Current Events > Are the contents of the Bible Canon to world History?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Considering it has magic nonsense in it and magic does not exist irl.

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About as much as the Chronicles of Narnia books.
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Smashingpmkns posted...

About as much as the Chronicles of Narnia books.

Check out the edgelord.

In some ways the Bible's a decent historical document, at least by the standards of documents that old. You have to take into consideration that a lot of it comes from oral history, that the "books" of the Bible were selected from a collection of 3000 documents by the powers that be in the 4th century (Catholic canon). Some of those were selected for political reasons (Ruth). Others weren't selected for equally spurious reasons (Enoch 1).

Overall, you could do worse, I suppose. Doctrine does more damage to the layperson taking the Bible more seriously as a historical document than the contents do.

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Idk I mean the bible has unicorns and that's pretty chill

vigorm0rtis posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

About as much as the Chronicles of Narnia books.

Check out the edgelord.

In some ways the Bible's a decent historical document, at least by the standards of documents that old. You have to take into consideration that a lot of it comes from oral history, that the "books" of the Bible were selected from a collection of 3000 documents by the powers that be in the 4th century (Catholic canon). Some of those were selected for political reasons (Ruth). Others weren't selected for equally spurious reasons (Enoch 1).

Overall, you could do worse, I suppose. Doctrine does more damage to the layperson taking the Bible more seriously as a historical document than the contents do.

Lmao
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Smashingpmkns posted...

Lmao

"I ain't much of a reader."

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Is this the thinly veiled "herp derp bible bad" thread today?

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vigorm0rtis posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

Lmao

"I ain't much of a reader."

You said a whole lot of nothing lmao
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Vyrulisse posted...

Is this the thinly veiled "herp derp bible bad" thread today?

What Veil?

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Smashingpmkns posted...

You said a whole lot of nothing lmao

I said a whole lot of factual stuff if you have the equipment to understand it. It's ok, pumpkin. Not everyone can separate the wheat and the chaff.

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vigorm0rtis posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

You said a whole lot of nothing lmao

I said a whole lot of factual stuff if you have the equipment to understand it. It's ok, pumpkin. Not everyone can separate the wheat and the chaff.

None of which that push the contents of the bible as being "canon" to world history, my little vigo lmao
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The Bible isn't a historical document as much as people want it to be.

Forgetting all the flood nonsense and angels blowing shit up nonsense for a minute.

There's no evidence Exodus ever happened. Any of it. Like not even if you squint while drunk.

There's astoundingly little evidence David ever existed.

There's no evidence Peter existed besides the Catholic Church saying he started their organization.

While there's evidence Jesus existed there's no evidence to support his Divinity or any miracles and was most likely a violent rebel leader and not the peaceful hippie you read about.

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Smashingpmkns posted...

None of which that push the contents of the bible as being "canon" to world history, my little vigo lmao

As I implied earlier, it's like you can't read.

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vigorm0rtis posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

None of which that push the contents of the bible as being "canon" to world history, my little vigo lmao

As I implied earlier, it's like you can't read.

You might want to go over what you posted a few times and come back with notes.
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vigorm0rtis posted...

As I implied earlier, it's like you can't read.

Id rather see you address Tyran since you claimed to be interested in the content of the discussion.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

There's no evidence Exodus ever happened. Any of it. Like not even if you squint while drunk.

I wonder how or why it took them 40 years to walk a distance you could cover in 11 days.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

There's no evidence Exodus ever happened. Any of it. Like not even if you squint while drunk.

Wrong. It happened, or at least we're pretty sure it did, but not in the numbers or in the place the Bible says. Onomastics indicate a migration of the Hebrews at about the same time it was recorded as happening in the Victory Stele of Pharaoh Merneptah. Also, probably not fleeing the Egyptians, rather the Levites bullied the shit out of the other tribes and drove them on a forced march to where they could force them to worship Yahweh without Egyptian influence.

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Smashingpmkns posted...

None of which that push the contents of the bible as being "canon" to world history, my little vigo lmao

what do you mean by canon?

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Why is it when people take the piss out of the bible its always the Old Testament which is done away with after christ.

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vigorm0rtis posted...

Wrong. It happened, or at least we're pretty sure it did, but not in the numbers or in the place the Bible says. Onomastics indicate a migration of the Hebrews at about the same time it was recorded as happening in the Victory Stele of Pharaoh Merneptah. Also, probably not fleeing the Egyptians, rather the Levites bullied the shit out of the other tribes and drove them on a forced march to where they could force them to worship Yahweh without Egyptian influence.

Here's factual info that explains not only did it not happen but it couldn't have happened.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191

And here's a religious source admitting it never happened either.

https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/judaism/2004/12/did-the-exodus-really-happen.aspx

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Crepes posted...

Why is it when people take the piss out of the bible its always the Old Testament which is done away with after christ.

No. It's not. From a theological point of view, no rules have changed, but you don't have to offer a sacrifice anymore.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Here's factual info that explains not only did it not happen but it couldn't have happened.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191

And here's a religious source admitting it never happened either.

https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/judaism/2004/12/did-the-exodus-really-happen.aspx

Are... are you even reading your sources? The first article doesn't address the question of the Exodus at all, just noting that the Hebrews weren't in Egypt when the pyramids were built. The VIctory Steele was written in 1200, 1300 years after the pyramids were built. Also, the other article just argues that the Exodus isn't a literal account-- which is exactly what I just said.


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Crepes posted...

Why is it when people take the piss out of the bible its always the Old Testament which is done away with after christ.

not sure what you mean by piss out of the bible, but the whole thing is full of trash. in the new testament jesus says to bring the people who didn't want him to be king in front of him and have them killed (in a parable). he also threatens people with hell if they don't worship him.

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Vyrulisse posted...

Is this the thinly veiled "herp derp bible bad" thread today?

Seems like it

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vigorm0rtis posted...

Are... are you even reading your sources?

Yes I am.

You're not, however.

vigorm0rtis posted...

The first article doesn't address the question of the Exodus at all

Which brings us to the final question: Was there a mass Exodus of Jewish slaves out of Egypt? There is no record of any such thing ever happening, and the simple reason is that there is no time in which it could have happened. No Egyptian record contains a single reference to anything in Exodus; and by the time there were enough Jews living in Egypt to constitute an Exodus, the time of the pyramids was long over. And Pharaoh Ramesses can be let off the hook as well: With apologies to Yul Brynner, no documentary or archaeological evidence links any of the Pharaohs bearing this name with plagues or Jewish slaves or edicts to kill babies. Indeed, the earliest, Ramesses I, wasn't even born until more than a thousand years after the Great Pyramid was completed. His grandson, the great Ramesses II, lived even later.

vigorm0rtis posted...

Also, the other article just argues that the Exodus isn't a literal account

It does more than that. It tells you what most likely happened.

However, the archeological conclusions are not based primarily on the absence of Sinai evidence. Rather, they are based upon the study of settlement patterns in Israel itself. Surveys of ancient settlements--pottery remains and so forth--make it clear that there simply was no great influx of people around the time of the Exodus (given variously as between 1500-1200 BCE). Therefore, not the wandering, but the arrival alerts us to the fact that the biblical Exodus is not a literal depiction. In Israel at that time, there was no sudden change in the kind or the volume of pottery being made. (If people suddenly arrived after hundreds of years in Egypt, their cups and dishes would look very different from native Canaanites'.) There was no population explosion. Most archeologists conclude that the Israelites lived largely in Canaan over generations, instead of leaving and then immigrating back to Canaan.


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No. The only thing in the bible that actually really historically happened was when that dude got eaten by a sea monster and survived for several days in spite of lack of oxygen and the fact that he would have been digested. In many parts of the world and for many people, that's called a Tuesday.

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Yeah, theres no evidence of any mass migration out of Egypt. Probably the Ancient Israelites always lived in Canaan, or came from some other nearby place.
There could be a kernel of truth there; however. The Egyptians did rule over the area for a time, and they typically compelled their subjects to spend part of the year working on state construction projects, which, to a conquered people, would feel less like a tax and more like slavery. Thats pure conjecture on my part though.

Machete posted...

No. The only thing in the bible that actually really historically happened was when that dude got eaten by a sea monster and survived for several days in spite of lack of oxygen and the fact that he would have been digested. In many parts of the world and for many people, that's called a Tuesday.

I call that dating my ex girlfriend

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Yes I am.

As to the first-- I already noted an Egyptian source. Familiarize yourself.

As to the second, it just says there was "no great influx." I also noted that the "Exodus" didn't happen in the numbers it boasts-- the Hebrews numbered in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands. Also, doesn't account for the evidence we find using onomastics (another thing you might care to familiarize yourself with).

Your evidence seems to be two articles that don't say what you think they say,


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vigorm0rtis posted...

Wrong. It happened, or at least we're pretty sure it did, but not in the numbers or in the place the Bible says. Onomastics indicate a migration of the Hebrews at about the same time it was recorded as happening in the Victory Stele of Pharaoh Merneptah. Also, probably not fleeing the Egyptians, rather the Levites bullied the shit out of the other tribes and drove them on a forced march to where they could force them to worship Yahweh without Egyptian influence.

Except Hebrews were never in Egypt in any significant numbers except some as mercenaries. To claim the stories in the bible are anything but stories is laughable at best. To claim it is a historical document is insane. None of the events in the bible can be proven to have happened other then misinterpreted natural disasters that were looked upon as divine punishment. Out of every figure in the bible there is absolutely zero evidence any of them ever existed except for Pontius Pilate who we know from Roman records did exist, and in real life he was the complete opposite of the way the bible portrayed him.

Many ancient civilizations documented their history with far more accuracy then anything the bible shows. In face it is because of these other civilizations that we can explain the bible's superstition with actual scientific knowledge. The destruction of whatever cities which were the basis for Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by an asteroid that the ancient Sumarians documented. Soil samples have been taken and it has been proven an asteroid hit the earth at the same time they said it did. The ten plagues of Egypt are also all naturally occurring events.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/7530678/Biblical-plagues-really-happened-say-scientists.html

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vigorm0rtis posted...

As to the first

I'm going to say this as bluntly as possible.

This is in the first source.

Which brings us to the final question: Was there a mass Exodus of Jewish slaves out of Egypt? There is no record of any such thing ever happening, and the simple reason is that there is no time in which it could have happened.


vigorm0rtis posted...

As to the second, it just says there was "no great influx." I also noted that the "Exodus" didn't happen in the numbers it boasts-- the Hebrews numbered in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands. Also, doesn't account for the evidence we find using onomastics (another thing you might care to familiarize yourself with).

Again, the second source clearly states that if Jews had lived in Egypt by even the low-ball figure of thousands we'd know through archaeology. There's absolutely no Egyptian influenced pottery to be found in the Canaan region and they didn't drop it on the way there because there's none of it to be found in distance between, either.

Onomastics doesn't mean shit. Pottery is real evidence. Onomastics is just language fuckery and there's lots of reasons why that could have happened besides an Exodus.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

I'm going to say this as bluntly as possible.

This is in the first source.

Which brings us to the final question: Was there a mass Exodus of Jewish slaves out of Egypt? There is no record of any such thing ever happening, and the simple reason is that there is no time in which it could have happened.

Again, the second source clearly states that if Jews had lived in Egypt by even the low-ball figure of thousands we'd know through archaeology. There's absolutely no Egyptian influenced pottery to be found in the Canaan region and they didn't drop it on the way there because there's none of it to be found in distance between, either.

Onomastics doesn't mean shit. Pottery is real evidence. Onomastics is just language fuckery and there's lots of reasons why that could have happened besides an Exodus.

As to the first: your article doesn't trump the source I've already listed-- you know, an actual Egyptian tablet.

Seeing as how Levite pottery was indistinguishable from Egyptian, you wouldn't know the difference.

Disregarding onomastics marks you as an amateur at best. Enjoy the cheap seats.

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vigorm0rtis posted...

pottery was indistinguishable from Egyptian, you wouldn't know the difference.

Ah yeah easy mistake to make there's no way professional archaeologists could tell these two apart.

vigorm0rtis posted...

Disregarding onomastics marks you as an amateur at best. Enjoy the cheap seats.

Your argument here is effectively Exodus happened because of Moses.

there's also no evidence Moses existed

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Your argument here is effectively Exodus happened because of Moses.

there's also no evidence Moses existed

You'll note, I never mentioned Moses, and my notion that the Levites drove the migration actually contradicts the notion that Moses led it.

As to your pics: fun fact-- the Levites had been absorbed by Egypt, unlike the rest of the tribes, wore Egyptian clothes and took Egyptian names. So posting Hebrew pottery doesn't cut it.

Suggested reading, per this conversation:

The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, edited by Carole Hough. Disregarding linguistics is for rookies.

Exodus, by Dr. Richard Elliott Friedman. Got a good rundown in Skeptic, which you apparently like.

The Cheese and the Worms, by Carlo Ginzburg. Because apparently you need to familiarize yourself on how archaeology occasionally fails us.


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Is there any evidence of Noah's Arc existing, or any boat large enough to carry two of every single animal species on the planet during a giant humanity wiping flood?

there is that banana boat song.

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MKScorpion posted...

Is there any evidence of Noah's Arc existing, or any boat large enough to carry two of every single animal species on the planet during a giant humanity wiping flood?

No. The whole notion's ridiculous. Most cultures do have great flood myths, but there's nothing to be made of most of them.

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Is all historical fiction canon to history?

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MKScorpion posted...

Is there any evidence of Noah's Arc existing, or any boat large enough to carry two of every single animal species on the planet during a giant humanity wiping flood?

Well there most likely was a huge flood, since other sources besides the Bible mentions one.

vigorm0rtis posted...

You'll note, I never mentioned Moses, and my notion that the Levites drove the migration actually contradicts the notion that Moses led it, even if he did ever exist (no evidence).

The fact that there is was not any changes to pottery of Canaan / Israel / Palestine / whatever you want to call it since you're big on Onomastics makes the leader of the Exodus completely irrelevant because it means that the Exodus simply never happened at all.

vigorm0rtis posted...

As to your pics: fun fact-- the Levites had been absorbed by Egypt, unlike the rest of the tribes, wore Egyptian clothes and took Egyptian names. So posting Hebrew pottery doesn't cut it.

It does cut it if that pottery wasn't anywhere to be found with the Hebrew pottery after the supposed Exodus. But that's not all, there's no Israelite pottery to be found in Egypt predating the Exodus either. They never had an Exodus because they never went there in the first place.

vigorm0rtis posted...

archaeology occasionally fails us.

Can you discredit the archaeological findings of egyptologists and Israel? Just because some people accidentally assembled some wrong dinosaur skeletons once doesn't mean archaeology as a whole is untrustworthy.

This isn't one or two fringe scholars. The vast majority of archaeologists agree that the evidence directly contradicts Exodus happening at all.

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hockeybub89 posted...

Is all historical fiction canon to history?

No, but it's probably more complicated than you think. If you were to read Herodotus' account of Thermopylae, you'd be forgiven for thinking none of it happened. It did, just not like he said.

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To the extent that it mentions some things, groups, nations, places, etc. that were present during the time.

But otherwise the Bible itself should not be treated as a historical document in-and-of itself. It needs corroboration from outside sources.

coh posted...

Well there most likely was a huge flood, since other sources besides the Bible mentions one.

Other sources also mention god/gods/goddesses but there is no evidence of them actually existing as far as I am aware. I can buy a huge flood but when it comes to Noah's Ark...

vigorm0rtis posted...

The whole notion's ridiculous.

coh posted...

Well there most likely was a huge flood, since other sources besides the Bible mentions one.

A global catastrophic flood is effectively falsified. Flood myths are probably the result of tidal waves or extremely heavy rains / hurricanes.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

The fact that there is was not any changes to pottery of Canaan / Israel / Palestine / whatever you want to call it since you're big on Onomastics makes the leader of the Exodus completely irrelevant because it means that the Exodus simply never happened at all.

It does cut it if that pottery wasn't anywhere to be found with the Hebrew pottery after the supposed Exodus. But that's not all, there's no Israelite pottery to be found in Egypt predating the Exodus either. They never had an Exodus because they never went there in the first place.

Can you discredit the archaeological findings of egyptologists and Israel? Just because some people accidentally assembled some wrong dinosaur skeletons once doesn't mean archaeology as a whole is untrustworthy.

This isn't one or two fringe scholars. The vast majority of archaeologists agree that the evidence directly contradicts Exodus happening at all.

1. That's fine. I never bought up the subject of Moses, don't think he's real, so you've been reduced to arguing with yourself at this point.
2. Again, it's like you can't read. Look up the Victory Stele of Merneptah. The Egyptians cop to kicking Hebrew ass in Egypt. At this point I'm assuming you're avoiding this because you can't refute it.
3. The existence of Egyptian Hebrews isn't debated by any historian or archaeologist anywhere. The notion of this is so hysterically wrongheaded that I won't continue this nonsense debate. For fuck's sake, you've sunk below the level of "educated by Wikipedia" at this point. They were there by the end of the Bronze Age, we know that. You can only argue if you're sticking to a strict Biblical narrative, which I've established we don't bother doing in the practice of actual (vs armchair) history.

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I've kind of decided that the Bible was simply an epic fantasy book meant to convey a good message to readers written a few thousand years ago but people back then were really dumb so they took it literally and formed a religion out of it and it just spun wildly out of control

It'd be like if people today formed a religion out of Lord of the Rings

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Tired-Insomniac posted...

I've kind of decided that the Bible was simply an epic fantasy book meant to convey a good message to readers written a few thousand years ago but people back then were really dumb so they took it literally and formed a religion out of it and it just spun wildly out of control

It'd be like if people today formed a religion out of Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings is my religion

thrashmetal14 posted...

Lord of the Rings is my religion

Hell yeah


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vigorm0rtis posted...

Again, it's like you can't read. Look up the Victory Stele of Merneptah. The Egyptians cop to kicking Hebrew ass in Egypt. At this point I'm assuming you're avoiding this because you can't refute it.

This is well documented event in which Egyptians attacked, subjugated, and taxed the Hebrews. This may have felt like slavery to them, maybe it was, but it did not happen in Egypt across the other side of Sinai.

vigorm0rtis posted...

The existence of Egyptian Hebrews isn't debated by any historian or archaeologist anywhere.

I have not contested that either. They simply weren't around in Egypt before the alleged Exodus to the tune of hundreds of thousands as slaves. That doesn't mean they didn't exist at all.

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