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[SteveC]

Now, I'm really beginning to get ticked off at both the Jews and the Christians................and everybody else in between. I asked a question yesterday, and everyone is ignoring it. I don't like to be ignored 

I repeat, these inscriptions that were found, do they exist whole, or in part, anywhere in the Bible?

I hope you don't expect me, a lazy SOB atheist, to go thumbing through the entire Bible looking for the answer.

[fenn]

Ignore Steve at your own peril.

[Metis]

I hope you don't expect me, a lazy SOB atheist, to go thumbing through the entire Bible looking for the answer.

Hey, if you can be a "lazy SOB", why can't we? 

It doesn't appear to me to be from any specific part of Torah or Tanakh, but the references to helping the poor, the slave, and the widow are reoccurring themes in scripture.

[Metis]

Ignore Steve at your own peril.

I'm good at hiding. 

[SteveC]

I hope you don't expect me, a lazy SOB atheist, to go thumbing through the entire Bible looking for the answer.

Hey, if you can be a "lazy SOB", why can't we? 

You do have a good point there!! I made a New Years resolution to be even more sensitive than I was before, I guess I blew that one.

It doesn't appear to me to be from any specific part of Torah or Tanakh, but the references to helping the poor, the slave, and the widow are reoccurring themes in scripture.

Thank you very much, that was very kind of you to respond. I suspected those reoccuring themes were in scripture.

KWD, since those inscriptions weren't direct quotes from the Bible, I don't understand why you made such a major issue out of them.

[Chanah]

Well the Talmud says that the Torah as we know it was put together by Ezra and company from fragments of Torah scrolls found in Judea after some of the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity (most Jews stayed in Babylon).

Most scholars date it a bit earlier than that - the written down version anyway - but for the purposes of this discussion that's really theological hairsplitting.

Everybody - including the rabbis of the Talmud - agreed that our Torah was put together from fragments (and oral traditions!), not that we've got copies of copies of copies of what God told Moses to write at Sinai - and why am I getting pictures of Moses with tablets, hammer, and chisel, sitting in God's lap while God says to him 'first chisel out a 'beit', then a 'resh''....

Sorry. I can't think in literalist. But you get the idea.

[Howiedds]

Metis:

One of the questions I had for the speaker was how much of a Sumerian influence there might have been since, even though they were polytheistic, there's still so many similarities between their practices and ours.

When I start with Abraham, I don't go back to the Sumerians. I probably haven't studied them since Gustave Hamburger's 10 grade honors history class back in Brooklyn. Since we traditionally trace Abraham's beginnings to the southern, eastern portion of the Fertile Crescent, I wouldn't be surprised. Isn't that the location of ancient Sumer?

[Howiedds]

Metis to Kwd:

Like Howie, I'm confused by the question.  Can you elaborate a bit more?

LOL! But did you notice that the confusion over the question didn't stop me from rambling right on with an answer to a question that Kwd may not have asked?

[Howiedds]

Steve:

KWD, since those inscriptions weren't direct quotes from the Bible, I don't understand why you made such a major issue out of them.

You asked a question of kwd that most of us missed. The writing found is not a quote from Tanakh.

Re-read the opening lines of the article, however, and you discover the real significance of the find, which is only tangential but connected to what Kwd was saying.

A breakthrough in the research of the Bible has shed new light on the period in which the Bible could have been written, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE, the University of Haifa announced on Thursday.

The revisionists have been saying, as did the 18th and 19th century critics said, that there is no evidence of a Davidic/Solomonic kingdom of any where near the advanced development claimed in Tanakh. The charge was that the tradition that the theory that the Torah was handed down  orally and finally written in a culturally well developed Davidic kingdom by scribes was false. The revisionists said that there was no such capability in the 10th century, and that it wasn't capable of being written until the 7th or 6th century BCE.

Then along comes this find which is written in Hebrew, echoing the Torah (as Metis mentioned) although not a quote from it.

It is added to an earlier find of a scribe's writing of the entire Hebrew alphabet in its traditional sequence (or was it a school child's practice of it) found in 2005 which also dates to the 10th century BCE.

This is latest one however, is more than an alphabet. Such early writing might demonstrate a high level of scribal skills that would be found in a complex, well developed society that could support scribal education. It might add weight to the tradition that a Davidic kingdom of some size and cultural development existed in the 10th century, something the revisionists have denied.

This find does not confirm anything Biblical, but makes the tradition that writing had developed enough in a culture sophisticated enough to have scribes writing a Torah or at least setting down the oral history in writing.



 If true, this would tend to confirm that there was a large state in Israel in the 10th century BCE, and if one wished to associate that with the Biblical David, one could choose to do so without contradicting the evidence. The presence of words like ‘judge’ and ‘king’ in the text (if confirmed) would provide support for this position from within the text. This stands in opposition to the theory that the Israelites were more egalitarian and disunified at this period, as suggested by the heretofore pretty scanty record from the 10th century. If the latter were true, the Old Testament account would be open to more serious scrutiny; this new find doesn’t confirm the validity of anything Biblical, but rather doesn’t disconfirm it.

[Howiedds]

Sorry, this last part should have been in quotes.

If true, this would tend to confirm that there was a large state in Israel in the 10th century BCE, and if one wished to associate that with the Biblical David, one could choose to do so without contradicting the evidence. The presence of words like ‘judge’ and ‘king’ in the text (if confirmed) would provide support for this position from within the text. This stands in opposition to the theory that the Israelites were more egalitarian and disunified at this period, as suggested by the heretofore pretty scanty record from the 10th century. If the latter were true, the Old Testament account would be open to more serious scrutiny; this new find doesn’t confirm the validity of anything Biblical, but rather doesn’t disconfirm it.

[kwd111]

As you may remember, I believe there is enough circumstantial evidence in Shemot to indicate that there was a sojourn in Egypt that ended between 1400 BCE and 1250 BCE.

Ya, but I think it appears more likely that this may be a smaller group rather than the majority of our people. 

One thing the speaker did get into today that was much appreciated by myself was to dive into the question of our origins as "Israelites", and he put forth various hypotheses without taking a stand himself.  One such hypothesis I've been interested in is that our people may well have been Canaanites who essentially broke away or migrated eastward into the highlands to possibly escape the Philistines, and one of the things the speaker focused in on was how much of our practices in terms of "don't" may have been in opposition to the Philistines, who were clean-shaven, ate pork, etc. 

BTW, do you subscribe to BAR?   

May I ask what they say about the Tannakh's explanation?  In other words... If, as Howie says, they do believe that they sojourned in Egypt for a time - is there a reason for not following the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob route to Egypt?

Like Howie, I'm confused by the question.  Can you elaborate a bit more?

I'm sorry Howie for this late entry.  It seems like one can't post for 24 - 36 hours  and some 400 posts come up from everywhere in multiple thread lines.

WOW - Is this place hopping with interest or what!   

I'm not lost... just beginning of the New Year extra work.

Howie:

but semi-nomads who lived part of the year in the desert and part of the year in the settled areas, migrated to Egypt in bad times. Some went to Egypt and some did not. When the returning Israelites reached the promised land, they rejoined their cousins who were never in Egypt

Maybe the question is wrong and maybe even unnecessary as I fear that the answer will be "It could be true, we don't know for sure, we just try to find a truth behind what is written in the Tannakh"

Is it generally accepted as truth that Jacob/Israel did go to Egypt and then his descendants returned centuries later?

[Chanah]

Not Howie, I fear, but it's generally accepted that some people went to Egypt and their descendants returned hundreds of years later. I don't know if we have any of their names, though.

But what you're saying isn't considered historically impossible by any means. For that matter, the guy that I'm not (Howie) taught a class on this, and you can find the vid on the Internet:

http://historybyhoward.com/History_by_Howard/Welcome.html

Just click on Sample Class at the top. It runs about an hour. And yes, I'm buying the whole set as soon as I can afford to!

[Metis]

Metis:

One of the questions I had for the speaker was how much of a Sumerian influence there might have been since, even though they were polytheistic, there's still so many similarities between their practices and ours.

When I start with Abraham, I don't go back to the Sumerians. I probably haven't studied them since Gustave Hamburger's 10 grade honors history class back in Brooklyn. Since we traditionally trace Abraham's beginnings to the southern, eastern portion of the Fertile Crescent, I wouldn't be surprised. Isn't that the location of ancient Sumer?

Yes, and eventually Sumer became the Babylonian Empire as it expanded.  I thought maybe you could shed some more light on this since I think you were a teenager back then, right?

[Howiedds]

Kwd:

Is it generally accepted as truth that Jacob/Israel did go to Egypt and then his descendants returned centuries later?

I'm not sure how to answer whether or not it is generally accepted as truth.

We certainly read it in the Torah cycle of readings as if it were the way our people began their sojourn in Egypt, i.e. that Jacob's family went to Egypt in a time of difficulty just as Abraham did before him. That is a recurring theme of our mythic beginnings. (BTW, I think Matthew adopts that theme for the Holy Family seeking to avoid the slaughter of the innocents.)

Is the myth universally accepted as being truly the history of our family. No, it is not. There are Jews who hear/read the story in synagogue and accept it without giving it another thought outside of synagogue. I'm sure you know Christians like that.

There are Jews who think it is history and never doubt that it occurred as written.

Still other Jews, the revisionists I mentioned earlier like the authors of The Bible Unearthed, reject the story of our sojourn in Egypt and our escape out of hand.

Personally, wearing both the traditional hat, knowing that Jews have lived their lives for thousands of years as if the story were accurate and an academic hat that reminds me that the biblical narratives are a human product that is trying to convey a message of how we are to live our lives as Jews, I am in between.

I think there is enough circumstantial evidence to demonstrate that the biblical narrative reproduces stories of non-Egyptians, semites if you will, who traveled to Egypt, settled in the very fertile area of the lower (northern) Nile Delta that is described in the Bible as the area that Jacob's family settled. I think it can be shown historically that there were great building projects built by slave labor by non-Egyptians. I think there are also Egyptian historical accounts of  Egypt being taken over by Semite conquerors for several hundred years who were eventually driven out by the native Egyptians. It sounds reasonable that those who were captured or remained became slaves of the Egyptians.

There was also a time in the 1400/1300's BCE when Egypt was as close to being monotheistic as it ever had been in ancient times when the sun disk Aten was worshiped and the polytheistic Egyptian pantheon was set aside.

IOW, there are extra biblical accounts that describe a time in Egyptian history when the stories of the beginnings of the Jewish people,
 
( the narrative that has Semites migrating to Egypt when there was famine in Canaan, when a non-Egyptian could have great authority in Egypt, when a Pharaoh arose "who knew not Joseph" and drove out the invaders who had taken Egypt over for 200 years, when slaves would have built "storehouses for Pharaoh," when Egypt was  considering a primitive monotheism)

would have fit very nicely.

As Chanah pointed out, (and thanks for the plug, Chanah), there are no extra-biblical recordings of the names Jacob/Israel, or any of his sons, but the time frame and the Egyptian accounts are tantalizing close to the biblical narrative in its general outline.

That midway position between it is exact in every detail and it never happened is where I am personally, and I think that place on the spectrum is getting crowded. I think for people of faith, Jewish and Christian, can take heart in such tantalizing similarities between the non-biblical accounts and the biblical ones.
                            

[Howiedds]

Metis:

I thought maybe you could shed some more light on this since I think you were a teenager back then, right? Tongue

I was taking driver's ed from an anthropology professor at the time at Akkadian U.(Go Moonies)  How quickly you forget.

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SteveC