Primary Archaeological Source that Hebrew culture existed 97BC

Some posters here on ATS are making some wild claims that there is no archaeological evidence for Bible Scripture existing before the Greek Septuagint translation.

This is not true. Here is a link to the eurekaalert.org website article that describes a pot shard discovered very recently:

Most ancient Hebrew biblical inscription deciphered

The eurekaalert.org website has published an article by Rachel Feldman of The University of Haifa who's article discusses Prof. Gershon Galil's (University of Haifa) translation of ancient Hebrew writing found on the pot shard.

It was discovered;

a year and a half ago at excavations that were carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah valley.

Here is a drawing of the writing found on the pot shard;



The writing is deciphered by Prof. Galil as:


English translaton of the deciphered text:

"1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger."

Please refer to the website article linked above for the full article which is a fascinating discovery.

Those of us who know Bible Scripture will instantly see the similarity with Old Covenant Law.

Please don't just blindly quote Wikipedia articles before further research on subjects. They are often not objective and are out of date. Wikipedia is not necessarily accurate and we should explore our topics further. It is a good place to start and has its uses, but cannot be relied upon as being the trustworthy Sybiline Oracle, lol!

So we have here some evidence dating back to King David's time that very much supports Scripture being sourced on an artefact from Israel's ancient past.

I know many people would like to think that the whole Hebrew culture and Law is a forgery, but I think as time goes by we are going to see more and more primary source evidence that argues the very opposite.

By all means debate the Bible from a factual point of view, but please do not introduce fabrications into your argument.

Thanks.

reply to post by Revolution9

Some posters here on ATS are making some wild claims that there is no archaeological evidence for Bible Scripture existing before the Greek Septuagint translation.

Who is saying that?

What nonsense -- are they unaware of the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Here is another interesting link relating to the discovery of:

2,600-year-old biblical text; the oldest yet found.

The text is:

The text on the amulets is the priestly benediction from NUMBERS 6:22-27.

Bible Text Discovery is the Oldest Yet

These amulets were discovered under a Scottish Church at Jerusalem.

The translation is:

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them."

I am just trying to show that there does exist primary historical evidence of the Torah.

reply to post by Revolution9


In terms of our faith in humans accurately handing down copies of Torah I can cite The Book of Enoch. That Book was rediscovered in three places that were for almost two thousand years alienated from each other culturally.

It was buried as a Dead Sea Scroll for almost two thousand years. The Slovaks had a copy and The Ethiopian Church had a copy.

After two thousand years they have been brought together and found to be almost exactly alike.

I do have faith in true Scholars and Scribes that they try to do their jobs properly.

reply to post by Revolution9

The eurekaalert.org website has published an article by Rachel Feldman of The University of Haifa who's article discusses Prof. Gershon Galil's (University of Haifa) translation of ancient Hebrew writing found on the pot shard.

I think that it would be a good idea for readers to look at an open letter to Galil, from the Khirbet Qeiyafa expedition, about his unethical behavior regarding this found shard and what it may contain on it.

In a few cases you give alternative readings of the inscription that were published by Dr. Ada Yardeni. These, again, are presented as your original reading.
qeiyafa.huji.ac.il...

Where this person comes off as a total fraud.

reply to post by adjensen

Who is saying that?

What nonsense -- are they unaware of the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

That was me, what I was writing today and last night on the "Nature of Sin" thread.
Yes, the Dead Sea Scrolls were brought up.

I am continuing this conversation here because I didn't want to derail the other thread. Thank you Original Poster for making this thread, now we can get more into the conversation without worrying about getting off topic...

On the other thread called "The Nature of Sin", you said this:

jmdewey60
reply to post by arpgme

 

There is probably at least a line added to every book of the New Testament.
I look at things like how early the writings are as a way of gauging how much to trust them.
Revelation I would probably put first as the earliest of the NT books, then 1 Thessalonians.
Last I would put Acts and Luke and 2 Peter and Jude and Titus and 1 & 2 Timothy.
In the middle would be Matthew, Mark, and John, Galatians, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians and Hebrews.

edit on 15-9-2013 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

But, why would Revelation be the first? Isn't it strange to just say "This is the revelation of Jesus Christ". Wouldn't it make sense that Mark or Matthew came first since it actually introduces who Jesus Christ is (Son of Man, called "Messiah", "Christ")?

arpgme
I am continuing this conversation here because I didn't want to derail the other thread. Thank you Original Poster for making this thread, now we can get more into the conversation without worrying about getting off topic...

On the other thread called "The Nature of Sin", you said this:

jmdewey60
reply to post by arpgme

 

There is probably at least a line added to every book of the New Testament.
I look at things like how early the writings are as a way of gauging how much to trust them.
Revelation I would probably put first as the earliest of the NT books, then 1 Thessalonians.
Last I would put Acts and Luke and 2 Peter and Jude and Titus and 1 & 2 Timothy.
In the middle would be Matthew, Mark, and John, Galatians, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians and Hebrews.

edit on 15-9-2013 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

But, why would Revelation be the first? Isn't it strange to just say "This is the revelation of Jesus Christ". Wouldn't it make sense that Mark or Matthew came first since it actually introduces who Jesus Christ is (Son of Man, called "Messiah", "Christ")?

Rest assured, Dewey's chronological order there is one of the most nonsensical ones I've ever seen.

People have been studying the composition of the Bible for almost as long as there has been a Bible, and the consensus is that Paul's letters are the earliest, followed by the other epistles, the synoptic Gospels (generally in the order Mark, Matthew, Luke,) and the book of Acts, with the ending of Acts giving apparent testimony that they were written prior to Paul's death in 65AD. Toward the end of the First Century was the Gospel of John and Revelation of John.

reply to post by adjensen


Yes, it is universally accepted the Revelation was the last book of the NT to be written and that it was written somewhere around 95 CE. I have no idea where he's getting his info from, but it's obviously not from any credible scholars.

To say the OT was originally written in Greek and then translated into Hebrew is pretty strange as well, seeing as the DSS date to before the Septuagint and are written in Hebrew.

reply to post by arpgme

But, why would Revelation be the first? Isn't it strange to just say "This is the revelation of Jesus Christ". Wouldn't it make sense that Mark or Matthew came first since it actually introduces who Jesus Christ is (Son of Man, called "Messiah", "Christ")?

I was not the person to decide that Revelation was probably the earliest New Testament book written.
Since you asked, probably people wanted to know where Jesus had gotten off to and what he was doing.
Revelation answers that by describing this fantastic vision of a god-like looking figure acting and talking in a godlike manner.
If you notice, the earliest gospel, Mark, says nothing of Jesus' Childhood.
You are looking at how the books are arranged in a rational way, which has nothing to do with when the parts were written.

reply to post by Revolution9

Here is another interesting link relating to the discovery of:

2,600-year-old biblical text; the oldest yet found.

Here is a picture from Wikipedia of these artifacts, which are scrolls made of silver with writing similar to biblical text on it, rolled up and probably placed inside an amulet.
These were found in what is called a burial chamber, which itself is very old, but was used up to about 1914.
One of the artifacts was found in the middle of the floor of one chamber, supposedly 1 inch lower that hellenistic artifacts that were 3 feet away. Well 3 feet away would obviously not be in the center of the floor, where you would expect things to be piled up higher anyway, so I don't see this as evidence that it is older.
Being "embedded in pottery and other material from the 7th/6th centuries BCE" doesn't mean anything because silver is a heavy metal and would naturally drop lower than light and bulky pottery pieces.
The main basis for the early date (there is no way to date silver) is by looking at the style of characters in the text.

This dating was subsequently questioned by Johannes Renz and Wolfgang Rollig, who argued that the script was in too poor a condition to be dated with certainty and that a 3rd/2nd century BCE provenance could not be excluded, especially as the repository, which had been used as a kind of "rubbish bin" for the burial chamber over many centuries, also contained material from the fourth century BCE.
Wikipedia

Supporters of the legitimacy of the modern so-called Jewish state are always jumping on ancient artifacts to make claims of an ancient Jewish temple and kingdom in Canaan Land, and will start out using the oldest date they think that they can get away with, which always have to be later revised to conform with the facts.

reply to post by Revolution9


I agree. After being gone from ATS, I see some people are holding to the counter-Biblical information and believing anything that justifies their own doctrinal views. They go back to Wikipedia likes it's the Bible instead.

The reason mainstream secular archeologists are rejecting is because if they accept it, then they have to accept the Bible as factual and true. And if the Bible is factual and true, then it leads to the conclusion that the author is real as well. So they make up things and it leads to mass rejection of one of the oldest religious traditions and people. That is simply wrong to do, after all, the God of the Bible was the one who made the covenant with them.

Here's what the dedication of Solomon's temple said "The stranger is welcome". That means that even if you are a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, you are still welcome to worship. It matters little then that perhaps converts came later, but let's face it, they were all converts at the beginning. Abraham was the first convert, He was not Ashkenazi, Mizrahi or Sephardi, he was in the religious system of Sumer. Then he converted to the religion of individual knowledge of God. So you see, he converted from polytheism to monotheism. Moses was also a convert.

People are making a huge issue about a non-issue, and that is "who are the Jews". Whoever God calls a Jew, then that's it. He said, I believe it. There's no debating with God.

The archeology proves the Torah is accurate.

I don't care if Khazars converted, their descendents are under the covenant. After all, Jesus Himself had ancestors that were not Jewish, and yet He was.

The truth is, the Torah was in existence at the time of King Josiah, he read it out loud for all people to hear. The Book of the Law has been since Moses. The Book of Jasher had been in existence, but we don't know it today. The Book of Enoch was referenced in Jude, so it's important to know what it said.

But to the OP, archeology proves the Bible.

reply to post by WarminIndy

So they make up things and it leads to mass rejection of one of the oldest religious traditions and people.

Jesus himself rejected it, if you believe in the Christian Bible, the New Testament.
It is idolatry to worship an institution or a group of men.

reply to post by WarminIndy

WarminIndy
reply to post by Revolution9

 

The reason mainstream secular archeologists are rejecting is because if they accept it, then they have to accept the Bible as factual and true. And if the Bible is factual and true, then it leads to the conclusion that the author is real as well. So they make up things and it leads to mass rejection of one of the oldest religious traditions and people. That is simply wrong to do, after all, the God of the Bible was the one who made the covenant with them.

Replace "Bible" with "Hindusim". The same argument can be made. Because there are 7,000 year old Shiva statues predating The Bible and The oldest copy of The Scriptures of Hinduism,that shows that was is written in those scriptures about Ancient Shiva Worship is true, and if that is true, then it's author (Shiva) must be true too, after all it was Shiva who had the oldest worship with statues to prove it and therefore inspired the scriptures as the supreme god (who also appears in the form of Brahma).

reply to post by jmdewey60


Oh no, Jesus never rejected it. You better learn your Bible better than that.

arpgme
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

WarminIndy
reply to post by Revolution9

 

The reason mainstream secular archeologists are rejecting is because if they accept it, then they have to accept the Bible as factual and true. And if the Bible is factual and true, then it leads to the conclusion that the author is real as well. So they make up things and it leads to mass rejection of one of the oldest religious traditions and people. That is simply wrong to do, after all, the God of the Bible was the one who made the covenant with them.

Replace "Bible" with "Hindusim". The same argument can be made. Because there are 7,000 year old Shiva statues predating The Bible and The oldest copy of The Scriptures of Hinduism,that shows that was is written in those scriptures about Ancient Shiva Worship is true, and if that is true, then it's author (Shiva) must be true too, after all it was Shiva who had the oldest worship with statues to prove it and therefore inspired the scriptures as the supreme god (who also appears in the form of Brahma).

Did Shiva have a covenant with the Harappans? That's were the culture originates. And it was in the Vedic age, in which Brahma was the Almighty to those.

As nice as what people make Hinduism seem, people forget the Vedic age.

The biggest difference in the Jewish faith and the Hindu faith, is that God not only cares about His creation, but has a relationship individually with people through interactions with them. We see this concept in the flood stories from around the world and in the Bible. God warns a man that disaster is coming and to prepare for it.

But there is no other religion in the ancient world that carries the concept of a covenant relationship between God and His believers. Of all the religions that have ever been, only the Jewish faith is based on this. The Christian faith follows this, but Islam does not. Islam does not have any mention of any covenant relationship.

If you look at all the ancient religions, their texts are full of stories of sex and violence among the gods toward other gods, humans are just bystanders in those epics. But the Hebrew scripture stood alone in the covenant concept and we don't hear about God in such a way as you might have about other ancients.

While the Bible mentions other gods, there are no stories like Neptune and Ganymede or Pluto and Persephone. You don't find it. So that's a uniquness not found elsewhere.

While you think to replace Hinduism with the Bible, you would have to find a comparable level at which to do this. And since Hinduism is younger than the Vedic age of the Rig Vedas, you would have to go further back than Hinduism.

But Shiva does not have a covenant relationship with humans, unless you count death as a covenant. That's probably the only interaction Shiva has with humanity.

Can you show me any other religion that has a God that says He loves? That's the difference.