Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon

[Cavebear]

At that time the Sea Peoples, namely the Philistines,

Wikipedia says of the Sea Peoples:  "The origins of the Sea Peoples are undocumented. It has been proposed that the Sea Peoples originated from a number of different locations, such as western Asia Minor, the Aegean, the Mediterranean islands, and Southern Europe. Although the archaeological inscriptions do not include reference to a migration, the Sea Peoples are conjectured to have sailed around the eastern Mediterranean and invaded Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Canaan, Cyprus, and Egypt toward the end of the Bronze Age".

Your claim of them being Philistines needs some documentation.  To my knowledge, the Philistines were not noted to be "barbarian sailors and pirates of great numbers" described as "The Sea People" capable of overthrowing Greece, Phoenecia and Egypt.

Wikipedia goes on to say "Existing theories variously propose that they were any of several Aegean tribes, raiders from Central Europe, scattered soldiers who turned to piracy or became refugees, or migrants linked to natural disasters such as earthquakes or climatic shifts."

Personally (and only as an amateur), I suspect they came from no places well-known at the time.  Most likely from southeast Europe north of Macedonia or the southern western Asian steppes who were acting similarly to the Vikings of centuries later.

[Minimalist]

The Sea People were apparently a rather amorphous confederation which varied from place to place.  One group was known as the Peleset which the Egyptians battled in the Nile Delta and who then either moved victoriously to occupy the Canaanite coast or possibly retreated to the Canaanite coast.
The Peleset are regarded as the Philistines.  My own view is that the battle was essentially a stalemate in which the Egyptians prevented them from landing in Egypt but could not stop them from invading Canaan.  What we do know is that in a fairly short span of time the Egyptians gave up trying to hold their Canaanite territory and withdrew leaving it to the Philistines or Peleset and some other groups/tribes which moved in at roughly the same time in other areas.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n...180972561/

Ancient DNA Sheds New Light on the Biblical Philistines

A team of scientists sequenced genomes from people who lived in a port city on the Mediterranean coast of Israel between the 12th and 8th centuries B.C.

Historians also know that, around the time these changes occur in the archaeological record, civilizations in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean were collapsing. The Philistines are written about in Egyptian hieroglyphs, where they are referred to as the Peleset, among the tribes of “Sea Peoples” said to have battled against Pharaoh Ramses III around 1180 B.C.

Professor Eric Cline, mentioned in the article, has written a fantastic book called 1177 BC:  The Year civilization Collapsed

It's worth a read.

[Cavebear]

The Sea People were apparently a rather amorphous confederation which varied from place to place.  One group was known as the Peleset which the Egyptians battled in the Nile Delta and who then either moved victoriously to occupy the Canaanite coast or possibly retreated to the Canaanite coast.
The Peleset are regarded as the Philistines.  My own view is that the battle was essentially a stalemate in which the Egyptians prevented them from landing in Egypt but could not stop them from invading Canaan.  What we do know is that in a fairly short span of time the Egyptians gave up trying to hold their Canaanite territory and withdrew leaving it to the Philistines or Peleset and some other groups/tribes which moved in at roughly the same time in other areas.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n...180972561/

Ancient DNA Sheds New Light on the Biblical Philistines

A team of scientists sequenced genomes from people who lived in a port city on the Mediterranean coast of Israel between the 12th and 8th centuries B.C.

Historians also know that, around the time these changes occur in the archaeological record, civilizations in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean were collapsing. The Philistines are written about in Egyptian hieroglyphs, where they are referred to as the Peleset, among the tribes of “Sea Peoples” said to have battled against Pharaoh Ramses III around 1180 B.C.

Professor Eric Cline, mentioned in the article, has written a fantastic book called 1177 BC:  The Year civilization Collapsed

It's worth a read.

So I read it of course (the link, not the book) ...  I see some connections.  But the connections are less firm than you would like.  Wikipedia even seems to be slightly disagreeing with itself.  The article you mention favors Peset, but even then is more "suggestive" than certain.  Another suggests more groups as "Sea People".

I distrust anyone claiming to be a "biblical scholar. They always have a biblical POV to support.

I'll stick with non-Mediterranean seafarers from more northerly areas for the time being, mostly because none of the people they attacked seemed to understand where they came from and "the locals" knew all their neighbors (from diplomacy, war, and trading).

[Minimalist]

The article you mention favors Peset,

Translating from Egyptian to English is always a daunting task.  There's a fascinating story of how the word on the Merneptah Stele was translated as "Israel" when in Egyptian it reads more like "Yis-a-rir."

[Minimalist]

Dumb luck....found it!

https://mailstar.net/archaeology-bible.html

Romer, Redford, Finkelstein and Silberman, the archaeologists quoted above, explain that the Merenptah stele has no relationship to the supposed Exodus.

John Romer shows a photo of the black granite stele, and writes, inTestament: the Bible and History (Michael O'Mara Books, London, 1988):

{p. 72} The First Israelites
Nowhere in the world is there more ancient history preserved than in Egypt, and when the ancient Kings of Israel ruled and fought, the sacred capital of that kingdom was the city of Thebes. No neat mound like Jericho, Thebes today is a ten-mile sprawl of stony ruins where excavations progress not only by the trowel and brush but with cranes, hawsers and massive scaffolding.

Six years after his work at Tell el-Hesi, Flinders Petrie was digging at Thebes, sifting his way through ton upon ton of sharp stone fragments, the pitiful debris of royal temples. It was, he recalled later, disastrously dull labour, and he was tempted to leave it. Then, all at once, objects that had been buried for millenia among the rubble started to turn up. A fine portrait sculpture of the king who had built one of the temples was found, the first ever discovered of the Pharaoh Merneptah, that son of Ramesses II who in those days was widely believed to have been the 'Pharaoh of the Exodus'. Then his men came across a huge rectangular granite block lying face down in the rubble, a great grey stela covered in small lines of hieroglyphic (see Plate 3). The block was massive and Petrie did not have the equipment to move it; but what a fascination! A huge new monument, well preserved and covered in history. Petrie had his men clear some of the rubble out from under the stone so that, as he says, 'one could crawl in and lie on one's back, reading a few inches from one's nose'. Then he asked a visiting scholar, who specialized in inscriptions, to examine the lengthy text. 'There are the names of various Syrian towns', he reported after a miserable afternoon on his back in Petrie's trench, 'and one which I do not know, Isirir'. 'Why,' said Petrie, 'That is Israel'. 'So it is,' his friend replied, 'and won't the reverends be pleased'.

Flinders Petrie's discovery was in 1896 which puts him squarely at the time when preachers masquerading as archaeologists were desperately trying to find "evidence" to support their holy horseshit.

[Minimalist]

Oh this one ought to piss off the Jewish Fundies no end! Hope everyone can read Haaretz.




When Did Judaism Emerge? Far Later Than Assumed, New Theory Suggests - Archaeology - Haaretz.com

When Did Judaism Emerge? Far Later Than Assumed, New Theory Suggests

Vast review finds no evidence that the Torah laws were commonly observed before the second century B.C.E., says Prof. Yonatan Adler. Not all agree

When was Judaism born? Tradition says it emerged more than 3,000 years ago at Mount Sinai, when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the rest of the laws contained in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

Most researchers have long dismissed the Exodus and the revelation at Mt. Sinai as foundation myths – leaving us with the question of how and when the first major monotheistic religion developed. And now a new theory springs a shock.


A broad review finds no historical or archaeological evidence that the ancient Judeans, whether in the Holy Land or in the diaspora, observed or were even aware of the laws of the Torah until the second century B.C.E., says Yonatan Adler, a professor of archaeology at Ariel University and author of the new book “The Origins of Judaism,” published Tuesday by Yale University Press.


This would suggest that Judaism as we know it became a mass religion relatively late, possibly only when Judea was ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty, less than two centuries before the birth of Jesus.

[Bucky Ball]

Oh this one ought to piss off the Jewish Fundies no end! Hope everyone can read Haaretz.




When Did Judaism Emerge? Far Later Than Assumed, New Theory Suggests - Archaeology - Haaretz.com

When Did Judaism Emerge? Far Later Than Assumed, New Theory Suggests

Vast review finds no evidence that the Torah laws were commonly observed before the second century B.C.E., says Prof. Yonatan Adler. Not all agree

When was Judaism born? Tradition says it emerged more than 3,000 years ago at Mount Sinai, when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the rest of the laws contained in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

Most researchers have long dismissed the Exodus and the revelation at Mt. Sinai as foundation myths – leaving us with the question of how and when the first major monotheistic religion developed. And now a new theory springs a shock.


A broad review finds no historical or archaeological evidence that the ancient Judeans, whether in the Holy Land or in the diaspora, observed or were even aware of the laws of the Torah until the second century B.C.E., says Yonatan Adler, a professor of archaeology at Ariel University and author of the new book “The Origins of Judaism,” published Tuesday by Yale University Press.


This would suggest that Judaism as we know it became a mass religion relatively late, possibly only when Judea was ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty, less than two centuries before the birth of Jesus.

Quoting one of our favorite archaeologists, the article says
"Finkelstein, one of Israel’s leading biblical archaeologists, agrees with Adler that Judaism as we know it today originated in Hasmonean Judea".

[Minimalist]

The right-wing Likud assholes consider Finkelstein a traitor.

Right-wing assholes are all the same.

[Rhythmcs]

There was no massive flooding of the black sea.

[Bucky Ball]

There was no massive flooding of the black sea.

I didn't realize Judaism ever spoke about the Black Sea.
What ? They were vacationing in Russia that early ?
Ya learn something every day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sea

[Rhythmcs]

I'm referring to the black sea flood hypothesis for flood narratives, which became popular particularly with atheists and skeptics, despite the evidence for it and what it actually was entirely ruling out any such narrative origin. People tell flood stories because human populations, even to this day, are mostly within a few miles from a body of water. That's it, that's all. Common human experience. There was no singular flood upon which grand flood stories are based. They are not ancient memories of some particular event mangled by time and retelling - they are the perpetually refreshed existential fears of all human beings. Flood, fire, famine.

With respect to communities like ours, ideas otherwise fall into the category of non supernatural explanations for non events. As if we'd have to come up with an explanation for every silly lie any believing nutball ever told.

[Bucky Ball]

I'm referring to the black sea flood hypothesis for flood narratives, which became popular particularly with atheists and skeptics, despite the evidence for it and what it actually was entirely ruling out any such narrative origin.  People tell flood stories because human populations, even to this day, are mostly within a few miles from a body of water.  That's it, that's all.  Common human experience.  There was no singular flood upon which grand flood stories are based.  They are not ancient memories of some particular event mangled by time and retelling - they are the perpetually refreshed existential fears of all human beings.  Flood, fire, famine.

With respect to communities like ours, ideas otherwise fall into the category of non supernatural explanations for non events.  As if we'd have to come up with an explanation for every silly lie any believing nutball ever told.

Actually there are ancient flood memories almost identical to the Sumerian flood, detailed in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a flood we know did happen as the sea rose and backed up the Tirgris-Euphrates. ... in which some of the dimensions of the boat and other similarities are almost identical to the flood narrative in the Bible. How about you link us to the Black Sea hypothesis ?

[Rhythmcs]

It would be a waste of time (as, again, the evidence pointed to completely rules it out as being anything of the sort). I only mentioned it because it was casually floated on the third post of the thread, and it's a pet peeve of mine to offer up explanations for things like that in such a way.

Similarly, grand flood narratives are -also- not based on any local flooding of the euphrates. Local floods are certainly why the stories don't die, but not why they're created. There are n, s, and mesoamerican flood narratives "that match the description", too..and we can confidently state that they never heard a fucking word about the euphrates.

Common, human, experience. A useful setting, for morality plays.

[Bucky Ball]

It would be a waste of time (as, again, the evidence pointed to completely rules it out as being anything of the sort).  I only mentioned it because it was casually floated on the third post of the thread, and it's a pet peeve of mine to offer up explanations for things like that in such a way.  

Similarly, grand flood narratives are -also- not based on any local flooding of the euphrates.  Local floods are certainly why the stories don't die, but not why they're created.  There are n, s, and mesoamerican flood narratives "that match the description", too..and we can confidently state that they never heard a fucking word about the euphrates.

Unfortunately for you, you are dead wrong. N references, nothing but assertions.
If the Hebrews knew about the same details the Sumerians did, your assertions are wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_sea_level

[Rhythmcs]

And there it is, arguing for "memories" based on...past sea levels? This is one where we're just going to have to agree to disagree - this one drives me nuts, and past the point where I can muster up any effort to argue further.

[Bucky Ball]

And there it is, arguing for "memories" based on...past sea levels?  This is one where we're just going to have to agree to disagree - this one drives me nuts, and past the point where I can muster up any effort to argue further.

Yes, after having been proven wrong, as usual, you insist we must agree to do something even though we totally disagree. .
Nope. The literature has the SAME narrative.
You forgot the Black sea reference.
You're not just some sort of fake, are you ?

[Rhythmcs]

Absolutely, proven wrong for sure. And, also, there just is no such thing as the black sea hypothesis. The obvious conclusion by these hard proofs, is that I'm a fake.....something.

I'd simply suggest you google it in your own time, you seem like the kind of person who would find it as unconvincing as I do.

[Bucky Ball]

Absolutely, proven wrong for sure.  And, also, there just is no such thing as the black sea hypothesis.  The obvious conclusion by these hard proofs, is that I'm a fake.....something.

I'd simply suggest you google it in your own time, you seem like the kind of person who would find it as unconvincing as I do.

You can provide a few references if it's actually a thing.
You have not explained why the Gilgamesh Epic and the Noah Flood had the SAME boat dimensions if no one in ancient cultures were unaware of the common flood stories and HOW hundreds of feet of sea level rise would not affect people living on river banks of rivers which emptied into and AT sea level. I think you're a fake of some sort with no actual historical sources ... as you post none.

[Minimalist]

There was no massive flooding of the black sea.

True, but so what?

[Minimalist]

In 1929 the Times reported that professor Leonard Woolley had discovered evidence of the biblical/Sumerian flood during his excavations at Ur.

He hadn't but he did find evidence of a big ass flood of the Euphrates which must have really fucked up the good citizens of Ur who were living in their mud brick homes along the river.

[Rhythmcs]

Absolutely, proven wrong for sure.  And, also, there just is no such thing as the black sea hypothesis.  The obvious conclusion by these hard proofs, is that I'm a fake.....something.

I'd simply suggest you google it in your own time, you seem like the kind of person who would find it as unconvincing as I do.

You can provide a few references if it's actually a thing.
You have not explained why the Gilgamesh Epic and the Noah Flood had the SAME boat dimensions if no one in ancient cultures were unaware of the common flood stories and HOW hundreds of feet of sea level rise would not affect people living on river banks of rivers which emptied into and AT sea level. I think you're a fake of some sort with no actual historical sources ... as you post none.

As I said, albeit about another thing, I think you can google it in your own time..and..you seem like the kind of person who would find this all as unconvincing as I do.

I see stories about the common human experience, not "memories" of some singular ancient event. Don't worry, I don't expect any explicit and public apology for having lost your shit in such a weird way. It's okay.

[Minimalist]

Another take on the late emergence of Judaism from the Smithsonian.  I may have to read this book.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/i...Y1NTIzNwS2

Based on 15 years of studying textual and archaeological evidence, Yonatan Adler of Ariel University, in the West Bank, concludes that ordinary Judeans didn’t consistently celebrate Passover, hold the Sabbath sacred or practice other traditional forms of Jewish ritual until a century or so before the birth of Jesus. If his theory proves correct, then Judaism is, at best, Christianity’s elder sibling and a younger cousin to the religions of ancient Greece and Rome.

Now....if only we could get him to say "the alleged birth of jesus" we might be able to drive another nail in the coffin of superstition!

[Bucky Ball]

You can provide a few references if it's actually a thing.
You have not explained why the Gilgamesh Epic and the Noah Flood had the SAME boat dimensions if no one in ancient cultures were unaware of the common flood stories and HOW hundreds of feet of sea level rise would not affect people living on river banks of rivers which emptied into and AT sea level. I think you're a fake of some sort with no actual historical sources ... as you post none.

As I said, albeit about another thing, I think you can google it in your own time..and..you seem like the kind of person who would find this all as unconvincing as I do.

I see stories about the common human experience, not "memories" of some singular ancient event.  Don't worry, I don't expect any explicit and public apology for having lost your shit in such a weird way.  It's okay.

Don't worry. You won't be getting one.

[mordant]

Another take on the late emergence of Judaism from the Smithsonian.  I may have to read this book.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/i...Y1NTIzNwS2

Based on 15 years of studying textual and archaeological evidence, Yonatan Adler of Ariel University, in the West Bank, concludes that ordinary Judeans didn’t consistently celebrate Passover, hold the Sabbath sacred or practice other traditional forms of Jewish ritual until a century or so before the birth of Jesus. If his theory proves correct, then Judaism is, at best, Christianity’s elder sibling and a younger cousin to the religions of ancient Greece and Rome.

Now....if only we could get him to say "the alleged birth of jesus" we might be able to drive another nail in the coffin of superstition!

That would be very ironic if it holds up, because even scholars skeptical of modern orthodoxy have generally held that one of the ways proto-orthodoxy triumphed was by associating itself with the presumably ancient Jewish religion, thus avoiding the liability of being considered an entirely "new" religion. If Judaism wasn't ancient at all in Jesus' time, then that theory goes out the window.

My guess is that Judaism in the time of Jesus was more established than that, but probably not on the order of 1000+ years.

[Minimalist]

Agreed that was the reason but when is "belief" defeated by "facts?"

If Q-Anon has taught us anything it is that some people will cling to outrageous and silly ideas no matter how much evidence is placed against them. 

Far easier for the priests to have the nay-sayer killed than to give up their lucrative scam.