What if Joshua and the Israelites failed?

MarkA
You say that you accept the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth as a historical document, yet you want us to believe that the books of Samuel, and at least the early parts of Kings and Chronicles are all just fairy tales?! Now if you tell me that Noah didn't exist, or even Samson, then I won't disagree, but whoever the author was of the aforementioned books, it is simply not credible to claim that it was all just made up. We have archaelogical proof of such kings as Jehu and Hezekiah, why is it so impossible to go back just 2-3 more centuries to David's time. Or maybe Jehu just showed up one day.
Frankly, you remind me of the naysayers, the diehard isolationists who refused to the bitter end to accept any pre-Columbian European settlement in America. Oh,they said, the sagas are all just fairytales, none of it really happened. Right, and the holocaust never happened either. Then came L'anse Aux Meadows in 1961, and the isolationists had to stuff a sock in it. Now we know that the sagas, while maybe somewhat embellished, are BASED ON HISTORICAL FACTS. And if we accept the story of Freydis beating her breasts with a sword while the Skraelings were chasing her as at least something like the truth, why not, for instance, Absolom's failed palace coup, and his long hair getting caught in tree branches? Oh, I forgot, no archaelogical evidence! Maybe when I'm dead and gone, I won't leave any behind either, then some day, someone will claim I never existed.
 
MarkA
You say that you accept the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth as a historical document, yet you want us to believe that the books of Samuel, and at least the early parts of Kings and Chronicles are all just fairy tales?! Now if you tell me that Noah didn't exist, or even Samson, then I won't disagree, but whoever the author was of the aforementioned books, it is simply not credible to claim that it was all just made up. We have archaelogical proof of such kings as Jehu and Hezekiah, why is it so impossible to go back just 2-3 more centuries to David's time. Or maybe Jehu just showed up one day.
Frankly, you remind me of the naysayers, the diehard isolationists who refused to the bitter end to accept any pre-Columbian European settlement in America. Oh,they said, the sagas are all just fairytales, none of it really happened. Right, and the holocaust never happened either. Then came L'anse Aux Meadows in 1961, and the isolationists had to stuff a sock in it. Now we know that the sagas, while maybe somewhat embellished, are BASED ON HISTORICAL FACTS. And if we accept the story of Freydis beating her breasts with a sword while the Skraelings were chasing her as at least something like the truth, why not, for instance, Absolom's failed palace coup, and his long hair getting caught in tree branches? Oh, I forgot, no archaelogical evidence! Maybe when I'm dead and gone, I won't leave any behind either, then some day, someone will claim I never existed.

My reference to Arthur and the later works about him was to point out the ridiculous position of people accepting the Bible references to David and Solomon as enough proof of their existence. Try and read a little more carefully in future. Do you have any comprehension at all that there is NO evidence for an empire as described in the Bible AT ALL? None, zero, nil, no thing at all.

Comparing my position to that of a Holocaust denier is offensive and shows that you do not understand historical analysis nor even simple logical deduction.

If you wish to claim it is all true because the Bible told you so and you learnt all about it in Sunday school then go and discuss it on some religious site but if you wish to discuss history then learn something about it first. The Bible should be treated like say the Aeneid of Virgil in that the latter can tell us a lot about the Early Imperium but next to nothing if anything at all about the Foundation of Rome.
 
Is it?
Hair locks, Multi colored clothing, (remember Joseph's coat) fringe if these were Greek reliefs you might have also gotten a picture of the circumcision.

Hamites, Shemites and Japhethites? Please!

First things first - the site buys into the idea that Egyptian art depicts reality faithfully. Unfortunately, it does not. It is remarkably lifelike, but highly conventional especially in its depiction of nationalities, who are assigned certain defining traits. To read it as a faithful rendering of the racial features of the Israelite population (if any such existed) is a very doubtful approach to say the least.

As to the assertion Egyptians do not grow beards - unless the populations have completely changed in the intervening years I find that very hard to believe. Ancient Egyptians shaved (their entire bodies) and this was regarded as the mark of a civilised nation. Therefore, Egyptian art usually depicts Egyptians as clean-shaven except where ritual requires a specific form of beard. While depicting a servant with the characteristic of an 'Asian' wouild not be out of place in Egyptian art, the scraggly beard may well mean nothing more than to show us this is a scruffy unkempt slave, not a gentleman. We find similar instances of individuals shown as lame, fat, skinny or otherwise not matching the ideal.

The Habiru - Hebrew equation. It is quite probable that the ancestors of the first-millennium-BC Israelites came from a population that the Egyptians would have regarded as eastern foreigners, possibly specifically 'Habiru'. The image that was chosen here shows a group of such nomads and can therefore be taken as a reasonably good rendering (within the limitations of Egyptian art) of (part of) the putative ancestor population of the Israelites. It can not with any degree of certainty be identified as a picture of Israelites.

The facial features on Assyrian reliefs are famously unitary and appear to reflect a passion for standardisation that exceeds even the Egyptian. I would be careful to draw any conclusion from them. Kinky hair and 'Semitic' noses are shown on the archer guards, hunting servants and musicians of the Niniveh reliefs and the Medes in the Persepolis tribute procession. Israelites all?
 
Hamites, Shemites and Japhethites? Please!

First things first - the site buys into the idea that Egyptian art depicts reality faithfully. Unfortunately, it does not. It is remarkably lifelike, but highly conventional especially in its depiction of nationalities, who are assigned certain defining traits. To read it as a faithful rendering of the racial features of the Israelite population (if any such existed) is a very doubtful approach to say the least.

As to the assertion Egyptians do not grow beards - unless the populations have completely changed in the intervening years I find that very hard to believe. Ancient Egyptians shaved (their entire bodies) and this was regarded as the mark of a civilised nation. Therefore, Egyptian art usually depicts Egyptians as clean-shaven except where ritual requires a specific form of beard. While depicting a servant with the characteristic of an 'Asian' wouild not be out of place in Egyptian art, the scraggly beard may well mean nothing more than to show us this is a scruffy unkempt slave, not a gentleman. We find similar instances of individuals shown as lame, fat, skinny or otherwise not matching the ideal.

The Habiru - Hebrew equation. It is quite probable that the ancestors of the first-millennium-BC Israelites came from a population that the Egyptians would have regarded as eastern foreigners, possibly specifically 'Habiru'. The image that was chosen here shows a group of such nomads and can therefore be taken as a reasonably good rendering (within the limitations of Egyptian art) of (part of) the putative ancestor population of the Israelites. It can not with any degree of certainty be identified as a picture of Israelites.

The facial features on Assyrian reliefs are famously unitary and appear to reflect a passion for standardisation that exceeds even the Egyptian. I would be careful to draw any conclusion from them. Kinky hair and 'Semitic' noses are shown on the archer guards, hunting servants and musicians of the Niniveh reliefs and the Medes in the Persepolis tribute procession. Israelites all?
I realize that the Egyptians were the ultimate in Racial Supremacists. Believing that there are Egyptians and there was everyone else. Even though they have been conquered a few times. What I am doing is working with what I have. Some empires have left great monuments of stone for posterity. The Israelites left literature.
According to the history channel if the human race were to die out today, that within twenty thousand years the only signs that we were ever here would be the pyramids and the Hoover dam. Most construction would be gone in five thousand years.
What I am getting at is there were a lot of public works done back then. This was done for about two generations. After that the kingdom split up. The north got very decadent for the most part, with a few strong kings who faced off the Assyrians. The south got fundamental. with a few week kings who forgot Yahweh. During these times not a lot was getting done in the way of construction.
 
According to the history channel if the human race were to die out today, that within twenty thousand years the only signs that we were ever here would be the pyramids and the Hoover dam. Most construction would be gone in five thousand years.

What about Mount Rushmore?
 

Nikephoros

Banned
Here is my view on the bible and how it relates to history. The bible certainly is based off of historical events.

Now, the bible is definately biased. It's writers stretched history, but they still based their works on historical events or oral retellings of historical events passed down from generation to generation.
 
Here is my view on the bible and how it relates to history. The bible certainly is based off of historical events.

Now, the bible is definately biased. It's writers stretched history, but they still based their works on historical events or oral retellings of historical events passed down from generation to generation.

This is how I see this also. I am not nearly naive enough to just believe everything the Bible says, but as I mentioned earlier in the thread, we should accept the bible stories in the same light as the old Norse sagas. The norse in iceland/Greenland/Vinland didn't leave a huge amount of artifacts behind. They were struggling too hard just to survive to go on an orgy of monument building. Likewise,a simple pastoral tribe like the Hebrews did not posess the skills or wealth to construct things like the Egyptians did. Phonecians built Solomon's temple, the one destroyed in 586 BC. Logic, not blind faith, tells me that it is very probable that Phonecian scribes wrote down the stories that made up the first five books of the bible during the Davidic/Solomonic period. If Joshua, Judges and the rest of it wasn't written down till the Babylonian captivity, so be it. An illiterate society always has individuals who keep information in their heads, and who then pass it on to others when they are getting on in years. In this manner, a nation's history can be kept alive for hundreds of years without losing the basics. The Hebrews were hardly unique in this. Do I believe that the world came about as is told in Genesis? Of course not. But I certanly believe that David and Solomon existed, even if their kingdoms weren't as grandiose as the bible says. I don't need any more proof than the books of Kings and Chronicles for this. These same books also talk about other kings of Israel and Judah, where there is independant proof that they DID exist, so I also accept the historical accuracy of the books enough to include David and Solomon.
 
This is how I see this also. I am not nearly naive enough to just believe everything the Bible says, but as I mentioned earlier in the thread, we should accept the bible stories in the same light as the old Norse sagas. The norse in iceland/Greenland/Vinland didn't leave a huge amount of artifacts behind. They were struggling too hard just to survive to go on an orgy of monument building. Likewise,a simple pastoral tribe like the Hebrews did not posess the skills or wealth to construct things like the Egyptians did. Phonecians built Solomon's temple, the one destroyed in 586 BC. Logic, not blind faith, tells me that it is very probable that Phonecian scribes wrote down the stories that made up the first five books of the bible during the Davidic/Solomonic period. If Joshua, Judges and the rest of it wasn't written down till the Babylonian captivity, so be it. An illiterate society always has individuals who keep information in their heads, and who then pass it on to others when they are getting on in years. In this manner, a nation's history can be kept alive for hundreds of years without losing the basics. The Hebrews were hardly unique in this. Do I believe that the world came about as is told in Genesis? Of course not. But I certanly believe that David and Solomon existed, even if their kingdoms weren't as grandiose as the bible says. I don't need any more proof than the books of Kings and Chronicles for this. These same books also talk about other kings of Israel and Judah, where there is independant proof that they DID exist, so I also accept the historical accuracy of the books enough to include David and Solomon.
Exactly how grandiose do you think the Bible claimed the kingdom to be?
 
Well, for one thing, I doubt that Solomon had as many wives and concubines as the bible claimed. i mean, this sounds like any guy's dream come true, but what would you do with that many? It would take at least a year to go through them all just once. Now, I tend to believe the bit in 1st Kings chapter 1, where David was old and bedridden, and his aides went out and grabbed some poor girl, who was probably only about 14, and put her into his bed and told her to please the old guy or else! Then he couldn't get it up. Seriously, the kingdom probably only went from Dan to Beersheba, more or less.
 
The special I saw mentioned Mount Rushmore, don't remember how soon it goes.

I think The World Without Us listed Rushmore as lasting recognizably for about 3 million years, with a few vestiges left after 7 million.

I don't have the book with me, though, so I can't check.
 

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
I think The World Without Us listed Rushmore as lasting recognizably for about 3 million years, with a few vestiges left after 7 million.

I don't have the book with me, though, so I can't check.
didn't they say bronze statues would last a long time too?
 
Exactly how grandiose do you think the Bible claimed the kingdom to be?

Well...

1 Kings 10 said:
When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the LORD, she was overwhelmed.

...

The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents, not including the revenues from merchants and traders and from all the Arabian kings and the governors of the land.

King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred bekas of gold went into each shield. He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold, with three minas of gold in each shield. The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.

Then the king made a great throne inlaid with ivory and overlaid with fine gold. The throne had six steps, and its back had a rounded top. On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing beside each of them. Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom. All King Solomon's goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon's days. The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons.

King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift?articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.

Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue ?the royal merchants purchased them from Kue. They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.

600-odd talents of gold is a lot, but not completely inconceivabnle over a long reign. BUt 1,400 chariots is the kind of military force that requires a supporting infrastructure that can't just disappear without a trace.

1 Kings 7 said:
It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace. He built the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, with four rows of cedar columns supporting trimmed cedar beams. It was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the columns?forty-five beams, fifteen to a row. Its windows were placed high in sets of three, facing each other. All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other.

He made a colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty wide. In front of it was a portico, and in front of that were pillars and an overhanging roof.

He built the throne hall, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge, and he covered it with cedar from floor to ceiling. And the palace in which he was to live, set farther back, was similar in design. Solomon also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh's daughter, whom he had married.

All these structures, from the outside to the great courtyard and from foundation to eaves, were made of blocks of high-grade stone cut to size and trimmed with a saw on their inner and outer faces. The foundations were laid with large stones of good quality, some measuring ten cubits and some eight. Above were high-grade stones, cut to size, and cedar beams. The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of the LORD with its portico.

A pretty big and very costly palace complex. It is conceivable that it should have been completely built over or torn down, but this is certainly not in keeping with a minor local kinglet.


1 Kings 9 said:
Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the LORD's temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. 16 (Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife. 17 And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon, 18 Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, within his land, 19 as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses ?whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.

*20 All the people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites), 21 that is, their descendants remaining in the land, whom the Israelites could not exterminate ?these Solomon conscripted for his slave labor force, as it is to this day. 22 But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. 23 They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon's projects?550 officials supervising the men who did the work.

And all of those building projects, military installations, storehouses, built by a large slave population and supervised by 550 administrator scribes, can not have disappeared entirely.

Solomon's reign is one of the Bible's greatest fantasy stories. It only akes sense at all if we read it like that.
 
You are right they wouldn't just disappear. Compare this to Egyptian archeology. They have only recently discovered the remains of the cities were all the workers lived, the ones who worked on the Pyramids, the tombs where engineers and task masters are buried. This in an open area with no pesky residents or other existing buildings of import to hinder digs.
 
Would you guys kill this thread? I can't get that stupid song out of my head!

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,
Jericho, Jericho,
Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,
And the walls came tumblin' down.

You may talk about your kings of Gideon,
You may talk about your men of Saul,
There's none like good old Joshua
At the battle of Jericho.

Up to the walls of Jericho,
He marched with spear in hand.
"Go blow those ram horns",
Joshua cried,
"'Cause the battle is in my hand".

Then the lam'ram, sheep horns
Began to blow,
Trumpets began to sound,
Joshua commanded the children to shout,
And the walls came tumblin' down.

That morning
Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,
Jericho, Jericho,
Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,
And the walls came tumblin' down.
 
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