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Author | Topic: Any Advances on King Omri? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Brian Member (Idle past 4989 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
This is intended to be a short subject.
The question is: Which Bible character or event is the first that we can verify from external evidence? My own suggestion is King Omri in the Moabite Stone. I realise that this leaves out over 3000 years of biblical narrative, hundreds of people and hundreds of events, but King Omri is the first person in the Bible that I believe can be verified from an external source. I am not saying that all characters and events before this did not happen, I am just saying that Omri is the first person from the Bible that I can find in an external source. So, which character or event before King Omri do you think can be reasonably verified from external source(s)? Brian.
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Abshalom Inactive Member |
Brian:
Could you please provide an example of verificaion of King Omri from an external source to set a kind of benchmark standard for verifications of earlier biblical characters by responders to your challenge? Regards, Abshalom
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Do you mean support for a particular figure or just an indication that could reasonably be assumed to verify a given figure. I'm thinking of some of the pictures at Karnak that could support tribute from Rehoboam.
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Brian writes:
Hi,Brian. What is the source that verifies the external source? King Omri is the first person in the Bible that I believe can be verified from an external source.What determines verification? I mean, say we have no Job. No Adam. No Eve. Well....in fact, we could say that we have no God, right? He never left any burning bushes around for the fire arson specialists to examine. He wore no clothes and never ate. Those Cognitive Dissonites even claim Him as an external source yet they are accused of circular reasoning, right? Brian writes: I googled it and found this:
My own suggestion is King Omri in the Moabite Stone. WebBible writes:
Does this agree with your sources, Brian? This ancient monument, recording the heroic struggles of King Mesha with Omri and Ahab, was erected about B.C. 900. Here "we have the identical slab on which the workmen of the old world carved the history of their own times, and from which the eye of their contemporaries read thousands of years ago the record of events of which they themselves had been the witnesses." It is the oldest inscription written in alphabetic characters, and hence is, apart from its value in the domain of Hebrew antiquities, of great linguistic importance. And is what you are saying is that this stone is the oldest source of a Bible name that is literally "written in stone" as opposed to oral traditions and stories? This message has been edited by Phatboy, 01-28-2005 11:57 AM
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Abshalom Inactive Member |
I think some scholars have interpretted the "Tel Dan" stele to read in part "the House of David," while others disagree. The same stone inscription reportedly carries the name of Omri, Ahab, Jehosephat, and other biblical characters according to some interpretations.
Loi Malraux, la meilleure solution dans l'ancien Whether or not this stone inscription is "independent verification" seems to remain debatable.
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Brian Member (Idle past 4989 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
HI Abs,
First off, sorry about the delay (everyone), I kept meaning to get round to this. The reason that I believe that King Omri is the first person from the Bible that can be verified is that there is independent, external evidence for him. Of course, every historian knows, this does not prove that there was ever a King Omri, but I would say that there is convincing direct evidence to support Omri. In the Second Book of Kings 3:4-8 it reads: 4 Now Mesha king of Moab raised sheep, and he had to supply the king of Israel with a hundred thousand lambs and with the wool of a hundred thousand rams. 5 But after Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. 6 So at that time King Joram set out from Samaria and mobilized all Israel. 7 He also sent this message to Jehoshaphat king of Judah: "The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?""I will go with you," he replied. "I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses." If we then read the Moabite Stone, which was discovered in 1868, we find this: . And I made this high-place for Chemosh in Qarcho . . . because he has delivered me from all kings, and because he has made me triumph over all my enemies. As for Omri the king of Israel, and he humbled Moab for many years (days), for Chemosh was angry with his land. And his son reigned in his place; and he also said, "I will oppress Moab!" In my days he said so. But I triumphed over him and over his house, and Israel has perished; I would argue that this is the first unambiguous reference to a bible character that we have in an external source. I would say that it is difficult to argue that the Moabite Stone is not referring to King Omri of Israel. Of course, in history, there is always a certain element of doubt, historical theories are just the same as scientific ones, they are never proven. But, I would say that this verifies that there was a King Omri, and a King Mesha for that matter. I also know that it does not automatically follow that any action attributed to these kings is true. So, for me, the presence of an external source, that unambiguously mentions an Israelite king, is good verification that this king existed. Brian.
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Brian Member (Idle past 4989 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
Hi Jar,
Do you mean support for a particular figure or just an indication that could reasonably be assumed to verify a given figure. I'm thinking of some of the pictures at Karnak that could support tribute from Rehoboam. What I was looking for, in this particular case, is a piece of direct evidence that appears difficult not to accept. Something that very few, if any, people argue over, and I think that the Moabite Stone's mention of Omri is the first external source that is difficult to argue against. I could be wrong here, but I am genuinely intrigued. Re Sheshonk, I suppose we could say that he is the first person in the Bible that can be supported with external sources, but Rehoboam is not mentioned directly at Karnak. It may well be that he is there, but I am looking for unambiguous evidence. BTW, an interesting note on Sheshonk's inscriptions is the reference of a statement made to Sheshonk by the god Amon: I have subjugated (for)thee the Asiatics of the armies of Mitanni(ANET, pp 263-264) It is interesting because Mitanni had ceased to exist as a nation over 400 years earlier! So, I will say that Sheshonk is the first person mentioned in the Bible that can be found in an external source, but that King Omri is the first Israelite that can be verified in an external source. Cheers. Brian
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Brian Member (Idle past 4989 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
Hi,Brian. What is the source that verifies the external source? The Moabite Stone, I mentioned it in post one.
What determines verification? I would say that an external, near contemporary inscription would be acceptable. This, as with all history, does not mean that these people definitely existed, but I find it difficult to argue with the Moabite Stone and the biblical texts here.
I mean, say we have no Job. No Adam. No Eve. Well....in fact, we could say that we have no God, right? But, what I am looking for is a Bible character who, if we were having a pint and chatting about the contents of the Bible, I could turn round and say to you ‘X is the first person in the Bible that we can verify from an external source’. The characters you mention may well have existed, but the ONLY source that they exist in (as far as we know) is the Bible. So, when we have that pint I could ask you for some external evidence to support any of your characters, and you are not going to have any. Thus, there would follow a big discussion about ‘absence of evidence’, but I think in Omri’s case it would be difficult for anyone to disagree.
He never left any burning bushes around for the fire arson specialists to examine. He wore no clothes and never ate. Not making a big deal out of this, but God did eat in Genesis 18:1-8
Those Cognitive Dissonites even claim Him as an external source yet they are accused of circular reasoning, right? There is no unambiguous direct evidence for any god. I am looking for a source outside of the Bible that I could present to someone that they would have difficulty in denying.
And is what you are saying is that this stone is the oldest source of a Bible name that is literally "written in stone" as opposed to oral traditions and stories? It isn’t the oldest source of a Bible name, many names appear in many earlier external documents, but I believe that this is direct evidence of a biblical character. Those other names, such as Abraham, are fairly common and there are no direct references to any person in the Bible with that name. This is from a Kenneth Kitchen book Ancient Orient and Old Testament, Tyndale Press, London 1966 one may compare the name Abram with Aba(m)rama in tablets from Dilbat, Abraham with Aburahana (execration texts), Jacob with Ya’qub-il (Chagar-Bazar, etc), Zebulon with Zabilanu (Egyptian and Babylonian sources) Asher with Ashra etc. The (Mare-) Yamina of the Mari texts may be semantically parallel in name to the Hebrew Benjamin. All these parallels fit well into the nineteenth to seventeenth centuries BC. (48-49) There are other common biblical names Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph belong to the same name type, and Canaanite forms of this name have been found in the Late Bronze Age sources from Ugarit and Amarna. Although the name Jacob is very common in the MBA, related names have been found in much later sources such as a 5th century BCE inscription from Elephantine, and also in Palmyrene sources dated to as late as the third century CE (McCarter, P. K. The Patriarchal Age in Shanks (Ed) Ancient Israel: A Short History from Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple, Prentice Hall: Biblical Archaeological Society, Englewood Cliffs; Washington DC, 1988, p.11) So, it isn’t the oldest source of a bible ‘name’, it is the oldest source that directly mentions a biblical character IMO.Brian
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