Freethought Nation

What we can say about: Mesha Stele ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesha_Stele ), Tel Dan Stele ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele ), The "Black Obelisk" of Shalmaneser III (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Obelisk ) and other reperts?

These reperts contain some bible(Torah) characters and are dated between IX BCE AND VIII BCE...


How these reperts can change our vision of history, in particularly, of the bible(and the veracity of its content)and of the hebrews?

If you pay attention to what you find on wikipedia you have only ourself to blame. It is high school level material at best.

A rational person takes does not take any claim because the facts in evidence. A collection of magical stories does not qualify as evidence particularly because no one knows who, when, where or why they were written. No one talks about "hebrews" for whom there is no evidence of any kind or of any mention whatsoever.

No rational person argues scant, contradictory words here and there into the magical tales first found in the Septuagint.

If you want some detailed observations on those and more try this link of mine. http://www.giwersworld.org/ancient-history/index.phtml

I've read, thank you!

But i have only one question: if we considered true the moabit stele, how can be refuted it?

Hey nickname, here's a post that Acharya made recently concerning the mythicist position and how archaeology has actually come in to support the position:

The video clip is a summary of "The Bible Unearthed", which you should watch if you want to understand how these finds fit into what the archaeologists are reconstructing of the evolution of the Canaanite peoples into the nation of Israel. It puts finds like the ones you've posted here into context.

What is there to refute? The only fact in evidence is the Septuagint being the oldest version of the stories known and is the original of the stories. Were it not connected with several popular religions that is what everyone would say.

Why would anyone discount the creators of the Septuagint stories having read the inscription or having access to documents which recount the same story? That "we" discovered it in the 19th c. means nothing. The locals obviously knew about it as they offered it for sale. Even if they were truthful in claiming to have found it we have no idea when it was "lost."

Believers love to make the assumption that the instant an ancient inscription related to bibleland was created it was instantly buried and its contents disappeared from human memory. That permits the implication of independent corroboration of bible stories. There is no basis in fact for such an assumption.

The script called Hebrew is the Aramaic script. Aramaic does not appear in bibleland until after Alexander. Prior to that it was Phoenician which makes sense in the Phoenician city of Tyre was not wise enough to surrender to Alexander and was destroyed by him so their influence vanished from the region. If you put any stock in the claim of Jews to making perfect copies of the Torah then they have always made perfect copies using the Aramaic script. That means the "hebrew" version, which is really an Aramaic version, of the Torah cannot have been created until the 2nd c. BC which is about the time the Septuagint appears.

Believers have a lot of nonsense on their websites. Another popular one is finding "hebraicisms" in the Septuagint. A few months ago I found a discussion that our "present" knowledge of the Koine Greek of the Septuagint shows these were in fact part of Koine Greek and not "hebraic" at all. I use present in quotes because I read it in an essay from early last century, nearly a hundred years old. A claim discredited a century ago is still current among believers.

When you find something that appears to support bible claims ALWAYS investigate it. Literally every time I have investigated a claim it has turned out to be nonsense.

Arguing to a conclusion is a logical fallacy. It is an insidious fallacy when the conclusion is not openly stated but rather an implied truth.

This is also a fun pursuit which may never end. Just today I was rethinking the idea of lost books from the OT. I realized the basis for that claim are some gospel passages of the "is it not written that ..." variety. If someone is willing to invent an entire gospel (and over 50 people were) it is hardly surprising they would also invent a few "is it not written ..." passages.

Even those of us who are confirmed atheists have huge cultural contexts to eliminate. Of course most atheists just ignore the whole subject. My interest is just a rather modest part of interest in ancient history. And that interest derives from a more basic interest in how people behave with entirely different basic assumptions (truthes) from ours.

I guess what we need to understand here is what you think these reports have changed?

Do you think that they have made the Bible an accurate historical document? If so, then I need to refer you back to "The Bible Unearthed" program so that you can better understand the current state of Biblical Archaeology.

Thanks very much to all!!

So basically taking any of these "_____stele" as confirmation of the historicity of the Bible falls into the category of what "led to certain mistakes."

What about the Mesha Stele, Tel Dan Stele and Black Obelisk?

The Mesha Stele, Tel Dan Stele and Black Obelisk are among the artifacts used by Bible-thumpers to claim that the Good Book is confirmed as "history." While the brief mentions of "Israel," "David" or other king of Israel in these artifacts may serve to establish that Israel existed and that certain biblical kings were real, they do not prove that major, supernatural events of the Bible actually happened on Earth at any time in history.

The Patriarchs are the Gods of Other Cultures

In the first place, mythicists and Bible-minimalists generally do not claim that there is no history in the Bible or that all biblical characters are mythical. What becomes obvious from studying as much of the evidence as we have is that a number of major characters like Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David and Solomon are evidently mythical figures, the former three obviously based on pre-Judaic gods, while the latter two may be a combination of Canaanite/Levantine gods, along with petty thanes who actually lived.

I make this qualification as concerns David and Solomon only because we know that there were rulers of ancient tribes in Israel, and some of their exploits are certainly recorded in the Old Testament. However, the names "Da-'u'dum" (David), "Sa-'u-lum" (Saul) and other patriarchs appear in older tablets from Ebla, so it would be reckless to assume that they are entirely historical individuals who lived and died in Israel.

The original name for Solomon is "Shĕlomoh" or "Shlomo," but it was translated in the Greek Old Testament/Septuagint as Σαλωμων or "Salomon." "Solomon," it has been pointed out, is the sun in three languages: Sol, Om, On. For more on the Solomon, see The Christ Conspiracy.

To recap, there is both myth and history in the Bible, although the latter has been reduced significantly by the hard sciences, particularly archaeology. The discipline needed to understand the Bible better is mythology, which is sorely overlooked - quite bizarrely, in consideration of all the supernatural and patently mythical events depicted in The Book. A study of mythology and ancient religion reveals their numerous astrotheological underpinnings. Without these disciplines, we cannot recognize what we are seeing in various biblical tales.

Knowing the massive body of literature in this field of biblical mythology, we approach these artifacts differently.

The Mesha Stele



While the Mesha Stele is interesting in that it evidently represents an early record of Israel and the purported biblical king Omri, I would exercise caution in accepting the reconstruction of Dr. Lemaire of "House of David," without seeing peer consensus, because he is a Catholic known to get a bit too enthusiastic about tying things into the Bible. See, for example, his work on the so-called James Ossuary, which is considered to be bogus. In this regard, the Wiki article says that "..in 2001 another French scholar, Pierre Bordreuil, reported (in an essay in French) that he and a few other scholars could not confirm Lemaire's reading." Wiki's conclusion: "The identification of David in the Mesha stele remains controversial."

Even if this stele did say "House of David," all that fact would prove is that there was a prominent figure named David, which we already know from the Ebla tablets, which predate this find by several hundred years. Indeed, if "Da-'u'dum" was a Canaanite god, hero or ruler, we would expect to make a find like this one. In any event, the discovery certainly does not prove the events regarding the character of David in the Old Testament as "historical."

The value of this stele is not in proving but in disproving elements of the biblical account that turn out to be propaganda from an Israelite perspective, of course. To my knowledge, there is no big issue about the existence of Israel at the time of this stele's inscription or of a ruler named Omri.

Again, we are not claiming that there is no history in the Bible. In some of the later books, there apparently is history, although the book of Daniel - which is for the most part evidently a late addition from the second century before the common era - may be in significant part yet another fictional text concerning older Canaanite heroes and gods that has been reworked. For more on the Daniel myth, see The Christ Conspiracy.

The Tel Dan Stele


Also according to Wiki, Aramaic is supposedly 3,000 years old, so the stela could very well date to the era it is claimed (9th-8th cents. BCE). Nevertheless, as concerns the phrase "House of David," see the above. Also, however, if this is an artifact that dates to several centuries after the purported existence of David, we would not be terribly surprised, since by that time the phrase would already be in currency, because the Bible already existed, at least orally.

Yet, this artifact would not prove that this revered David had actually walked the earth. Again, he could be - and likely is - an ancient pre-Judaic god made into a Jewish patriarch. Another alternative is that the petty thane ruler of the appropriate era was named after an ancient tribal god - this sort of development involving rulers, priests and commoners alike has occurred countless times.

In any case, a victory over the "House of David" does not prove that David was an actual historical character, any more than the "House of Moloch" would do likewise for that ancient Semitic god. Practically all tribes have had a divine figurehead under whose banner - and "House" - they have marched.

The Wiki article about this artifact concludes:


Here are a couple more threads on this forum where you might be able to glean some info - these can be found using the search feature:

The Bibles Buried Secrets - PBS Documentary
King David and Jerusalem- Myth and Reality

The Black Obelisk


This artifact evidently proves the existence of the Israelite King Jehu, c. 841 BCE. See above where I discuss the Bible as history - to my knowledge, no one has ever stated that none of the numerous kings in the Old Testament is historical. Hence, all this stela does is prove that there is some history in the Bible, not that the fantastic, supernatural events therein are indeed historical.

However at least one of us is saying that any similarity between the persons and events in the bible stories and real persons and events is purely coincidental.

The Moabite stone has no provenance. Provenance is not everything. It is the only thing. Without provenance it is no more than a curious find. Remember this part of the world has been producing bible artefacts since Constantine's mother visited.

It was offered for sale by some local villagers. No one knows where they got it. As it was not found in any archaeological context no one knows when it was made or who made it or why it was made. The inscription is reconstructed from some recovered pieces of it and from an "impression" made of it before it was broken. This impression has never been published. One can only wonder what it really says.

The language is described as Moabite. Why? Because that is the translation chosen for the words. It is supposedly written in Moabite yet its script, like all script found in the region before the appearance of Aramaic is Phoenician.

Was there ever a place called Moab? No one knows. Nothing has ever been found in the region which would give it that name. Keep in mind we have no idea where this inscription came from.

But even if we err on the side of the believers and say it was created near the village and was created in the 9th c. BC we get no where. The folks who invented the bible cannot be excluded from knowing of it and working its tale into their stories. Today's believers would have the bible stories created some four centuries after this stone so arguing authenticity hardly matters. (Tell me the story from your family about events four hundred years ago. You can't, I can't and they could not either.)

Is skepticism warranted? It was offered to sale to a missionary -- not quite an unbiased party. It was in 1868 where literally everything was given a bible context. Of course things are better today, right? An article on it in the news stand magazine, Biblical Archaeological Review was kind enough to transliterate part of the inscription from Phoenician to Aramaic, aka Hebrew, and then insert an Aramaic D to discover a mention of the house of David.

Myself I find it incredible that even if people want to believe in these bible stories that they have managed to also believe spelling and the letters used for particular sounds was invariant from the oldest to the Masoretic text, nearly 2000 years but also that 3000 year old tape recordings have been found so that we can know how these letters were pronounced. Keeping in mind of course that Aryan/Indo-European and Aramaic languages have no correspondence between their letters and phonemes even today.

One of the problems in dealing with believers is they will believe anything. In fact there are so many of them they have way too many superficially plausible answers which are basically nonsense.

For example take Israel. There is in fact only one Israel any place in world literature. That is the one in the bible. There is only one description of this Israel. That is the description in the bible. Therefore there is only biblical Israel. If there was no Israel as described in the bible then there was no Israel. Trying to substitute anything else is a con game we Americans call bait and switch. Is this asking too much? Of course not. The principle applies equally to Egypt and Atlantis. Clearly ancient Egypt is Egypt. There is nothing that comes remotely close to Atlantis even as described by Plato who is the only source of information about it.

If the believers cannot produce evidence of an Israel as described in the bible then it did not exist.

In this regard Finkelstein does something similar but not quite maliciously -- at least I cannot detect an intention to deceive. He is often quoted as saying to the effect, if there was a king Solomon he was no more than a hilltop warlord. Believers take this as his saying there was a Solomon when in fact all he says is IF there were. In this case the bait is biblical Israel which is switched for a hilltop savage practicing ritual genital mutilation.

When is comes to Israel there is no evidence such a thing ever existed. No rational person accepts anything without physical evidence.

Ancient Jerusalem wall proves the Bible?

Here is a main reason I reserve some historicity for certain biblical characters and events - the Bible wasn't written in a void. There were people writing it, and they came from somewhere, including a culture that had developed somewhat. It wasn't the supernatural megapower of the OT, but it wasn't quite caveman either.

In ancient wall, scholar sees proof for Bible

See my blog post:

Ancient Jerusalem wall proves Bible?

Interesting comment on the Huffington Post article on this subject:

"People are not aware of it apparently, but even in 'religious' Bible scholarship, a lot of the Old Testament characters are not fully believed to have been true historical figures."

Ah, but "everybody knows JESUS existed." Apparently, it's okay to cast doubt on OTHER biblical figures whose lives are peppered with supernatural occurrences, but if you doubt the existence of Jesus Christ - the biggest Superman of them all - then you're just "crazy."

What hypocritical folly.

If Jews, Hebrews, Israelites and others had been writing fabulous fairytales for centuries, including passing off mythical characters as historical figures in the Old Testament, why on Earth should we believe that this particular individual in Jewish literature, i.e., Jesus - with pretty much the most amount of miracles and fairytales in his story - actually represents "history" this time around?

Lets put this in perspective. Mazar has been making extraordinary discoveries -- David's palace for example -- by press release for three or so years. While she does have a PhD in archaeology she has yet to produce a professional publication on anything she claims to have found. Without publication in peer reviewed journals she has nothing but press releases. Finkelstein and other's have rendered the academic version of the vernacular statement, she is full of shit, regarding her claims.

She is financed by a squatter organization whose primary efforts are to take over Silwan, which they call City of David, for Jews by displacing the non-Jews. This organization is financed partially from a US charity which has been referred to the IRS because of the admission of a receiving organization in Israel. They are using the "biblical importance" of this site as the excuse to remove non-jews and plans to build several apartment buildings, a parking garage, synagogue, kindergarten and tourist center on the land which will lose its "biblical importance" as soon as the non-jews are gone. They tunnelled under the neighborhood without permits of any kind or even professional supervision. All of it is illegal but the (criminal) city government gives their fellow criminals a pass on the law. (Annexation via military conquest was found to be a war crime at Nuremberg. The penalty is death.)

I have included a Israeli opinion article at the end. Haaretz is the oldest hebrew language newspaper in bibleland. I have several others.

Given Mazar is working with a criminal organization and has not published her findings there is absolutely no reason to take her seriously. Everything reported is written by journalism majors. About a year ago she reported finding the seal of Jezebel but made a mistake of letting a picture of it being published. There were two problems with her claim. The critical letter which might suggest a name like Jezebel (Yez'Baal) was missing and she was reading it backwards. Obviously her claims to reporters are of no value.

The opening of the first Conan movies mentions the "time before the oceans drank Atlantis." The credibility of that statement is equal to mentions of "the first temple period." The first temple is a myth therefore there was no period of the first temple. But using the phrase gives an aura of credibility to absurd claims. The use of the phrase is unprofessional and deliberately misleading. Are believers doing it deliberately? The alternative is they are doing it stupidly. There is no third alternative. People like Mazar are either liars or stupid.

Finding a wall is finding a wall and nothing more. Everything else said about it is a story about the wall. It says nothing about the wall itself. No evidence for the story about the wall is presented. This is standard procedure.

=====
Haaretz

Fri., March 20, 2009 Adar 24, 5769 | Israel Time: 02:29 (EST+7)

Never Never Garden
By Meron Benvenisti

Jerusalem Syndrome is defined as an emotional state experienced by some visitors to the city who become convinced they have divine and messianic powers. Apparently a special form of this syndrome has been experienced by mayors of Jerusalem over the generations, making them feel they have a messianic task, so they act without heeding the consequences.

Teddy Kollek behaved this way when he announced the establishment of a national park in an area containing hundreds of homes housing thousands of Arab residents, who thus became violators of the building laws and whose homes were earmarked for destruction.

Ehud Olmert behaved this way when he opened the Western Wall Tunnel, "the rock of our existence," an act that led to the deaths of many Jews and Arabs.

The new mayor, Nir Barkat, is also behaving this way regarding the planned destruction of homes in the Silwan neighborhood and other places in the city.

This has led to a controversy and political arguments about the authorities' stupidity and the deviant use of law enforcement; these have sparked counterarguments citing the rule of law and concern for the public's well-being in the face of violators of the building laws.

But the most graphic argument was raised by those who support the initiative to destroy the Palestinians' houses as they waxed poetic about "one of the most important historic sites in the history of the Jewish people, the site called 'the entrance to the Garden of Eden' in quite a few sources, the site where King Solomon apparently wandered and among whose trees he hid as he wrote his books, the site where King David apparently wrote part of his Psalms."

This entire description is a bunch of nonsense, just as are large parts of
the Disneyland next door that was set up at the zealots' site known as the City of David.

However, it is not right to discount this description and disparage it as a
hallucination of romantic zealots, because anyone who rummages around in his memory will soon recall that he, too, was inculcated with similar narratives created in the Zionist education system to deal with the threatening reality by weaving a mythological past.

The reaction of the Zionist migrants to the physical and human scenery they encountered was twofold.

First and foremost, they observed the visible scenery as if it were a stratum below the real scenery - the scenery of their ancient homeland. In the foreign scenery that unfolded, they sought the remnants from their dream and slowly wove a new cloth that covered the threatening scenery.

But this was not merely a cloth of paper and illusions; they were determined to design the reality, the physical scenery, according to their vision and dreams. They then destroyed the Palestinian scenery and built their own scenery in its stead with the ancient myth serving as their justification and excuse.

What makes "King David's garden" a pretext for removing the Palestinian
presence there while Canada Park, which was planted on the ruins of villages whose residents were expelled in 1967, is a positive example of a legitimate Zionist act? In which way is the myth of Masada different from the myth being created about the City of David? And what message is transmitted by the municipal-state museum in the Tower of David, which is nothing but a temple for the religious rite around Israeli Jerusalem and has no room for the other collective, that of the Arab Palestinians?

Apparently the attitude about a myth is dependent on who invented it, so acts done by others become illegitimate.

It is no surprise that most Jerusalemites support the destruction of the
Arab homes.They, too, want to walk in the virtual garden of the king. It appears Jerusalem Syndrome is not merely an emotional state of individuals.

There are six surviving references [ur]http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/temple-location-historical-mention.html[/url] to Herod's temple from which location information can be derived. All of them exclude the so called temple mount from being its location. Josephus also clearly writes the temple is in the lower city which also excludes the temple mount.

The idea that the temple was on that hill first appears in history in the 1870s.

Thanks to all and thanks to Acharya, I wanted to ask about the Ebla inscriptions but i see that you've already talked!

Thank you all once again.