What do You think of islam? please all must write and contribute :) (Page 18)

Groovius Maximus: You’re suggesting, Ghost, that Exodus verifies itself. You seem to be suggesting this because it sounds authentic. Yet I discussed historical fictions earlier in this thread. Also, what you’re proposing is circular. It requires outside, independent corroboration to establish its veracity. Facts that are historically verifiable.

ghostgeek: If you go to the Sinai at the right time you can catch quail and collect manna. You can also get water from rock if you know what you're doing. To have that sort of knowledge nailed down in Exodus suggests direct observation.

Groovius Maximus: What you're saying here implies only the writers of Exodus may have been familiar with the conditions of the Sinai. It does not illustrate the truth of the grand narrative of the book of Exodus and all the extraordinary claims therein.

Groovius Maximus: For example, I live in Tacoma, Washington. When I step outside I see Mt. Rainier looming on the horizon. Washington state is heavily clad in Douglas fir trees. If I were then to spin a fantastic tale of flying unicorns and dastardly wizards casting evil spells on the populace of my city turning them into zombies, you would not conclude my story is true simply because the city of Tacoma exists, Douglas fir abounds, and a giant mountain hangs in the distance.

ghostgeek: The grand narrative of the Book of Exodus is a falsehood but it's underpinned by real events. Take Aaron's staff for instance.

In their celebrated commentary series on the Old Testament, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown comment on the incident between Moses and Aaron and the Egyptian magicians:

The magicians of Egypt in modern times have long been celebrated adepts in charming serpents; and particularly by pressing the nape of the neck they throw them into a kind of catalepsy, which renders them stiff and immoveable, thus seeming to change them into a rod. They conceal the serpent about their person, and by acts of legerdemain produce it from their dress, stiff and straight as a rod. Just the same trick was played off by their ancient predecessors.... [A]nd so it appears they succeeded by their “enchantments” in practicing an illusion on the senses (2002, 1:295, Exodus 7:11-14).

[ https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=1704 ]

ghostgeek: Moses and his sidekick were using their superior knowledge to bamboozle the Israelites.

Groovius Maximus: I give up.

ghostgeek: Ever wondered how the pair turned water into blood? If you go to Antarctica you'll see a graphic example of the trick.

In 1911, during an expedition to the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor discovered something strange: a glacier gushing blood-red water.

Decades later, researchers figured out that this waterfall owes its brilliant hue to iron oxide—basically rust.

[ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/antarcticas-blood-falls-reveals-inner-workings-glaciers-180963098/ ]

You add water to iron oxide.

ghostgeek: The simplest way to explain all the seemingly baffling events recorded in Exodus is to postulate that somebody witnessed them. This doesn't mean that what that person was told by Moses is correct, only that they saw these things with their own eyes.

Groovius Maximus: The simplest explanation, Mr. Occam, is they never happened. That they are fictions. And without independent corroboration this is the most rational position to occupy.

ghostgeek: Somebody had to witness them for them to be put down in writing.

Groovius Maximus: They are not the histories you seem to believe they are. They're tribal stories to explain and make sense of its own existence. To give itself a past. Witnesses are not necessary to invent fiction. Only the writer and his imagination are necessary to that end.

ghostgeek: The Exodus story could be all fiction for sure. But if that was the case, you'd then have to explain why it read no different to an actual eyewitness account by someone recently arrived in Egypt.

Groovius Maximus: The explanation is: it is fiction. Are you not a reader? I am a voracious reader and an amateur writer of fiction and nonfiction. I know how it works, both from a reader's perspective and the writing angle. Seriously, man. Think about it a while before replying, because we're just retreading the same ground.

Groovius Maximus: I’ve said a few times that without independent, corroborating evidence to establish the veracity of the stories told therein (the bible), it’s very rational to conclude they’re largely fictitious accounts. However, antiquities are being unearthed in the near east every day. It’s possible something could still turn up to tip the balance in favor of historicity. Stranger things have happened.

ghostgeek: If the internal evidence of the Exodus narrative supports the notion that it is based on an eye witness account then it is quite rational to say so.

Zanjan: Catching up:

Ghost: “he [Paul] made a trenchant defense of the right of preachers to a salary.”
The Jews had always contributed to the livelihood of their priests in return for full time services in the Temple. They had to eat and wear clothes – those don’t magically appear.

The Christians didn’t have a temple; neither clergy in Paul’s time. The teaching was left up to the church elders (they held paid jobs outside the church), but promulgation of the Faith was delegated to appointed, well-equipped individuals.

Paul was homeless with no personal family. He gave up a full career with status and pension, to devote his life to the critical needs of the Faith. He talked about giving and receiving. Where did Paul talk about a “salary”?

While there was a right to receive material support for service, at least to reimburse for expenses, Paul didn’t avail himself of that where the churches were poor. Only one church sent him assistance on several occasions as gifts, the rest didn’t. He had paid work outside the church so he lived off his own income as a tent-maker and hospitality of others. The hospitality was the “wages”, the Lord spoke of.

Thus, if Paul was coming to your town to speak, the membership would arrange for billeting. No hotels. He might receive an honorarium if the membership had asked him to come – this is still how we do it today.

Today, it’s all laypeople voluntarily spreading the faith and providing internal services. However, many ministers are also bi-vocational. Priests aren’t.

Zanjan: Ghost: “The first born didn't die en masse.”

How would you know? Whatever you know, you know through the world you live in now. Everybody dies, sometimes en masse. It’s broadcast on the news very quickly, sometimes as it's happening. Since this is true now, why wouldn't it have been then?

In ancient society (actually, even up to when I was young), the “first-born” held status in the family as the elder with the right to inherit the greater percentage of material goods and sole rights to succession of authority. In some cultures, these were only the males.

In religious terms, seniority status relates to “inheriting the Kingdom of God”; there’s a qualifier. The “first fruits” of the harvest (from the previous religion) are the first generation of new believers. The new Revelation is intended to be their inheritance; but, the transition isn't automatic.

Ergo, in religious terms, the “first born” are those who belong to the societal group – the materialists, who are born from the earth, their first world - regardless of their religion. Whereas, to inherit the Kingdom of God, one must, as Jesus said, become “born again” – that is a second birth. Without that, one will spiritually perish.

In Egypt, the first born were those who *spiritually* died because they denied God’s Messenger. As a result of their negligence, whatever they possessed, they lost. Their material losses were recorded in Egyptian history but only after a lot of false boasting. “God doesn’t guide wrong-doer”.

The reign of the Pharaohs came to a permanent end in the 19th dynasty ( 1187 B.C.). The first and second generation of Moses followers didn't see that occur but they saw it coming.

By the way, the Hadith is not a Revelation from God – it was a collection of third party unscreened tales cobbled together several hundred years after Muhammad had passed away. In other words, it’s all gossip.

Zanjan: Understand that the story of Moses is told as a past reflection, a narrative that was passed down vocally for many generations. As such, it incorporates the long view so it's not told as the first and second generation physically saw and experienced it live. There were no letters from believers because they were illiterate.

Zanjan: In Christianity, there were letters from the Apostles. By then, all Jews were literate. Christianity, however, had many pagan converts, most of whom were illiterate so, nothing from them until much later.

Islam was set in a pagan society where most were illiterate so, no letters from early believers - it's back to stories from eye-witnesses being vocally passed on until much later. The big difference is, those stories aren't mixed in with what Muhammad said and verified as true.

Due to the conditions as they existed, what with misunderstandings over time, each Prophet had to clarify and elaborate on what had occurred in the previous Prophet's life. This information came from God, noting that God had seen it, also the immortal Souls of those Prophets living in heaven affirm it.

For example, for those who wondered about those two pillars going ahead of the Hebrews as they made their exit, then the pillars moving position to stand between them and Pharoah's army, only to disappear from the story after the crossing, that needed an explanation. They were the two Pillars of the Covenant.

ghostgeek: Why should we assume that no one in Moses' party was literate? The Old Testament mentions people fleeing to Egypt from Palestine in times of trouble. For example, when Gedaliah was assassinated, Jeremiah was taken against his will to escape the wrath of the Babylonians. So literate people did go to Egypt and could have left a record of their misadventures.

ghostgeek: It seems to be the case that many scholars believe the Old Testament was written after the return from Babylon. This would allow plenty of time for a record of an escape into Egypt following the Babylonian conquest to circulate before being incorporated into the Bible.

Zanjan: Literacy wasn't the norm until the 20th century -> AD. It wasn't the norm even for those in the upper echelons to be literate either. The Pharaohs couldn't read - they had scribes to do that; it was a respectable and very well-paid profession........until later on in Jewish history.

For some reason, we're led to think Moses could read. Perhaps He had more time than the Pharoahs to learn. No one seems to have asked so maybe He couldn't. That's never stopped God from sending His Message.

According to history, the Jewish clergy were literate long before the Babylonian capture. They had Rabbi schools in both Babylon and Jerusalem, albeit their studies were independent of each other.

You'll just have to accept those very ancient historic narratives were fairly crude and they lacked dates. How wonderful if we'd had real-time missives, like "Moses, Ralf ben ralph galloped all night on his steed, Thunderbolt, to tell us on Tuesday the 4th, 1423, the Amorites will be gathering an army to come after us, what do we do...poison the wells??" Would have put us right into the picture. Well, that didn't happen. Details weren't their forte. No reason to reject a debriefing.

Surely you realize the Bible verses are all songs, right? That's how they memorized. Same thing exactly in Arabia.

ghostgeek: If literacy was such a rarity it makes me wonder why we know so much about the non-Biblical past.

Zanjan: When writing was invented 5.5 thousand years ago, it was a supplementary tool, not a replacement for graphic forms of conveyance. We still carve and paint pictorials and symbols to this very day; although they're slow and laborious, there's a place for them, especially where multiple languages are spoken.

However, in a simple agricultural/trading society, there was no daily practical need for it; thus, literacy began as a profession. Mostly, it was used for business transactions and contracts as a fast form of permanent, indisputable record.

When they wrote down their oral traditions, legends, folk tales, and poetry, it wasn't for practical reasons - it was done as a dedication to some monument. Even back then, they had the urge to say "We were here", to leave a time capsule for future far-flung generations. Somehow, they knew we'd appreciate that.