More contradictions. Mark (16:16) and John (3:2, 18, 36) claim it's through faith. Matthew (12:37), John (!) (5:29) through words and deeds.
That the serpent healing was real is attested to some one thousand years later when Hezekiah in his revival destroys the bronze serpent because the people had come to worship it (2 Kings 18:4)
A thousand years? The Torah was composed c. 6th century BC.
As to the "son of man" in Hebrew, the writer of Psalms 80:17
How about
"God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind" [Num 23:19] ?
How is it that when it suits us it means Jesus and at other times it means something else?
John is all over the place. This is one reason I believe the scribes who copied the original must have had a field day with it, adding and changing things around. It's very possible that many of John's verse are not even his. Otherwise, how can one explain contradictions by the same author (one chapter apart!): to wit John 3: 2 clearly suggests that Jesus baptized others. John 4:2 with equal clarity says that "Jesus baptized not"?
There is a writing (Urk. IV.1) from the period of Amenophis II, a Pharoah during the time the Hebrews were in Egypt (1450B.C.)
You mean Hyskos, not Hebrews?
These hapiru were a nomadic tribe. Abraham was referred to as a Hebrew hapiru.
By whom?
Scholars like Albright, Bright, Noth, Pritchard and von Rad all attest to the accuracy of the Egyptian bondage, each from different theological positions.
The habiru/hapiru included no specific ethnic group, no specific common language or beliefs, and represented somewhat lawless groups of migrant (nomadic) individuals, from vagrants to mercinaries. or basically lowlifes. The whole idea that the Hebrews escaped Egypt in the 15th century is senseless since Egypt at that time included not only the Sinai but Canaan and Syria.
"More contradictions. Mark (16:16) and John (3:2, 18, 36) claim it's through faith. Matthew (12:37), John (!) (5:29) through words and deeds."
Where is the contradiction? Deeds are the result of what one believes.
"Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
"Mat 12:35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things."
"Mat 15:18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man"
"Luk 8:15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep [it], and bring forth fruit with patience."
“How about
“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind” [Num 23:19] ?
How is it that when it suits us it means Jesus and at other times it means something else?”
How about the distinction between a title and a description?
“John is all over the place. This is one reason I believe the scribes who copied the original must have had a field day with it, adding and changing things around. It’s very possible that many of John’s verse are not even his. Otherwise, how can one explain contradictions by the same author (one chapter apart!): to wit John 3: 2 clearly suggests that Jesus baptized others. John 4:2 with equal clarity says that “Jesus baptized not”?”
Remember, the Gospel did not have chapters or verses, it was a narrative. If you notice there is an excursus beginning with verse 23 and running through the end of the chapter concerning John and his disciples. The discussion concerning Jesus coming to Judea with His disciples continues in Chapter 4:1 with the disclaimer in verse 2. Without the excurses the narrative would read “After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,(Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.”
“The habiru/hapiru included no specific ethnic group, no specific common language or beliefs, and represented somewhat lawless groups of migrant (nomadic) individuals, from vagrants to mercinaries. or basically lowlifes. The whole idea that the Hebrews escaped Egypt in the 15th century is senseless since Egypt at that time included not only the Sinai but Canaan and Syria.”
Here is an article on the subject.
The Name ‘Hebrew’ in Archaeology and in Scripture
In the ancient Biblical world of the Ancient Near East there are constant references in texts to persons known as SA.GAZ (in cuneiform), as Hapiru/Habiru in Mesopotamia and as ‘prw in Egypt ( the ‘ is a hard H and the w is a plural ending). While the SA.GAZ are not necessarily specifically Hapiru/Habiru (for they are never to our knowledge treated as equivalent in the lists of ancient lexicographers) they are often identified with them. Thus the terms are not synonymous but the SA.GAZ can be Hapiru in certain circumstances.
The ‘prw are identified with the Hapiru in the Amarna letters from the king of Jerusalem and with the SA.GAZ by other correspondents. We are not, however, to think of these Hapiru/Habiru/‘prw as a specific race or nation, but rather it appears to be a name for stateless peoples as they come into contact with the major civilisations, and can mean different things in different contexts as it is a useful way of describing people with no other identity. They are witnessed to from the third millennium BC down to the tenth century BC.
The SA.GAZ indicates two cuneiform signs giving no recognised meaning. The term is found in Sumerian literature but has no meaning in Sumerian. It is equated in literature with the Akkadian habbatu which means a ‘brigand’ or ‘highway robber’, but is probably derived from the Akkadian word saggasu which means ‘aggressor’. The SA.GAZ are therefore seen as fierce and ‘lawless’ people, i.e. not obeying the laws of others.
In the third dynasty of Ur they are described as ‘these unclothed people, who travel in dead silence, who destroy everything, whose menfolk go where they will, -— they establish their tents and their camps -— they spend their time in the countryside without observing the decrees of my king Shulgi’. They are therefore people who live on the edge of society and are a law to themselves.
The word also appears in the nineteenth century BC in administrative texts in Southern Mesopotamia where one text calls them the Hapiri. Here they are soldiers with a chief, and receive supplies of food. In a similar text in Susa in Elam they are recorded as having sheep supplied to them as well as to other groups, they and the others being identified as ‘soldiers of the West’. They would appear therefore in these cases to be mercenaries.
In the sixteenth/fifteenth century BC they are again equated with the Hapiru, but this time more fully, and here they are soldiers, or even quarrymen, under the orders of SA.GAZ leaders. One SA.GAZ from Tapduwa has 15 soldiers under him, a SA.GAZ chief from Sarkuhe has 29, and another has 1,436. They can form separate groupings by themselves. By now therefore the term SA.GAZ equates to Hapiru.
Later they are clearly equated with the Hapiru in the Amarna letters where some call them the SA.GAZ while the king of Jerusalem calls them the Hapiru. SA.GAZ is seen as a somewhat pejorative term. They are seen as operative not only in Syria, but also in Phoenicia, near Sumur, Batrun and Byblos, in Upe near Damascus, and further South as far as Jerusalem.
Around the fifteenth century BC six hundred SA.GAZ are elsewhere ‘given’ to the ‘god of the temple’ just as Rameses III will later give the ‘prw to the Egyptian temples of the Delta.
A century or so later Mursilis II (c.1334-1306 BC), in an arbitration treaty between Duppi-Teshub of Amurru amd Tudhaliya of Carchemish, recalls that the town of Jaruwatta in the land of Barga had been captured by the king of the Hurrian country and had been given to ‘the grandfather of Tette, the SA.GAZ’. Mursilus returns the town to Abiradda whom the SA.GAZ had dispossessed. So they have now become among other things mercenary soldiers or marauding bands of soldiers, and can enjoy a partially settled existence.
While in post Old Testament times ‘the Hebrew language’ means the language of the Jews, and everyone thus relates the term ‘Hebrews’ to the Jews, this is a late identification. In the Old Testament Israelites were Israelites, not Hebrews, except, rarely, when viewed in relation to external peoples. The one possible exception to this is the ‘Hebrew servant’, of which more later (Exodus 21.2; Deuteronomy 15.12 compare Jeremiah 34.9, 14).
Apart from this latter use, and a single use related to Abram, the term is limited to three sections, two relating to servitude in Egypt and one relating to dealings with the Philistines who were non-Semites. There is one further exception to this and that is the use by Jonah to describe himself to foreign sailors.
The description Abram ‘the Hebrew’ - in Genesis 14.13 - is contained in a covenant narrative confirming the covenant between Abram and Melchizedek. Abram is called ‘Abram the Hebrew’ as a (potential) leader of a military force who is part of a confederation. As Abram was stateless (contrast ‘Amre’ who is called ‘the Amorite’) this method of identifying him may be seen as of some significance, as it ties in with the use of the terms ‘apiru and habiru elsewhere of stateless military leaders. In adminstrative texts in Southern Mesopotamia the SA.GAZ or ‘Hapiri’ are independent soldiers under a chief who receive supplies of food, as Abram does in Genesis 14, as are the ‘Hapiru’ from texts from Mari (to the West of Babylonia). Melchizedech may well therefore have seen him as an Hapiru.
Joseph the Hebrew The next use of the term is in Genesis 39.14, 17; 41.12 where Joseph is called ‘an Hebrew’ or a ‘Hebrew servant’ by Egyptians. And Joseph himself uses the term when identifying himself to Egyptians when he says ‘I was stolen from the land of the Hebrews’ (Genesis 40.15). The ‘land of the Hebrews’ is ‘the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites’ (Exodus 3.8), a land without political unity.
The Hebrews in Egypt
Again in Exodus 1.15, 16, 19; 2.6, 7, 11, 13; the term ‘Hebrew’ is used in a context of those who are slaves to the Egyptians in relation to the Egyptians. In Exodus 3.18; 5.3; 7.16; 9.1, 13; 10.3 God is called ‘the Lord God (once ‘God’ only) of the Hebrews’ having dealings with Pharaoh in view. Pharaoh would be thinking of the slaves as Hapiru.
Thus the term is constantly used as a way of describing foreign slaves to Egyptians, especially slaves from what was known Biblically as ‘the land of Canaan’ which was known by the Egyptians to be filled with disparate peoples including the ‘prw, mentioned in the Amarna letters as Hapiru.
Like Abram these people were basically stateless for they were not identified with any city state, but, as far as outside peoples were concerned, were part of those peoples who had no specific identification. In other words the children of Israel saw themselves as ‘Israel’, but outsiders saw them as ‘prw or Hapiru.
The ‘prw are mentioned in a number of Egyptian texts and range from fighting men in Canaan to captives employed as servants to strain wine, to prisoners given to the temples, to workers in the quarries of the Wadi Hammamat. (The ‘prw are identified with the SA.GAZ in Ras Shamra texts, a term often used of the Hapiru). Above all they are foreigners. It is therefore increasingly certain that the Israelites in Egypt would be seen as ‘prw.
In Genesis 43.32 we learn that the Egyptians ate separately from the sons of Jacob because ‘Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians’. In Genesis 46.34 the same is said of ‘shepherds’ as stateless, un-Egyptian people. As Wiseman says in Peoples of Old Testament Times (p.xviii), ‘the Egyptians thought of themselves as ‘men’ and others as inferior ‘humans’ who could be accepted on learning the Egyptian language’.
So the stateless children of Israel, having no connection with recognised cities or tribes, could well be thought of and described by the Egyptians as Habiru/Hapiru/‘prw.