by pokertopia 20 Replies latest watchtower bible
Fallacy: shifting the burden of proof.
Later Jewish traditions are not evidence of anything Cyrus did, and the Cyrus Cylinder indicates that Cyrus focused more on Mesopotamian groups including placating the people of Babylon. Repatriation of other captives also occurred as a general policy but no special attention was given to the Jews.
Nothing the Bible or Josephus says, contradicts available evidence. The Jews were free from captivity and the temple was rebuilt. Same as what happened in Babylon. Can you see the pattern?
This was in order to quell social unrest, for the same reason that Cyrus dedicated a temple to Marduk in Babylon.
Does the burden on proof not fall on you to prove or disprove what we say? I give you the necessary facts from my sources. Are you able to refute it in any way? If not, sit out.
🤦♂️ The Jews weren’t the only ones who were allowed to go home and rebuild temples. The claim that the Jews were given special treatment by Cyrus is simply false and your sources for the claim that Cyrus gave the Jews special attention are obviously biased, with no independent corroboration. You put far too much stock in subjective stories.
How sure are you that your sources are not biased? I know Grabbe is super-biased. His view is that fundamentalist Christians cannot be objective scholars because they are proving a given fact, i.e., for example the inerrancy of prophecy. But is that not exactly what you and Grabbe are doing, proving a given fact, i.e., the errancy of prophecy.
Let me make it easy for you. You have to choose one of these. I know which you will choose, but that's your prerogative. I'll go with Mary Joan.
Professor Lester L Grabbe argues that there was no decree but that there was a policy that allowed exiles to return to their homelands and rebuild their temples. He also argues that the archaeology suggests that the return was a "trickle", taking place over perhaps decades, resulting in a maximum population of perhaps 30,000. Philip R. Davies called the authenticity of the decree "dubious", citing Grabbe and adding that arguing against "the authenticity of Ezra 1.1–4 is J. Briend, in a paper given at the Institut Catholique de Paris on 15 December 1993, who denies that it resembles the form of an official document but reflects rather biblical prophetic idiom." Mary Joan Winn Leith believes that the decree in Ezra might be authentic and along with the Cylinder that Cyrus, like earlier rulers, was through these decrees trying to gain support from those who might be strategically important, particularly those close to Egypt which he wished to conquer. He also wrote that "appeals to Marduk in the cylinder and to Yahweh in the biblical decree demonstrate the Persian tendency to co-opt local religious and political traditions in the interest of imperial control." (Wikipedia)
Neither of those people is my source, so your attempted false dichotomy is irrelevant. The Cyrus Cylinder, a contemporary document, indicates that various people were repatriated, with particular focus on Mesopotamia and with no specific mention of the Jews. Ezra and Josephus are later sources, and have an inherent bias. No contemporary document shows that Cyrus wrote the statement claimed by Ezra several decades later, nor the interpolated written statement claimed by Josephus several centuries after that. You are the one asserting that Cyrus wrote something that isn’t in any available contemporary source and inconsistently reported only by later Jewish sources.
Even if it could be demonstrated that Cyrus accredited anything to Yahweh, for which there is no evidence, it would at best indicate that Cyrus simply said what the Jews wanted to hear to placate them. We know Cyrus made decrees benefiting the people of Babylon and crediting their deities, which at the very least contradicts the claim that he recognised the Jews or their deity as unique or special.
Lot of hearsay there. You have not proved your point. I hear what you are saying, just the proof is lacking. In general, Ezra and Josephus are reliable. I allow them the benefit of the doubt. Indirect proof is the survival and repatriation of the Jews and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. The fine detail of what happened we will hopefully find out one day. For the time being I work with, not what I surmise, but with what I have.
🤦♂️'What you have' is simply deference to your chosen religious tradition which is not supported by any direct evidence, and is contradicted by direct contemporary evidence.
The funny thing is, Ezra and Josephus both claim to quote a written decree, which not only isn't verifiable from any contemporary source, and contradicts the contemporary sources, but Josephus inserts a remarkable claim about Cyrus supposedly including mention of the 'prophecy' in his decree, which Ezra doesn't include even though he was much closer to the purported events. This on its own is a glaringly obvious clue to the fact that the claim inserted by Josephus (that Cyrus was supposedly aware of the 'prophecy' from Isaiah) was a tradition made up either by Josephus himself or after Ezra's time at the earliest.
Vidqun:
Lot of hearsay there.
No part of what I said was hearsay (unless you mean the claims made by Ezra and Josephus, but somehow I don't think so). I'm not sure you understand what the word means.
The claims are made. I see the results from those claims. In Ezra's case, he reported the history of the repatriation step by step. He was there as an eyewitness. His account follows the course of general history as was handed down to us. But in this one instance he would lie?
Same goes for Josephus. He wrote up history to the best of his ability. But in this one instance he would fabricate the evidence by quoting myth. If you follow his writings, you will realize he was too proud to sully his reputation by publishing untruths or myths. He reported at the time that one could visit a tower Daniel had built which served as the burial place of kings. His countrymen and the Romans would have ridiculed him if he lied.
264 Now when Daniel was become so illustrious and famous, on account of the opinion men had that he was beloved of God, he built a tower at Ecbatana, in Media: it was a most elegant building, and wonderfully made, and it is still remaining, and preserved to this day; and to such as see it, it appears to have been recently built, and to have been no older than that very day when anyone looks upon it, it is so fresh, flourishing, and beautiful, and no way grown old in so long time;
265 for buildings suffer the same as men do, they grow old as well as they, and by numbers of years their strength is dissolved, and their beauty withered. Now they bury the kings of Media, of Persia, and Parthia in this tower, to this day, and he who was entrusted with the care of it was a Jewish priest; which thing is also observed to this day. (Ant 10:264-265 JOE)
Vidqun:
He was there as an eyewitness.
😂 No. He’s wasn’t. Ezra want even born yet in 539 BCE.
Let's qualify. He was an eyewitness of events. Anyway. He was close to the action and you and I are very far from it. I believe he was an honorable man and you can believe whatever you want.
