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Interesting I just looked up Plato:
It is widely accepted that Plato, the Athenian philosopher, was born in 428-7 B.C.E
and died 348-7 B.C.E.
The this, just interesting:
Scholars date tiny ‘curse tablet,’ found at Mt. Ebal, to 1200 BCE – which would prove Israelites were literate when they entered Holy Land;
but findings have not been peer-reviewed.
Last edited by Miss Hepburn; 03-31-2023 at 11:26 AM..
If archeology doesn't interest you then just forget about any of these finds.
I like when archeologists find stuff that either proves or disproves or leaves us with questions.
Doesn't even have to be religious in nature.
You're missing the point entirely.
I'll give a different example. We know that George Washington existed. The historical record and archaeological record is very clear on that. And, at least when I was a kid, we all grew up with florid accounts of his life as a child at Ferry Farm, his exploits and adventures before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, and so forth. Did he live at Ferry farm? Sure. We know that. And archaeologists have spent a great deal of time working at Ferry Farm and other such places. Did they come evidence that he threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River there? NO. Did they find evidence that he chopped down his father's cherry tree? NO. Did he actually say to his father, "I cannot tell a lie"? Arcaheologists can't confirm that. It may not have happened at all, and if it did, if probably didn't happen like the story was related.
The same for the bible. Pick any character you want. Archaeologist can't tell you what those people did on a daily basis, or what they said. I believe Jesus existed. Is there archaeological evidence for all those good deeds he did? No. There are stories about it.
Interesting I just looked up Plato:
It is widely accepted that Plato, the Athenian philosopher, was born in 428-7 B.C.E
and died 348-7 B.C.E.
The this, just interesting:
Scholars date tiny ‘curse tablet,’ found at Mt. Ebal, to 1200 BCE – which would prove Israelites were literate when they entered Holy Land;
but findings have not been peer-reviewed.
The bolded -- a broad generalization that all the Israelites were literate. You have no such evidence.
I'll give a different example. We know that George Washington existed. The historical record and archaeological record is very clear on that. And, at least when I was a kid, we all grew up with florid accounts of his life as a child at Ferry Farm, his exploits and adventures before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, and so forth. Did he live at Ferry farm? Sure. We know that. And archaeologists have spent a great deal of time working at Ferry Farm and other such places. Did they come evidence that he threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River there? NO. Did they find evidence that he chopped down his father's cherry tree? NO. Did he actually say to his father, "I cannot tell a lie"? Arcaheologists can't confirm that. It may not have happened at all, and if it did, if probably didn't happen like the story was related.
The same for the bible. Pick any character you want. Archaeologist can't tell you what those people did on a daily basis, or what they said. I believe Jesus existed. Is there archaeological evidence for all those good deeds he did? No. There are stories about it.
Barely 2% of the people could read or write. It was all oral. That's why there is very little.
I'll give a different example. We know that George Washington existed. The historical record and archaeological record is very clear on that. And, at least when I was a kid, we all grew up with florid accounts of his life as a child at Ferry Farm, his exploits and adventures before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, and so forth. Did he live at Ferry farm? Sure. We know that. And archaeologists have spent a great deal of time working at Ferry Farm and other such places. Did they come evidence that he threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River there? NO. Did they find evidence that he chopped down his father's cherry tree? NO. Did he actually say to his father, "I cannot tell a lie"? Arcaheologists can't confirm that. It may not have happened at all, and if it did, if probably didn't happen like the story was related.
The same for the bible. Pick any character you want. Archaeologist can't tell you what those people did on a daily basis, or what they said. I believe Jesus existed. Is there archaeological evidence for all those good deeds he did? No. There are stories about it.
Unfortunately there are those out there who think seeing real people in the Bible somehow not only proves that the Bible is true - but it somehow, inexplicably, proves that all of those magical, supernatural events occurred, as well.
Those of us with so much of an ounce of critical thinking know that's simply not true.
I don't know how many books and movies there have been which recounted a FICTITIOUS story set in very real locations and included very real historical figures.
Just as I'm quite certain there is no Superman even though he flew around Manhattan. Or that we haven't received a signal from an intelligent alien species even though President Clinton said we did in the movie Contact. And how many of those sordid and steamy romance novels take place on some plantation in the deep south of 19th Century America?
The Bible was never meant to be used as either a history or a science book. However, that won't stop a lot of eager-beaver believers from doing so.
I just read this in an interesting book about history, and I'm posting it here, because I want to keep this information for future reference, and because others here may find this interesting as well...
"The Bible is not only the bestselling book of all time, it is the bestseller of the year, year after year -- in John Updike's words, 'the world's bestseller.' In a typical twelve months, North Americans alone purchase some twenty-five million Bibles -- twice as many as the most successful Harry Potter adventure. Ninety-one percent of U.S. households own at least one copy; the average home owns four. There are more than five hundred translations of the Bible -- itself a translation -- just in English, with special editions for members of the LGBTQ+ community, for surfers and skateboarders, for recovering addicts and even a superheroes version for children.
Bible comes from the Greek biblia, possibly derived from the Lebanese coastal town of Byblos, from which Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. It means "little books," for this most daunting of texts is an anthology, written by more than forty authors, in three different languages, on three different continents over twelve hundred years, like the formation of geological strata. It is generally understood to comprise sixty-six books, although that is a simplification, as the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, has twenty four; the Protestant churches include thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, but Roman Catholics accept forty six; the Eastern Orthodox have forty-eight to fifty, depending on the tradition or church; and although the New Testament is usually fixed at twenty-seven books, well over a hundred further gospel accounts have varying claims to be included. As the Bible customarily appears, it contains poetry, an anthology of often disjointed inspirational stories, law, prophecy, wildly beautiful flights of imagination, and history -- The Song of Deborah, for instance, which predates both The Iliad and The Odyssey, was an actual war chant rooted in real events.
The Bible refers to many different peoples who mixed on the lands it describes; Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Girga****es, Jebusites, as well as Philistines, the Pheonicians to the north, Syrians along the eastern borders, then Ammon, Moab, and Edom to the south. [...] The Old Testament was put together, mainly in Hebrew, largely between the eighth and fourth centuries B.C.; the Books of Wisdom and the Maccabees were both composed in the second century BC, while the first book of the New Testament was probably I Thessalonians, written around A.D. 50. The last book is Revelation, said to be the work of St. John of Patmos, produced during the reign of Domitian (AD 81-96).
To our modern eyes, the Old Testament alone provides a host of contradictions and impossible events. [...] One wonders why the Bible was ever taken literally; the Hebrews always understood the early parts of Genesis to be fables. The modern insistence on literalism is largely due to the influence of southern U.S. Protestants around 1910.
This extraordinary publication may more accurately be called a creation myth."
"Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past," by Richard Cohen
Unfortunately there are those out there who think seeing real people in the Bible somehow not only proves that the Bible is true - but it somehow, inexplicably, proves that all of those magical, supernatural events occurred, as well..
That's not how archeology works. Finding artifacts that validate people doesn't validate the entire Bible and all stories; only that person
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