Thank you. I think DrDeth is putting too much stock in the word “Semitic.”
And DrDeth, Finkelstein and Silberman are not technically Minimalists. They believe in a Historical David and Solomon (the Minimalist school believes they were wholly mythical characters). They just believe that their kingdoms were much more modest than what is claimed by the Bible. They even believe there was a Saul, for that matter.
The Wiki on Sargon doesn’t mention anything about his being Nimrod, and the Wiki on Nimrod doesn’t mention his being Sargon.
The tie between the two is the city of Akkad. Sargon built Akkad. Also what the Bible says about Nimrod matches what we know of Sargon.
Well, yes, but it’s 100% better than any cites DtC has posted so far. 
You’re the one making the assertions. You’re asking me to cite negatives. Cite a contemporary ANE archaeologist or historian who believes in the Biblical Exodus.
I just used biblegateway to check a couple different translations of Genesis 10:9, they all say that Akkad was one of the first centers of Nimrod’s empire and that he went on to build several cities Assyria(Ninevah, etc). It doesn’t say that he built Akkad.
The bible has something like 3 sentences on Nimrod. One gives his fathers name as Cush (according to wiki, Sargon’s fathers name was La’ibum), the second gives the cities that were the center of his empire and a list of cities he built in Assyria, and the third simply uses his name when identifing Assyria (“the land of Nimrod”). So the only sense that they match, so far as I can see, is that they both ruled over some of the same cities.
It would be cool if Nimrod really was Sargon, and it would sort of make sense that the Jews would know about him from hearing the legends of the Babylonians, but I don’t really see that much evidence for the connection (indeed, glancing at Wiki, several of the cities that Nimrod is supposed to have build appear to have been built at several different times by several different people). I think he was probably mythical.
No, it was a museum in the Jewish quarter of the Old City, but not the Tower of David museum; I’m trying to track down the name.
Quotes from Genesis 10 about Nimrod, and how they relate to Sargon of Akkad:
"Cush became the father of Nimrod;"
"He was the first on earth to be a mighty man."
Sargon is the first person in history to be called “the Great”.
Sargon was the founder of the world’s first international empire. Other kings before him had ruled over all the city-states of Mesopotamia, so in that sense they had empires, but “Sargon’s vast empire is known to have extended from Elam to the Mediterranean sea, including Mesopotamia and possibly parts of Anatolia.”(Wiki) His was the first empire to incorporate many races and cultures. He could rightly say, “Now, any king who wants to call himself my equal; wherever I went, let him go.”
"He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD."
Sargon was not of royal birth; according to the Sargon Legend, he was abandoned as an infant and was raised by a gardner. It is unknown how he rose to become cupbearer to the king of Kish, the most powerful of the Sumerian cities, but he must have been great at something to get noticed by the king (certainly not gardening!). The favorite sport of the mesopotamian kings was to hunt lions from a chariot, with a bow.
Sargon attributed his success to the godess Ishtar. Ishtar was goddess of the hunt, as well as of war, storms, love, and fertility. She is often depicted with a bow and arrow, hunting weapons. “In Sumerian art she was associated with lions… and was frequently shown standing on the backs of two lionesses.”
Sargon was famous for adapting hunting strategies for use in warfare, including staging ambushes along the enemy’s line of retreat and choosing terrain that was disadventageous to the enemy (before that, armies agreed on a good piece of flat ground on which to fight). He also relied on the bow much more than his predesessors, the Sumerians, did. They fought with spears in a greek-type phalanx formation. The bow was regarded as a hunting weapon. Sargon may have introduced the composite recurved bow to Mesopotamian warfare; the earliest recorded depiction of this bow is shown in the hands of his grandson…
"The beginning of his kingdom was Ba’bel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar."
"From that land he went into Assyria, and built Nin’eveh, Reho’both-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nin’eveh and Calah; that is the great city."
References:
Wikipedia: Sargon, Akkad, Akkadian Empire, Sumer, Naram-Sin, Ishtar, Inanna
Yadin, Yigael, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaelogical Study
Stillman & Tallis, Armies of the Ancient Near East 3000-539 BC
The Bible, Revised Standard Version
Did I claim such a thing happened? You stated "There is no archaeological confirmation for the presence or enslavement of israelites in Egypt,…" and I have posted many cites showing that there is plenty of such. Few still claim that the Exodus as described in that Book happened as such. That certainly doesn’t mean that the Egyptians didn’t take and keep slaves from “the Canaanite tribes that would later be called the Israelites” and that some of those slaves didn’t escape and go back “home”.
You also claimed “or for a conquest of Canaan”. There is limited evidence for a Conquest of Canaan. As shown in Oxford-Of the 31 cities listed as taken by Joshua, 20 have been plausibly ID’ed from excavations. Of these only two actualy appeared to have been conquered from without during the “best guess” period.
Okay, it was the Ariel Center in the Old City. (The website and a-v presentation are geared towards school groups, not adults; don’t be put off.) The museum only deals with the first temple era, so it’s certainly not late 7th century. The amulet was written in ktav ivri, a script that can be seen here that was common in the first temple era but was no longer in use at the time you’re talking about, DtC.
Regardless, I believe the museum exhibit listed the amulet as Solomonic, though it’s possible I’m remembering it wrong and it was from later in the first temple era, which lasted until 586 BCE.
Anyway, all of that was only tangentially related to the OP, so sorry for the quasi-hijack, Sal Ammoniac.
No you didn’t. You showed the presence of Semites before Israelites even existed.
There was plenty of conquest in Canaan, by the Egyptians, by the Assyrians and by the Philistines. There wasn’t any by the Israelites anywhere near the alleged time of Joshua.