How long will christians take this???

I don't see exactly what you're arguing about. Are you trying to say there was no Jewish diaspora? The Elephantine papyri not only deflect that, but attest to the fact that there were Jews living near Egypt at around the 5th centuries BC at latest.



Latin was used in mostly legal matters. Greek was the common language.



http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1992/03.03.07.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy

The percentage is a rough estimate.



That's good for them. Unfortunately, that wouldn't constitute anything near a majority.



Greek became widespread after Alexander's conquest, as evidenced by the Septuagint in the 2nd century BC written in Greek. The extent of any Greek settlements in Judea would not have been that great.



That is irrelevant.

Here's a map of the ancient middle east:



To the left center, you'll see Jericho. Take that as a marker for Judea. Egypt is very close, just to the left, to the west. Now, look for "Akkad" to the right, to the east, and you'll see Babylon just below where the word Akkad appears on that map--and it's a good deal farther east of Jericho than Egypt is to the west. The Jews weren't just scattered, and they did not "disappear" as the "ten lost tribes" seem to have done during the Assyrian invasion. They were transported to Babylon, very, very far from Egypt. When the Persians took Babylon, they allowed the Jews to return to Judea.

While your at it, reputable scholars consider that if Uz existed, it was a city or a town in the Kingdom of Edom, which was in the Negev desert, in what are now Israel and Jordan--but its just more of your made up **** to claim it might have been in Egypt.

Do you know the meaning to the verb "to deflect?" From your usage, it appears that you don't. If Jews were in Egypt in the 5th century BCE, that is nothing to get excited about, the Persians allowed the Jews to return from Babylon in the 6th century BCE.

The point about the significance of the Jews is very far from irrelevant. It is very much to the point. The stories of the Jews, like the early stories of the Christians, attempt to make them look important in the great events of history--they weren't, they were bit players, and either borrowed their great legends and stories, or just made **** up. Hey . . . just like you . . . they just made **** up.

By the 8th century BCE Israel was conquered by the Assyrians, part of God's judgment for their disobedience. The proximity of Israel/Judah to Egypt becomes irrelevant especially after their conquest by Nebuchadnezzar (or Nebuchadrezzar) in the 6th century BCE, because most social ties to Egypt would be lost. As for Uz, on the contrary, it would contradict me if it were in Egypt due to the fact that I've said that Job is more likely a verbal lesson than an actual event that happened, and the fact that it mentions hippos in the land of Uz makes it likely that it was written in Egypt, or in an area that had close ties to it (i.e. Elephantine island).

rock - I see you have nothing to sa for yourself on the issue of God and wrath.

Give him a chance, Diest, he's still not clear on the geographical relationship of Egypt and Babylon. Maybe he'll get back to you later, but you gotta stop using things like a thesaurus--it's not fair to bring facts into a religious discussion.

The point being that the Jewish diaspora left descendants into areas beyond Israel/Judah is in fact supporting the case for a late authorship of Job, which I guess didn't get through to you despite the number of times I've implied it. If there were no diaspora in an area that had contact with Egypt on a regular basis so that the author of Job would know about it (maybe he was a merchant as you suggest), then your only option would be to accept an early date: pre-722 BC.



The Jewish culture, though emerging as a power in the Mediterranean in 1000 BC, is less developed and comparing it to competing empires at the time less advanced in the military, as evidenced by them being conquered 50 million times. However, there is no evidence to believe that a culture that is more advanced in military prowess is more advanced in everything else. Take for example the Persians versus the Greeks, or even the Spartans versus the Athenians. It's an error to believe that the traditions of a stronger nation are more true than those of a younger and weaker one.

Now, there is textual evidence about the fact that these cultures had these beliefs long before the Jews wrote them down. This is why I mentioned the numerous flood accounts throughout the world. A couple would be the Aborigine one, and the Native American. Unless you propose that some Jew invented the balloon and traveled around the world in 80 days, this supports a common oral tradition for the nations that have written down these events: a flood, creation story, etc, which would indicate a common ancestry. Whether you choose to interpret this as a vestige from a myth that a culture which divided itself invented and kept, or as the account of the Tower of Babel, is a judgment call, but until you show the former your claim is irrelevant.

I posted about Matt. 5:22 in an earlier post. I could take the time to find it in the epistles. Jesus does get angry in the gospel. What's your point? That the specific word wrath isn't mentioned???

I guess what hasn't gotten through to you is that you have attempted to claim that Job lived in Uz, that this was in Egypt, and that he lived there circa 1000 BCE--now you're backpeddling furiously.

The Jews were never--i repeat, never--a "power" in the Mediterranean basin at any time in history. Even within Palestine, they were little more than a legend in their own minds. I haven't claimed that the Jews were to be considered insignificant for reasons of military ineptitude, a talent they definitely did, though, display. When you claim that i made an argument which i did not make, and dismiss that phony argument, you are constructing a strawman.

I referred specifically to the degree of sophistication of the surrounding cultures, their literacy and their monumental architecture. The Sumerians built on a monumental scale. The Akkadians built on a monumental scale. The Egyptians built on a monumental scale. The Medes and Persians built on a monumental scale. All of those societies were widely literate, and left written records on a vastly greater scale than did the Jews. All of those societies commonly traded with people at a great distance, and had vigorous mercantile economies.

None of those things can be said about the Jews. Their temple was about as monumental as their architecture ever got, and it would not have filled the market place in Babylon at its height. The Jews were never a power, left no very original legends or stories, didn't leave very many written records at all, didn't build monumental structures, and didn't trade to great distances with other peoples. They were the pawns and the victims of the sophisticated and, relative to their age, modern societies around them. This is important because bible-thumpers like you get your heads all twisted around bible fairy tales, and make hilariously absurd claims about the meaning and significance of scripture.

Have fun in your biblical sand box.

He's also a little unclear about human anatomy.


123Rock, forever you'll be remembered by me as the fool who said, and I'll quote you:



You understand that this is the type of CRAP you people peddle to each other as proof of the bible, and too many people believe it. If your church will peddle this easily provable crap then there is no limit to the amount of crap you can dish out. You should remember that this Sunday as you sit in the pew.

With respect to the book of Job, he lives in Uz. I never said the author who wrote Job lived there. I do believe Job was written early, but its authorship and date are the most obscure in the whole Bible even among conservative opinions.



Once again, I repeat, it is irrelevant to judge the content of the Creation account as inferior based on these facts.



And thanks to a lot of these records we have archaeological information vindicating the Bible, such as the Babylonian cuneiform affirming that Belshazzar in Daniel is not imaginary and even shows that his position as a co-regent was true.



Well, if you could point out the absurd claims I've made so far around the meaning of Scripture, I'd be happy to defend my position. The Old Testament itself acknowledges that the Jews were the least of all people, so I don't know why you're bringing that up for the fifth time when I've told you why it doesn't matter. I've explained that the relative little Jewish influence in its surrounding area has nothing to do with the validity of its claims in the creation story.

I specifically admitted that I was wrong regarding the rib, due to faulty memory. However, you and 99% of this forum will forever to me be remembered as the people who didn't know **** about religion, let alone the Bible.

Your earlier post was disected and destoryed. My point is done, and it is that the Abrahamic God hold man to a higher standard than itself.

I will not be told that the bible needs both a literal and creative interpretation. The only reason for that is to compensate for where the texts have failed or created conundrums such as the one I have illustrated.

Face it, the text fails the test.

Why can't you grasp that because God is different both in nature an situation and therefore what is sin for human's may not necessarily be a sin for God. Why is this so difficult?

Let's see your marvelous dissection:



Oh, I'm sorry, due to thesaurus.com I just remembered that wrath is another word for taking a **** on a wooden stool with romanesque features.

You seem to be awfully slow, Rock. I haven't claimed that the author of the Job bullshit lived there, either. I was pointing out that reputable scholars place Uz outside Egypt. Now, what you wrote was:



Where to begin with the bullshit? First you claim that a post-1000 BCE date would be unlikely, and then settle for the Assyrian captivity "at the least." So your original claim is that the story would not likely have been written after 1000 BCE, but then you are willing to admit that it could have been written at the time that the "ten lost tribes" were carted off by the Assyrians, never to be seen again according the remaining Jews. If that were so, how did the Job story make its way back to the rest of the Jews? Right after that, in a grammatically tortured extension to an already badly written sentence, you refer to the Babylonian captivity, and referring to it as a diaspora, suggest that the Jews were scattered, when in fact the record is that they were carried off to Babylon, which is in the opposite direction to Egypt. Then you trot out that incomprehensible nonsense about the Elephantine Island, which you describe as "near, if not in, Egypt." I got a news flash for ya, the Elephantine Island is in Egypt--not "near" Egypt, not "with strong ties" to Egypt, it is in Egypt.

No one knows for certain exactly where Uz may have been, so your statement that it was in Palestine is without foundation. You are also apparently unaware that in the centuries before the current era, neither Palestine nor the Negev were deserts. Hippopotamii were once found in all of the basin of the Nile region, and survived in the Damietta branch of the Nile delta as late as 1500 years ago--and were even prevelant in Europe before the last glaciation. When the Sinai was not a desert, which it was not 3000 years ago, the Northern end of the Red Sea was swampy--voila, there's your reeds.

But it is not even necessary to prove that Hippos might have once lived in or near the "kingdom" of Edom. You have claimed that the behemoth was a hippo, you've not proven anything.

As for the silly, silly creation account in Genesis, i have not judged inferior based on the fact that the Jews were just one more unimportant and goofy semi-nomadic people in that region 3000 years ago and more. You are erecting stawmen. I don't consider creation stories which center on anthropomorphic gods to be inferior, i consider them to be idiotic, and implausible.

Nothing in ancient records "vindicates the bible." They just show that the authors got a few things right (more or less) among the literally hundreds of gross historical errors which litter the document from Genesis right up to the alleged "Gospels." A good example is that there was a "prince" in Babylon whose name was Bel-sarra-usur, which has since been butchered into Balshazzar. He was the son of the last Akkadian "king" at Babylon, before the Persian conquest. Neither Herodatus nor the great Jewish scholar Flavius Josephus agree on what his name was, and the circumstances of his "regency." That the authors of the bible knew about him does nothing to "vindicate" the string of stories, most of them preposterous, which make up the document.

Given the confused nature of the biblical accounts, and especially the highly entertaining and thoroughly unconvincing stories in Genesis, the likelihood is that the authors who revised the Pentateuch, the so-called "Priestly" source, cobbled together the stories which had accumulated by then to form what is now claimed by religious types, on no good authority, to be the books of Moses. A great deal of the hilarity in Genesis derives from the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian stories, such as the flood story in the Gilgamesh Epic. The likelihood is very great that much, and perhaps even most of the stories retailed in the Pentateuch are derivative, but that they were altered from the Yawist and Elohist sources to give them coherence (nice try, but it didn't work) and to make them plausible at times when the priestly caste was attempting to wean people away from the worship of Baal and Molloch. It would have been crucial, then, to give the people the idea that they were god's chosen people, and the narrative was shaped to fit that propagandistic necessity.

One doesn't have to be from either a "great" people or a "little" people to indulge in those kind of fairy tales. The Romans were obviously a people who became great. They claim that their city was founded in 754 BCE (i believe they say it was in April). The city was sacked an burned in 390 BCE by the Gauls, and almost all of their records were lost. The records keepers were the priests of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, who acted as Censors, to count the population and to certify elections (hence the term census), as well as to assure the proper observance of the civic religion. After the Gauls sacked and burned Rome, the only records which survived which were reliable were the linen rolls kept in the temple (the temple held out and was not sacked by the Gauls) on which the record of the election of public office holders and the recording of acts of the Senate were kept. Even those haven't survived, but they are mentioned as sources by Roman historians such as Titus Livius, known to the European world as Livy.

Now, in the somewhat more than 350 years from the foundation of the city of Rome until the sack of the city by the Gauls, a great many things which were humiliating to a proud people occurred. That period is known as the legendary period, and it is full of poignant, heroic and thoroughly preposterous stories of the nobility and courage of the Romans. An example is the story of Lars Porsenna and Muscius Scaevola. The Roman legendary history has them ruled by seven "Kings," the Tarquins, until the cruelty and arrogance of the last Tarquin King, Tarquinus Superbus (Tarquin the Proud) lead them to rebel and to throw him out. What is more plausible, however, is that Rome was made a tributary city of the league of city states in Etruria, the largest city being Tarquinia. As there is no other evidence that the Etruscans ever had kings, it is far more likely that the Tarquin "Kings" were simply governors sent to Rome by the Etruscan League from their capital city--Tarquinia. Even the legendary history of Rome acknowledges that at least two of their "kings" came from Tarquinia, including the last "King," Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. After the Tarqins were thrown out of Rome, the Etruscans sent an army to punish them, and to take back the city for Etruria. That army was commanded (possibly, this is a Roman account and not an Etruscan account) by Lars Porsenna, who the Romans said was the Etruscan King. The twelve cities of the Etruscan League, however, did not acknowledge any supreme king, so that is likely not true--there is no record of it in Tuscan sources. (The Etruscans were ethnically Tuscan.)

Supposedly, the Etruscan army besieged the city, and made their principle encampment on the Janiculum hill. That hill is across the river to the north of the city, which did not then cover the ground north of the Tiber River. This is significant, because the farms and country villas of all the old and important families of the order of Patres (literally "Fathers," if means the Senatorial class)--so if a foreign army were encamped there, the city was in bad shape.

So the Romans came up with the story of Giaus Mucius. According to that legend, Giaus Mucius managed to sneak into the Etruscan camp, and attempted to murder Lars Porsenna. But it was pay day, and Mucius stabbed the man who was handing out the money--the paymaster (what a wonderfully quaint and naive young man he would have been--if, alas, it weren't for the likely fact that he never existed). He was seized and brought before Porsenna, who ordered that he be burned. He was then said to have thrust his right hand into a fire, and held it there without flinching, telling Porsenna that there were 300 more youths in Rome equally courageous, and all pledged to murder the tyrant. Supposedly, Porsenna was so impressed with his nobility and courage that he set him free, and became so alarmed at the threat that he lifted the siege and marched back to Etruria. Thereafter, Giaus Mucius was known by the cognomen Scaevola--the left-handed, in honor of his courageous act.

Sadly, it likely completely a bullshit story. What is far more likely is that the Tuscans found the siege costly and onerous, and got tired of listening to Lucius Tarquinus piss and moan (if he actually ever existed). Following the practices of the day, they probably negotiated with the Romans for them to pay tribute to the Etruscan League, upon which they agreed to march away and allow them to govern their own affairs. Almost all of the wars which Rome fought thereafter with the Etruscans were with the Veiians, and as Veii was the nearest city of the Etruscan League, they probably failed to pay their tribute and were regularly attacked, until they grew powerful enough to defeat and conquer the Etruscans.

If a people as proud and powerful, and destined for greatness, such as the Romans can cobble together such silly stories to cover their shameful defeats (and there were many such stories, such as the legend of the Fabians, the appearance of Castor and Pollux at the battle of Lake Regillus, the legend of Virginus and the rape of his daughter Virginia, the story of Coriolanus, the legend of Horatio at the bridge)--then how much more likely is that a no-account semi-nomadic tribal people such as the ancient Hebrews did the same thing in spades.

Stories like Mucius Scaevola and Horatio at the bridge are wonderful ways for the people to forget the humiliation of being defeated by the Tuscans and made to pay tribute--but they aren't real history, even if some of the characters in the story actually existed. They certainly aren't a basis for divine revelation. Neither are the bullshit stories in the bible.

That's a cop-out answer.

If it is a sin for man it is also a sin for God. How can one respect a God who, on one hand, demands his subjects follow strict standards of conduct, than orders them to behave in a manner contrary to his standards.

So when God tells us it is evil to murder but orders his people to murder children and babies your going to tell us this is OK because in God's world this is not evil?

Sounds to me people like Hitler and Stalin would feel more at home in your God's world than here on earth.

I suppose in God's world one can kill, rape and have sex with animals and it would not be a sin. After all, all those rules were made for humans in this world, not God's world.

Rock - Even if anger is used to define wrath, wrath does NOT define anger, as your scripture points out.

If you look at the list of synonyms, neither is joined.

Your scripture fails the test.



Oh I grasp it. It means that God holds man to higher standard than himself. I understand quite well, and I don't care for what the nature or situation is. It's a double standard; hypocracy.

I'm still waitng for some scripture for clarity...

xingu-"Because it's a cop-out answer" is not a good enough arguement. You could say that for anything.



The question is: How is sin determined?

Is something is a sin just because God does not like it? If God suddenly liked to boil babies for fun, then would that suddenly make boiling babies a good thing?

Or is there something else other than God, that determines it, and that God does not determine morality? If God did not determine morality then why have God in the first place?