There is an appalling lack of historical evidence backing the Bible's veracity

Bambootiger, you like Nem seem to want to read something into my posts that isn't there. Where do I claim that the Bible is inaccurate? [ABE How do I know if it is accurate or not, if I do not have any evidence to back it up?] And not conflicting with secular history is perhaps the very first step down a very long road to demonstrating its historical veracity - and many Scholar would claim that there is significant conflict in multiple places. But I neither need to promote nor discuss these to make my point. Oh good grief, my whole OP is a generalised complaint against Christians claiming that the Bible is an historically verified document (or collection of documents.) I have no complaints whatsoever against the Bible itself. Your examples give a glimpse into how the OT contains some elements that may relate to real historical events. Great. I'm sure many more will be forthcoming over the decades ahead. How does this conflict with my OP?Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Perhaps not where I would choose to pick my definition I hate to define via Wiki, but this puts it rather more succinctly than your source:

quote:

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A myth is a sacred narrative in the sense that it hold religious or spiritual significance for those who tell it, and it contributes to and expresses systems of thought and values. Use of the term by scholars implies neither the truth nor the falseness of the narrative. To the source culture, however, a myth by definition is "true," in that it embodies beliefs, concepts, and ways of questioning and making sense of the world.

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I can't disagree with any of this. You reading that, Nem? Bambootiger?Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Another definition for myth as well as general comments on Christian mythology. Forbidden

Commentary evades the fact that the entire book catalogs the physical evidence supporting the Bible that is in the British Museum----on display. Said evasion begs the question, that is, assumes the Bible to be as topic title says, then spends every post denying any evidence that contradicts.Cavediver, of course, is an Atheist. This explains his evidence denying assumptions and tactic, and makes one wonder as to what the point is since we already know that Atheists deny all evidence that disproves their worldview-supports the Bible to not exist?Ray

Interesting. Cavediver describes himself as a Christian further up the thread, and Ray describes him as an atheist. So, perhaps he's one of those living oxymorons, a Christian AtheistMany Christians, Bishop Ray, do not believe in the literal veracity of much of the bible, and many more would agree with the O.P., that there's not much historical evidence for much of its contents. Are you going to ex-communicate them all?

Does it? Or does it merely contain wild speculation and wishful thinking? I don't know, I haven't read it.Have you read it? I'm starting to doubt it.Do you have a copy? If so, why won't you provide us with some examples of this abundant evidence, so that we can discuss it properly?It's no use just pointing to a book and saying that it backs up your argument, without citing anything. That's a waste of everybody's time.

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Mutate and Survive

I spoke about fundy atheist websites. Do you host fundy atheist websites? If not, then what are you getting angry at me for? I'm simply pointing something very obvious. Uhhhh, yeah!!! Cave, you need to read what I write, because you are taking something personal that was extended to how other people take their cognitive dissonance. If that doesn't include you, then let it roll off of your back.Sensitive much?

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“Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito"

The emboldened words need to be expanded on because they may or not be true. To begin with, from an historical and archaeological perspective the Tel Dan Stele does NOT verify that David was an historical figure. There are still great controversies over almost everything to do with the Stele, ranging from the extremely unusual action of Biran piecing the 3 fragments together before any other scholars had a chance to examine them, (this is just not the way things are done in archaeology), to problems with translations.You may be unaware that we don’t even know if the fragments are pieced together properly (a fact that Biran and Naveh both agree with), plus the ”bytdwd’ is more than likely a place name rather than a dynasty, and even if it was a dynasty it doesn’t PROVE whether it was an actual historical dynasty or not. We also have the fact that alleged names of Israelite and Judean kings are NOT even on the inscription.You also seem to uncritically accept your sources claims which, if you had looked into deeper, are not as well supported as you perhaps believe.There are different translations of much of the text, not only the ”bytdwd’ but also of ”Ahaziah’ and ”Joram’Kenneth Kitchen writes that opinions differ, and readings of the inscription include ”bayt-dawid’ (House of David), ”House of Dod (deity)’ and ”House of Vessel(s)’ ( A Possible Mention of David in the Late Tenth Century BCE, and Deity Dod as Dead as a Dodo , JSOT 76, page 30, 1997).So this first article suggests that the translation of ”bytdwd’ as ”House of David’ is not universally accepted, and there are other perfectly acceptable translations.Philip Davies argues that ”bytdwd’ might actually refer to a place or a building. Davies says that the study of Knauf, de Pury and Romer suggests that the ”dwd’ should be read as the name of a deity, and that the ”r’l dwd of the Mesha Stele (your other fantasy) fits in well with this ( BYTDWD and SWKT DWYD: A Comparison JSOT 64, page 23, 1994). They argue that the Mesha inscription may refer to a movable object belonging to the cult of the god whose epithet was ”dwd’. Ehud Ben Zvi (On the Reading ”bytdwd’ in the Aramaic Stele from Tel Dan , JSOT 64, 1994,) writes: But one should also take into account that the crucial textual element ”dwd’ for the understanding of ”bytdwd’ in the stele from Tel Dan, namely the term ”dwd’ does appear in the epigraphic corpus of the area. In fact, it occurs in another inscription from roughly the same time of the Aramaic stele of Tel Dan, that is, in the ”Mesha’ inscription (hereafter, MI). Although one is written in Aramaic and the other in Moabite, it is noteworthy that both deal with the (northern) Kingdom of Israel, and both do so from the perspective of its neighbours. Moreover, these two inscriptions share a common theme, that is, the victory of the rulers who ”wrote’ them over the (northern) Israelite King.

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It seems that there are two main, and mutually exclusive, proposals concerning the meaning of this ”dwd’, namely, as a reference to a deity, most likely YHWH, or as a reference to a person bearing the title ”dwd’, most likely an important (northern) Israelite officer.

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Significantly, both approaches to the meaning ”dwd’ in the MI lead to readings of ”bytdwd’ that are contextually plausible, though certainly different. If ”dwd’ is indeed a reference to YHWH in the MI, then it seems possible that ”bytdwd’ in the Aramaic Stele points to the House of YHWH, that is, the temple at Dan. If, alternatively, ”dwd’ is understood as the/a title of an important (northern) Israelite officer, then ”bytdwd’ may certainly point to the officer's house in the city of Dan, that is, a ”provincial’ alternative to the royal palace. Thus, no matter which of these two approaches to the meaning of the term ”dwd’ one chooses, one would develop a grammatically, contextually and historically possible (p.29) reading of ”bytdwd’ for the Aramaic Tel Dan Stele.

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In sum, the only other epigraphic instance of ”dwd’ in the corpus that is temporally and geographically relevant to the discussion occurs in an inscription that shares important traits with the Aramaic inscription of Dan: both point to the Northern Kingdom from an external perspective and both ”describe’ a victory over it, ”dwd’, in this other occurrence, certainly does not mean ”David, the son of Jesse’ ; it may refer either to YHWH or to a high-ranking official in the Northern Kingdom. These two approaches to the meaning of ”dwd’ lead to two different readings of ”bytdwd’, neither of which is contradicted by contextual clues in extant text of the Aramaic inscription, by grammatical evidence, or by historical reconstructions of the period.

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One has to conclude, therefore, that although it is certainly possible that ”bytdwd’ in the Aramaic stele of Tel Dan points to ”the House of David’ and hence refers to the kingdom of Judah, categorical affirmations of such a reading are questionable and should be avoided. Alternative interpretations of ”bytdwd’ do exist, cannot be ruled out, and should be kept in mind. It is to be hoped that additional fragments of the stele will be discovered; perhaps they will shed more light on the meaning of the term ”bytdwd’ in this specific case. (pp27-29.)K L Noll (The God Who is Among the Danites JSOT 80, page 9, 1998) agrees that the inscription says ”House of David’, but he has reservations over the two royal names on Fragment B2. He is concerned because Biran and Naveh interpret ”” ram Bar’ and ”iah Bar’ in Fragment B2 as ”[Jeho]ram Bar [Ahab]’ and ”[ahaz]iah Bar [Jeroham]. Noll agrees that these readings are ”possible’ but by no means ”unequivocal’. He says in footnote 19 ” The astounding term ”unequivocal’ is employed by Biran and Naveh.He gives a good alternative example for the ”ram Bar’ broken text. He says it could just as easily read ”[Hi]ram Bar [X, King of Tyre]. He then says that the ”iah Bar’ does not need to be Ahaziah Bar Ahab. The ”iah Bar’ is only one possibility as there is little doubt that non-Israelite Syro Palestinians sometimes bore Yahwistic names. He believes that this does refer to an Israelite name, but that the ” text is too fragmentary to permit conjecture ”. There is another problem with the translation of Biran and Naveh. Lemche and Thompson ( Did Biran Kill David’ JSOT 64, 1994, p12) inform us that line 8 and 9 translated as”[Ahaz]iahu son of [Jeroham Kin] g of the House of David’is problematic because as Knauf, de Pury and Romer pointed out, ”that a compound concept such as ”the King of the House of..’ has never been seen in any middle Eastern inscription, nor is it to be found in the Old Testament with the meaning ”king of the dynasty of X. They translate lines 8 and 9 as follows: [I] ”The King of Israel. I have Killed’ I poured libation offerings on/in the House of Dwd, I erected (the object that carries the inscription). [I] They suggest that the final ”k’ in 1.9 could belong to an Aramaic verb such as ”nsk’, ”to pour out a libation. pp12-13)The single surviving ”k’ before ”bytdwd’ is translated by Biran and Naveh as ”mlk’ (melek) meaning king.
There are many other problems with the inscription, some people believe that the joint has been ”forced’, some people are shocked that the fragments were joined by Biran and Naveh before anyone else had a chance to examine them, some people are shocked that no one else was consulted before Biran and Naveh released their translation (it is proper practice to allow viewing by other scholars before releasing a reconstructed text), some people are surprised that the inscription in IEJ 43 was not shown in situ . It has also been dated to the 8th century BCE. You should really give references when you quote other websites, and bibliographical details would be appreciated too as these details are very important.This quote from Andre Lemaire is from Biblical Archaeology Review May/June 1994! I take it that whatever he was ”preparing’ has been finished no, since its over 14 years since he claimed this, so what is Lemaire’s current opinion on the Tel Dan inscription?But, regarding the Mesha Stele, it is highly unlikely that it refers to David, Ehud Ben Zvi explains (referenced article above): While there is no general agreement about what the word ”dwd’ in line 12 of the MI (or more precisely dwdh, i.e., with an attached pronominal suffix actually means, there is widespread consensus that it does not mean David, the son of Jesse.

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From a grammatical point of view, since a pronominal suffix is attached to the noun, the latter is not to be considered a proper noun (or at the very least, is not so to be considered unless overwhelming evidence for such a reading is presented, and this is not the case). In addition, one should notice that from historical and contextual perspectives, the reading of ”dwdh’ as ”his David, (son of Jesse)’ in the MI is highly problematic. The bottom line is, over 15 years later, Lemaire still hasn’t shown that his reading of ”dwdh’ should be translated as ”David’.Regarding Cavediver’s topic, your post actually supports what Cavediver is claiming. These two very debatable inscriptions, that are still not widely accepted as reliable, is indeed a good example of how appalling the evidence is for the Bible’s veracity.A huge kingdom that the Bible allocates to David and all the fundies can come up with are two ambiguous inscriptions.Well done, you seem to have supported Cavediver point.

Thank you Brian, that's very interesting. No doubt more information will come to light with further study. As to the point about CaveDiggers topic I never gave it any credence to begin with. It would have been a stronger argument if he had said "partly myth" or maybe "some fantasy". From his wording one might assume the magical appearance of an entire nation out of thin air at some point in time, and all of these possessing memories which were all in agreement and yet still completely false. That would be a miracle indeed.
As for the question about David it is all a moot point to me anyway. Many ancient nations kept genealogical records. In two of the gospels we have listed the genealogical history of Jesus and both of these list David. Now I know you folks won't see it that way, but to me what is significant about this is that the Jews, until the destruction of that nation in 70 C.E., had genealogical records which they kept very carefully and these were available for public view. The first century Christians were extremely unpopular, especially with the Jews who called them a sect, and these Jews especially did not want to accept Jesus as the promised Messiah. So if there was anything wrong at all with these two genealogies then that would have seized upon immediately by Jewish opposers. The other thing is that David was still there at that time. In the Bible at Acts 2:29 Peter refers to the tomb of David where he still was at that point in time. You know, I would really love to see how this line of argument would fly if there were a few folks in Israel here. David is almost an object of worship with them. I doubt if they would find it very funny if someone suggested that he never existed. However Jews living in the first century were in a much better position to know if David existed or not. In the Greek scriptures he is mentioned 59 times. In addition to this, one person, I'm sorry but I don't remember who it was, mentioned something written by Caesar. David's name appears 75 times in the superscriptions of 73 Psalms. No matter how hard they try a mythical person can not be an author. In all throughout the Bible his name in mentioned 1,138 times in the Bible. So personally I have no doubt at all that he existed.

And the two are different. Go figure, huh?

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"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

One thing I have found out about history/archaeology is that nothing is straightforward, there’s normally a whole range of possibilities that can be concluded from one artefact. Everything an archaeologist uncovers is mute, the only ”voice’ an artefact has is the one that the archaeologist/historian gives it. Artefacts do not come complete with a context and meaning, context and leaning are given to the artefact by the archaeologist/historian who has to justify the context and meaning that they give an artefact. This is where all the controversy and discussion comes in, it is all to do with interpretation of an artefact, and the interpretation will always be affected by the viewpoint of the person doing the interpreting.This is why I think that people really need to be familiar with a particular subject and the main players who are involved because knowing the scholars’ viewpoints allows you to be aware that what you are about to read will be interpreted from that scholars particular stance. For example, if I picked up an article by William Dever, especially his older papers, I will know that the article will be quite favourable to the Hebrew Bible, whereas an article by Phillip Davies will not lean quite so much in favour of the biblical accounts.The Tel Dan inscriptions are a great example of the different scholarly approaches to ”biblical’ artefacts. I am guilty of posting similar things, and in my defence I word it that way to initiate debate, it motivates people into looking into a subject and replying. Perhaps CD takes the same approach. I don’t think anyone involved in the debate over the historical origins of Ancient Israel believes that the early books are entirely false; at the same time no scholar thinks that they are entirely accurate either. The truth is probably somewhere in between. There may well have been an historical David whose victories and kingdom were nothing like those described in the Bible, there may well have been an Exodus too, just not the same as the one described in the Bible. To me this isn’t a big deal, all ancient peoples that I know about greatly exaggerated their records, why should the authors of the Bible be any different? If I could be devils advocate for a moment I would say that the authors of these gospels already knew that the Messiah would have to come from the bloodline of David, the people they were trying to sell Jesus expected the Messiah to be descended from David so His genealogy HAD to include David didn’t it? Plus we have the problem of the conflict between the two genealogies. Any objective historian would see it that way though mate. It is back to circular reasoning, the only evidence that Jesus was descended form David is to be found in the very same source. But Jews allowed Christians to preach in their synagogues. But Jesus’ parentage was indeed questioned in very early sources. There was a rumour that Jesus was fathered by a Roman centurion called Pantera. So where is this tomb now? Without external evidence, we are back to circular reasoning. There are many Jewish scholars involved in the debate, they have to accept the same rules of historical enquiry that everyone else has to deal with.The famous Rabbi Nelson Glueck, the guy who is quoted on thousands of website as saying that nothing has ever been found that has contradicted the biblical accounts reinterpreted the Bible to fit the evidence, but the fundy websites leave this particular fact out when quoting him. Plus, worshipping someone doesn’t make that person real. Hundreds of millions of Hindus worship Krsna in his various incarnations, does that make Krsna or any of the incarnations real? Why were they in a much better position? But who seriously thinks David wrote any of the Psalms? Hey, that’s fine, I am happy for you.But the problem is when you would like others to accept what you believe to be true and they have a different opinion about what historical evidence is.

Hi Bambootiger,I'm going to focus only on the portions of your message that address the historicity of the Bible. Even if it were true that in 70 AD the Jews were safekeeping detailed genealogical records stretching back a thousand years (have any non-Biblical forms of the records of kings survived?), you still don't know the accuracy of those records, and you can't even be sure that genealogies in the Bible are based upon them. That there are two differing genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament does not lend confidence, and it is known that the core of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, was not recorded until after the exile, which was at least several hundred years after David. The rest of the Old Testament is even newer. Which is pretty much what happened. Most interesting of all is that though Matthew and Luke agree from Abraham to David, the older portion of the genealogy, they differ markedly from David to Jesus. Wikipedia has an article on the Genealogy of Jesus that describes a number of discrepancies and explanations for them. All we really know is that whoever wrote the account believed that David's remains lay buried in that tomb. Two points. First, this thread isn't about how emotional some people become when their cherished beliefs are challenged. It's about the historicity of the Bible.Second, Cavediver has now clarified several times that he isn't challenging the existence of personages like David. He's pointing out how unaware most Christians are of the lack of corroborating historical or archaeological evidence for many accounts in the Bible. Again, two points. First, the psalms were not written down until hundreds of years after David. There is no way we can know the accuracy of the attribution of authorship to David by scribes in the 6th century BC.Second, about the number of times David's name appears in the Bible, high frequency of mention cannot give reality to fiction. We have a relatively high level of confidence that King Herod was real because of the historical and archaeological evidence. But outside of the Bible there is only the most sparse and ambiguous evidence for David.And that's what this thread is about. It isn't trying to argue that the Bible is fiction, but that corroborating evidence for many Biblical accounts are either very sparse or do not exist. Those who accept the Bible because they've been told that there is more evidence for Jesus than for Julius Caesar have been sold a line. Most of the accounts in the Bible have to be accepted on faith.--Percy

BAR was founded in 1974 by Anthony Hands and David Walker for British conventional archeological science constituents and all interested in archeology; not by or for the evangelical community.I subscribed to it for a year or two when it first came out. It's no friend of evangelicals perse. Regarding it's reliability:
this is how I regard it.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Percy,
I haven't been in this forum for long, but I have the tern "circular reasoning" a number of times. Personally I think it is overused and often misapplied. To me what is circular reasoning can be expressed in the form ( since..., given ..., so..) or with roughly equivalent terns. The first term is sort of a logic filter which directs and limits the outcome, or conclusion, in a manner which concurs with he first term. Everyone has some sort of bias, I think, except for someone young enough to have no preconceived opinion whatsoever. So let me illustrate. If I say , for example, that the superscription of Psalms 16 says "A mik’tam of David." and at Acts 2:25 Peter quotes a verse from that Psalm and days "For David says", and then my listener says "How do you know who wrote it?" No doubt said listener is thinking that I am using "circular reasoning", but here is how the process goes: the other person is thinking "since I can't believe anything that the Bible says... given that this is a statement is from the Bible... so this means that the Bible is unreliable, and I can't believe anything from the Bible." From the other person's point of view the question was proven before any evidence was presented and so there is no reason to examine any evidence. That is circular reasoning. The person ends up where they began because they never actually went anywhere.
Would you compose a song and then, when submitting it for publication, sign the name of a mythical person, like "Santa Clause" to it? Then would you do that 72 more times and include biographical details? If you did that would all of your contemporaries accept that those songs were by Santa Clause and all those biographical details were real events?Often in any controversial subject the positions move like a pendulum, only from one extreme to the other, and only on one plane. To me a more logical approach is to think of what might lie closer to the center, and to look to see what might lay in the third dimension. Then think of the subject in term of models. People get emotional very quickly and feel personal attacked if you disagree with a position they have a lot of personal investment in, and they also feel that, in their own self defense, they have to attack the other person rather than listen. If you put together a model, though, of a different viewpoint, then you can examine it from different angles and compare it with your own, as well as with other possibilities. Also it really doesn't hurt to at least acknowledge that another person might have some good points even if you really disagree overall. One thing that is helpful here is to try and not over generalize. The viewpoint of one person who believes in the Bible may be quite opposite of another, some, for example, say that they believe in the Bible, and still in evolution, and try to reconcile the two things. Personally I believe that the universe and earth have been around for billions of years, which is just the opposite of some others, especially Seventh Day Adventists believe who are the core of the "Young Earth" and "Creationism" view.
I am familiar with the theories of critics who claim that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible, that the Bible is not as old as traditional thought, and so forth. However it is all based on very flimsy conjectures. For instance there is the documentary theory which was proposed by the German scholar Julius Wellhausen. Wellhausen said that one author consistently used the personal name of God, Jehovah, and is thus called J. Another, dubbed E, called God "Elohim." Another, P, supposedly wrote the priestly code in Leviticus, and yet another, called D, wrote Deuteronomy.
However in just one small portion of the book of Genesis, God is called "the Most High God," "Producer of heaven and earth," "Sovereign Lord Jehovah," "God of sight," "God Almighty," "God," "the true God," and "the Judge of all the earth." (Genesis 14:18,19; 15:2; 16:13; 17:1, 3,18; 18:25) Did different authors write each of these Bible texts? And at Genesis 28:13 the terms "Elohim" (God) and "Jehovah" are used together. Did two authors collaborate to write that one verse? If you apply this same line of reasoning to secular writings then it completely fails, and so we are asked to apply something different to determine the authorship of the Bible books than we would to anything else, and only so as to discredit the Bible. You could call this circular reasoning, or you could call it rationalization, which is deciding what you want to believe and then working backwards only to justify the conclusion you want.
You don't have to believe in God to accept what the Bible itself indicates through internal chronology that Genesis was written in 1513 B.C.E.. It didn't take either a miracle or divine intervention for Moses to know how to write. Writing is known to predate this time. For example, I've read that the Sumerians invented the cuneiform script over 5,000 years ago.
As far as the two genealogies of Jesus id concerned there is a good reason why there are differences between the two: he had two parents. Luke traced the line through David’s son Nathan, instead of Solomon as did Matthew. (Lu 3:31; Mt 1:6,7) Luke evidently follows the ancestry of Mary, thus showing Jesus’ natural descent from David, while Matthew shows Jesus’ legal right to the throne of David by descent from Solomon through Joseph, who was legally Jesus’ father. The reason why Mary wasn't listed by name is because of the customs of that time period. Jews had the saying : ”Genus matris non vocatur genus" which can be translated as "The descendant of the mother is not called (her) descendant". So instead in Luke Joseph is said to be the son of his Father-in-law; Heli.
I believe you asked about "how do you know the genealogical records of the Jews were accurate?" Well what would be the point otherwise? Why would anyone keep records if they weren't going to be as accurate as they possibly could? For the Jews this was important because by their law land was inherited through family line, this included not only agriculturual land, but also in the walled cities. Land could be sold, but according to the law of the Jubilee it had to revert back to the original ownership every 50 years. so the value of what was sold and bought was reckened according to how long it was until then. There was also the matter of taxes, service at the temple, and so forth. So records were very important overall, but it was even more important in their religion because of the promise of the Messiah and the linage that this was promised to come through.
Are you familiar with the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus?

If you look on the internet it seems possible to find an expert that will tell you anything you want to hear. As far as I know, unless there is something more recent, there were three expeditions of Jericho. If you look on the internet you might find a site that is critizing the Bible and it will cite only the one which disgreed the most with the Bible, and on the other hand another site by some ministry or the other will cite the one which most agrees with the Bible. I think that often people have a vested interest in finding an audience and scrathing them behind the ears; that how you get suport, money or fame, or both.