Re: In the News: Tenn. AG: No constitutional concerns with

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:54:47 GMT,
George Evans <georgee3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
in article slrnf23boq.l8.mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, AC at
mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 4/14/07 9:50 PM:

On Sat, 14 Apr 2007 05:21:02 GMT,
George Evans <georgee3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

in article slrnf1vaak.30o.mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxxxx, AC at
mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 4/13/07 9:01 AM:

On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 06:34:04 GMT,
George Evans <georgee3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

in article slrnf1sq65.32k.mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxxxx, AC at
mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 4/12/07 10:13 AM:

<snip>

So is Howard's Conan novels, and Tolkien's Middle Earth. They assert to
be recountings of events that happened on Earth in the distant past as
well.

I don't know about the first, but Tolkien would be very upset to hear you
say such a thing.

Uh, no. He said himself that Middle Earth was the real world in an
imaginary time. You probably don't want to go head to head against me over
Tolkien, George. I'm the kind of crazy fan who actually owns and has read
all the volumes of The History of Middle Earth.

I don't have to know much about Tolkien, I just have to use your own words.
Tolkien wrote in the recent past about events in an imaginary time? This
doesn't hold a candle to the bible which was written in the *distant* past
about events that had happened relatively recently.

So do the Sumerian stories, which are a helluva lot older than the Biblical
ones. Just because an account is old does not make it true. I can't imagine
by what warped logic you seem to think that we can say a book whose origins
are very likely a combination of oral traditions and borrowings from
neighboring civilizations somehow has some weight as a historical record.
Heck, there isn't even a shred of physical evidence for the Egyptian captivity
and the Exodus, which are such huge parts of the Israelite mythos.

I'm not saying that old means true. I'm saying that old means good source
for possible historical hypotheses. Are you saying archaeologist should read
Sumerian tablets for data or ideas for future research?

I'm saying that trying to use mythological stories to establish historical
facts is extremely tricky, and that just because an account mentions real
places or real people is no guarantee that the account is sound.


And now to the Exodus. There is some quite compelling evidence if you look
about 100 years later than where most scholars look. The pharaoh that
tangled with Moses was particularly egocentric and was in the process of
purposely overworking the Israelites. Five years into Akhenaten's reign he
made the unpopular decision to defy the priesthood and change the state
religion into one that would worship him as the one true God. To emphasize
this he moved the capital which would require a large building program.

There's still no evidence that there was an Israelite captivity in Egypt,
and so far as I am aware, no one is seriously saying that Akhenaten grabbed
his monotheism from the Israelites (although I've heard the reverse).


According the the bible story, several things should be noticeable in the
Egyptian timeline at the point of the Exodus. To make this more of a human
interest story I will describe it from the perspective of pharaoh's second
son. First his older brother dies in the 10th plague, then dad run's off
with the army chasing the Israelites, and drowns in middle of the Red Sea
leaving the rest of Egypt to bury massive numbers of first born sons along
with his brother.

Lo and behold, Tutankhamun fit's perfectly. Dad dies after a short reign and
his mummy has not been found. His older brother, Smenkhkare, dies at the
same time of no apparent cause, at the age of about 20. His body is poorly
preserved possibly because all the local embalming parlor were very busy.

Several things about Smenkhkare's burial lend weight to the idea that it
happen during mass confusion. Poor quality of preservation. The tomb they
put him in had Tut's name on the entrance, and he was buried in Nefertiti's
coffin.

This is quite a bit of evidence that this royal family is the family of the
Exodus. It is certainly much more than a shred of evidence.

This is nothing more than a historical fiction, George. You have no
evidence for

a) an Israelite captivity in Egypt
b) the existence of a man named Moses
c) a series of plagues and the large number of deaths of firstborn sons
d) the death of the Pharaoh and a large military contigent in the Red Sea
e) forty years of wandering through the Sinai Peninsula
f) a forceable takover of Canaan by Israelites

In fact, the archaeological evidence suggests the complete opposite, that
the the rise of the monotheistic Yahweh cult was a local event, and not the
product of any kind of newcomers.

The whole Exodus account is a myth.


Just because a story claims to be about the past does not make it a
historical record.

Well, that is certainly a large part of the definition.

No, George. Made up stories are not historical records, they are historical
fiction.

Nothing in Genesis indicates it was written as fiction.

I'm sure you could say the same of a large number of mythological tales. Do
you think the Aztecs thought their own origin story was a fiction. At the end
of the day, it was, regardless of intent.

So now any Aztec literature is out for scientific purposes. Great.

Another would be being so old it is closer to the purported events than to
the present.

Since most of the purported events don't even appear to have happened, so
what?

That statement is not strong enough to discredit the bible as a source for a
possible alternative to naturalistic abiogenesis. It's your opinion.

If the rest of the book of Genesis appears to be fabrication, then yes, it
does indeed raise enormous questions about the veracity of the cosmological
and creative myth found at its beginning. Even worse, the creative order
defies what we know from the physical evidence.

Do you think the Flying Spaghetti Monster is also a legitimate alternative to
naturalistic abiogenesis?

Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster have any historical documents written
about him?

Why should that matter? If that bothers you so much, then how about the Greek
mythos, or the India or Sumerian or Egyptian or Aztec?

George, you're not a fool, so I think you realize just as much as I do the
sheer weakness of your argument. You're grasping at straws.

--
Aaron Clausen
mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxx

.

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