Anyone know of any books about the "historical" Moses...

[joeybee12]

...I doubt there are any...anyone read anything that tried to prove he really did exist, or, for that matter, that David or Solomon did? Thanks.

[Christa]

1. Link

http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm

Long but very interesting

[joeybee12]

2. Thanks!!!!!!!!!

[papau]

3. What a bunch of crap - but a fun read - someone should send the author

a prize for fiction as his "known facts" are about as true the Da Vinci Code - which at least labels itself fiction.

Go to Egypt - read the historical record - and after your amazement dies down about how many out right lies the Egyptians Pharaoh's told the masses - and after you see the messages from the Jewish settlements to the Pharaoh and back (mainly one side saying send an army -protect your Pharaoh- and the other side saying send more gold) - you might come back to DU and report in on atheist lies - or if you rather spin and interpretation - that you found to be supported by very very thin reeds.

Indeed this bit of posting on the web http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm has a shot at being in the Atheistic Religion's first book of myths.

[immoderate]

4. There you go getting oxymoronic.

Atheistic religion sounds as self contradictory as humane torture. You want to be able to say, "See, you atheists are just as irrational and insane as we are!" Shows how insecure you are in your own beliefs.

--IMM

[papau]

5. Oh IMModerate - you sly dog - "oxymoronic"? Atheist myths really is

the best way to describe the crap at http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm

And I am told by the few atheist friends I have left that where you have myths you have a religion!

In any case it is left to the student to find all the lies at http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm!

Do you, like myself, find it amusing how the Egyptian records record events that never happened - turn defeats into victories - drop all references to events gone badly for the administration - indeed sound a lot like the US media and Bush!

And this fellow needs to get a better time line - or is there a "intelligent design" like text for "good archaeological evidence" that the atheists have managed to get into our secular schools - since the fellow has a hard time find the "archaeological evidence" that everyone else can find - or is it just that that evidence is not "good"?

If this crap is actually being taught in our schools, the case against teaching intelligent design gets rather weak.

[immoderate]

6. You may have me there.

I'll admit that I did not go to that site, and it may be they may have "atheistic mythology," which is a conceptually more acceptable to me than "atheist religion." And you are right that atheists will equate religion with mythology. So I see where you are grounding this. I was only reacting to that phrase in your post without the context.

I originally tuned into this because I am a Jewish atheist and had some curiosity about the history and mythology of the tribe. I am not disconnected from religion as a part of culture, and sometimes participate in religious rituals, especially when it involves good food and drink and general partying. And of course, I see the bible as a compendium of accumulated wisdom whose meaning is lost if it is taken literally.

OK, so I saw your post and it seemed like you were hoisting the red flag, which you might have been, so I took the bait.

And I am told by the few atheist friends I have left that where you have myths you have a religion!

Touche! As much of this is wordplay. You scored a point there. We get much mileage over the ambiguities of word meanings. Add to that the preeminence of bullshit everywhere and you make a point. I can't judge the validity of the historical information presented there. I don't think the Hebrews wandered around that desert for forty years. One of those guys would have risked losing face, and stopped for directions. LOL.

All things considered, I am one of your atheist friends.

--IMM

[papau]

10. And I am happy to have you as a friend! The key item is that we do not and

can not find anything to prove it was 40 years - or 39 years - or any other number.

And in a sense the fellow is correct as battles with "kings" - a lot of this stuff was only small villages fighting and "armies" of a couple dozen people - but I pass on the choice of words and do not read the Holy writ out of the truth club!

Indeed the latest "correct" numbers have Persia putting a half million into the field against the Greeks instead of multiple millions - but I am still impressed with the crowd size estimates given in the Bible - and all other numbers in the Bible - given the existence of societies that only have in their language "one", "two", and "many".

[joeybee12]

7. If the guy is wrong about the archaeological evidence, why not point

us to places where people have found evidence of Moses, et al. They haven't as far as I know--that's why I was asking.

[Christa]

8. Good question

:popcorn:
I was watching a travel programme on tv. Poeple have worshipped in the one cathedral for more than 900 years - and not ONCE did god or jesus or the holy ghost turn up. :eyes:

[papau]

11. Is that buttered popcorn good for you? I do worry about your health!

:-)

:toast:

:-)

[papau]

12. Abraham is found in Syrian history, Moses' "traditional" departure

point in Egypt is known.

The "Pharaoh" that enslaved the Hebrews and from whom they fled was not the Pharaoh of all Egypt but more likely the local overlord. The sea of reeds did indeed part - and the physics of that event has been worked out - when Thera blew up. Whether Thera was the official parting of the red sea is not really known - but it seems reasonable as to timing. And at least the reason for such parting of the waters is understood.

As to God being the ultimate reason for the events - well - I guess that depends on whether or not you believe, now doesn't it! :-)

[joeybee12]

15. Abraham is less sketchy than Moses...

...got anything about the physics? There are a lot of things that probbaly did happen in the ancient world that were altered to fit myths. For example, there probably was a flood--saw a program about this on PBS, so that makes sense--most religions coming from that area have a flood story passed down. That, however, doesn't prove there was a Noah--that part got added in. That's my point, and Moses is the most elusive of all biblical characters, while, at the same time, the most revered in Judaism.

[papau]

16. The Flood is the Med spill over - the Physics of the reed sea parting is

from an issue of Scientific American. Thera blowing is just Thera blowing - now called Santorini - in 1600BC and it would have generated the giant tidal wave needed for the partying of the reed sea - but other earthquakes at other times would work as well to cause that particular - Moses -parting of the sea.

If the Exodus occurred during the end of the Hyksos era in Egypt as some scholars believe (16th century BC) then those Hyksos records of Moses would have been deliberately destroyed by victorious Egyptians as they drove the Hyksos out of Egypt. So no record of Moses other than the Hebrew one is all that we would expect.

Polyhistor, Flavius Josephus, Philo, and Manetho refer to him, as do others. Also, of course, there are the above-mentioned stories in the Mishna and Qur'an. A thousand years after Moses in the 3rd century BC, Manetho, a Hellenistic Egyptian chronicler and priest, alleged that Moses was not a Jew, but an Egyptian renegade priest. It has been suggested that he may have been an Egyptian nobleman or prince influenced by the religion of Aten (see Freud's theory). Moses is both an Egyptian name meaning "son" often used in pharaohs' names, and a Hebrew word (meaning "one who draws water" - Moshe). It was common for infants to be sometimes abandoned by the lower classes (in ancient times right through 19th century Great Brittan).

Exodus was around 1420 BC, since records exist of "Habiru" invasions of Canaan forty years later. Making the historical persona of Moses most likely the early 15th century BC Crown Prince of Egypt called Ramose, who also disappeared from Egyptian records around the time of Queen Hatshepsut's death; but it 1420 BC could be wrong and perhaps it was the 13th century BC, since tradition has it that it was Rameses II with whom Moses squabbled and the Seti I to Rameses II to Merneptah has the famed stele of Merneptah's 5th year (ca. 1208 BC), that claimed that "Israel is wasted, bare of seed", seen as propaganda covering up his own loss of an army in the sea.

Freud/Joseph Campbell liked the idea that Moses fled Egypt after Akhenaten's death (ca. 1358 BC) making Moses monotheism a derivative of the monotheistic religion of Akhenaten - and thereby taking the chosen people down a notch. It's likely the "Amarna Letters" written by nobles to Akhenaten were describing Hebrews when they referenced raiding bands of "Habiru" attacking the Egyptian territories in Mesopotamia.

Your idea that exaggeration plays a part in the Moses write up fits the idea that the plagues strongly resemble exaggerated versions of actual pestilences common in the ancient world, with the manna being the secretion of the hammada shrub, and the swallowing of Korah being an earthquake, and the Red Sea (reed sea) parting being cause by such an earthquake.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/moses/

And then there is the idea that Moses and Akhenaten are the same person, except there is the problem that the religion of the Torah seems very different to Atenism in everything except the central feature of devotion to a single god.

The atheist claim that the old testament was actually made up for the first time by scribes hired by King Josiah (7th century BC), noting that no surviving written records from Egypt, Assyria, etc., refer to the stories of the Bible or its main characters before 650 BC, all fall apart when you note that the details of the Pentateuch are consistent with the earlier more traditional time period, such as the price of a slave (30 shekels as opposed to around 60 at the time of the Babylonian captivity), the practice of blood covenants and the discovery of what appear to be chariot wheels on the bottom of the Red Sea.

None of the above, including phrasing, is original with me and all can be found at various locations on the web.

[Christa]

9. Okay -

about as much as the lies and spin in the Bible, or a lot less?

[papau]

13. :-) Indeed the foretelling of Jesus can be seen as a spun reading

of the Bible by Jesus's followers - or it can be seen as the truth.

But I always thought that those proving a point had the burden of proof.

If it is a battle of assertions, we are into faith, aren't we?

[trotsky]

14. A pack of "atheist lies," eh?

Too bad even rabbis acknowledge it.

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/157/story_15723_1.html

You should take a lesson from him, papau. Accepting historical reality doesn't weaken his faith at all. Don't be scared to acknowledge the truth. There is no reason to lash out and insult those who disagree with you.

[papau]

17. See the post above-I'm not sure I proved it was a pack of atheist lies but

I proved it is not "acknowledged truth" -"absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence" is easy to understand. all the Rabbi is saying is "The probability is, given the traditions, that there were some enslaved Israelites who left Egypt and joined up with their brethren in Canaan. This seems the likeliest scenario, a beautiful one that accords with the deeper currents of biblical tradition. The Exodus was a very small-scale event with a large, world-changing trail of consequences"

Why do you lie as to the strength of your case?

To correct another's lies or attempts to convey a false impression is not to lash out and insult - It is only to teach - even if those you are teaching do not want to learn.

:-)

[trotsky]

18. Do you really know what the word "lie" means, papau?

You seem to fling the charge around at anyone who disagrees with you.

How exactly did I lie?

It is a fact (not a lie) that there is simply no archeological evidence of your concept of the Exodus.

That rabbi acknowledges that truth, and chooses to instead believe that maybe a small group of slaves escaped and joined with Canaanites.

Can you handle the truth? Or will you continue to insist that you have all the answers, and everyone else is lying?

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[papau]

19. YOU LIE - meaning to assert an untruth - as in "NO" archeological evidence

but of course you then assume you know my concept of the Exodus - and indeed you get to determine that which is "evidence" of anything - including in this case Exodus. Of coourse "mistaken" is a better word to use if I thought you did not know you were in error.

I find the science that tells us how the reed sea could part to be "evidence". I find the tracks in the Red Sea to be evidence. I find the correlation with other known facts to be evidence.

I find you to be an assertion maker of that which is not true or can not be proven true.

I find that you can not handle the truth- and that your fear of the truth causes you to assert your faith in the belief that the rest of the world is in error about there being a God. Indeed you are blind to the fact that all your assertions are no more than you choosing to believe that which others do not, as you justify your choice by saying whatever is being discussed has not beem proven to your satisfaction.

You pretend a belief in science yet reject the very definition of science that sets a limits on the type of questions science can answer. You claim you are rational, but do not accept that other rational minds can disagree with you - a rather irrational approach to life.

But I agree - liar is a strong word.

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

:toast:

[trotsky]

20. Um, papau?

A theory as to how something could happen is not evidence that it did. Sorry to have to break that to ya.

And no, your other "evidence" doesn't count as such either. Evidence that it takes religious belief and an unwillingness to look at reality to still think the Exodus as described really happened, yes. But hard, physical, undeniable evidence? No. No matter how much you wish it so.

It's not a matter of me not being able to "handle" the truth, it's the total lack of real evidence supporting your position.

Go ahead and believe that the events in Exodus really happened. Doesn't hurt me. But don't go claiming that your belief is justified by real data, because it just ain't so.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
:toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast:

[papau]

21. I think we just agreed to disagree :-) If you missed the atheist group

discussion of the following I think you might like reading it! :-)

http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/jan06/388158.asp
I know lots of non-believers, and I like a lot of them. They're generally nice people. A few have made fun of me for my beliefs and even implied that I'm intellectually inferior for believing in things as seemingly irrational as God and creation. ("Dale, have you ever been inside a whale? Do you really believe someone could live in a whale for three days?")

snip

Friends, if you're going to be atheists, start thinking and acting like it. Get rid of your own irrational beliefs and embrace the world as you say it is: a purely physical and random place where goodness and evil don't really exist and where the rules set down by organized religion and thousands of years of human history are no more meaningful than two rocks colliding at the bottom of a mountain after an avalanche.

What I learned from my foray into disbelief was that most atheists have it all wrong. They've merely substituted their own irrational belief system for the one I was given from 2,000 years ago.

What's wrong with being atheist? What's wrong with being gay? What's wrong with loving pornography? What's wrong with practicing bestiality? What's wrong with ....... any number of other off the wall propensities?

The answer is nothing that is anybody else's business, provided the adherents of those beliefs and motivations don't get a missionary zeal and try to inflict their aberrance on the rest of us--the normal Christian American heterosexual majority.

With a DU Discussion at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=263x15047

And the newspapers own discussion at:

http://www.jsonline.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=26947&forumID=68&catID=21

Amazing how DU discussions are rehashes of prior web discussions!

But I do enjoy them.

:toast:

[trotsky]

22. You don't really read things, do you?

Perhaps you missed the fact that I posted in the DU discussion. So yeah, I read the bashing article, the DU thread, AND the newspaper's forums. Plenty of atheists were upset with the blatant religious bigotry and total misrepresentation of atheism.

[papau]

23. My short term memory sucks-you just wait till your turn for this to happen

In any case I found the back and forth discussion in the newspaper forum interesting and posted a paraphrased abridge version in R&T just now.

[onager]

24. The historical record?

:rofl:

"Go to Egypt?" Well, Mr. Historical Expert, I'm an atheist who happens to be in Egypt right now. I spent most of the last year over here.

Exactly what "messages" are these?

If you want to "go to Egypt" and prove any historical facts in that creaking book of myths and hogwash known as the Old Testament, you're in for a big surprise.

You do know that in all of recorded ancient Egyptian history, there is exactly ONE mention of Israel?

It's a massive stele in the Egyptian Museum, dating from the time of Meneptah (son of Ramses II). But it's just a straightforward account of an Egyptian military expedition into Palestine. No "Jewish settlements," no Charlton Heston, etc. etc.

Egyptian history/mythology does have an account of a man who parted the waters. But his name was Pharoah Sneferu, and he parted the waters of the Nile, not the Red Sea. Actually his court magician parted the waters, to retrieve a ring dropped by one of the Pharoah's favorite concubines.

Egyptian history also has a story about a Pharoah who was threatened with death as an infant, put into a little raft of bulrushes by his mother, and floated down the Nile until an Egyptian princess found him. Sound familiar?

[htuttle]

25. As a point of interest, you might want to look at the Papyrus of Ani

ie., The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Chapter 125, frequently called the 'negative confession', the list of vows a person must make to successfully pass through a portion the underworld has a high degree of correlation with the Ten Commandments. To me, the Ten Commandments reads as a somewhat edited down version of this list of vows, but instead of being phrased as a negative confession, the Commandments read as directives.

The Book of the Dead is EXTREMELY old. Some say as old as 4200 BC. References and entire chapters of it are found at least as early as 2500 BC. The original sources of the Egyptian Book of the Dead (aka, The Papyrus of Ani) may in fact predate the first Egyptian kings.

The Papyrus of Ani, Chapter 125

O Far-strider, who comes forth from Heliopolis,
I have not done wrong.

O Embracer of Fire, who comes forth from Kher-Aha,
I have not committed violent robbery.

O Nose, who comes forth from Hermopolis,
I have not stolen.

O Eater of Shadows, who comes forth from Qernet,
I have not slain people.

O Stinking Face, who comes forth from Re-Staw,
I have not stolen offerings.

O Double Lion-God, who comes forth from the sky,
I have not pilfered.

O He whose Eyes Are As Fire, who comes forth from Sais,
I have not stolen the property of the god.

O Burner, who comes forth from behind,
I have not spoken lies.

O Breaker of Bones, who comes forth from Heliopolis,
I have not seized food.

O Commander of Flame, who comes forth from Memphis,
I have not cursed.

O God of the Cave, who comes forth from the west,
I have not committed fornication.

O He Whose Face Is Behind Him, who comes froth from his chamber,
I have not caused weeping.

O Bast, who comes forth from the sarcophagus,
I have not devoured my heart.

O Burning Feet, who comes forth from darkness,
I have not trespassed.

O Eater of Blood, who comes forth from the execution block,
I have not behaved wickedly.

O Eater of Intestines, who comes forth from the court of the thirty judges,
I have not robbed farmland.

O Lord of Truth, who comes forth from the hall of truth,
I have not eavesdropped.

O Wanderer, who comes forth from Bubastis,
I have not slandered.

O Sower, who comes forth from Heliopolis,
I have not been angry without cause.

O Evil of His Evil, who comes forth from the Busirites nome,
I have not made love with the wife of man.

O Serpent, who comes forth from the slaughterhouse,
I have not made love with the wife of man.

O He Who Sees What Has Been Brought, who comes forth from Panopolis,
I have not ejaculated.

O One Who Is Over the Great Ones, who comes forth from the tree,
I have not caused terror.

O Overthrower, who comes forth from Canopus,
I have not trespassed.

O Speaker Of Words, who comes forth from Werit,
I have not been hot with anger.

O Child, who comes forth from the nome of Heliopolis,
I have not been deaf to words of truth.

O Darkness, who comes forth from the Oasis of Khargah,
I have not spoken out.

O He Who Brings Peace, who comes forth from Sais,
I have not brought forth violence.

O Preparer of Voice, who comes forth from Wenist,
I have not disturbed the peace.

O Lord of Faces, who comes forth from Nedjeft,
I have not hastened my heart.

O Teacher, who comes forth from Weten,
I have not eavesdropped.

O Lord of Horns, who comes forth from Sais,
I have not made my voice numerous with words.

O Nefertem, who comes forth from Memphis,
I have not sinned, nor caused misery.

O Atum-Sepu, who comes forth from Busiris,
I have not spoken out against the king.

O He Who Acts According To His Heart, who comes forth from Atfih,
I have not held up water.

O Prince, who comes forth from the Celestial Ocean,
I have not raised up my voice.

O One Who Makes The People Flourish, who comes forth from Sais,
I have not spoken out against the god.

O Subjugater of the Ka, who comes forth from his chamber,
I have not exalted feebleness.

O Subjugater of Beauty, who comes forth from his chamber,
I have not stolen the bread of the gods.

O Holy of Head, who comes forth from the shrine,
I have not taken the sacrifical bread of the glorified spirits.

O Bringer of his Arm, who comes forth from the hall of truth,
I have not taken a child's bread, nor belittled the god of my town.

O White of Teeth, who comes forth from the Fayyum,
I have not slain the divine cattle.

http://www.bardo.org/ani/ch125_p2.html

If there was a 'Moses'-type figure and he had contact with the Egyptian priesthood (as he is said to have in the legend), you can see the influence pretty clearly. In any case, it seems to be somebody drew upon this list when the Ten Commandments were transcribed.

[Brentos]

26. Why?

Why does similarity to what God wants his people to know in other cultures invalidate what he has written down for his people? IF God's moral code is universal, is it not possible that all people have some sort of innate knowledge of good/evil? Perhaps this is what allows many religions/cultures to share so many ideas/beliefs? Perhaps God is a prism that shines his light down in different colors to different cultures? Perhaps not, but an interesting thought.

[trotsky]

27. Or perhaps the commonality of human experience -

living in families, tribes, societies - is so universal, that separate cultures have developed similar customs and laws because those customs have tended to benefit the continuation of the group? After all, any group that doesn't adopt some set of rules to protect the group (from both enemies without and within) probably isn't going to stick around for long.

[htuttle]

28. Are we talking about history here?

Did Egyptian ethical codes get transmitted to the Israelites and later become known as the Ten Commandments, or did God give the same commandments to both Egypt and Israel?

If the latter, it seems that a whole book of the Bible is missing, since God didn't do anything but beat up the Egyptians in the current Bible. There's no mention at all anywhere of God making a covenant with the nation of Egypt several thousand years before doing so with Israel.

What do you think the historical facts are?