry was heard in Ramah - weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead'.
Jeremiah says 'A cry is heard in Ramah - deep anguish and bitter weeping - Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted - for her children are gone. (NOTE)But this is what the Lord says "Do not weep any longer, for I will reward you" says the Lord "Your children will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy . There is hope for your future" says the Lord "your children will come again to their own land."
And where were the Children (Israel)? In a foreign Land. No slaughtered children - no raising from the dead..

You say Matthew was right when he quoted Jeremiah.
Unfortunately he forgot to make the full quote. The little word 'but' continues the full quote, and that says that 'your children will come back again to their own land'. I don't remember that happening after the supposed Innocent Massacre. But it did happen when the Israelites returned from exile.

Your problem is that if Christianity admitted the extraction, it would be finished.

You quoted a website a while ago that you thought agreed with you about Matthews quotes. Unfortunately as I pointed out to you it actually said that Matthew was only comparing Israel. (singular) with Jesus. Not that he was prophesied.

Matthew's genealogy is incomplete and includes Jeconiah, which precludes any king coming from him, and Luke's traces back to Adam -THROUGH NATHAN - not Solomon. Not the Messianic line. And your GotQuestions site only gives 'possible' answers to the Jeconiah question. The real truth is that shortly after the exile there is a time of chaos through the Maccabean era, with many Hebrews leaving for distant lands, civil wars and finally the occupation of the Romans, it's almost certain these lists contain some gaps - errors - or are simply made up in this period.

Pity you don't study. You will see traces of Egyptian beliefs and rituals adapted by Judaism for itself. Christianity adapts Judaistic ritual and beliefs - even Paul does.
Not surprising as Palestine was controlled by the Egyptians for long periods and Christianity stemmed from Judaism. Many ancient Middle Temples were based on Egyptian Temples. Even Davids. And why not? David had seen many temples, if you believe his story,

.

Christian sites you've used are not against Judaism? Tell that to Got Questions and the other numerous Christian sites.

Egyptian Book of the Dead, Ras Shamra or the Code of Hammurabi are where many of the things in the Bible come from as Margot has said.

Most of the book of Leviticus with it's rules and regulations are taken from more ancient civilisations. Many Jewish festivals and feasts stem from more ancient feasts. The 7th day of rest, the (Jewish) year of Jubilee - both were practised long before Judaism. 9 of the 10 commandments are taken from more ancient codes. These things I mention are not similarities - they are direct copies. They're written down on ancient artifacts found in museums.

Now I'm off to bed. If you want to take things out of context to satisfy your belief - so be it.

 

Do have independent sources to show Herod did massacre all those children? Its odd as hell the Roman military authority wouldn't stop it after all they had enough problems with the Jewish people allowing a massacre of innocent babies for no reason would likely have forced the Romans to intervene and if committed retaliate to maintain order. And where is the proof of a census forcing men to go back to their places of birth if it makes zero sense the Romans wouldn't do it, a census always was taken where a family and its business or work was for taxation purposes and to gather numbers any serious deviation was unlikely do you know how disruptive and dangerous for these people and the cost to travel would make such a policy. The whole story involving Jesus of Nazareth's birth makes no sense.

As for the Exodus the proposed 2 million Jews where did they live Egypt at the time couldn't have supported them and the native Egyptians and others living there in the green zone of the Nile, that also makes no sense your talking many millions of people over the Biblical amount perhaps the number given is wrong could it have been mistranslated and it was really maybe several thousand men? The reason I ask is if the Pharaoh did send his army against them if only a third of those men could fight he was assuredly going to lose the fight due to numbers why would he irrationally do that?

 

You're absolutely right about the birth narrative. As to the Exodus, there is no evidence that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt as slaves, or escaped in an Exodus. It's simply a story.

 

The code of Hammurabi an the scrolls from Ras Shamra have nothing to do with the Mormons.

There's a glitch with the quote function..

 

There is NO question that the Pentateuch was borrowed from Sumer, Egypt and the North Coast Canaanites. The Hebrews had no history or narratives about their origins until they were exiled in Babylon.[/QUOTE]

Matthew says 'Herod's brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah "A cry was heard in Ramah - weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead'.
Jeremiah says 'A cry is heard in Ramah - deep anguish and bitter weeping - Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted - for her children are gone. (NOTE)But this is what the Lord says "Do not weep any longer, for I will reward you" says the Lord "Your children will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy . There is hope for your future" says the Lord "your children will come again to their own land."
And where were the Children (Israel)? In a foreign Land. No slaughtered children - no raising from the dead..

You say Matthew was right when he quoted Jeremiah.
Unfortunately he forgot to make the full quote. The little word 'but' continues the full quote, and that says that 'your children will come back again to their own land'. I don't remember that happening after the supposed Innocent Massacre. But it did happen when the Israelites returned from exile.

Your problem is that if Christianity admitted the extraction, it would be finished.

You quoted a website a while ago that you thought agreed with you about Matthews quotes. Unfortunately as I pointed out to you it actually said that Matthew was only comparing Israel. (singular) with Jesus. Not that he was prophesied.

Matthew's genealogy is incomplete and includes Jeconiah, which precludes any king coming from him, and Luke's traces back to Adam -THROUGH NATHAN - not Solomon. Not the Messianic line. And your GotQuestions site only gives 'possible' answers to the Jeconiah question. The real truth is that shortly after the exile there is a time of chaos through the Maccabean era, with many Hebrews leaving for distant lands, civil wars and finally the occupation of the Romans, it's almost certain these lists contain some gaps - errors - or are simply made up in this period.

Pity you don't study. You will see traces of Egyptian beliefs and rituals adapted by Judaism for itself. Christianity adapts Judaistic ritual and beliefs - even Paul does.
Not surprising as Palestine was controlled by the Egyptians for long periods and Christianity stemmed from Judaism. Many ancient Middle Temples were based on Egyptian Temples. Even Davids. And why not? David had seen many temples, if you believe his story,

.

Christian sites you've used are not against Judaism? Tell that to Got Questions and the other numerous Christian sites.

Egyptian Book of the Dead, Ras Shamra or the Code of Hammurabi are where many of the things in the Bible come from as Margot has said.

Most of the book of Leviticus with it's rules and regulations are taken from more ancient civilisations. Many Jewish festivals and feasts stem from more ancient feasts. The 7th day of rest, the (Jewish) year of Jubilee - both were practised long before Judaism. 9 of the 10 commandments are taken from more ancient codes. These things I mention are not similarities - they are direct copies. They're written down on ancient artifacts found in museums.

Now I'm off to bed. If you want to take things out of context to satisfy your belief - so be it.[/QUOTE]

Much of the quote you responded to wasn't me.

 

it.[/QUOTE]

Much of the quote you responded to wasn't me.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. I did appreciate that. Much of it was from Prunepicker. Somewhere it got muddled. He can't understand that taking half quotes and quotes out of context nullifies the whole lot. And most of the quotes are just that. Of course Christianity has to maintain you can, or it falls.

Here's a laugh for you. Here it's my Midday dinner time. I've just made a cup of tea to drink, and some gravy to cover my meat pie and vegetables. Not thinking, I've poured milk into my gravy instead of into the tea. Agh. Have a good day.

 

Not true. The Pentateuch wasn't borrowed from anyone. There's no supportive
evidence. Only specuclation.

 

You specifically mentioned the Book of the Dead.

 

According to the Jewish Babylonian Talmud Gittin 58a it claims that the Roman wrapped 16 million Jewish children in scrolls and burned them alive. It was tough being a Jewish baby in those times.

 

I want actual historical proof, if these events happened, there must have been people talking about it Greek and foreign merchants, Romans of position and so forth its funny we have evidence of all their other massacres from the people committing them since it was by action of the governors and commanders in the name of the Emperor.

 

The core of Leviticus is the P ("priestly") document, to which is appended the
Holiness Code comprising Chapters 17 through 26. Biblical scholars call this the H
("Holiness") document. Its laws, designed to preserve economic justice and supportive
rituals of purity, were incorporated into Mosaic Law by being embedded in the Sinai
story. (The Torah was long known as the Five Books of Moses.) Divine sanction for the
Levitical and Deuteronomic laws is provided by the recurrent phrase, "I, the Lord, am
your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery" to be
free and economically self-supporting.
The Holiness Code combines some of the Torah's most ancient and latest parts.
It is archaic in preserving many practices whose roots have been traced back to Bronze
Age Mesopotamia, including the Jubilee Year's deror proclamation. It is late in its
unprecedented innovation of not merely listing the sacred laws (as in the early P-source
of the first 16 chapters of Leviticus), but explaining them. "In addition to stating the
reasons for individual provisions, these chapters constantly refer to their overall purpose
to maintain the holiness of the Israelite people. And holiness is understood not only in
terms of ceremonial purity but especially in terms of personal and social righteousness"
(Bamberger 1979viii-xix).
The Levitical exhortations, above all those dealing with debt cancellation, use
phrases reminiscent of the social prophet Ezekiel, active early in the sixth century on the
eve of Judah's defeat at the hands of Babylonia. This seems to reflect the fact that in the
sixth and fifth centuries the archaic laws were woven into their final form. The Jewish
religion's moral values were grounded not just in the priesthood, much less the palace,
but in the people as a whole, by sacred covenant into which all members entered.
The new cuneiform discoveries enable us to see how, arising out of a broad Near
Eastern matrix, the Biblical laws elevated to the theological plane a by-then revolutionary
protest against the arrogance of wealth that had developed in the 400-year Dark Age
free-for-all following the collapse of Bronze Age societies around 1200 BC. M

The New Year festival repeated civilization's creation of order out of chaos. This
was the Bronze Age cosmological antecedent of subsequent Jewish religion, whose
New Year celebration was much different from the Near Eastern saturnalia-type
festival. Common to both such festivals was the idea of putting the world back in
order. In Bronze Age times this involved cancelling the debts which, above all other
factors, disturbed traditional economic balance and self-sufficiency on the land.

Michael Hudson PhD in his book 'The Lost Tradition of Biblical Debt Cancellations.'

Ancient documents stela, artifacts, etc all show early antecedents of many Jewish Festivals related to earlier gods and used for Yahweh in the Pentateuch. . As we also know that most of Leviticus rules etc were also in earlier civilisations. They had learned by experience not to eat certain animals, fish, shellfish etc. The Hebrews simply put them in. They knew the problems with interbreeding (incest etc). Egyptian medicine was advanced for its age and forms simple basis for some of todays medicine.
9 of the 10 commandments are found in various codes (Hammurabi, Ur Nammu, etc.) you can read in various Libraries, museums etc.

 

Nice post. Some is a very important part of your quote. Similarities don't make facts
but similarities do fuel myths and desires. The same goes for the rest of your post.

The Torah, as the rest of the Bible, was inspired by God and not some other group(s) of
people. I'm very well aware that naysayers want to do whatever is necessary to discredit
the Word of God.

 

I used to jump through hoops and bend over backwards to accommodate unbelievers. No more. I present the truth and ignore the demands for more "evidence". It's a game and power play for them, and you're never going to change their mind. That's not our job anyway. Scripture tells us to speak the truth and if it's rejected, walk away and give it to someone else. One plants, one waters, and God reaps.

 

You present belief not truth. For example scripture tells us nothing of the sort for you simply interpret it that way.

There is a difference.

Truth requires some objective evidence.

BTW few if any DEMAND evidence they request it. It is not a power play it is a challenge.

The fact that you reject such requests simply shows lack of confidence in your beliefs.

 

The Bible is also a history book. Jerusalem is still there. Nazareth is still there. The ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah have been found, etc etc.

 

No it is not a history book.

Yes it is true that a few places and people in the background of the bible story were real places and people. But that does not constitute a history book.

There are many books and even movies which have stories told against the backdrop of real places and with real people playing a small role. But that does not make them true stories. For example just because DDay was a real event, Normandy was a real place and George C Marshall was areal person does not make Saving Private Ryan a true story it is still just a fictional movie.

The same is true for books and stories from many authors from Shakespeare to Tom Clancy.

The important narratives of the bible is not only unsupported b any evidence it is proven fiction in many cases.

You already named one for example.

Jesus is often referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or even in some interpretations as the Nazarene. The reason is very clear: he was from Nazareth. It seems apparent that he was not only FROM Nazareth but OF Nazareth meaning he was born there. This of course cannot be permitted since OT prophecies state that the messiah will be born in Jerusalem. So the gospel authors, upon realizing that they had a glaring problem, dreamed up a wholly fictitious excuse to get Joseph and Mary close to Jerusalem for the birth of Jesus. This excuse was an imaginary census which required people to temporarily uproot and return briefly to their place of birth to be counted.

The Romans may have done some dumb and bad things from time to time but never something THAT stupid. It is completely irrelevant to any census where a person is born as opposed to where they live at the time the census was taken. If they are curious where a person comes from they simply ask " where were you born ". Requiring hundreds of thousands of people ( such as carpenters ) to move back to whatever place they were born in would cause massive disruptions to the economy which in turn would have cost massive reductions in revenue from taxes. The Romans were ALL about taxes. Such disruptions would have of course left a record behind from people all over the empire. No such records exist. Because no such specifically ludicrous census was ever taken.

There are many many other examples from both the old and new testament. Which are collections of myth not of history.

 

The bible contains some historical facts, but again; so does Gone With The Wind;
that doesn't make it a history book.

 

There is plenty of evidence. It's a historical record, called the Old Testament. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever proven it to be wrong. It was also written shortly after the events described, and there is nothing that contradicts it. The best skeptics have to offer is a lack of historical evidence. Need I remind you that a lack of evidence does not prove anything. It simply means that we lack sufficient corroborating evidence for Scripture.

 

We disagree.

 

The Tanakh is only part a historical record, and the facts even there, are exaggerated. Anything up to the era of the kings is pretty well disproven by Ancient History and archaeology. Even David is debated as to his importance against the Omri dynasty. (Left out of the Bible because of its idolatry). The stories of the events of the Kings are often exaggerated. Did Asa'a 40,000? men defeat a million man 'Ethiopian' army or, which is more likely, a much smaller section of the Egyptian army made up from men from its southern kingdom. How could Israel muster 800,000 soldiers to fight 500,000 soldiers of Judah when the whole population of Palestine of the time probably could not reach that figure. Even the Assyrain and Bablylonian EMPIRES could not raise a fraction of that number of men. If the Hebrews could raise that many they would not have been beaten by either the Assyrians or the Babylonians.

History itself shows the stories of Abraham and Moses to be just that - stories.

 

The huge armies and epic battles are all fiction. The whole population of Palestine was never more than 600,000 people.

Further, the Canaanite towns in Sinai and Canaan show no evidence of having been interrupted or destroyed.

Its grandiose, but it's not true.. just like the exaggerated stories of Solomon's wealth.

 

You should probably make a trip to the Holy Lands.

 

I would love to, as soon as we destroy Islamic terrorism.

 

Not a problem in Israel.