As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Wilting

N.Y. Times online ^ | March 9, 2002 | MICHAEL MASSING

[RobbyS]

Apotheosis can occur at a much humbler level. Indeed, most of history is just such a thing. If all the history books were burned, and a scholars raised who knew nothing of what happened before, say, 1500, and who were assigned the task of reconstructing the history of the world before that time, with only compemporary documents or the surviving archaelogical evidences at their disposal, then the product of this commission might be radically different from the history we have today. But as for an agenda: when one starts with the "'taint necessarily so" to supernatural events, then one is assuming that it doesn't, and all one's weighing of evidence, and even one's conclusions, flow from that assumption. In short, the Rabbi has converted to a new faith, one more profoundly different from Judaism than Paul's faith, that of the Enlightenment.

[ml/nj]

I read this article in the printed NYT this morning.

I was wondering why apparently none of the 45 essays reflected a more traditional view. They say there is no Egyptian evidence for the Exodus, and I would say that there is only no Egyptian evidence for the Exodus if one ignores the evidence that does exist. In Ages in Chaos Immanual Velikovsky discusses this evidence which includes an Egypian papyrus (in a museum in Leyden, I think) that essentially describes the same plagues as the Biblical version does.

They also say there is no or little archeological evidence for the Bible, and imply that there is contradictory evidence. It's too bad they don't explain this at all. I have a book on my shelf entitled Understanding the Bible through History and Archeology that I thought mostly confirmed Biblical accounts. Maybe I didn't read it closely enough?

"Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence." "We couldn't come to a formulation that we could all be comfortable with," the rabbi said. Translation: We are here reinventing the Bible in our own image. We could flim-flam our way through almost everything but it would be so obvious that we were frauds if we condoned homosexuality.

It's "uncomfortable" for a thief not to steal. The Bible is not about what is comfortable. If doing what we each felt was comfortable we wouldn't need any Laws at all.

ML/NJ

[Eternal_Bear]

Jericho was uninhabited and unwalled during the time when the Hebrews supposedly crossed over from the Jordan; had been that way for several centuries.

[aruanan]

It's sad to see happening to Judaism what was attempted on Christianity back in the 19th century. It's just as baseless. The historical veracity of the Old Testament (as well as New Testament documents) is more adequately verified now than at any point in the past couple millennia or so (and about a century too late for the debunking movement since it was in full force before the advent of modern archaeology and hasn't bothered to change its tune even though, as a result, it has only bloody stumps left for legs).

[poet]

First the gender neutral Bible, now this. They never give up and neither can we. These kind of people have a great fear and an emptiness

Validation

Where are they?
a brief note in history
guilty of murdering
the great man of mystery

There are others
who would do the same
to those preaching in His name

Like a dream they have faded away
chased away as a vision of the night
never again to see the light
His memory lives on to this day

Their triumph was shortlived
their joy only for a moment
they linger in their graves
with souls long dormant

while His words live on
theirs long gone
He wears the Crown
preached from town to town

It's a battle they can't win
but they refuse to cease
their wickedness and sin
their bodies will be fed to the beasts

Souls destined for the Lake of Fire
along with the Great Liar

Copyright(c)1999 By John J. Lindsay. All Rights Reserved
July 17, 1996

[aruanan]

Jericho was uninhabited and unwalled during the time when the Hebrews supposedly crossed over from the Jordan; had been that way for several centuries.

Ha ha ha. Obviously, if the Hebrews went through there and it was inhabited, then the dating system is off. And of course, this is what has happened. The earlier date of exodus is both consistent with Biblical chronology as well as with the archaeology. However, when one is dealing with ancient records which were more or less contemporaneous with the events they describe and there appears to be a discrepancy with a modern archeological interpretations, the benefit of the doubt is given to the ancient source. It is more likely to be correct; the modern spin, suffering from a lack of information. This has been demonstrated numerous times.

[David]

This is complete garbage.

The treatment of Exodus is a prime example. The biblical date for Exodus is 1461 B.C. The archologists say the assumed date is 1200; they then say there is no evidence for occupation of Israel in 1200; no evidence of a destruction of Jericho in 1200; and no evidence of the Israelites in Egypt or leaving Egypt in that time frame; therefore no Exodus.

If you back the event up to the biblical date on the other hand, first thing you find is a destruction of Jericho in which the walls fall outward at the end of the 15th Century B.C. You find capitive second nation labor in Egypt in the early 15th Century and late 16th Century; and you find writing of plagues that look like the biblical description at the middle of the 15th Century exactly where the bible says you should find them. The real archological evidence is there on and in the ground--the problem is that the archologists are antigonistic to the Bible and to God and do not want to find it.

[John H K]

Never have they found in their "digs" any evidence of a partial evolution of even one species to another let alone to a human

This is a bald-faced lie. Don't those pesky 10 Commandments have something to say about that?

[week 71]

Archeologists also contended there was no written language at the time the Torah was was alledged to be written... then they found Hamarabi's code. They also said there was no name Abraham during the time of Abaham's life... then they found and inscription on stone with the name Abram pre-dating the Biblical Abraham. They used to say there was no city of Ur until they found evidence and changed their mind. They said all the Gospels were written in the second or third century, until they found manuscripts dating from the first century. I'm certain the myth of no Jericho will be debunked with time.

[Sci Fi Guy]

It was this name that stopped me and convinced me to post this article. I read "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" at a low point in my life and found it comforting

Sorry but that is a really bad deceptive book. If you would permit me to suggest some alternatives.
Surprised by Suffering by R.C. Sproul
Disappointed with God by Philip Yancy.
In fact Philip Yancy has written several great books like The Gift of Pain, When Life Hurts.

Also here is an article by Ron Rhodes that you might by interesting.

[eddie willers]

Sorry but that is a really bad deceptive book

It worked for me.

[saradippity]

I told that to my kids ten years ago,I also said the National Anthem will be "Imagine" and freedom will mean going down to the public square free to particiipate or watch any combination of live sexual encounters. They rolled their eyes to the heavens and said "oh mom,stop reading those conspiracy books".Now they have children of their own and are not quite so dismissive of my predictions.

[DugwayDuke]

I thank you for sharing with me the importance of personalizing the story of the passover. However, I can't accept that the story of Exodus is symbolic. I just don't understand how you can pick and choose within the Bible. It seems that so much of the Bible is predicated upon Exodus. If you deny the story of Exodus, then why accept the covenent with Abraham for example. Or the Ten Commandments. Or Jews as God's Choosen People. Without Exodus, the whole Bible has as much meaning as Uncle Remus.

[Stultis]

Where is the BARF Alert?

Hardly called for. This critical (incl self-critical), rationalizing, demythologizing bent of Judaism and Christianity is a good thing, and an important part of what has made them reformist religions, ultimately contributing crucially to the development of Western Civilization and the preservation of its key values. This is what we want to also be occuring within Islam. Or would you prefer that conservative Judaism was more like conservative Islam?

[Dumb_Ox]

This has been going on for centuries; typically lethargic, the NYT has just only happened to have learned about it. Observe:

Celsus, being of opinion that there is to be found among many nations a general relationship of doctrine, enumerates all the nations which gave rise to such and such opinions; but for some reason, unknown to me, he casts a slight upon the Jews, not including them amongst the others, as having either laboured along with them, and arrived at the same conclusions, or as having entertained similar opinions on many subjects. It is proper, therefore, to ask him why he gives credence to the histories of Barbarians and Greeks respecting the antiquity of those nations of whom he speaks, but stamps the histories of this nation alone as false. For if the respective writers related the events which are found in these works in the spirit of truth, why should we distrust the prophets of the Jews alone? And if Moses and the prophets have recorded many things in their history from a desire to favour their own system, why should we not say the same of the historians of other countries? Or, when the Egyptians or their histories speak evil of the Jews, are they to be believed on that point; but the Jews, when saying the same things of the Egyptians, and declaring that they had suffered great injustice at their hands, and that on this account they had been punished by God, are to be charged with falsehood? And this applies not to the Egyptians alone, but to others; for we shall find that there was a connection between the Assyrians and the Jews, and that this is recorded in the ancient histories of the Assyrians. And so also the Jewish historians (I avoid using the word "prophets," that I may not appear to prejudge the case) have related that the Assyrians were enemies of the Jews. Observe at once, then, the arbitrary procedure of this individual, who believes the histories of these nations on the ground of their being learned, and condemns others as being wholly ignorant. For listen to the statement of Celsus: "There is," he says, "an authoritative account from the very beginning, respecting which there is a constant agreement among all the most learned nations, and cities, and men." And yet he will not call the Jews a learned nation in the same way in which he does the Egyptians, and Assyrians, and Indians, and Persians, and Odrysians, and Samothracians, and Eleusinians.

-Origen, "Against Celsus," Third Century AD

[mv1]

PBS once aired "Testament: the Bible and History," in which the British scholar John Romer examined the roots of the Old Testament and the degree of correspondence between biblical text and archaeological evidence. That and Joseph Campbell were all I needed to have an epiphany about the 3 middle eastern religions.

Now what is myth? The dictionary definition of a myth would be stories about gods. So then you have to ask the next question. What is a god?
--Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

[Dumb_Ox]

This is what we want to also be occuring within Islam.

If I thought this war was about imposing the NYT-approved secularist banalities upon the Islamic world, I'd be out fomenting rebellion and inciting desertion.

[mv1]

This kind of undermines all the theological reasons for death and destruction over there doesn't it?
See also:

[Jim Scott]

Amazing. 'Religious' Jewish scholars abandoning the basis of their 'faith' (in what?) and calling God a fraud (in scholarly terms, of course) while they pat the still-faithful on the head and offer a patronizing smile while they, now proven to be enlightened and progressive, (quietly) become their own god.

This "Etz Hayim" sounds exactly like the atheist arguments that always refer to the bible as 'myth' and 'fairy-tales unsupported by the historical record'. Blah blah blah.

Puny little mortal men, stroking their chins and solemnly declaring that God was a fraud while they breath at His pleasure and yet, declare themselves more knowledgable and wise than the living God that made them.
Sad, tragic and ultimately destructive to many that will jump on the anti-faith bandwagon with them.