How do you know that there ARE no traces? Do you have any clue how expensive it is to conduct archeological digs.
I remember that they dug Jericho. This is a city, probably the oldest city that ever existed. How did they dig? They stuck two shafts down and that’s it.
Why only two? Because archeological digs are expensive (I heard that the only site on the globe that has been fully searched is Masada).
Can you imagine how utterly expensive it would be to search a desert? I want to know that number of shafts they put down in sinai. I have yet to see a number.
They have scoured the entire Sinai Peninsula for over a century, including the specific place where 2 million people were supposed to have camped for 38 years (and every other location the Bible says they stopped). There’s been no lack of funding. Religionists have been highly motivated to find something - desperate even - yet, they can’t find a single potsherd or campfire. Satellite imaging makes it much easier to search, incidentally.
Jericho has been much more extensively excavated than two shafts, by the way.
But if you don’t search, how do you expect to find? Why should things just be lying around.
Again, according the Biblical version, they went with nothing (or close to nothing) . So I wouldn’t expect to find things just lying around for 3,300 years in plain site.
All I am saying is, I need to see more. I need to see details.
I will give you a couple of examples of archeological evidence or scientific evidence that backs up the Bible. Again, an expert would be able to tell you more.
The Bible never describes the patriarchs visiting northern Israel, or living in Northern Israel. They are mentioned as living in southern israel, visiting Egypt, Syria, and Phillistine. Why are they not recorded in Northern Israel. Archeologists have found that northern Israel was unpopulated in the time of the patriarchs. HOW DID THE JEWS KNOW THIS? More acutely, how did they know where the patriarchs lived, and they messed up terribly about their more-recent ancestors, in Sinai?
The Cohen Gene (this may be a bit questioned on wikipedia). The Jewish priests believe they descend from one person, Aaron, who lived during the Sinai miracles (genealogy is a big topic in the Old Testament). Genealogists show that a large percentage of priests descend from one male.
They HAVE searched. They have searched despearately, and thoroughly for decade after decade and with the best technology. Nothing.
What they brought with them is irrelevant. 2 million people stark naked are still going to leave a massive amount of evidence. They have to eat, shit, use water, build shelters and fires, make tools, clothes. etc. The Bible also said they brough a lot of animals. Animals would leave bones. Some of the people themselves would die (in fact, God periodically slaughtered them by the thousands according to the Bible). Where are their bones.
Modern satellite imaging can find campsites thousands of years old from a few dozen nomads camping for a week, but they can’t find 2 million Israelites living at one oasis for 38 years.
I am accept that the non-extraordinary elements of the bible are frequently correct. That has no bearing on the extraordinary elements. The same can be said for many novels for example.
My point is that all you guys have is “absence of evidence.” I have positive evidence. And it is positive evidence which should worry you.
If the Jews were able to figure out how they descended from one dude who lived hundreds of years before them, how could they have messed up about what happened to all the millions of them, good to the last drop?
Both of these assertions are incorrect. Northern Canaan was very much populated at the time, and the Bible says that Abraham went right throught it. He came down from North of Canaan (from what is now Lebanon) and went straight south through Canaan before turning west to go to Egypt.
This would not be evidence of anything anyway, but we also know that the Israelites were indigeonous to Canaan. The patriach myths are also compromised by anachronisms such as Abraham’s purported use of camels hundreds of years before they were domesticated, and Isaac interacting with the “king of the Philistines” over a 1000 years before the Philistines existed.
It shows that about half of them share a particular haplotype which is also shared by a lot of non-Jews. I don’t know whay you would characterize this as “archaeological” evidence because it has nothing to do with archaeology, but it also isn’t even very good genetic evidence for anything. That people descended from a hereditary class would share some genetic descendency is not exactly shocking.
I mean that people with a strong desire to prove the historical accuracy of the Bible have dug extensively, for over 100 years, at every site the Bible says the Israelites went, and have combed the entire peninsula with satellite imaging. They don’t just randomly dig shafts. You don’t seem to know much about archaeology.
The Holocaust has a ton of direct eyewitness testimony and photographic evidence, and is within the realm of scientific possibility. The evidence for the Civil War includes photographic evidence and eyewitness testimony and it, too is within the realm of scientific possibility.
Compared to them, all you’ve got is a whisper of a rumor of a tall tale.
Can I cite Wikipedia? (Apropros of nothing, I find apparently even Hitler had something to say about it, which is hilarious).
Huh? I don’t recall making that argument. Could you cite me up the post in which I claim it?
An exaggeration can take enough forms so as to make a story which has similar background into something so different that it is essentially new. For example, if rather than a parting of the sea, Moses et al merely walked across a stretch of coast at low tide, then the basic point is the same while you could also argue the reason for the event being remembered is somewhat negated.
Forgive me, as i’m not particularly knowledgeable about Jewish ritual; but is this something that Jews do? I mean, if we’re trying to compare the two, it would seem unreasonable to hold one group to a higher standard of proof of belief than the other.
I mean no offense, but this doesn’t strike me as something that a detached, unbiased person would say. I disagree with you, but i’m not poking you with a stick about it.
I will not be able to respond to all of the points, since I simply don’t have the time to research all of the points that were raised. Sorry.
Revenant: You claim that the Jews walked along the shore of the Red Sea, and the story eventually became that is split. Can you please show me one case where an entire nation made that sort of error? Also, how would you explain the 14,600 days of manna?
2.Yes, Czarcasm, I agree that there is more evidence for the holocaust than there is for the bible’s national miracles. BUT HOW IS THAT IMPORTANT?
Diogenes: Please define “dug extensively.”
Diogenes: The Cohen gene is very important. How? It means that the Jews were capable of figuring out that a certain portion of them desceded from a man who was believed to have seen the national miracles, Aaron. If so, it seems unlikely that they would not be able to figure out what happened to millions of them, who lived at that same time.