Hebrew Archeology

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

Greetings,

     I like to look up what they are finding through Archeology from time to time. I believe that through digging up the past we will finally get a true picture of what was going on during ancient times. It looks like they are finally starting to get a good well rounded idea of how things were in Isreal and the picture that is being painted in no way reflects the bible. I came across this article the other day. I actually showed my wife this one. It does a good job explaining what they are finding.

 

DB

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/archeology-hebrew-bible.html

[mymistake]

It was my hope that Ravenstar would stick around for a while and comment here since she has studied this in depth and is our local expert.  But to sum up the Hebrews were Canaanites.  They were the same people who probably separated due to political reasons.  The Hebrew language is descendent from Phoenician.  Around the time that the Sea People invaded and conquered the South East Mediterranean area (1200-900 BCE) suddenly Hebrew settlements appear on hilltops and mountain tops far from the sea.  These were brand new settlement, not conquests as depicted in the Bible.  So it's highly likely that the Hebrews had been living near the coast and became refugees who had to find a new, safer place to live.  After a few hundred years the new settlements became sophisticated enough that they wanted a proud legacy so they invented a set of myths that eventually evolved into the Old Testament.  Most of the time they had been polytheistic.  The monotheism was developed later and mostly edited into older Bible stories.

 

[Joshpantera]

@Ravenstar

 

Yeah, I noticed that she graced us with a drive by recently too. I guess she took a break before I had come back from being on one myself. We used to get into some really interesting threads on these topics several years ago. Here's one of the videos that were posted that took some issue with the sea peoples situation: 

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

I've looked at Dever, Smith, and Finkelstein regarding early Israel and while they disagree on a lot, the common thread is of a polytheistic people arising in the land, adopting Yahweh as their chief God, and basically having a cultural revolution.

 

There is no evidence of a large scale Exodus from Egypt, and evidence places an Israelite people in the land around 1200BC whom the Egyptians fought and deafeated. There is also no evidence of a large scale Kingdom of Israel that was a power in the region - rather evidence shows a smaller chiefdom.

 

It should be noted that the Israelite were not the first to attempt a monotheistic God - an Egyptian King tried that first - but they were the most successful to the point that we are affected by their revolution over 2500 years later.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

3 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

I've looked at Dever, Smith, and Finkelstein regarding early Israel and while they disagree on a lot, the common thread is of a polytheistic people arising in the land, adopting Yahweh as their chief God, and basically having a cultural revolution.

 

There is no evidence of a large scale Exodus from Egypt, and evidence places an Israelite people in the land around 1200BC whom the Egyptians fought and deafeated. There is also no evidence of a large scale Kingdom of Israel that was a power in the region - rather evidence shows a smaller chiefdom.

 

It should be noted that the Israelite were not the first to attempt a monotheistic God - an Egyptian King tried that first - but they were the most successful to the point that we are affected by their revolution over 2500 years later.

That is all pointed out in the article I posted but the author seems to still be a believer. That’s why I wanted to show it to my wife. He says it all in a way that isn’t anti religious as opposed to some other articles I could of showed her. She still hasn’t read it all yet but it did create some progressive discussion that I think will help her accept my deconversion a little better. 

 

DB