something i’ve been wondering - what exactly do you mean by the above? It seems to me that you are conflating two different things.
Nationally experienced event. This remains o be seen. Right now, you have evidence of a belief in a nationally experienced belief.
Nationally commemorated event. This seems uncontroversial. Christmas is nationally commemorated.
In any event, you have no evidence that these two things happened around the same time. All you have is the belief in a nationally experienced event. This is uncompelling.
You are trying to make the Jewish people sound that way, and hopefully those reading along will notice that you’re spitballing and not being at all accurate when you claim that “Jews believe this” or “the Jews believe that” and, instead, inventing numbers to try to bolster your claims.
Coincidentally, just like the people for first invented the myth in question.
My point is, of course, that people should not believe your negative characterization of the Jewish people and should, instead, understand that religious fundamentalism is comparatively rare within the Jewish people, and generally roughly eqiuevlent or less prevalent than similar strains in American culture and religion.
I’ll note that, like most of your ‘proof’, you’ve pulled that claim from a moist, dark crevice.
Also like the rest of your ‘proof’, it’s chock full o’ non sequitor and nonsense. 250 years ago, beliefs in Spontaneous Generation were still somewhat common in the proto-scientific community, and that was hardly a golden age of reason, either.
All I mean is that, and I think you would agree with this, if the history described in the Torah would have actually happened – that God performed extended miracles in front of millions of people and demanded that everlasting commemorations be observed, and that people teach the miracles to their children, and never forget about the miracles – assuming this actually happened, this would have left an effect on the nation for a considerable amount of time. The sinai events, had they really happened, is an event which would change the nation, or at least a small part of it.
Are there an false nation-changing events? Not one.
Why? Why, indeed, are there no false nation-changing events? Because people aren’t that stupid to believe false events like that. People aren’t stupid enough to think that millions of their ancestors saw an event, and were commanded never to forget it – and the event never happened in the first place. Why? Because rational people would have asked, “If what you are saying, Mr. Prophet, is true, then why haven’t we heard about it.”
Yes, people are gullible – meaning they believe things without adequate evidence. Some people believe that Xenu murdered millions of aliens. Is it illogical to believe that? Not that illogical, because they are merely trusting their leader about ancient facts that they have no way of verifying.
Regarding the sinia events, it was a national event experienced by their own nation. They should have known about this event, or non-event, had it not happened.
One final point about archeology. I was reading an encyclopedia article about Damasacus, one of the most-ancient cities in the world. It is recorded in Egyptian documents as far back as 1500 BC, and it is mentioned in Genesis in the Patriarchal narratives (thank God in heaven that the Egyptians recorded that the city existed; otherwise, the bible critics would have claimed that the city of Damasacus mentioned in Genesis is an anachronism!).
The passage in the encyclopedia concludes that not one shred of the city of damasacus has been found that is older than 900BC (and only one piece has been found that is that old).
Can you imagine? One of the most-populated cities, and it was populated for over a thousand years and they haven’t found one piece of physical remains of the city of damasacus? Apparently, archeology can’t prove a negative (this encyclopedia is a couple of decades old, so they may have found stuff recently; either way, it shows just how careful you have to be when you claim “the Jews, who left egypt empty-handed weren’t in the sinai desert, because we haven’t found anything of theirs in the desert.” Its like looking for a needle in haystack the size of New Jersey.)
Maybe in your week overseas you can think up a new response. It’s been proved to you that there have been plenty of lies and myths that have changed nations.
As a matter of fact, that behavior is extremely illogical. It is totally illogical to trust someone uncritically about something they can’t know. It’s not logical to trust someone so thoroughly that you accept their word on matters that are incoherent and obviously impossible, and to then allow them to explain those events away with further impossibilities. That’s the case in Scientology and that’s the case with your story, too.
Then logically, they should have known it happened already. And yet somehow, there’s no evidence they believed it happened until centuries later.
Er, no. The question of whether secession was motivated by defense of slavery or for some other reason is a matter of documented fact (e.g. the various Ordinances of Secession), not a matter of “interpretation” – and yet the false history has been commemorated on a national-level scale for a century and a half, beginning hard on the heels of the real events. Ditto for the question of whether the conditions of slavery were more accurately described by abolitionists or by apologists.
I’ve posted your answer to this a couple of times now, and you’ve conveniently managed to avoid the topic. Can you please address this when you come back?
You’ve created a false dichotomy here: either the events in Exodus were true, or at some later point millions of people would have had to be convinced of a lie, all from nothing.
Can’t you see the problem with this? Those aren’t the only two options - they’re not even the most significant of the several options.
A much more plausible scenario is that the legends grew over the generations, starting with something small, say a man and his family, or maybe a couple of families, who escaped captivity from someone in the next town over, and settled among the Canaanites. As the story gets retold over the generations around the campfire, every generation believes the story they hear to be true, but it gradually becomes greater, building on to the numbers of people, the heroic things they did, how long they traveled. That’s how legends operate - stories change and morph into the kind of story that’s most likely to be retold. It’s a lot like biological evolution in that way - a small change in a legend will survive to be retold again if it makes the story more likely to be retold.
Eventually, someone decides to write down the story, possibly because writing materials are more widely available, and that version of the story from that time gets cemented into history. After 2500 years, you get some guy on an Internet board who claims that the events had to have happened because people couldn’t be tricked into believing such a cockamamie story if it wasn’t true.
If Joshia did hear about the Sinai miracles from his father, the conversation must have had a most interesting conclusion: “And that’s what Yahveh, a god not represented among these idols and who specifically warned his people to avoid idolatry, did way back when. Now, start polishing the idols and get your offerings for them ready…”
You claim that it is plausible that this national, nationally-commemorated event will evolve over time. Can you please point to one national, nationally-commemorated event evolving over time? If not, I don’t need to concern myself with your scenario.
The story of Noah’s flood and the epic of Gilgamesh are both believed to have been inspired by a real historical flood in that region. The Trojan war epics may have been based on a real war.
Your argument is that your intuition tells you that it isn’t rational for people to who believe in God to worship idols. Your intuition, regardless of whether the events happened or not, is wrong.
There are many (Sephardic) Jews who, for example, profain the sabbath, despite the fact that they believe in God, and in the sinai miracles. In Israel, everyone goes to the synagouges on Yom Kippur and cries their eyes out about all the sins they have been doing. The politicians – the same ones whose breath reaks from shellfish – go to the Talmudic sages for a blessing before their campaings. People are irrational.
Elijah – when rebuking those who worshiped Baal – tell them “how long will you go back and forth? If you want Baal, then go after Baal. If you want God, then go after God!” From Elijah’s rebuke, recorded in the Book of Kings, it is apparent that even those who worshiped Baal believed in the God of Israel.
Most-shockingly, King Solomon is considered by the Bible to be a prophet of God. Later in life, he is recorded as bowing to idols. Does this make sense? No. But people are conflicted. As I said before, social pressure is VERY strong. If every single country around you is convinced that 1) There are many Gods; 2) Who appear in physical form; 3) Who get very angry when not worshiped, it is very hard to stand up to that pressure.
You think it is plausible for it to evolve over time. Your intuition is not in line with the facts. The fact is that we don’t see any false nation-changing events.
All I am saying is that Noah’s flood was not a belief about a false-national event, since only one person was believed to have survived. Had the story of Noah’s flood claimed that millions survived the flood, you would have a point.
Second, the fact that something is commemorated means nothing. The fact that it is in the Bible means nothing. The Bible recording it does not mean that the same people who experieced the flood commemorated the flood. That is what is imporant.
OK. I really got to run. I will stick around a couple of minutes to read your responses, but I will not have the time to respond. See you in a week.
Wrong assumption. We’re discussing things that did happen that became the seeds of truth for myths.
Didn’t Noah have a family? They were the only people left on earth, according to the story.
So writing something down is not commemorating it? I thought the flood was supposed to be the source of an important covenant between God and humanity. And assuming this was a historical event, we have commemorations from two different civilizations.
For that matter, many people who don’t think Jesus was the messiah still think he was a historical person. Wouldn’t that also qualify?
It is clearly suicidally irrational for people who believe in a God who can and does intervene in human affairs to punish violations of divine commandments to worship idols.
How did the surrounding peoples come by these beliefs? Was it:
Myths about these gods were invented and then spread and grew over the generations, or
The various local nations had each experienced some respective national event that demonstrated the reality and power of Baal, Chemosh, Molech, etc?