And to quote Paul Harvey, “Now you know the rest of the story.”
How was I supposed to know you misinterpreted me? I was quite friendly the first time I asked you to back it up. But you have a chronic habit of NOT backing things up, and it makes it very difficult to determine how solid your information is. So I asked again. And again. And again. I wasn’t attacking, I just wanted some information, but you seemed bound and determined to NOT give it to me! I added, almost pitifully: “I am quite prepared to believe you, but you have to support your statements!” after the third time or so I asked you to back your statement up.
Your habit of not backing up what you say can be quite tiresome. Remember when you argued that the Internet Infidels site quoted out of context? I ask for some evidence. You say Kenyon is quoted out of context there, and that she believed Joshua conquered Jericho. I take you at your word, and ask for a cite showing that she believed in the Jericho conquest. You cite to a quote that says “The evidence from the 1952-58 excavations at Jericho indicates there was a late bronze town there in the 14th century, which might have been attacked by Joshua”. Great cite, I think. Let’s click on the link.
Oh no! What it actually says is: “The evidence from the 1952-8 excavations at Jericho indicate that there was a Late Bronze Age (LB) town there in the 14th century which might have been attacked by Joshua, BUT NOTHING SURVIVES TO ILLUSTRATE THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT. (my emphasis). It also suggests that if this destruction followed by 600 years of abandonment was the work of the Israelite tribes under Joshua, it is not likely to have been later than c. 1300BC which is difficult to reconcile with a flight from Egypt c. 1260 BC.” In other words, the bit you left out adds that there is no evidence of this, and that the destruction occured 40 years before Joshua was supposed to arrive on the scene. I point this out. You insist it proves your point. Tomndebb adds that it refutes your point. I mention that the very website you link to says Kenyon “destroys the myth of Jericho”. You claim that Kenyon believed in a 1170BC exodus. Oops, now Joshua conquered Jericho 130 years before he got there. I ask for a cite for the 1170 Exodus date. I don’t get one.
I cite (with links) multiple archeologists stating that the Joshua-conquest theory is bunk. You claim no city has ever been completely abandoned. Collunsbury shoots you down. I cite five online articles that claim that Kenyon debunked Jericho’s conquest by Joshua. You cite two secondhand popular works that say there was a town at Jericho, one by using a date for Exodus I don’t think is seriously believed by the vast majority of archeologists. I cite that 80% of Biblical Archeologists do not believe in the Joshua conquest. Finally, since you never provided a link for this in the first place, I look up the Internet Infidels article.
You had said:
The actual Internet Infidels article says “Kenyon argued that Garstung had excavated the wrong wall and mistakenly thought that the Early Bronze Age foundations were instead the Late Bronze Age walls of the time of Joshua’s Conquest. Jericho was destroyed, not in the Late Bronze Age, but rather nine hundred years earlier in the Early Bronze Age sometime around 2400 BCE. The site was a small village during the Late Bronze Age when Joshua was said to have crossed the Jordan River, making Tell es-Sultan’s conquest unnecessary…”
ARRGH! I just spent a serious chunk of time researching archeolgists and Katherine Kenyon, and you were completely wrong about your initial premise! You think she said there was a village there, yet you cannot provide evidence that she believed that; I looked up a ton of cites, and in the end Internet Infidels said the exact same thing you said she said! This is why I keep asking you to back up what you says; I am willing to believe you, but only if you are correct; and given your track record the only way I know if you are correct is to see a cite that backs you up! Half the time when you think something backs you up, it actually says the opposite, like the Kenyon quote, like the Infidels site, like the Bible verses, like Zev’s comments…
That’s why I demand cites from you, Daniel. You don’t seem to do the cursory fact-checking that would prevent you from making 80% of your errors. I’ve had to do a lot of research on my own to refute your points since you don’t back them up; I have to do not only my research, but yours as well. I’m tired of it. It’s making me irritable. But by Gaud, if you post things that are questionably true in GD, expect me to call you on it.
Quite frankly, I do it to everybody; I’m just more suspicious of your “facts” since I’ve frequently found them in error. I corrected cmkeller in an old evolution thread when he mentioned in an offhand way that rabbits chew their cud–and I really like Chaim! It doesn’t matter how trivial you think the facts are, get them right. Honestly, I don’t think the difference between slavery-for-life and slavery-for-six-years is at all trivial.
Daniel, I post with a smile on my face as fundamantalists duck and dodge, call me immoral and ignore any hint of logic. But YOU drive me nuts, because you act like you really know what you’re talking about…until I catch you in factual errors, errors that I think would not happen to a person with more than a passing familiarity with the subject. ::shrug:: I probably will be nicer now that I’ve gotten this off my chest, but think about this: my demands that you back up your statements and not post bad facts was a sign of respect. Now maybe I’ll just assume that you’ll get facts wrong, and correct you mildly if you do it. I expected better of you than I got, Daniel. 
{Edited to add link to thread I was discussing. --Gaudere}
[Edited by Gaudere on 12-13-2000 at 11:20 AM]
Can I recommend Orlando Patternson’s Slavery and Social Death? It’s the most exhaustive cross-cultural study I know of for slavery systems. Darn good read to, very analytical as to what is being called slavery etc.
Does it cover OT Jewish slavery vis-a-vis other slavery systems? 
Hmmm…does provision of Guinness count as an “appropriate duty”? 
So, Gaudere is against slavery and Dan is for it? Or is it the other way around? Or are they BOTH against it?
Sorry, I haven’t been able to pay attention while thinking about gently biting Gaudere’s fine moderator ass.
[hijack]
How did poor Gaudere get into this sexually abusive situation?
I mean, geez, nobody ever talks about gently biting John Corrado’s ass.
(If they have, post links.)
Only if it is the highest quality, best poured silky smooth Guinness from a very few select establishments which I have spent the better part of a decade evaluating.
Gunther Murphy’s, in the middle room in front of the fire on a cold evening. Dan offers up the pints , I dutifully offer you the first one out of respect and admiration.
I long since lost track of what any of the original discussion actually had to do with anything. Was there a great debate actually back there at the beginning or what?
As I recall it is comprehensive in its coverage of slave systems, including all well documented ones. Also notes, as I recall, that legal practice is the ideal, not the de facto reality. We can guess reality fell short.
<Sigh>. Why do you keep harping that I did not back up my statement? Agian, for the 5th time- you asked me to back it up. I assumed you meant the part about slavery in the US- so i backed that up. Nope you said- you wanted evidence regarding Jewish slave treatment vs other cultures- so I backed that up- with excatly the sort of cite you asked for. Now, it turned out that what you were asking for was me to back up something which I did not mean- and I never thought I said- as the context appeared clear to me. EVERY FREAKING TIME YOU ASKED ME TO BACK SOMETHING UP, I DID. It is your fault for naot making yourself clear as to exactly WHAT you wanted backed up. You get so involved in winned extremely trivial points that sometimes i think you want me to poat a dictionary definition for every word i used.
As to the Kenyon thing. I never said she supported the Joshua Conquest. What i said is that she wrote that there very well COULD have been a town there for Joshua to “conquer”- but that there was no remaining archeological evidence of that. And what does her quote say? Exactly that. Next- Kenyon is quoted as saying there was a bronze age TOWN there, at ABOUT the right time. Infidels changes this to “a small village”. A big difference.
Next- i never said KENYON supported any such date- i said some authorities do. Some postulate other dates. Kenyon simply was unwilling to accept any solid date for the Exodus without evidence- and there is practically none. Thus, as there was a “town” there, and it was destroyed- but exactly by whom, and exactly when is not known as the archeological evidence is so scanty. Since that town was there, but some 40 years off from the Biblical date (which was decieded by Biblical scholars, not Archeologists)- and there is no archeological evidence for that date- it COULD have been that town that Joshua attacked. But, then again- maybe not- there simply was not enuf evidence to show either way.
Now, in the site i linked you to- those authors found more evidence, after Kenyons work (in 1968), and decieded that the evidence did show that that was the town Joshua attacked. However- since the evidence is scanty- i guess they could be wrong, too.
And, there is no (longer any)doubt, in any Archeologist’s mind, AFAIK, that the classical LITERAL story of the Conquest is wrong. Kenyon said so, my cite says so, and i have agreed. For one thing- the numbers involved are way too high. However, there is a big difference between the LITERAL conquest never happening, and no “conquest” at all. My personal opinion is that there was such a conquest, by a brilliant general named Joshua- which was later greatly exaggerated & “epic-ized” by the OT writers. Much like there was a Great King named Arthur- but the whole “Round table” thing is mythological. And there really was a Troy, and a siege, and likely great heroic deeds- which were “epic-ized” by Homer. The basic truth is there- but not all the stories are true.
As to 'collonsbury shooting me down"- he listed a City which he said was destoyed and abdandoned- I pointed out that that site is now the location of several interlinked villages, one of which is on the city site itself. Sorry, far from shooting me down- not even a bullet hole. Note that in your eagerness to make sure EVERYONE gives cites- you asked for, and collons gave- none.
Um, if I provide a cite that proves Daniel’s point that OT Jewish slavery was more humane than slavery in other cultures, can I have a provision of Guiness?
(suspends rigorous search pending answer)
-
She invited Dan to bite it, and I felt left out.
-
I have never met Mr Corrado so I cannot judge. However, based on my heterosexuality, I am quite sure I would never wish to bit his ass. Our dear moderatrix, however…
How about if you were ravenously hungry, and John Corrado’s ass had the flavor of wild strawberries?
How about if we let you wear a blindfold?
(Oh, man, I am going to be in SUCH deep shit when John Corrado shows up…)
Back off drop, you’re marrried!
::ahem::
now where were we?..
oh yes, I was just offering you another pint of pure, creamy Guinness.
“What?”
“Trying to get you drunk”?
"au contraire dear, dear moderatrix
I was uh, uh,…
oh yeah, I’m keeping up with you so…
no wait,…
ah hell, have another pint!
Well, no one asked me for a cite, I mean its terribly trivial.
But I can be my own source if you wish. I visited the site of Sijilmassa on a tour a little while back. It is abandoned to this date. You can walk out to it from nearby Risani, which is not the same location. I don’t know how long the interruption in habitation for the area was, but the city site is definatively abandoned.
Your assertion was and is a bit silly, insofar as I understand it. City sites may be repopulated later on I can also point you, when I get back to home base, to Roman cities in Iberia that were abandoned during post-Roman depopulation. Many of course were repopulated some centuries later, but some were not. I believe we can also point to, for example, some city sites of ancient Anatolia --the Hittite capital for example. I’m frankly not enclined to get cites for something so very obvious.
So, here’s a more rational restatement of the issue
(1) Are city sites ever abandoned permanently?
yes
2) Why?
Many reasons (a) environmental shifts (b) depopulation © political reasons
3) Are those sites not often repopulated later on bec. of the inherent advantages (excepting (a) of course):
Well yes, of course, but that’s a somewhat trivially obvious thing, but surely
I personally have no opinion about Jericho, its just the broad and sweeping generalization you made. Really, it doesn’t help your already tattered argument at all.
My working definition of populated, by the way, excludes transient use of sites and only includes actual habitation of a recognizably urban character. I think this is the only definition for which makes any sense in this context. Now if you’re specifically adopting the definition that city sites, usually being advantageously located on well-=watered grounds can be said to probably always be in continuous use of some kind, well yes, but its a rather meaningless statement in the contect of the original argument.
Besides, the cheesemakers weren’t there.
Only if you only read HALF THE SENTENCE. The ENTIRE sentence states that there is no evidence of the Biblical account, and it in fact occured 60 years before Exodus was supposed to occur. I find your remark here frankly disingenous.
You have yet to back up your claim that she believed the earlier time of Exodus allowed Joshua to conquer a small village and consider it a conquest of mighty walled Jericho. Every quote I have seen by her says the Joshua conquest story is discredited. I am willing to believe you, but back up your statements. The only source that backs in any way up your claim that she believed there was a small village there is the Infidels site you sneer at.
Which town? The village you say Kenyon talks about, or the walled city? From my reading of the cite they are claiming that Joshua attacked the walled town, not the putative late Bronze village–they have a very early chronology. http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/jericho5/
"The evidence is clear. Garstang was correct in his identification of the wall Joshua attacked and Kenyon was correct in dating this event to be the end of EBIII. They were of course both wrong in their ABSOLUTE dating which was based on an erroneous Egyptian chronology. But then that is the solution to ALL the anomalies and problems found extensively on most sites in the Near East.
Next week we will review the latest work on Jericho and sum up the evidence that Jericho confirms in all its aspects the Biblical Account."
Er, you said, in reference to Joshua perhaps finding Jericho abandoned: “Through-out history, a vital site for a town/city has never been completely abandoned. If it is a good site for a city, there will be some sort of City.” This appears to be arguing that no city has ever been abandoned at one time, particularly since you are trying to use it to argue that Jericho couldn’t have been abandoned when Joshua arrived, as the archeologists were saying. What in the world were you trying to argue here? If you were not using it to argue that Jericho couldn’t have been abandoned when Joshua came’a’calling, I can’t see why on earth you would bring it up.
Look, the facts of the matter are that you were flat-out wrong about the Infidels site. If you even briefly glanced at it before flinging allegations, you would have known this. If you had even briefly investigated OT Jewish slavery you would have realized that not all were freed after six years. I don’t like tagging along cleaning up “facts” that you could have easily checked yourself.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
MikeG:
Mmmmm…offers of Guinness and massages and gentle biting of my ass…I should post in the Pit more often. I am feeling mellower already. Now, if only I had real Guinness instead of cyber Guinness. ::sigh::
Thea Logica:
Well, you can have some cyber-Guinness, but he did in the (bitter) end provide a cite, although I would greatly prefer a better one–he quoted from Baffling Bible Questions Answered or somesuch, and it’s not online so I can’t confirm. A cite from a reputable anthropologist or archeologist would make me very happy.
Mithras the Sun-God
He saved the world from Night,
And his immolation
Also brought salvation
To the men who sought the Light.
Oh dear, I’ve gone and put my foot in my mouth.
Well, here we are with a problem, I’ve semi-contradicted myself insofar as permanently and repopulated later are contradictions. What I was thinking (its late here you know) was long term abandonement. Of course, I’ll add that given the world’s growing population, few places not rendered uninhabitable by desertification are likely to go uninhabited for long. But the spirit of the argument remains the same, in terms of effectively permanent abandonment in terms of the classical world.
I’ll buy you that pint.
Is not “gauderes ass” traif? Her hoofs are possibly cloven, but she does not chew her cud.