Let's cut to the chase: which archaeologists should refrain from making which statements? Otherwise, you're spouting vague rhetoric and nonsense because someone is daring to question something that you hold "sacred" (or so it would appear). I'm not saying that there aren't individual archaeologists and their statements that don't fit your criticism, I know of several. But you have yet to demonstrate that you know who they are and what they are saying.
It's nice to see Sam acknowledging the reality that old legends are often just legends and nothing more. If something in a holy book as unremarkable and devoid of a supernatural component as an account of the migrations of tribes can be acknowledged to be fiction, then what does that tell us to expect about the accounts of gods and prophets and angels? Sam is actually turning into a true scientist, hear hear! I can hardly wait for her to turn her new-found skepticism about religious bullshit into a thorough examination of the Koran.
err... Hi! I'm very interested by some facts about the historicity of Bible. I'm mexican, I'm not abrahamic god believer, and I'm not professional historian. Almost all the information I've gathered about the subject, I've found it in internet sources not necessarily trustworthy. I've met this article in a renewed attempt to understand what happened in the origins of Israel people. I found your article very very interesting, as it confirms some of the ideas I already had, and also gives me some new perspectives. I've found a little obscure, however, the discussion about monotheism. There's also another problem: I'm strongly convinced of the fact Joseph was an hikso, and hiksos were war-chariot and horse relatively advanced bronze culture (I've related them with the war-chariot culture that previously had overtaken other Middle-East regions, and which ultimately came from a region near to Armenia or Black Sea; they are related with hittites and indoeuropeans). The way they were finally removed from Egypt's power is obscure, and few is what we know about that. But even if they were just expelled from Egypt, I don't find easy to explain how their culture collapsed to the darker culture of hapiru (who were rather nomadic and semitic) I think my conjecture could explain this and the monotheism in a rather simple way: "Israeli" and "hapiru" are not synonimous, nor the former descend directly from the latter. What happens is that "Israel", almost always associated with words like "union", "pact", "alliance", is the fusion of two groups of people: 1. semitic hapiru (hebrews) 2. the egyptian group that was defeated after the civil-religious (not necessarily extremely violent) conflict created by Akhenaten. I mean: the monotheists. This latter group constituted, right from the start, the sacerdotal and higher casts of israelites, not always in easy relatiouns with their "allies", the hebrews. This group was the one who started writing diverse samples that much later were integrated in the Biblia. This group was the one who appropiated some Middle-East Myths, the story of Joseph, the glorious past of Salomon and David kingdom (which was nothing but Egypt itself, Salomon being some Amenhotep, and David-Dwd-ThutMosis being some Thutmosis, and Mosis being an obviously egyptian name), and who much time later invented the whole exodus story in the hatred they had against the victorious politheists. They also were the group who prophesied that the day would come the sons of David would recover David's Kingdom what would you say about all this?
This whole thread is wishful thinking by an anti-Semite and anti-Zionist who has a long history of excusing, condoning and encouraging indiscriminate murder of innocent people by Jihadis. If it's alright to murder them, why not delegitimize their identity...
@otheadp I don't know if you'r hinting at something, but at least I can say that I'm not antisemitic, (I'm not so sure about zionism, though I think that's a very complex problem and I don't know enough about it to take any position) and I reject murders (from both sides). Now, from a scientific point of view, the fact a proposition is more or less moral, doens't say anything about the truth of the proposition
Hi salsaga, and welcome to SciForums. My earlier post was directed at "S.A.M.". About this revisionist history, there are plenty of new theories out there (and I emphasize the "new"), and since there is no proof either way, those who choose to believe these new theories have their preconceived ideas already, and that makes them inclined to believe whatever revisionist history theory they look for on Google. I'm also not a professional historian (neither is SAM, by the way), but I do know that there is ample research and evidence to support that which has been believed for thousands of years about Jews. There are even archeological discoveries in Israel made annually supporting those "theories", but still it's just not enough for some people. And finally, the purpose of this topic that SAM started is not objective research and discussion, but it's part of her obsessive negative postings about Israel and Jews (and if you search her posting history you will find this). Because if her theories are correct then this helps discredit Zionism.
You've made many interesting points, so lets see where they lead. Who were the Hyksos? Why are you strongly convinced that Joseph was one? Also why Joseph in particular? Are the Hyksos the same as the Scythians or related to them? The Scythians were extraordinary horsemen and excellent warriors but the Hebrews were not. My input: I don't know much about Hyksos. My own area of expertise is biological and general analysis supports genetic closeness between Jews and Kurds both being Indo-Aryan in origin, rather than Levantine or Egyptian. But there is not sufficient work available on other populations in the region for comparison Meanwhile based on this: I agree that hapiru and Israel are not synonymous. I did not mean to imply they were. I am comparing hapiru and Hebrew, which may or may not be a mixed population of people speaking the same language [like Americans] There is no evidence that they are one ethnicity, as far as I know. There is an excellent book called "The Invention of the Jewish People" by Israeli Shlomo Sand, which gives good factual analysis of myth and history in Jews. I have just downloaded it and started reading it, and will get back if there is any relevance to this thread
Nice wishful thinking you're doing there. It IS "alright to murder", as long as whoever you murder isn't a citizen of your own country (unless you happen to have a judicial system that will forgive you for being "angry"), or a citizen of a country that can transport you (via special or secret means if necessary) to a courtroom or a jail cell. Or, if you believe that everyone who isn't a member of a select group, which you also believe you "belong" to, hates you and the group you identify with, then you can develop as deep a paranoid psychosis as you want. You can just pull out a gun and start shooting people who look "suspicious", as long as you don't shoot or kill any members of the group you claim allegiance to, you know, "accidentally". Then again, if the group isn't really all that well-connected, and is in fact a number of different groups all with different beliefs about who the enemy is (they may include some or all the members of another supposedly allied group or sect), you will need to look over your shoulder continually--after all the price of freedom to believe, that you have "freedom" for instance, is eternal purchasing of guns and ammunition, and, well, killing people who look like they may threaten this sense of "freedom". But the only freedom in this scene is the one the better armed groups have, to assert their beliefs. How does any country assure allegiance and loyalty to a common cause? By declaring war on an enemy, is one way. If there are no enemies, make some, and just take it from there once you have the cause you need, and hope the people who don't believe in using guns, or don't want to serve in the military or pay taxes or support the government without question, won't become a large enough percentage of the citizenry that they start their own war without consulting the government.
You demagogue very eloquently but it's all in the abstract. The Nazis, even the nonviolent ones who only preferred to write about how evil Jews were rather than massacre us, were no less eloquent than you.
Well yeah, the Israelis, even the nonviolent ones who prefer to write racist rants about Arabs, and how evil Islam is, are at least as frequent and ineffective as you. Your response, for example, is almost totally pathetic and dismissive. But that's what you NEED desperately to do, isn't it, be dismissive and more or less lupine, no? How else could any settler possibly manage to delude themselves so completely? It's pre-psychotic mate.
noodler, otheadp... would you mind to open a new thread titled "innocent israelis" or something where you discuss as much as you want about the palestinian conflict or holocaust? I really think your discussion gets out the limits of the present subject... (said this with all due respect, (both of you deserve))
I'm not sure, SAM, maybe there's a connection with scythians, but I think they'r not so close to hiksos. The hiksos took control of a part of Egypt right befor the advent of xviii dinasty (the Amarna one). Some historians thought they were just barabarians that took adventage of the decadence of the middle empire. But that's not clear at all. One of the few consensus I've found about them, is that they introduced war-chariot and horse (with the especific role of pulling the chariots, the horse were not ridden in bronze age, if I'm not mistaken) in Egypt. The fact Joseph was an hikso is not my theory: Josephus historian already suggested that. The arguments is that the genesis narrative about Joseph fits well with archeological evidence. Also, Joseph might be sketched as horse lord of the pharaon (in this interpretation hiksos didn't necessarily took control of egyptian power by violent means, though they did take adventage of the decadence of midle empire). What is a personal interpretation is the fact hiksos are related with hittites and indoeuropeans. My argument is that indoeuropeans might have been the ones who discovered the rayed wheel, in an attempt to adapt chariots to horses. Hittites were among the first ones who used war-chariot to conquer a vast land, and hittites were indoeuropeans. If hiksos are so linked to war-chariot, they should at least have been strongly influenced by hittites or indoeuropeans.
I don't know enough about the Hyksos to venture an opinion As for the wheel, here is an interesting bit from the Rig Veda The Mahabharata credits the Greeks with the invention of the vimanas
don't know what to say about mahabarata, but i need to clear a point: wheels are very old, but for war-charriots you need spoked wheels (my previous "rayed wheel", sorry for my english). I know few about indian religion, but if I remember well, in the origin of some of its aspects like the fundamental conception of "rata" (wheel), the indoiranian traditions played some role. However I'm not sure if we can extrapolate indian information to the events of Western-Middle-East so easily
