Jehovah at work! The reason Jehovah's Witness district assemblies were 8 days long is that's how long it took to get through the restroom line and back to your wooden seat. The Moses story must be true. With Jehovah's help anything's possible. Look at leaving the parking lot of a distinct assembly. The spirit directed Witness parking lot attendants always somehow manage to figure out how to reduce 45 easy out exits to one long slow line.
Holy Moses! PBS documentary suggests Exodus not real
by ICBehindtheCurtain 14 Replies latest jw experiences
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garybuss
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megsmomma
marking...thanks!!
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RR
Yes, let's burn our Bibles, since we know how accurate and unbiased PBS can be!
RR
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nvrgnbk
Yes, let's burn our Bibles, since we know how accurate and unbiased PBS can be!
RR
Attacking the source?
What do you make of the information presented?
Where is it flawed?
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PrimateDave
Looks like it could be an interesting documentary. I wonder how the Zionists and Israel Lobby feel about it? Of course, the fictional nature of the Pentateuch has long been suspected by Biblical scholars and others. Take a look at this book written in 1926 by Joseph Wheless. On just the simple matter of water:
Only three days after this Red Sea massacre Yahveh's Chosen People got further into the wilderness of Shur, and "found no water" (Ex. xv, 22); whereupon they wailed again and started an insurrection; then moved on to Marah, the waters of which were so bitter they could not drink, and they wailed again, and cried: "What shall we drink?" (xv, 24). So Yahveh made the bitter waters sweet for his crying children, and brought them on to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water, and seventy palm trees; and the whole 2,414,200 Israelites, all their camp-followers, and their millions of cattle encamped there by the twelve wells under the seventy palm trees (xv, 27). This is the last natural water supply they saw until thirty-eight years later they happily encountered a well of Beer! (Num. xxi, 16). They were supplied miraculously with water only twice, or once with the phenomena recorded in two ways. The want of water is no metaphor in that "desert land," in that "waste howling wilderness," as it is often described, "that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water" (Deut. viii, 15); the Children of Israel wail and cry: "Why have ye brought up the congregation of Yahveh into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die [in] this evil place? ... neither is there any water to drink" (Num. xx, 4, 5).
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Then they marched on to Rephidim, and at once rioted because "there was no water for the people to drink," and they were about to stone Moses to death. Yahveh here came to the rescue, and told Moses to take his wondrous rod and "smite the rock in Horeb" and bring water from it; and Yahveh stood upon the rock to watch the performance. Moses smote the rock, the waters gushed out, and the people drank; and Moses "called the name of the place Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel." This is related in Exodus xvii, and is said to have occurred in or near the wilderness of Sin, some three months (Ex. xvi, 1) after leaving Egypt, in 1491 B.C.
But in Numbers xx, under the marginal date 1453 B.C. (that is, 38 years later), the same or a very similar story is told again, but differently. For "then came the children of Israel into the desert of Zin [instead of Sin], in the first month," and stopped at Kadesh; and "there was no water for the congregation"; so they wailed and rioted again, because they and their cattle were like to die. This time Yahveh told Moses to take his rod and go with Aaron to a certain rock, and "speak ye to the rock" -- instead of using the rod to smite it. But Moses was annoyed this time, and he meekly yelled at the Israelites: "Hear now, ye rebels" (xx, 10), and instead of gently speaking to the rock, as Yahveh had commanded, he "lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice," and the waters gushed forth abundantly.
But now Yahveh was angry with Moses and Aaron, and he said to them: "Because ye have not believed me, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them"; and the sacred writer informs us: "This is the water of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with Yahveh" (xx, 13). Here we have the desert of Sin and the desert of Zin, and two waters Meribah, but thirty-eight years apart, and each with entirely different circumstances; which was which let him unravel who is curious. In either event, so far as revealed, this is about all the water that the millions of Chosen and their millions of cattle had to drink in the terrible wilderness for almost forty years.
Scholar Richard E. Friedman gives an interesting insight into the origins of the two contradictory water narratives in his book Who Wrote the Bible?
And for those who are interested, this article suggests that even the Temple of Solomon was not real.The endless stories in praise of King David were claimed by the Bible to be so widespread that it passes understanding how they were not known in the “external world” of Egypt, Greece, Assyria and Babylon - if they were true. But, as we will discover, perhaps they were - under a different name and title. The only question is: which versions are the most accurate? Did the Hebrews co-opt these stories to their own “history,” or was there something about their history that was borrowed by the later sources? And in either case, what is the actual historical setting of these stories? Were they an overlay of myth on an actual historical series of events? Or was a historical series of events manufactured out of myth?
In any event, just as Perseus slew the Gorgon and cut off her head, David slew the giant, Goliath. They both had “wallets” and “stones” were important elements of both stories. David was “adopted” into the royal court because he was a famous harpist and singer in the manner of Orpheus. Like Hercules and other Greek heroes, David was a rebel and freebooter, and like Paris stole Helen, he stole another man’s wife - Bathsheba. He also conquered the great citadel of Jerusalem and a vast empire beyond.
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One of the first quests of archaeologists in Palestine was the search for the remains of Solomon’s Temple and the great empire of David. It would be tedious to go through all the descriptions of the many excavations, the results, the assumptions, the wild claims of “I’ve found something that proves it!” which were then followed by sober science demonstrating that it wasn’t so. The reader who is interested in deeper knowledge in this area can certainly read both sides of the argument, and then look at the scientific evidence and come to the same conclusion we have: The Kingdom of David and the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem never existed as described by the Bible.
Dave