Creation

[John Dibble]

Speculation. We had a discussion a while back about whether there was any conclusive evidence whether or not the Hebrews were ever enslave en masse in Egypt like the biblical account indicates. If there is evidence it isn't even close to conclusive. For this idea of yours to have weight you first must show that the Hebrews were actually there.

That said, it would not be unusual at all if the Hebrews' creation myths were influenced by other sources, Egyptian or otherwise.

[John Dibble]

Speculation. We had a discussion a while back about whether there was any conclusive evidence whether or not the Hebrews were ever enslave en masse in Egypt like the biblical account indicates. If there is evidence it isn't even close to conclusive. For this idea of yours to have weight you first must show that the Hebrews were actually there.

That said, it would not be unusual at all if the Hebrews' creation myths were influenced by other sources, Egyptian or otherwise.

just a coincidence in similarities? sure

Maybe a coincidence, maybe not. I'm not taking a stance, just noting that unless you can show evidence for the influence that the idea isn't any more than speculation. Maybe they are related in the way you suggest. Maybe it's the opposite where the Egyptian myth is influence by the Hebrew one. Maybe they just share a common origin rather than having influenced eachother, which again would not be unusual if they were in the same region for any particular amount of time. Or they could be completely independent. It's hard to tell, especially since much of the tradition was oral for a long period of time and evidence of a connection would be hard to come by.

[John Dibble]

All you ever do is talk all day about not taking a stance and bring up what ifs while contributing nothing to the conversation.

First off I don't talk about not taking a stance, I talk about arriving to conclusions based on evidence. If there isn't sufficient evidence to make a conclusion, I advocate not making one. You can speculate on the possibilities all you want, but without evidence you're jumping to a conclusion

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Go ahead. If you don't feel like listening to reason then I have no control over that - whether or not you act as a fool is your own choice.

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Just because one possibility seems to be more simple than others does not mean it is correct, nor does it mean that there is any evidence for it. For instance evolution is not the most simple solution proposed to describe why we have the variety of life we do today, but all evidence points to it being the correct one.

Besides, none of my other proposed possibilities were complex - they were all quite simple, so I don't know where you would even get the idea that this argument would hold any water.

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Just because you can wishfully link two recorded events it does not mean that the two events are actually related, or that either account is actually true to begin with. As stated there isn't even any conclusive evidence that there was a mass enslavement of the Hebrews by the Egyptians as depicted in the Bible, so you might want to try to prove that first.

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I am not debating what ifs, I am presenting plausible alternatives.

I have no idea where you think I'd go so far as to doubt our physical existence, considering physical evidence is what I'm asking for.

[John Dibble]

Have you read the statue? It directly speaks of the Exodus from the Pharaoh's point of view.

Actually, no, that's what you want it to be speaking of. And if you'd actually look it up the thing on the Statue is about this particular pharaoh having a victory against Israel in Palestine, not some peasant revolt. This would place this pharaoh's reign AFTER the supposed Exodus if it indeed did occur, so it in no way corroborates the the Exodus. At best it corroborates the existence of Israel, but the existence of Israel isn't what's in doubt. Source

Since you can't even get your evidence straight, the rest of your argument falls out the window so I won't even bother with it.

[John Dibble]

Once again you're speculating. You want there to be a connection, so you're claiming there is one. All the statue shows is that there was a tribe of people in a nation called Israel and that they existed in the area of Palestine, it does not show that the Israelites or their ancestors were ever slaves to Egypt. Since the Biblical account of Exodus is by your own admission probably filled with false information, it is not a reliable source of information. Therefore we need an additional source of information to confirm that they were enslaved in any numbers. Do you have such a source or not?

[John Dibble]

Once again you're speculating. You want there to be a connection, so you're claiming there is one. All the statue shows is that there was a tribe of people in a nation called Israel and that they existed in the area of Palestine, it does not show that the Israelites or their ancestors were ever slaves to Egypt. Since the Biblical account of Exodus is by your own admission probably filled with false information, it is not a reliable source of information. Therefore we need an additional source of information to confirm that they were enslaved in any numbers. Do you have such a source or not?

It's right in front of you and simple. It is reliable if you know what they meant and how they told stories. If not then no you can't read it as a 21st century American. Yes there are exaggerations but it's not a completely made up story to tell at bed time. The point wasn't how accurate a story was told but how it was told. Yes slaves were accounted for in Egyptian writings too and when I get done with this online assessment and get up from my nap I'll be demonstrating about Adam (Adamah) and Atum.

Accuracy does matter. The more inaccurate a story is the less you can rely on it for factual information. Since the Exodus account is not accurate, not to mention quite fantastical, we can't rely on it to draw factual conclusions. We need an alternative source to corroborate it. I've asked for that, but you've yet to provide it. All you have provided is a statue that references Israel, but not the Exodus. The fact that you don't understand why that isn't corroboration shows just how poor of an understanding you have about how evidence works. It's quite apparent you just accepted the things you were taught in seminary without actually questioning them.

[John Dibble]

The alternative sources are Egyptian records and the Merneptah statue.

Once again, all the statue shows is that the Egyptians recognized the existence of some nation called Israel at the time and that they claim to have had a victory over them. It does not corroborate Exodus in any way, shape, or form.

As far as the "Egyptian records", which ones? You can't say something so vague and expect to be taken seriously.

[John Dibble]

The Egyptian source IS NOT going to refer to it as an exodus. If anything they would have played it up as a victory for the sake of propaganda. It's not like they had 24/7 cable news and the internet to get their information. They knew what they were told by the rulers and that's it. Turning an embarrassing loss by the most powerful army at that time into a victory where Israel lays waste would have been the typical reaction for a ruler in such a situation.

Seriously, how retarded do you have to be not to understand this basic fact - the statue refers to a nation of Israel which was already established in Palestine. If the account of Exodus is even remotely true, then Israel wouldn't have even existed at the time, and thusly this statue could clearly not be referring to the events of Exodus. Rather it would have to be referring to it sometime afterward. Whether the Egyptians would have referred to it as an Exodus or not isn't even remotely relevant to that.

How can I make it more clear? If the Biblical account is to even be remotely believed, then the founding of Israel comes after Exodus, not before. You are essentially insisting that the Egyptians claimed to have gone to war against a nation that didn't even exist at the time!


And don't think I didn't notice you not answering about the other Egyptian records. You're still on the hook for that - you claim they exist so put up or shut up.

[John Dibble]

Ok, you seem to be not understanding this - where exactly is the evidence for these Exodus events? It wouldn't be unusual for a pharaoh to just go to war with some neighboring tribes considering pharaohs did that throughout Egyptian history, so you claiming he went to war for reasons related to Exodus is mere speculation unless you have independent corroboration that something like Exodus occurred, whether over a long period or a short one. Where is the evidence of that?

[John Dibble]

Ok, you seem to be not understanding this - where exactly is the evidence for these Exodus events? It wouldn't be unusual for a pharaoh to just go to war with some neighboring tribes considering pharaohs did that throughout Egyptian history, so you claiming he went to war for reasons related to Exodus is mere speculation unless you have independent corroboration that something like Exodus occurred, whether over a long period or a short one. Where is the evidence of that?

There is plenty of archeological evidence between Egypt and Israel of weapons being found.

Again, so what? That's not surprising at all. As I already stated, pharaohs would often go to war with nearby tribes. All that shows is that in that space battles were likely fought in those areas, which is again not something that's in contention. I'm asking for evidence of the Exodus events, not for evidence of war between Israel and Egypt.

[John Dibble]

You and your boyfriend seem to be arguing that somebody simply made it all up.

That's priceless : I'll respond to the rest later.

so, Dibble double dips....why am i not surprised? 

No, I'm always the top.

[John Dibble]

Where the Moon arrived on the scene and where it came from is still debatable

Before the sea and "land" as we would know it. It came about 30-50 million years after the solar system formed when Earth was still forming according to the leading theory - a big object hit the Earth at the right angle and knocked a significant amount of it off. The colliding object and the chunks ripped off formed into the moon. This also tilted Earth's axis and sped up it's rotation.

[John Dibble]

Where the Moon arrived on the scene and where it came from is still debatable

Before the sea and "land" as we would know it. It came about 30-50 million years after the solar system formed when Earth was still forming according to the leading theory - a big object hit the Earth at the right angle and knocked a significant amount of it off. The colliding object and the chunks ripped off formed into the moon. This also tilted Earth's axis and sped up it's rotation.

Oh yea prove it. Where's your proof? How do you know that happened?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon

Read the theories surrounding the formation of the Moon. If you don't agree outline with evidence to back your claim an alternate theory.

I already agreed with you. I'm being difficult like you guys are just for the sake of being difficult. And wikipedia is not a credible source of information. You know that too I'm sure. Junior High students aren't even allowed to use it for a reference.

For opinion based things or controversial issues Wikipedia is not itself reliable, but when all you want is some basic information on something scientific it's a good place to start, especially because it does have links to other sources.