Pre: Why I know the flood is a fantasy

[OdwinOddball]

So, you imagine the Bible record to to falible and the Egyptian record to be tried and true ---- without distortions, lies, myth, and tall tales? I feel the Egyptian Monarchs had a lot to cover up. I feel that the kings of Egypt wanted to prove that they had always been superior to their subjects. I think you place far too much faith in man's record when it suits your attack against GOD's WORD.

Ahh, at least somethings never change. Seems you can still find a way to turn anything into a massive global conspiracy to subvert the "truth" of the bible. So our choices are either the Bible is correct, and the recorded history of Egypt, Sumeria, China, India, European tribes, etc is all false, all the artifacts that verify these civilizations continued existence are fakes, and this one single book that has no evidence to support it is actually correct instead.

Welcome back to the boards LittleNipper. I hope you haven't lost that tin foil hat I sent you, you never know when the mind probes might be turned on.

 

[LittleNipper]

Ahh, at least somethings never change. Seems you can still find a way to turn anything into a massive global conspiracy to subvert the "truth" of the bible. So our choices are either the Bible is correct, and the recorded history of Egypt, Sumeria, China, India, European tribes, etc is all false, all the artifacts that verify these civilizations continued existence are fakes, and this one single book that has no evidence to support it is actually correct instead.

Welcome back to the boards LittleNipper. I hope you haven't lost that tin foil hat I sent you, you never know when the mind probes might be turned on.

Our choice is that the Bible is correct or it is not correct.
As far as everything else you've stated, you have not proven the accuracy of any of your suppositions. What I have seen is that the secular historic record seems to compliment the Bible and not distract from it where it has been affirmed through archeological investigations.

 

[Basket]

Our choice is that the Bible is correct or it is not correct.
As far as everything else you've stated, you have not proven the accuracy of any of your suppositions. What I have seen is that the secular historic record seems to compliment the Bible and not distract from it where it has been affirmed through archeological investigations.

Er... except for the flood and civilizations thing, right?

Seems to me that the Bible is fairly accurate when it comes to history around the time that the OT was put into written form (around 900 BC to 400 BC, I think). As you go back further, it naturally becomes less reliable. Because before then they had been passing on their history and religious doctrines mostly orally.

You might keep in mind that I use the historical-critical method to interpret the history behind the Bible. I just do that because I'm interested in history and sciences.

Also, about that thing with the Egyptians, do you want me to try looking it up? I've been reading the Wikipedia article on Ancient Egypt at the moment.

 

[Basket]

I found an article on wikipedia that's relevant to the dating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_chronology

In summary, it says that:

The creation of a reliable Chronology of Ancient Egypt is a task fraught with problems. While the overwhelming majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many of the details of a common chronology, disagreements either individually or in groups have resulted in a variety of dates offered for rulers and events. This variation begins with only a few years in the Late Period, gradually growing to a decade at the beginning of the New Kingdom, and eventually to as much as a century by the start of the Old Kingdom. The reader is advised to include this factor of uncertainty with any date offered either in Wikipedia or any history of Ancient Egypt. A "Conventional Egyptian chronology" is available, which centralizes the several possible dates or whole possibilities of various schemes.

(end wikipedia)

Anyway, I'd still suggest reading up on other details about Egypt to get a good grip on the subject.

 

[Basket]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Egypt#Old_Kingdom

Egyptologists consider the Old Kingdom as beginning with the Third Dynasty, and around the time of the Fourth Dynasty, the art of embalming began.

Embalming, mummification and preservation

A cautionary note about embalming, mummification and preservation: To embalm and to mummify essentially mean the same thing. Embalming (from Latin in balsamum, meaning to "put into balsam," a mixture of aromatic resins) and the process of mummification are very similar in that corpses were anointed with ointments, oils, and resins. The word mummy comes from a misinterpretation of the process. Poorly embalmed bodies (from the Late Period) are often black and very brittle. It was believed these had been preserved by dipping them in bitumen, the Arabic word for bitumen being mumiya.

There are many modern techniques for preserving a body, however, these were not available to the ancient Egyptians (freezing, pickling etc). The only method they were aware of was drying the body out in the hot sand. This left the body looking most un-lifelike, and not a very suitable home for the Ka.

Early attempts at mummification were total failures. This was recognized by the embalmers, so they took to preserving the shape of the body. They did this by wrapping the body in resin soaked bandages. They became so good at this that one example from the Fifth Dynasty of a court musician called Waty still holds details of warts, calluses, wrinkles and facial details.

The embalming process took 70 days. A few centuries later came a new technique for mummification. First, the embalmers would wash the inside and outside of the body and fill it with special wine and spice mixtures. They would then take out all the internal organs, removing the brain by crushing it with a hook through the nose and pouring the pieces out of the body. Then they would stuff the body with a natron salt. The heart was left inside the body because the Egyptians believed it was where the person's Ka resided. When this was done they would put all the organs pulled from the body in canopic jars to be buried with the body

They would then leave the body to dry for about 40 days, then wash it out again with wine and spice mixtures. The body would be wrapped in wet bandages and dried. This procedure ensured that the body would not swell, but rather retain its normal shape and size. The embalmers would then put scented oils, perfumes and jewelry on the body, put it in a coffin, and bury it.

(end wikipedia)

LOL. The article really doesn't glorify their mummification techniques, does it?

 

[Basket]

I think I found one of the incidences that LittleNipper was talking about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Egypt#Eighteenth_Dynasty

Eighteenth Dynasty

This was a time of great wealth and power for Egypt. Some of the most important and best-known Pharaohs ruled at this time. Hatshepsut was a pharaoh at this time. Hatshepsut is unusual as she was a female pharaoh, a rare occurrence in Egyptian history. She was an ambitious and competent leader, extending Egyptian trade south into present-day Somalia and north into the Mediterranean. She ruled for twenty years through a combination of widespread propaganda and deft political skill. Her stepson Thutmose III, who is said to have hacked her name from monuments, extended Egypt's boundaries to its farthest extent. He fought against Asiatic peoples and was the most successful of Egyptian pharaohs.

(end wikipedia)

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I found an article on wikipedia that's relevant to the dating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_chronology

In summary, it says that:

The creation of a reliable Chronology of Ancient Egypt is a task fraught with problems. While the overwhelming majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many of the details of a common chronology, disagreements either individually or in groups have resulted in a variety of dates offered for rulers and events. This variation begins with only a few years in the Late Period, gradually growing to a decade at the beginning of the New Kingdom, and eventually to as much as a century by the start of the Old Kingdom. The reader is advised to include this factor of uncertainty with any date offered either in Wikipedia or any history of Ancient Egypt. A "Conventional Egyptian chronology" is available, which centralizes the several possible dates or whole possibilities of various schemes.
(end wikipedia)

Anyway, I'd still suggest reading up on other details about Egypt to get a good grip on the subject.

Yes and the various Sumerian chronologies differ by a hundred years or so as well. However, by 2450 BC even the most conservative chronology has both cultures in existence for several hundred years and of course the predynastic Egyptian existed long before the founding of the first dynasty as did early Sumerian Culture

"In the course of the several successive cultural phases that followed the arrival of the first Neolithic farmers, these and other related problems were solved by cooperative effort. Between 3500 B.C. and 3100 B.C. the foundations were laid for a type of economy and social order markedly different from anything previously known."

Both of these cultures were in existence for hundreds or even thousands of years prior to 2450 BC and neither of them was the least bit affected by the supposedly global flood that is claimed by some to have occured at about that time.

 

[arensb]

but there's that passage in the Bible that says that the moutains were raised and valleys were lowered as a result of the flood. So creationists could argue the land was flatter then.

One thing I've never seen a creationist do is calculate the amount of energy required to raise mountains and lower valleys the way they describe.

Actually, AIG goes farther than that: they claim that Pangea formed under the ocean while the earth was flooded, then broke up and formed today's continents during the flood year. There are exhibits in the creation museum about this. Of course, they don't provide any hints as to where the energy to move the crust about this way came from, where it went, or how it failed to boil the ocean and steam-fry Noah and his menagerie.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

One thing I've never seen a creationist do is calculate the amount of energy required to raise mountains and lower valleys the way they describe.

Actually, AIG goes farther than that: they claim that Pangea formed under the ocean while the earth was flooded, then broke up and formed today's continents during the flood year. There are exhibits in the creation museum about this. Of course, they don't provide any hints as to where the energy to move the crust about this way came from, where it went, or how it failed to boil the ocean and steam-fry Noah and his menagerie.

This is a bit off topic here but it is quite easy to calculate that Catastrophic Plate Tectonics would have Ended Life on Earth. Baumgardner and Austin et al have been trying to solve this fatal flaw (pun intended) in their model since they first proposed it in 1994 but I haven't seen where they have come anywhere near a solution.

I also find it very amusing that on one hand YECs claim that there were no significant mountains before the flood and on the other hand claim that the sorting of the fossil record in thousands of feet of supposedly flood deposited sediments occured because some animals (which just happened to be more modern animals) either ran faster up the mountains (that didn't exist yet) to escape the flood or lived on "higher ground" (that didn't exist yet). When your "explanations" for two different phenomona completely contradict one another it might be time to consider that your whole "model" is worthless.

 

[LittleNipper]

So, are you in agreement that Egyptian histories that speak of a time around 2450 BC are accurate or not? Clearly, they are before 900 BC....
Or doesn't that fact apply to Egyptians and only Hebrews?

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

So, are you in agreement that Egyptian histories that speak of a time around 2450 BC are accurate or not? Clearly, they are before 900 BC....
Or doesn't that fact apply to Egyptians and only Hebrews?

Egyptian chronologies of the Vth dynasty are not absolutely accurate but they are good enough to know that Egytpian history did not start some time after civilization recovered from a global flood that reduced the human population to 8 in 2450 BC or even in 3000 BC. The same is true of Sumerian Chronologies wether you use high, low or middle chronologies of ancient Sumeria.

As to the Hebrew people there is very little solid evidence before the Babylonian Captivity around 700 BC though there may be some evidence for Solomon around 900 BC.

Wikepedia has some interesting information on Egyptian Chronologies and Biblical Stories HERE.

"A totaling of the reigns of the kings of Judah between the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, when he is supposed to have built the Temple, to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, gives 430 years. This would suggest the building of the temple by united monarchy under Solomon, occurred in 1016 BCE. According to Kings 6:1, a total of 480 years is supposed to have lapsed between the Exodus and the dedication of this temple, giving a date of 1496 BCE, suggested by Redford[20]to have been the 9th year of Hatshepsut's reign. According to Exodus 12:40, the sojourn in Egypt is supposed to have lasted 430 years, with the result that the descent of Israel and his family must have taken place in the reign of Senwosret I's in 1926 BCE. Adding together the very long life-spans of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, would date Abraham's arrival in Canaan in 2141 BCE, and his descent into Egypt in 2116 BCE, during the 10th Kerakleopolitan Dynasty. The sojourn in Egypt would then have occupied the entire period of the 12th to the 18th Dynasty. As Numbers 32:13 allocates 40 years to the Wandering in Sinai, the conquests by Joshua must have occurred just prior to the reign of Thutmose III, when all of Canaan was possessed by Egypt. Even more astounding, according to this chronology is the placement of Judges from 1456 to 1150, almost exactly the period of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Unfortunately Egyptian sources say nothing about Israel, Joshua or his successors, and the Bible says nothing of the Amenophids, Thutmosids or Ramessids of this period.[21]

Clearly, the process of Israelite infiltration into Canaan is far more complex than the picture given in the Bible.[22] Research into settlement patterns suggest that the ethnogenesis of Israel as a people was a complex process involving mainly native pastoralist groups in Canaan (perhaps including habiru and shasu), with some infiltration from outside groups, such as Hittites and Arameans from the north as well as southern shasu groups such as the Kenites- some of whom may have come from areas controlled by Egypt. Genetically, Palestinian Jews show closest connections with Kurdish people, and other groups from Northern Iraq, suggesting that this is the area from which most of their ancestors originally came, a fact confirmed archaeologically from the Khirbet Kerak period, down to the end of the Middle Bronze Age period, with the spread of the Hurrians (Biblical Horites), and in the Early Iron Age I period with the spread of Shasu (=Egyptian) and Ahlamu (=Assyrian Akkadian, i.e.wandering Aramaeans). [23][24][25]"

As you see by the time Biblical Chronologies get to Abraham Egypt is already in the 10th dynasty with 50 or more recorded Kings on the Kings List.

 

[AV1611VET]

his point is that egypt history dont have any breaks, even tho then was supposed to be global flood

I know what his point is --- and I agree that Egyptian history has no breaks --- but for a different reason.

 

[AV1611VET]

Then why didn't any of the myriad people on earth who were alive in 2450 BC even notice it? They kept right on keeping on in the same places they have been living for thousands of years and weren't the least bit bothered by this supposed global flood.

Why don't you use the Vedas as a better example? They go back 500,000 years or more.

I have a feeling that you know as well as I do what's wrong with Egyptian chronology.

I'd advise you to just Google it, but I get the feeling you already have, and don't believe what you read.

Go fool others with your Egyptian chronology garbage --- you certainly aren't fooling me.

 

[AV1611VET]

So, you imagine the Bible record to to falible and the Egyptian record to be tried and true ---- without distortions, lies, myth, and tall tales? I feel the Egyptian Monarchs had a lot to cover up. I feel that the kings of Egypt wanted to prove that they had always been superior to their subjects. I think you place far too much faith in man's record when it suits your attack against GOD's WORD.

 

[AV1611VET]

Probably not many of us here have actually studied Egyptian history in depth, have we?

It's pretty pointless to argue about it until we do. I have studied the Sumerians some, but not enough that I can teach somebody about it.

Let's learn instead of argue.

Learn this then:

All these people came after Noah --- not before him.

Genesis 10 is called the Table of Nations --- the Flood occurred in Genesis 6-9.

 

[AV1611VET]

Your imagination has nothing to do with reality. You not only imagine that the Bible is God's word but that it has not been significantly altered in many translations and you imagine that your interpretation of what you imagine to be God's unaltered word is the only correct one.

You want reality, FB? Realize this:

The Johanine Comma, one of the most controversial passages of Scripture, if not the most controversial, has been preserved by God throughout centuries.

In fact, the whole Bible has --- here's my favorite example:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

Now watch this:

For three be, that give witnessing in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost [For three be, that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, or Son, and the Holy Ghost]; and these three be one.

Ya --- that was really changed over the centuries --- wasn't it?

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Why don't you use the Vedas as a better example? They go back 500,000 years or more.

Because, like the old testament, the Vedas are collections of origins stories rather than actual writen records made at the time like Egyptian and Sumerian records.

I have a feeling that you know as well as I do what's wrong with Egyptian chronology.

I know the issues with Egyptian Chronology. Old Kingdom dates are uncertain by about 100 years. However, even the most extreme revisions of Egyptian Chronology have dynastic Egypt in existence long before 2450 BC not to mention predynastic Egypt. It is one thing to know that Old Kingdom dates can't be pinned down to more than +/- 100 years or so and another to try to cram all of Egyptian history and prehistory into some period after the earth's population was reduced to 8 people in 2450 BC. You also have to deal with the fact that Sumerian Chronologies show their civilization to have been developing for many centuries by 2450 BC.

I'd advise you to just Google it, but I get the feeling you already have, and don't believe what you read.

What I have read in rather extensive study of this issue over several years shows that a global flood in 2450 BC or even 3000 BC can't possibily be fit with Egyptian history.

Go fool others with your Egyptian chronology garbage --- you certainly aren't fooling me.

This statement is more than a bit ironic since you have already fooled yourself into believing in a global flood that is shown by both history and science to be a fantasy.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

You want reality, FB? Realize this:

The Johanine Comma, one of the most controversial passages of Scripture, if not the most controversial, has been preserved by God throughout centuries.

In fact, the whole Bible has --- here's my favorite example:



Now watch this:



Ya --- that was really changed over the centuries --- wasn't it?

So some words that were absent in the Original Greek didn't change much over 2 centuries in later translations. I think you are demonstrating my point quite well and this is for the New Testament, let alone the old where nothing even close to original text exists.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Basket]

Yes and the various Sumerian chronologies differ by a hundred years or so as well. However, by 2450 BC even the most conservative chronology has both cultures in existence for several hundred years and of course the predynastic Egyptian existed long before the founding of the first dynasty as did early Sumerian Culture

"In the course of the several successive cultural phases that followed the arrival of the first Neolithic farmers, these and other related problems were solved by cooperative effort. Between 3500 B.C. and 3100 B.C. the foundations were laid for a type of economy and social order markedly different from anything previously known."

Both of these cultures were in existence for hundreds or even thousands of years prior to 2450 BC and neither of them was the least bit affected by the supposedly global flood that is claimed by some to have occured at about that time.

I guess from the way I worded what I said, it sounded like I was misinterpreting what Wikipedia said. But I didn't. BTW, I like that history-world site.

 

[AV1611VET]

So some words that were absent in the Original Greek didn't change much over 2 centuries in later translations. I think you are demonstrating my point quite well and this is for the New Testament, let alone the old where nothing even close to original text exists.

Thanks for the help.

You're not welcome. Try addressing my point, please.

Are you willing to admit that for 618 years there were no changes to God's Word --- as I demonstrated --- despite your allegation that it has been changed over time?

(I'm really interested in your answer to this, FB; but if you're going to attempt to dance your way out of it, please don't bother. It's an insult to my intelligence.)