Giwer: Does it really matter?

[JTEM]

Some time earlier I was re-skimming Giwer's
anti bible piece and it got me to wondering...

No, not if Giwer's ideas are correct (he won't
even debate them), but if any of us has a
clue. I mean, for all any of us knows what we
think of as "The bible" might date to the 4th
century CE or later. Seriously, there are no
complete manuscripts dated any older than
that, with anything older not only being highly
fragmentary but considerably different than
modern versions. But then I thought,

"Who cares?"

The origins of the bible is a decent mystery,
but does it really matter? Most people on
this planet don't believe in the bible anyway,
and even amongst the true believers few
claim to take it literally, and even fewer
honestly do.

Oh, sure, you'll get the southern baptists
pretending to see the bible as the literal,
inerrant word of God, but then you point out
the passages condemning their Egg
McMuffin or Popcorn shrimp and suddenly God
was a joker. Suddenly God didn't write it,
or at least not THAT book -- Leviticus --
except for the parts which seem to be
denouncing homosexuality which OBVIOUSLY
had to be written by God.

Double standards. Hypocrisy. But, no "Literal
word of God" as they pretend.

So why should we care?

If I was defending you against a murder charge
it would be enough to show that the prosecutor's
evidence fails to condemn. I needn't uncover the
real murderer. Nope. I would be tasked with
convincing the jury that you are innocent, and
that would almost NEVER require me to convict
someone else.

I guess what I'm saying is that if someone wants
to claim that the Israelite where HERE, or went
THERE it is enough to show that they did not. It
is not necessary for me or anyone else to
construct an alternative history and plot it on an
alternative timeline.

Again:

Our task is not to write a "True History" of the
Levant sans bible (as if that could be accomplished
with any great accuracy), but merely to disprove
biblical claims if & when they interfere with a
discussion on history.

So I ask the Giwers of the world: Why should we
care? Why should it matter to anyone? All the
archaeology has been so contaminated, the museums
stuffed with misidentified and even forged "finds" and
the written record is so useless that hope for
reconstructing an accurate picture of the Levant is
misguided at best, so why bother trying? Why not
satisfy ourselves with merely knocking down biblical
claims when they arise?

[Martin Edwards]

On 20/01/2012 08:59, JTEM wrote:
>
> So I ask the Giwers of the world: Why should we
> care? Why should it matter to anyone? All the
> archaeology has been so contaminated, the museums
> stuffed with misidentified and even forged "finds" and
> the written record is so useless that hope for
> reconstructing an accurate picture of the Levant is
> misguided at best, so why bother trying? Why not
> satisfy ourselves with merely knocking down biblical
> claims when they arise?
>
>

If you watch History Channel as much as I do, you will see that, on most
topics, reputable academics are presenting valid (not necessarily
conclusive) arguments on most issues, but as soon as the subject is
Judaism or Christianity, the default is "yes".

--
Myth, after all, is what we believe naturally. History is what we must
painfully learn and struggle to remember. -Albert Goldman

[JTEM]

Martin Edwards <big_mart...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> If you watch History Channel as much as I do, you will see that, on most
> topics, reputable academics are presenting valid (not necessarily
> conclusive) arguments on most issues, but as soon as the subject is
> Judaism or Christianity, the default is "yes".

Yes, and I've often wondered how many actually believe what
they're saying. I'll give you an unrelated example of what I'm
talking about....

Some of the very first opposition to the Oral Vaccine Theory
on the origin of AIDS did not attack any of the points of the
theory, instead they noted the fact that such theories could
undermine the effectiveness of future public health programs
within the developing world. They claimed that such theories
would scare people away from vaccines and other attempts
to control disease. And I'm not talking about AM talk radio
or the tabloids. I've read this stuff in "Science."

So, I have to wonder if at least a certain percentage of
academics publicly rubber stamping the bible are doing
it either out of concern of destroying anyone's moral
compass, or at the request of a producer/network who
has such fears.

[Matt Giwer]

> biblical claims if& when they interfere with a

> discussion on history.
>
> So I ask the Giwers of the world: Why should we
> care? Why should it matter to anyone? All the
> archaeology has been so contaminated, the museums
> stuffed with misidentified and even forged "finds" and
> the written record is so useless that hope for
> reconstructing an accurate picture of the Levant is
> misguided at best, so why bother trying? Why not
> satisfy ourselves with merely knocking down biblical
> claims when they arise?

Mostly what I have done is rejected the stories that are impossible such as
the creation of the OT stories prior to the 3rd c. BC anywhere. I also point
out well known facts such as they appear in the 2nd c. BC in Greek. I see no
reason to allow impossible religious traditions to substitute for well known
facts.

You however appear to want to continue with unprovenanced religious
traditions even though they are impossible. That is not reasonable.

--
All Germans should not be blamed for the actions of the Nazis any more than
all Jews should be blamed for the actions of the Zionists.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4366
http://www.haaretz.com What is Israel really like? http://www.jpost.com a7
Sun Jan 22 05:20:28 EST 2012

[Martin Edwards]

On 21/01/2012 12:41, JTEM wrote:
>
> So, I have to wonder if at least a certain percentage of
> academics publicly rubber stamping the bible are doing
> it either out of concern of destroying anyone's moral
> compass, or at the request of a producer/network who
> has such fears.
>
>

It goes even deeper than this. They often have reputable academics in
one part of the programme who may not know that Judeo-Christian
mythology is being presented as fact in other parts.

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/20/2012 10:10 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
...

> If you watch History Channel as much as I do, you will see that, on most
> topics, reputable academics are presenting valid (not necessarily conclusive)
> arguments on most issues, but as soon as the subject is Judaism or
> Christianity, the default is "yes".

Speaking of History Channel, at least when it did not show bible stories as
history, the origin of this was its companion The Learning Channel,
http://www.giwersworld.org/mgiwer/hebrews.html Note I wrote this nearly 17
years ago.

The Greatest Story in History
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1995 <10/29>
When I was a lad (I have waited decades to say that) the press would
always say the Second Coming would be the greatest story in history. Today we
cynically joke about the headline, "World ends tomorrow, women and blacks to
suffer most." Perhaps that cynicism is deserved as there is such a story and
it has only been covered in one documentary series.
That series is "Archaeology" hosted by John Rhyse-Davies and has only
been shown in the US on The Learning Channel on cable TV. In some six episodes
it covered the discoveries of archaeologists in Israel in recent years. In two
of them it objectively and in a very understated manner, removed the
foundations of Judaism, Christianity, and the Muslim religion.
None of this is a secret. It is in the technical literature and if you
visit Israel you can visit the sites. And yet that is the extent of the
coverage of the story.
In one episode the evidence of the origin of the Israelites is quite
carefully laid out. They always lived in the land of Israel as herdsmen and
came to power when people who lived in the cities for some unknown reason lost
power, possibly a war, most likely insurrection by the herdsmen. To put it
more bluntly, as they always lived where they are there was no Promised Land.
Lacking a Promised Land, there was no Egypt, no Moses, no Ten Commandments.
The entire foundation for three religions has vanished.
Lacking an Egypt and a Moses we are also lacking a Joseph and an
Abraham and a covenant with a god. Circumcision, the sign of the covenant,
becomes no different from any other ritual sexual mutilation performed by
primitives around the world. In this everything in the first five books of the
Bible, the Pentateuch, the foundation of three religions vanishes.
In the other episode the Israelite pantheon is discussed. The idols of
Yahweh, Astarte (his consort, which is also in inscriptions so there is no
mistake), Baal and several other gods are shown. And a common representation
of all of them in one idol is also shown. Again more bluntly, Yahweh God, God
the Father of Jesus who was the prophet before Mohammed was no more than an
Israelite version of Zeus, Jupiter or Odin.
All of this has been implied in the Bible itself and has been known for
centuries. In the last hundred years it has rapidly become clear from other
sources that there was no basis whatsoever for the Egypt/Moses story: it being
only slightly less fanciful than the magic fruit, the talking snake and
miraculous flood of Genesis.
But now, in addition to negative evidence, the lack of evidence for the
truth of the Egypt/Moses story, we have positive evidence of its falsity.
Without first person interaction with a god the Ten Commandments are barely
more a footnote in the history of human moral ideas. Without a Moses it is
difficult to give credence Mosaic Law as being much of anything other than a
curiosity.
When we learn for certain this Yahweh was just the first of a pantheon
of gods (thou shalt have no "other" gods before me, as it always read and
always meant) there is no credible basis to argue, "This one is real, the rest
were not." Since this same god that is God the Father of the Christian trinity
it becomes laughable to argue for its having either a son or a spirit as other
parts of the same idol. If there ever was a Jesus certainly he was no more
than a man as there is nothing more for him to have a relation than a stone idol.
And while Christians focus on their Jesus, Muslims need to consider
that their Allah is the same stone idol. Their prophet is a prophet of a stone
and when they "akbar" their "Allah" it is this primitive idol they are praising.
That is the story that is not being reported and it is more profound
than I have portrayed. It is easy to think about people recognizing there is
no god but it is another to examine that in practice.
Next time you are driving through town pay attention to all the
churches and religious references you see. That is how deeply we are enmired
in the worship of one of the gods of the Israelite pantheon. Listen to the
political speeches and delete the foundation in a god from everything said.
Review every law that exists to prevent an offense against god, remove the god
and try to fill in the blank.
The UFO conspiracy types hold the government suppresses what it knows
about UFOs because of the effect upon the people that "we are not alone." Yet
right here for all to see and read about is the removal of the entire
foundation for the religious beliefs of over half of the world's population.
It is the biggest news story of all time. It appears the cynicism about what
is news these days is clearly warranted.
Perhaps no one wants to be the one to break the story? Perhaps it is
just a matter of not wanting to put it bluntly? But this is like leaving the
coverage of a UFO landing on the White House lawn to a "maybe, someday"
article by the paper's science writer.
And if one wanted to continue to take religion seriously you would
think a picture of Yahweh (a photo of his idol) would be front page news. It
is like discovering a bust of Jesus or proof positive the Shroud of Turin is
authentic. A painting of Mohammet would pale in comparison but these
discoveries are not news.
So while you have not read it in the papers or seen it on the evening
news, the greatest news story of all time (at least of the last two millennia)
is not being told. Now you know it. The foundation of three major religions is
now gone and it was beneath the notice of the press. It makes you wonder what
else the media is not covering.



--
Jews refuse to deal with their holy holocaust as a factual event because
there is no way to produce a factual description that significantly differs
from the jewish treatment of the Palestinians. As the saying goes,
everything but the gas chambers.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4364
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/holo-survivors.phtml a17
Sun Jan 22 06:01:30 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Mostly what I have done is rejected the stories
> that are impossible such as the creation of the OT
> stories prior to the 3rd c. BC anywhere

This is just plain not true. What you have done actually
is flailed away at anything that comes within 100 miles
of a literally true bible, or hints that Jews didn't step out
of thin air.

In the pursuit of your agenda you have split hairs, invoked
double standards and engaged in shear hypocrisy. For
example, you spent years rejecting Josephus only to
cling to him as the gospel truth where & when it suits you.

And, yeah, far from knocking down unsupportable positions
based on religious beliefs (and not archaeology), you have
presented your own unsupportable views. And this, your
"Alternatives" to the religion-dubbed-history, is what I was
addressing.

There is no point to them. And by "Them" I mean any conclusion
other than that the biblical claims are false.

It is useful to inform people that the biblical claims are false,
and even more useful to establish why. What I am saying is
that it is NEVER useful to posit an alternative history, as that
not only is an unnecessary and unfair burden, but the end
result is a reader left to choose between competing realities.
In such circumstances they will always choose the reality
they are most comfortable with (i,e, the biblical reality).

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/22/2012 09:26 PM, JTEM wrote:
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>> Mostly what I have done is rejected the stories
>> that are impossible such as the creation of the OT
>> stories prior to the 3rd c. BC anywhere

> This is just plain not true. What you have done actually
> is flailed away at anything that comes within 100 miles
> of a literally true bible, or hints that Jews didn't step out
> of thin air.

Many times I have asked you to present the physical evidence of a literate
culture in bibleland which could have created it. I have looked and I have
found none. You have failed to produce any. There is none from the most dug
piece of real estate on the planet.

That establishes the fact. That is evidence of absence.

Denunciation is fun for the believer. It leaves me unimpressed. I have no
interest in believers.

--
Jews refuse to deal with their holy holocaust as a factual event because
there is no way to produce a factual description that significantly differs
from the jewish treatment of the Palestinians. As the saying goes,
everything but the gas chambers.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4364

http://www.giwersworld.org a1
Mon Jan 23 00:56:17 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Case in point.

We are in a thread (which I started) arguing that it is
unnecessary and counter productive to go any further
than to knock down biblically-based claims.

Understand? I'm saying that, when you see a
biblically based claim, you should point out that it
is false, you should point out why it is false and
nothing more.

THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING.

Now, giwer is so abnormally AntiSemitic, so disordered
in his hatred that he reads me saying these things and
actually interprets them as a DEFENSE of biblically
based claims. For real. Check it out:

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> JTEM wrote:
> > This is just plain not true. What you have done actually
> > is flailed away at anything that comes within 100 miles
> > of a literally true bible, or hints that Jews didn't step out
> > of thin air.
>
>         Many times I have asked you to present the physical
> evidence of a literate culture in bibleland which could have
> created it.

One can only wonder what he means by "it"....

> I have looked and I have
> found none. You have failed to produce any. There is none from
> the most dug piece of real estate on the planet.

Can anyone offer a guess as to what he is imagining?

Anyhow, Giwer inspired this thread. See, Giwer has invested
years of his life and many thousands of words into an
alternative history for the Levant, an alternative time line, one
quite different than what a literally true bible would require.

This is pointless. Worse yet, it is counter productive.

Think of it like a criminal court case. When a defense attorney
goes into court he does not have to prove who is guilty. He
does not even have to prove that his client is innocent. No. All
he has to do is show that the prosecutor has failed to prove
HIS case. The burden of proof is entirely on the prosecutor. It
is the prosecutor making a claim (So-And-So is guilty) and as
the person making the claim it is he who is burdened with
proving his case. The defense need only show that he hadn't.

This is true when a biblical claim is raised. We are lucky though
in that the evidence is such that most biblical based claims can
easily be proven incorrect. Though we are not burdened with a
requirement of proof (we need only show that their claim is without
proof), the evidence is such that most biblical claims can be
refuted in short order.

So why ATTEMPT to go further?

[kangarooistan]

On Jan 23, 8:08 pm, JTEM <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:


>
> So why ATTEMPT to go further?

if we discover that 2 = 2 does not = 5

it is natural to ask what 2 = 2 does equal
.
archaeology is all about testing what we do know about the distant
past and trying to discover what really happened long ago .

if we discover an error in our present understanding , ie the bible
version of history is not gods word , then its normal to ask and
seek answers as to ''what really did happen''

the answer to your above question is what ''drives'' almost the
entire field of genuine archaeology .

the other ''driver'' being to justify some religious / political /
national claim , that is often confused with genuine archaeology

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/23/2012 05:08 AM, JTEM wrote:
> Case in point.

> We are in a thread (which I started) arguing that it is
> unnecessary and counter productive to go any further
> than to knock down biblically-based claims.

> Understand? I'm saying that, when you see a
> biblically based claim, you should point out that it
> is false, you should point out why it is false and
> nothing more.

> THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING.

That is a stupid thing to say.

> Now, giwer is so abnormally AntiSemitic, so disordered
> in his hatred that he reads me saying these things and
> actually interprets them as a DEFENSE of biblically
> based claims. For real. Check it out:

Antisemitic? Read the sig. No difference. No blame.

--
Jewish people, German people
Chosen people, Herrnvolk
Zionists, Neonazis
Its all the same in practice.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4369
http://www.giwersworld.org/antisem/ Antisemitism a10
Tue Jan 24 13:19:45 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/24/2012 11:28 AM, kangarooistan wrote:
> On Jan 23, 8:08 pm, JTEM<jte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> So why ATTEMPT to go further?

> if we discover that 2 = 2 does not = 5

> it is natural to ask what 2 = 2 does equal

> ..

> archaeology is all about testing what we do know about the distant
> past and trying to discover what really happened long ago .

> if we discover an error in our present understanding , ie the bible
> version of history is not gods word , then its normal to ask and
> seek answers as to ''what really did happen''

> the answer to your above question is what ''drives'' almost the
> entire field of genuine archaeology .

> the other ''driver'' being to justify some religious / political /
> national claim , that is often confused with genuine archaeology

A valid way to express the matter and without endorsing it I do not see a
problem with it at first read.

The reality is there is a group falsely claiming to have a scientific outlook
that wants to pretend that if you take away the magic and miracles form the OT
there is an underlying truth. All in all it is attempting to claim there is
something other than religion which makes a Jew a Jew. Even though their
entire "history" is fictional they are real. Frankly it is no difference from
people who claim their religion is Jedi and believe in the Force but saying
that just pisses them off.

The group claiming this call themselves Jews and declare they are atheists.
And they are in the forefront of discrediting Jesus ad nauseam. That is how I
discovered them here some 16 years ago. In support of Jesus as myth I made a
simple observation that all such criticisms applied ten times over to Moses.
That observation was declared antisemitic. Duh!

--
If there are an infinite number of parallel universes then there
* is one in which there are no parallel universes.
* are an infinite number in which there are no parallel universes.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4374
http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/sewer-bible.phtml a15
Tue Jan 24 13:22:15 EST 2012

[JTEM]

kangarooistan <kangarooist...@gmail.com> wrote:

> if we discover an error in our present understanding , ie the bible
> version of history  is not  gods word , then its normal to ask and
> seek answers as to ''what really did happen''

You'd think, but it isn't. Outside a tiny group of people, nobody
gives a damn EXCEPT for the biblical ramifications.

These people don't give a damn about archaeology or history,
they're simply looking to prop up their lack of faith with some
faux science...

> the answer to your above question is  what ''drives''  almost  the
> entire field of  genuine archaeology .

Which, by definition, excludes the people I've been talking about.

Exactly.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> JTEM wrote:
>
> > Case in point.
> > We are in a thread (which I started) arguing that it is
> > unnecessary and counter productive to go any further
> > than to knock down biblically-based claims.
> > Understand?  I'm saying that, when you see a
> > biblically based claim, you should point out that it
> > is false, you should point out why it is false and
> > nothing more.
> > THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING.
>
>         That is a stupid thing to say.

By your Meta-truths, following your agenda it is.

> > Now, giwer is so abnormally AntiSemitic, so disordered
> > in his hatred that he reads me saying these things and
> > actually interprets them as a DEFENSE of biblically
> > based claims. For real. Check it out:
>
>         Antisemitic?

that is your Meta-truth. You view the universe in terms of
your Antisemitism.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:


>         The reality is there is a group falsely claiming to
> have a scientific outlook that wants to pretend that if
> you take away the magic and miracles form the OT
> there is an underlying truth.

There's ALWAYS an underlying "Truth," even if it's one
of your Meta-truths. The people who wrote the bible did
so for a reason, and it most certainly was never intended
as simply a novel. They had an agenda, goals,. "Truths."

Now, my point is that the more time and effort we invest
in a debate centered on the underlying "Truths," the
more we lose.

How? Why?

All we're doing is presenting an alternative reality, and
when people have more than one reality to chose from
they will invariably choose whichever one they are most
comfortable with.

Eliminate the bible-thumping choice.

That's it. Nothing else is required. Eliminate all the nonsense
on sight. Period. Sure, they'll keep coming back with more
nonsense --- at least for a little while -- and we can eliminate
that too. Eventually they're going to have to stretch reality so
far just to fit their sort-of-almost-kind-of "literally" true bible
that even the proven elasticity of their minds will fail.

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/25/2012 04:54 AM, JTEM wrote:
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>> The reality is there is a group falsely claiming to
>> have a scientific outlook that wants to pretend that if
>> you take away the magic and miracles form the OT
>> there is an underlying truth.
>
> There's ALWAYS an underlying "Truth," even if it's one
> of your Meta-truths.

Your desperation is showing.

If there is an underlying "truth" note lower case there is an underlying
truth about Odin, Zeus, and Baal. Those underlying truths are not only
mutually contradictory but also agree your Yahoo god is a bloodthirsty demon.
Read the psychopathic Abraham ready to murder for his Yahoo.

> The people who wrote the bible did
> so for a reason, and it most certainly was never intended
> as simply a novel. They had an agenda, goals,. "Truths."

And the simplest reason was to back up the Yahoo cult for which the Hyrancus
clan were the priests. It justified their tyrannical rule of Judea and
conquest of Samaria and the Galilee.

> Now, my point is that the more time and effort we invest
> in a debate centered on the underlying "Truths," the
> more we lose.

> How? Why?

The more we gain. Rabbis are still tyrants to most Jews and most Jews love to
be sheep to their tyranny. You are not a Jew as you are an atheist. Stop
defending the simpletons you left behind.

--
Hodie septimo Idus Februarias MMXII est
-- The Ferric Webcaesar
http://www.giwersworld.org/disinfo/occupied-2.phtml a6
Tue Feb 7 00:15:00 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/25/2012 04:57 AM, JTEM wrote:...

> that is your Meta-truth. You view the universe in terms of
> your Antisemitism.

Physical evidence is the only basis for knowledge. Only idiots pretend there
is another foundation. Keep pretending.

--
I don't have much problem with a designer instead of evolution. I look at
the designs and have a problem with the intelligent part.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4377
http://www.giwersworld.org/environment/aehb.phtml a2
Tue Feb 7 00:22:00 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/24/2012 10:42 PM, JTEM wrote:
>
> kangarooistan<kangarooist...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> if we discover an error in our present understanding , ie the bible
>> version of history is not gods word , then its normal to ask and
>> seek answers as to ''what really did happen''
>
> You'd think, but it isn't. Outside a tiny group of people, nobody
> gives a damn EXCEPT for the biblical ramifications.

It is in fact what archaeology has learned about the artifacts which must be
found in a literate culture which leads us to conclude there was no literate
culture in bibleland which could have produced the Septuagint in an "original"
language. In fact it is the findings are archaeology which I have been citing
all along and which have guided my expositions.

Are you one to say a civilization not beyond potsherd scribblings of business
transactions could have produced a half million words of the Septuagint
without any of the required intermediary archaeological evidence of literacy?
Are you going to argue bibleland is the only exception and then accept that
exception without explanation based upon physical evidence?

> These people don't give a damn about archaeology or history,
> they're simply looking to prop up their lack of faith with some
> faux science...

Are you really a yahoo for Yahu? No wonder you are so gullible. A believer in
the unevidenced. What an idiot.

You could have been honest up front and stated your defense of a sociopathic
god and its demented followers is because you are a demented follower. Stop
pretending to be a rational person and simply admit openly what you have just
said. You BELIEVE! You are an IDIOT!

--
Who really believed putting pennies in a blue box would cause the
land fairy to leave a country under their pillow?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4375
http://www.giwersworld.org a1
Tue Feb 7 01:24:03 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Here's my problem with Giwer....

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         It is in fact what archaeology has learned about
> the artifacts which must be found in a literate culture
> which leads us to conclude there was no literate
> culture in bibleland which could have

What on earth does this have to do with the subject at
hand?

Nothing that I can see.

What I'm saying, what you're responding to is this:

If a bible thumper injects, say, their "Exodus" into
a history or archaeology discussion, inform them
that it is a myth and not an actual event. If they
talk about "Proofs" found by THIS biblical-archaeologist
or THAT history channel Mocumentary, rip their
proofs apart. Tear them down. Blow holes in them
that you can drive a Mac truck through. But, don't
offer up your counter theories. Go no further than
destroying their case. Don't offer a case up for them
to destroy.

Granting you a best case scenario, all you'd be
doing is giving them competing realities to choose
from. Well, we already know their choice (hint:
they're bible thumpers. Duh). A more likely scenario
is where they rip more holes into your pet theory than
you did into theirs, making the literally true bible seem
all the more plausible by comparison.

Is the issue clear now?

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> JTEM wrote:

> > There's ALWAYS an underlying "Truth," even if it's one
> > of your Meta-truths.

>         Your desperation is showing.

You fail to grasp the issue here. We're talking about
people, not chemical reactions.

>         If there is an underlying "truth" note lower case there is
> an underlying truth about Odin, Zeus, and Baal.

Wrong analogy. We were speaking bible -- not God. The
bible tales are the Meta-truths. Tradition refers to them
(at least those in the N.T.) as parables. The denote a lesson,
a "Truth."

One great big underlying truth for all religions everywhere
is that "Spirituality" is an innate human component. Spiritual
experiences can be induced with chemical and other
stimulus, and they can also (though not commonly) occur
on their own without artificial stimulus.

> Those underlying truths are not only
> mutually contradictory but also agree your Yahoo god
> is a bloodthirsty demon.

Speaking of contradictory, you're claiming to talk about
the underlying truths while only ever referencing the
dry, literal readings -- WHAT THEY SAY AT THEIR SURFACE.

So first you equate NOT the biblical God to Pagan gods,
but the bible itself -- the writings -- to Pagan gods, and
then you focus in on what the bible says at it's surface and
claim to be talking about "underlying" truths...

You're confused.

And if the above isn't evidence enough for your confusion
then i ask you, what is the subject here? What is the
matter up for debate? I'll remind you:

I pointed out that it's useless suggesting ALTERNATIVES
to biblical beliefs. That, when the religious folk drag their
private beliefs into history & archaeology (politics, etc) it
is sufficient to merely demonstrate the errors in their
claims.

It's even more productive.

> Read the psychopathic Abraham ready to murder for his Yahoo.

You're making my point. Even when exerting some effort into
a look at "underlying" truths you're actually going no further
than a dry, literal surface reading.

Take the example of Abraham and his son. The lesson there,
the "underlying truth" is the need to obey God no matter
what, no matter how crazy or bad it might seem. And they teach
this lesson the exact same way that every child learns:

By example.

See, God ordered Abraham to go kill his son and Abraham,
being a righteous man (someone deserving of God's love)
he follows God's orders. Because, yeah, THAT is what a
truly righteous man does. And the reason why this lesson
was so important, of course, is because nobody hears God
(except for the mentally ill). God speaks to nobody. Well,
except the king or the priest. They know what God wants.
And even if it sounds crazy or like it's a bad thing, something
you definitely don't want, a righteous man listens and does
exactly what God told them to do.

Duh.

> > The people who wrote the bible did
> > so for a reason, and it most certainly was never intended
> > as simply a novel. They had an agenda, goals,. "Truths."

>         And the simplest reason was

People frequently do things for the most complex of reasons.
People even do things for all the wrong reasons, including
self-destructive reasons.

Again, you keep making my point. You go too far when you
invent and then try to enforce your pet theories....

> > Now, my point is that the more time and effort we invest
> > in a debate centered on the underlying "Truths," the
> > more we lose.
> > How?  Why?

>         The more we gain.

We gain nothing. Debate is useless. It is enough for a
lawyer in court to show that his client is innocent. He
needn't show who the guilty party was. In fact, if he took
such a burden he's likely jeopardize his client's freedom.

And it's not about "Rabbis." Most of the people causing
problems in our culture are Christians. That's not true
everywhere (simply most places), granted, but we are
not everywhere. We are where the Christians are by
far the biggest problem.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Physical evidence is the only basis for knowledge.

You're misusing and misrepresenting "Basis."

Most things we learn we learn by inference. As a matter
of fact, if we could instill within children a single trait
which would lead them to competent science it would be
the ability to draw a sound inference.

It would be accurate to state that an inferences has it's
basis in fact. That, we use two or more facts to infer a
third (or more).

[Matt Giwer]

On 02/27/2012 12:52 AM, JTEM wrote:
>
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> Physical evidence is the only basis for knowledge.
>
> You're misusing and misrepresenting "Basis."
>
> Most things we learn we learn by inference. As a matter
> of fact, if we could instill within children a single trait
> which would lead them to competent science it would be
> the ability to draw a sound inference.

Which they would then test. If the test confirms the inference then it
becomes physical evidence and thus the basis for knowledge. Until there is
physical evidence the inference is merely a conjecture.

--
I consider it 1000% reasonable to demand a sign from heaven for anyone
claiming to know what god wants to save them from the stake for blasphemy.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4388
http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/is-seg.phtml a14
Fri Mar 2 04:51:55 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 02/27/2012 12:33 AM, JTEM wrote:
>
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> JTEM wrote:
>>> There's ALWAYS an underlying "Truth," even if it's one
>>> of your Meta-truths.
>
>> Your desperation is showing.
>
> You fail to grasp the issue here. We're talking about
> people, not chemical reactions.
>
>> If there is an underlying "truth" note lower case there is
>> an underlying truth about Odin, Zeus, and Baal.
>
> Wrong analogy. We were speaking bible -- not God. The
> bible tales are the Meta-truths. Tradition refers to them
> (at least those in the N.T.) as parables. The denote a lesson,
> a "Truth."
>
> One great big underlying truth for all religions everywhere
> is that "Spirituality" is an innate human component. Spiritual
> experiences can be induced with chemical and other
> stimulus, and they can also (though not commonly) occur
> on their own without artificial stimulus.

Please keep in mind that when talking about biblical Judea practices it is a
ritual/taboo genital mutilating cult of backwater primitives -- think
Santorum. It had nothing to do with spirituality.

The only indication of a stimulated spiritual state is found in the early
king stories where they dance around naked to exhaustion and speak in tongues
-- real holy roller stuff.

You do not appear to be able to face what is recited in the Septuagint. It is
so primitive that while at every opportunity Josephus proclaims its high
nobility not once does he recite why he describes it that way. He avoids every
opportunity to recite the Septuagint as authoritative.

>> Those underlying truths are not only
>> mutually contradictory but also agree your Yahoo god
>> is a bloodthirsty demon.

> Speaking of contradictory, you're claiming to talk about
> the underlying truths while only ever referencing the
> dry, literal readings -- WHAT THEY SAY AT THEIR SURFACE.

The bible is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends upon what you put
in it.

They say what they say. If you wish to claim some secret meaning they one can
claim secret meanings in anything. Just read Shakespeare to learn who really
wrote the plays.

Of course if you can produce the code book which allows translation of the
secret meanings I might consider revising that position if it is a consistent
code book.

It says what it says. Any claim to secret meaning makes it a mystery cult in
the same sense and the nonsensical NT parables have secret meanings. Lets just
pretend I have to explain this to the benighted. Produce a consistent "what
they really mean" document dating to ancient times which has never been
contradicted and is in fact the standard reference for the real meaning.

But if any clown who comes along can put his own meaning on a thing then you
are smack in the middle of divine inspiration. The original author was
carefully concealing what in the story?

You are stuck in the mythology of an oral tradition that the out of work
priests turned rabbis invented and first included in the Mishna. There is ZERO
evidence of an oral tradition before the Mishna. It is an invention sold to
the gullible so the ex-priests didn't have to work for a living. To claim
there is hidden wisdom is to claim the authors had supernatural authority
while they were mutilating the genitalia of infants and selling potions to
ward off the evil eye.

You can't have ancient wisdom and savagery in the same package.

> So first you equate NOT the biblical God to Pagan gods,
> but the bible itself -- the writings -- to Pagan gods, and
> then you focus in on what the bible says at it's surface and
> claim to be talking about "underlying" truths...
>
> You're confused.

The bible is written from the perspective of giving the priest-king of Judah
Hyrcanus and his descendants totalitarian authority over the lives of the dumb
peasants. After their power was broken and they became ex-priest-kings they
became rabbis and attempted to civilize the religion a bit because they could
no longer order public executions for saying Jehovah and the like. Again the
venue was inventing oral tradition, hidden wisdom, a mystery cult.

> And if the above isn't evidence enough for your confusion
> then i ask you, what is the subject here? What is the
> matter up for debate? I'll remind you:
>
> I pointed out that it's useless suggesting ALTERNATIVES
> to biblical beliefs. That, when the religious folk drag their

> private beliefs into history& archaeology (politics, etc) it

> is sufficient to merely demonstrate the errors in their
> claims.

There is nothing to debate as far as I can see. The only issue is for you
believers to produce evidence there was an earlier source which was translated
into the Greek Septuagint. That is not a matter of debate. That is a matter of
evidence. You have it or you do not.

As you do not, you believe a religious tradition contrary to the available
evidence.

QED

> It's even more productive.
>
>> Read the psychopathic Abraham ready to murder for his Yahoo.
>
> You're making my point. Even when exerting some effort into
> a look at "underlying" truths you're actually going no further
> than a dry, literal surface reading.
>
> Take the example of Abraham and his son. The lesson there,
> the "underlying truth" is the need to obey God no matter
> what, no matter how crazy or bad it might seem. And they teach
> this lesson the exact same way that every child learns:
>
> By example.
>
> See, God ordered Abraham to go kill his son and Abraham,
> being a righteous man (someone deserving of God's love)
> he follows God's orders. Because, yeah, THAT is what a
> truly righteous man does. And the reason why this lesson
> was so important, of course, is because nobody hears God
> (except for the mentally ill). God speaks to nobody. Well,
> except the king or the priest. They know what God wants.
> And even if it sounds crazy or like it's a bad thing, something
> you definitely don't want, a righteous man listens and does
> exactly what God told them to do.
>
> Duh.

What is the source of this hidden "lesson" or did you invent it? Please
produce the evidence your "lesson" is the original intent of the story. Please
do something other than try to pretty up savagery that has not played well in
the civilized world since Persian times.

And after you do all of this, what is the god you are talking about? Some
primitive savages were told there was such a god so they had to obey the
priests of that god. Obedience to the god could NEVER be more than obedience
to the priests.

Again you are a primitive believer even if you substitute rabbis for priests.

Have you never noticed the prohibition against private revelation is solely
for the purpose of preserving their god franchise? Again, you are a primitive
believer.

>>> The people who wrote the bible did
>>> so for a reason, and it most certainly was never intended
>>> as simply a novel. They had an agenda, goals,. "Truths."
>> And the simplest reason was

> People frequently do things for the most complex of reasons.
> People even do things for all the wrong reasons, including
> self-destructive reasons.

> Again, you keep making my point. You go too far when you
> invent and then try to enforce your pet theories....

You are invited to present an example where complex rationalizations are not
in support of simple reasons. Heed Occam but stick with Gillette.

>>> Now, my point is that the more time and effort we invest
>>> in a debate centered on the underlying "Truths," the
>>> more we lose.
>>> How? Why?
>> The more we gain.

> We gain nothing. Debate is useless.

There is no debate. Produce evidence there was something to translate into
Greek.

> It is enough for a
> lawyer in court to show that his client is innocent. He
> needn't show who the guilty party was. In fact, if he took
> such a burden he's likely jeopardize his client's freedom.

Your understanding of western jurisprudence is laughable.

> And it's not about "Rabbis." Most of the people causing
> problems in our culture are Christians. That's not true
> everywhere (simply most places), granted, but we are
> not everywhere. We are where the Christians are by
> far the biggest problem.

How did Christians get into the Septuagint?

The issue is solely you have no evidence for anything older than the
Septuagint. Until you do you should stop wasting your time posting.

--
Another holocaust must be prevented because sequels are so much worse than
the original.
The Iron Webmaster, 4380
http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/bombings.phtml a5
Sat Mar 3 00:35:08 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 02/27/2012 12:44 AM, JTEM wrote:
>
> Here's my problem with Giwer....
>
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> It is in fact what archaeology has learned about
>> the artifacts which must be found in a literate culture
>> which leads us to conclude there was no literate
>> culture in bibleland which could have
>
> What on earth does this have to do with the subject at
> hand?

The subject is nothing more or less than the fact there is no evidence that
there was anything to translate into Greek.

Game. Set. Match.

--
What idiot thought there could be a decrease in smoking that would not cause
an increase in obesity? Does second hand smoke really control obesity?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4383
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/ a12
Sat Mar 3 01:50:10 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/22/2012 05:50 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
> On 21/01/2012 12:41, JTEM wrote:
>> So, I have to wonder if at least a certain percentage of
>> academics publicly rubber stamping the bible are doing
>> it either out of concern of destroying anyone's moral
>> compass, or at the request of a producer/network who
>> has such fears.
> It goes even deeper than this. They often have reputable academics in one part
> of the programme who may not know that Judeo-Christian mythology is being
> presented as fact in other parts.

In another forum I have had the publications of the Oxford Divinity College
as authoritative in matters of religion because of the Oxford label.

After all, Newton had a degree in divinity so alchemy must be real.

--
God is Black.
Is his name the White, I am Who am?
Or the Black, I be Who be?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4376
http://www.giwersworld.org/antisem/ Antisemitism a10
Sat Mar 3 04:03:14 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 01/21/2012 07:41 AM, JTEM wrote:
> Martin Edwards<big_mart...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> If you watch History Channel as much as I do, you will see that, on most
>> topics, reputable academics are presenting valid (not necessarily
>> conclusive) arguments on most issues, but as soon as the subject is
>> Judaism or Christianity, the default is "yes".
>
> Yes, and I've often wondered how many actually believe what
> they're saying. I'll give you an unrelated example of what I'm
> talking about....

Who cares what people believe? Beliefs are not transferable. All that matter
is physical evidence. There is no physical evidence of anything older than the
Septuagint.

Game. Set. Match.

QED for the Latin aficionados.

--
I don't have much problem with a designer instead of evolution. I look at
the designs and have a problem with the intelligent part.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4377

http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/is-seg.phtml a14
Sat Mar 3 04:14:14 EST 2012

[Martin Edwards]

On 03/03/2012 09:08, Matt Giwer wrote:
> On 01/22/2012 05:50 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
>> On 21/01/2012 12:41, JTEM wrote:
>>> So, I have to wonder if at least a certain percentage of
>>> academics publicly rubber stamping the bible are doing
>>> it either out of concern of destroying anyone's moral
>>> compass, or at the request of a producer/network who
>>> has such fears.
>> It goes even deeper than this. They often have reputable academics in
>> one part
>> of the programme who may not know that Judeo-Christian mythology is being
>> presented as fact in other parts.
>
> In another forum I have had the publications of the Oxford Divinity
> College as authoritative in matters of religion because of the Oxford
> label.
>
> After all, Newton had a degree in divinity so alchemy must be real.
>

That is not the point I was making, which was that an academic in one
part of the poem is presenting proper history, while in another
/ubeknownst to him or her/ a theologian is presenting the story of the
burning bush /as fact/. I once had a very intelligent Muslim teenager
tell me that the Koran was the only holy book because it was in Arabic,
while the Bible was in English.

[Martin Edwards]

On 03/03/2012 06:21, Matt Giwer wrote:
> On 02/27/2012 12:33 AM, JTEM wrote:
>
> How did Christians get into the Septuagint?
>

We do not know, but the Biblical quotes in the NT are from the
Septuagint. Stipulating for the sake of argument that the NT is not
purely fiction, Greek was understood in Palestine not just by the
educated, but by most people. It is unlikely that Jesus (see
stipulation) had been to university.

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/03/2012 06:16 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
> On 03/03/2012 06:21, Matt Giwer wrote:
>> On 02/27/2012 12:33 AM, JTEM wrote:
>>
>> How did Christians get into the Septuagint?
>>
> We do not know, but the Biblical quotes in the NT are from the Septuagint.
> Stipulating for the sake of argument that the NT is not purely fiction, Greek
> was understood in Palestine not just by the educated, but by most people. It
> is unlikely that Jesus (see stipulation) had been to university.

While I am not going to pretend to being 100% certain what he was trying to say

"And it's not about "Rabbis." Most of the people causing
problems in our culture are Christians. That's not true
everywhere (simply most places), granted, but we are
not everywhere. We are where the Christians are by
far the biggest problem."

he does appear to be attempting to divert the discussion back to his favorite
"leave us poor Jews alone/haven't we suffered enough" themes.

As to Greek being understood in Palestine, the Greeks ruled the place since
Alexander and Rome used it as the language of the educated. It is expected
they would know Greek.

Get a bittorrent client, go to http://thepiratebay.se and search books for
Hebrew is Greek and give it a read if suffering from insomnia.

If "hebrew" is a pidgin Greek used by people whose native language was
Aramaic it could explain so many parallels.

--
In politics if you do not have the initiative
you are losing.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4378
http://www.giwersworld.org/palestine/answers.phtml a9
Sat Mar 3 21:45:18 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Who cares what people believe? Beliefs are not transferable.

Quite an odd thing to say as any student of history knows that they
are.

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

[Martin Edwards]

I don't need to read it: it is bullshit. Though I do not read it, it is
clear that "Hebrew", whatever its real origins may have been, is a
Semitic language. Greek is an Indo-European language, though in its own
subgroup. Shared vocabulary is neither here nor there. Persian and
Turkish both have a lot of Arabic vocabulary, and are related neither to
Arabic nor each other.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         The subject is nothing more or less than the fact there is no evidence that
> there was anything to translate into Greek.
>
>         Game. Set. Match.

You're not even within ten zip codes of the playing field.

Seriously. This thread is about your penchant for responding
to biblical claims with your rubbish theories (all transparently
predicated on your trademark antisemitism). It's about how
NOT to counter a biblical claim.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Please keep in mind that when talking about biblical Judea
> practices it is a ritual/taboo genital mutilating cult of backwater
> primitives -- think Santorum. It had nothing to do with spirituality.

The same could be said for Egypt, the greatest of the ancient
empires... right down to the circumcision.

>         You do not appear to be able to face what is recited
> in the Septuagint.

Oh, do tell...

> It is so primitive that while at every opportunity Josephus proclaims its high
> nobility not once does he recite why he describes it that way. He avoids every
> opportunity to recite the Septuagint as authoritative.

As you've argued many times: Josephus is a latter day concoction,
the product of Medieval monks back-dating their religion. the type of
missing details you introduce here are highly indicative of just that.

>         They say what they say.

Duh. And you insist on a literal reading even when pretending to
be discussing underlying truths -- bible as metaphor/parable.

Which is weird, because even in the case of what people enjoy
accepting as literal truths -- the Iliad, for example -- the stories
were only retained BECAUSE they had a cultural value over
and above their literal words (underlying truths).

This is true even in modern cultures -- the classic "Urban"
myth is usually a morality tale, A LESSON.

>         Of course if you can produce the code book which allows translation of the
> secret meanings

Dude, it doesn't take any code book. You can see the lesson
of Job with your eyes closed. And Noah, if nothing else, gives
moral license to enslave all the people of the Levant -- "The
Canaanites"). Sodom & Gomorrah teaches so many things...
hospitality, a wife's obedience to her husband... a woman's
duty to birth the next generation of the chosen people... God
rewards the righteous...

These things are as pain as the message in George Washington
chopping down the cherry tree or "Honest Abe" Lincoln. Not only
is there a strong moral component to such tales, but a man in
american society of the 19th century was never worth more than
his word.

>         You are stuck in the mythology of an oral tradition that

You invent a new reality every time you long on. Years of
activity, years of arguments and no matter what is said,
how often it is said or how convincingly it is stated, you
conveniently forget it all each time you log on...

When have i ever argued oral tradition?

>         You can't have ancient wisdom and savagery in the same package.

Why not? We had both plus the largest, most
advanced economy in Europe in Germany, back
under Hitler. Germany had -- past tense -- already
established itself as one of the most cultured on
earth, one of the most intellectually accomplished
and technologically advanced (again, past tense)
and yet brutal beyond measure.

>         The bible is written from the perspective of giving the priest-king of Judah
> Hyrcanus

No such thing.

The Egyptians had priest kings, sure, but who else? The
Sumerians? Please.

> > I pointed out that it's useless suggesting ALTERNATIVES
> > to biblical beliefs. That, when the religious folk drag their
> > private beliefs into history&  archaeology (politics, etc) it
> > is sufficient to merely demonstrate the errors in their
> > claims.

>         There is nothing to debate as far as I can see.

And yet you do so anyways.

> > See, God ordered Abraham to go kill his son and Abraham,
> > being a righteous man (someone deserving of God's love)
> > he follows God's orders. Because, yeah, THAT is what a
> > truly righteous man does. And the reason why this lesson
> > was so important, of course, is because nobody hears God
> > (except for the mentally ill). God speaks to nobody. Well,
> > except the king or the priest. They know what God wants.
> > And even if it sounds crazy or like it's a bad thing, something
> > you definitely don't want, a righteous man listens and does
> > exactly what God told them to do.
>
> > Duh.
>
>         What is the source of this hidden "lesson"

Nobody said "Hidden." In fact, if you hide the lesson you're
defeating the purpose of writing it out in the first place.

> Please
> produce the evidence your "lesson" is

You've already provided tons of evidence. For example, we
know for a fact that a literally reading doesn't work. It is
not literally true. A second piece of evidence is the fact that
a literal reading isn't even consistent.

So, right there you present us with evidence, twice....

> the original intent of the story.

You fail your own standard.

Again, YOU FAIL YOUR OWN STANDARD.

If YOU want to argue that it all comes down to intent,
and this intent can not be ascertained, then you have
no basis for any interpretation -- including a literal one.

You can't establish that it is meant to be read that way,
that their INTENT was a dry history...

You know, one of these day you're going to shock me
and NOT be a huge hypocrite who ALWAYS fails to
meet his own standards...

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> JTEM wrote:

> > You're misusing and misrepresenting "Basis."
>
> > Most things we learn we learn by inference. As a matter
> > of fact, if we could instill within children a single trait
> > which would lead them to competent science it would be
> > the ability to draw a sound inference.
>
>         Which they would then test.

If you can test it then it's not an inference. It would be a
hypothesis.

You have this "Gift" for missing the screaming obvious.

[Matt Giwer]

Just a few posts ago I noted the Greek Ho had a parallel in the "hebrew" Ha
even though a completely unrelated language. Perhaps I was being too subtle.
If the author is correct in saying Greek prefixes are Hebrew suffixes and vice
versa do you not think more than two examples are an impossible coincidence
for unrelated languages?

Don't look. No problems that way. The intro to the book is by a Jewish
linguist if that is your problem.

http://www.giwersworld.org/HEB-GREEK/ has the first few pages if you would
give it a chance. It is not a crackpot source. It may be completely wrong but
not crackpot.

From my point of view I have seen all the examples of "proto" and "paleo"
"hebrew" and they are all Phoenician. When Judeans first appear in history the
early 1st c. BC they are speaking Aramaic.



--
At least 35% of Israelis are anti-Zionists. What's the big deal?
The Iron Webmaster, 4379
http://www.haaretz.com What is Israel really like? http://www.jpost.com a7
Sun Mar 4 06:07:51 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

Yes, I agree you have no evidence there was anything to translate into Greek.
We all know that.

Besides your Septuagint is a real hack writing job. One would think whoever
created it would have put some effort into it if they were serious. The entire
OT is not only primitive and savage all the "wisdom" and "commandments" are
juvenile.

--
Philosophy is to science as astrology is to astronomy.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4387
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo/nizgas3.html a4
Sun Mar 4 06:32:52 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

As you still do not have physical evidence for anything prior to the
Septuagint there is nothing to discuss until you produce something contrary to
my position.

--
Who really believed putting pennies in a blue box would cause the
land fairy to leave a country under their pillow?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4375

http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/ a12
Sun Mar 4 06:37:22 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

You post a anonymous source not suitable for college work as a reference.

Grow up.

--
In politics if you do not have the initiative
you are losing.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4378

http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/sewer-bible.phtml a15
Sun Mar 4 06:38:52 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/04/2012 03:17 AM, JTEM wrote:

You really are a silly little shit.

--
I consider it 1000% reasonable to demand a sign from heaven for anyone
claiming to know what god wants to save them from the stake for blasphemy.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4388

http://www.giwersworld.org/holo2/ a11

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
>
>         You post a anonymous source not suitable for college work as a reference.

I don't need a "Source" to establish that water is
wet, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the
west or that beliefs -- like any idea -- are
transferable. The URL wasn't to "Support" me, it
was to jar you into reality.

>         Grow up.

Irony...

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> JTEM wrote:
>
> >   Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com>  wrote:
> >>          Who cares what people believe? Beliefs are not transferable.
> > Quite an odd thing to say as any student of history knows that they
> > are.
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
>
>         You really are a silly little shit.

Don't blame me. It's YOU making a fool out of yourself.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         As you still do not have physical evidence for anything prior to the
> Septuagint

It's odd that you keep saying that as you know it's not
true.

YOU, on the other hand, fail to meet your very own
standard of proof....

Put another way: You're rationalizing. That is, assuming
you actually believe the crap you say. I find that VERY
unlikely....

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Yes, I agree you have no evidence there was anything
> to translate into Greek.

Besides the physical evidence such as regional texts
(the Ugarit texts, for example) which were clearly the
source material for much of the bible...

>         Besides your Septuagint is a real hack writing job.

Speaking of rigid, scholarly standards...

What is or isn't a hack job is clearly a matter of personal
opinion, and hardly relevant to this or any other discussion.

[Martin Edwards]

That is rather the point. The Sun does not rise or set at all, the
earth goes round it, but how long did it take for that to be accepted?

[Martin Edwards]

On 04/03/2012 02:54, Matt Giwer wrote:

The page is only an advert, and it damn near crashed my browser.

[Martin Edwards]

On 04/03/2012 11:36, Matt Giwer wrote:
> On 03/04/2012 03:59 AM, JTEM wrote:
>> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>>> The subject is nothing more or less than the fact there is no
>>> evidence that
>>> there was anything to translate into Greek.
>>> Game. Set. Match.
>
>> You're not even within ten zip codes of the playing field.
>
>> Seriously. This thread is about your penchant for responding
>> to biblical claims with your rubbish theories (all transparently
>> predicated on your trademark antisemitism). It's about how
>> NOT to counter a biblical claim.
>
> Yes, I agree you have no evidence there was anything to translate into
> Greek. We all know that.
>
> Besides your Septuagint is a real hack writing job. One would think
> whoever created it would have put some effort into it if they were
> serious. The entire OT is not only primitive and savage all the "wisdom"
> and "commandments" are juvenile.
>

I do not know, but have it from plenty of sources, that the Hebrew Bible
is very various in style, from near-Phoenician to the heavily Arabised
style of Job, which may be, in the form we have it, as late as the ninth
century. How could this have been translated from the consistent style
of the Septuagint?

[Martin Edwards]

On 04/03/2012 20:29, JTEM wrote:
>
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, I agree you have no evidence there was anything
>> to translate into Greek.
>
> Besides the physical evidence such as regional texts
> (the Ugarit texts, for example) which were clearly the
> source material for much of the bible...

I'm with you there.

>
>> Besides your Septuagint is a real hack writing job.
>
> Speaking of rigid, scholarly standards...
>
> What is or isn't a hack job is clearly a matter of personal
> opinion, and hardly relevant to this or any other discussion.
>

You're right. On this one he hasn't got a clue. It is rather spare and
elegant Greek, and a good example of the Greek of the period.

[Martin Edwards]

It is quite likely. Here in England the clergy trot out phrases like
"made in the image of God" while knowing, with another part of their
minds, that it is simply mythology (fundies are a tiny minority here).
It is as if something can be true on some level other than what we
perceive as reality.

[Matt Giwer]

Use Firefox from mozilla.org and block scripts and ads with noscript and
adblock plugins. You are already using thunderbird from mozilla. If you are
using firefox already you set noscript to block everything universally unless
you set it otherwise.

--
If there are an infinite number of parallel universes then there
* is one in which there are no parallel universes.
* are an infinite number in which there are no parallel universes.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4374
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/holo-survivors.phtml a3
Mon Mar 5 03:58:33 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/04/2012 03:55 AM, JTEM wrote:
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>> Please keep in mind that when talking about biblical Judea
>> practices it is a ritual/taboo genital mutilating cult of backwater
>> primitives -- think Santorum. It had nothing to do with spirituality.

> The same could be said for Egypt, the greatest of the ancient
> empires... right down to the circumcision.

Your favorite Jews were no better than the animal worshipers. I can agree
with that. Greeks who created the Septuagint did have much use for either the
Egyptians or the Palestinians. However the rather modern objection both the
Greeks and Romans had with the Palestinians copy was that it was of infants
(ritual infant mutilation) rather than a voluntary practice of adults.

The red heifer needed to consecrate a temple and the Apis bull differ how
other than color? Yahweh has the head of a Ram as does Amun/Amen. The Shofar
horns and the forelocks are his symbols. The scapegoat is his messenger. All
those "unexplained" things in the OT are part of the Amun/Yahweh cult. "Thou
shalt hold no other gods are older than me."

>> You do not appear to be able to face what is recited
>> in the Septuagint.

> Oh, do tell...

About his consort Astarte and the temple Herod built to her in Caesarea perhaps?

>> It is so primitive that while at every opportunity Josephus proclaims its high
>> nobility not once does he recite why he describes it that way. He avoids every
>> opportunity to recite the Septuagint as authoritative.

> As you've argued many times: Josephus is a latter day concoction,
> the product of Medieval monks back-dating their religion. the type of
> missing details you introduce here are highly indicative of just that.

I am willing to review the evidence of that you produce. Please produce it.
At least tell me where you read that and why you believed the source without
evidence.

>> They say what they say.

> Duh. And you insist on a literal reading even when pretending to
> be discussing underlying truths -- bible as metaphor/parable.

Seems to me there are two possible sources for underlying truths.

The first is people, educated Greeks in Alexandria or illiterate goatherds
from the hill country of Palestine. It do not see how either group can produce
"underlying truths."

The second is some god, albeit parochial, who inspired truths to be written.
I do not how that makes you other than a Santorum.

Pardon if I do not see a reason to read the crap as other than literal.

[For our British audience, Santorum is a candidate for the Republican
presidential nominee who is extremely redneck and Christian.]

> Which is weird, because even in the case of what people enjoy
> accepting as literal truths -- the Iliad, for example -- the stories
> were only retained BECAUSE they had a cultural value over
> and above their literal words (underlying truths).

They were entertaining. That is what I said about the apparent usage of the
Septuagint. Just a bunch of gods stories like the other mythologies. Not
particularly good ones either.

> This is true even in modern cultures -- the classic "Urban"
> myth is usually a morality tale, A LESSON.

That is why they are told to children. Adults know things are never so simple
in the real world. They are just training stories, addition tables in
preparation for accounting if you will.

>> Of course if you can produce the code book which allows translation of the
>> secret meanings

> Dude, it doesn't take any code book. You can see the lesson
> of Job with your eyes closed.

Not if you read it for the first time WITHOUT the "what it really means" book
at hand. And if you should read it, it says nothing about Job who just plods
along doing what he always did without knowing a thing about the bar bet
between Amun and Ra. The story is what the gods will do to people just for the
fun of it.

> And Noah, if nothing else, gives
> moral license to enslave all the people of the Levant -- "The
> Canaanites").

I read that a couple times. Once just to point out that nearly every sentence
contains a false to fact statement making it at best in the same category as
fairy tales. You will have to point out the enslavement part to me.

> Sodom& Gomorrah teaches so many things...

> hospitality, a wife's obedience to her husband... a woman's
> duty to birth the next generation of the chosen people... God
> rewards the righteous...

The hospitality of savage barbarians. Certainly not that shown by the kind of
people you want to know. It does show the supernatural guests don't lift a
celestial wing to protect those who offer hospitality -- yes the gods are fickle.

The duty of women to be slaves? Really now. If you ever read it, there were
no chosen people back when that fable is set in time.

Please explain to me why you believers think there would be no children
without divine orders to have them. A duty to roll in the hay? What is that
other than a divine right of men to keep them pregnant by spousal rape if
necessary?

> These things are as pain as the message in George Washington
> chopping down the cherry tree or "Honest Abe" Lincoln. Not only
> is there a strong moral component to such tales, but a man in
> american society of the 19th century was never worth more than
> his word.

Again you recite lessons for children to accustom them to the real decisions
they will have to make as adults. So again, fairytales in your view. Taken for
what they say, as inputs to a theology,

But they all depend upon somehow knowing what they really mean. As I assume
is obvious if one takes your "really means" as correct you have a collection
of tales for children and nothing more. That of course would explain why
Josephus never cites it.

But in fact it is taken as something more than tales for children. Whatever
that might be you are defending it as such.

BTW, how old are you?

>> You are stuck in the mythology of an oral tradition that

> You invent a new reality every time you long on. Years of
> activity, years of arguments and no matter what is said,
> how often it is said or how convincingly it is stated, you
> conveniently forget it all each time you log on...

> When have i ever argued oral tradition?

Hidden meanings, standard interpretations. Where else to do they come from?

Only a very few centuries ago your Noah example had no hidden meaning but
rather the recounting of a real event in human history. None that you list
were considered myths at all. Obviously your "real" meanings are relatively
recent inventions. It is not difficult at all to google up solid evidence they
were taken not only literally but also as divine at the highest levels of the
believers who taught them as literally true.

Yet your recent "oral tradition" of the proper way to look at the stories has
very obviously changed in the last 2 to 3 centuries and radically so.

>> You can't have ancient wisdom and savagery in the same package.

> Why not?

Because they were ridiculing that simple American girl in Samoa who didn't
know where children came from.

> We had both plus the largest, most
> advanced economy in Europe in Germany, back
> under Hitler. Germany had -- past tense -- already
> established itself as one of the most cultured on
> earth, one of the most intellectually accomplished
> and technologically advanced (again, past tense)
> and yet brutal beyond measure.

Leave your holohuggery out of it. Also your Hitler fetish is off topic
without Indiana Jones.

You do know I am talking about illiterate goatherds in the hill country of
Palestine not having anything to offer the world in the ways of wisdom. If you
want ancient wisdom look to Plato. If you want an ancient view of the Judean
god myths real the emperor Julian on the subject. Do not be surprised to learn
the dim view of the Judean god was just as dim 1700 years ago as it is today.

>> The bible is written from the perspective of giving the priest-king of Judah
>> Hyrcanus

> No such thing.

> The Egyptians had priest kings, sure, but who else? The
> Sumerians? Please.

Should you ever learn something of the subject you will learn Judah the
Hammer declared himself and his family priest-kings. That it was a copy of
Egypt is hardly surprising. His civil war started as a revolt against Seleucid
rule in favor of being ruled by Ptolemy. All of the traditional nonsense about
the causes came after the sons of the high priest Tobias reconquered Jerusalem
for Antiochus. Only after the revolt was put down was Greek custom imposed on
Judea by right of conquest.

>>> I pointed out that it's useless suggesting ALTERNATIVES
>>> to biblical beliefs. That, when the religious folk drag their
>>> private beliefs into history& archaeology (politics, etc) it
>>> is sufficient to merely demonstrate the errors in their
>>> claims.
>
>> There is nothing to debate as far as I can see.
>
> And yet you do so anyways.

I am waiting for your evidence of something older than the Septuagint.

> > > See, God ordered Abraham to go kill his son and Abraham,
>>> being a righteous man (someone deserving of God's love)
>>> he follows God's orders. Because, yeah, THAT is what a
>>> truly righteous man does. And the reason why this lesson
>>> was so important, of course, is because nobody hears God
>>> (except for the mentally ill). God speaks to nobody. Well,
>>> except the king or the priest. They know what God wants.
>>> And even if it sounds crazy or like it's a bad thing, something
>>> you definitely don't want, a righteous man listens and does
>>> exactly what God told them to do.
>>> Duh.
>> What is the source of this hidden "lesson"

> Nobody said "Hidden." In fact, if you hide the lesson you're
> defeating the purpose of writing it out in the first place.

If the lessons are not hidden why are the lessons of your examples only from
the couple centuries? Why do they concentrate upon only the childish aspects
when they were once preached as literal truth?

>> Please
>> produce the evidence your "lesson" is

> You've already provided tons of evidence. For example, we
> know for a fact that a literally reading doesn't work. It is
> not literally true. A second piece of evidence is the fact that
> a literal reading isn't even consistent.

> So, right there you present us with evidence, twice....

Yes I have. In the Eden story I have pointed the moral is a design defect in
the original product in not knowing it was evil to disobey the gods and the
expulsion was to prevent Adam and Eve from living forever. Christians teach it
as a different story. Jews sort of shy away from any meaning to it. Three
centuries ago both considered it an actual event.

Every place the god says "us" does not make sense as in the Eden story and
the Babel story and most all of Genesis including the sons of god screwing the
daughters of men as opposed to the later celibate christian son of god.

What I point out does not make sense is that it does not make sense IF one
assumes the modern popular version of what it is supposed to say. Your
versions make modern fairy tales of things that were once taught as literal
truths.

>> the original intent of the story.

> You fail your own standard.

> Again, YOU FAIL YOUR OWN STANDARD.
>
> If YOU want to argue that it all comes down to intent,
> and this intent can not be ascertained, then you have
> no basis for any interpretation -- including a literal one.

> You can't establish that it is meant to be read that way,
> that their INTENT was a dry history...

> You know, one of these day you're going to shock me
> and NOT be a huge hypocrite who ALWAYS fails to
> meet his own standards...

It all comes down to the FACT that there is no evidence of anything older
than the Septuagint.

I am not really interested in going beyond that other than to test out topics
for that part of my website.

www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/ it is only 57k words at the moment but
not bad for four months. FYI: This is not the publication method I said I had
found.

--
In ancient history the term "believed to be" is a
technical term meaning bullshit.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4389
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo/nizgas3.html a4
Mon Mar 5 04:16:34 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Martin Edwards <big_mart...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> That is rather the point.  The Sun does not rise or set at all,

That was the point. You've simply redefined "Rise" and "Set"
to mean something other than what it has always meant --
your own private definition -- and then declared some nonsense.

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/05/2012 03:33 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
> On 04/03/2012 20:29, JTEM wrote:
>>
>> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, I agree you have no evidence there was anything
>>> to translate into Greek.
>>
>> Besides the physical evidence such as regional texts
>> (the Ugarit texts, for example) which were clearly the
>> source material for much of the bible...

> I'm with you there.

You will recall a year or three back I pointed out the local mythology is
more complex than considered by bible believers by pointing out the Perseus
and Andromeda were story was set in Joppa, modern Jaffa. That the names of
local gods were used by the GREEKS does not change the mythology of Egypt was
used to for their characteristics. Yahweh has the Ugarit name but is Amen, the
first and oldest god of the Egyptian pantheon. Yahweh and Ashara, both from
Ugarit, are found in bibleland inscriptions. Yahweh has never been found
alone. It is always their mention as a pair.

Yes the Phoenician pantheon is found in the Ugarit collection. The Ugarit
find dates from the Egyptian New Kingdom rule of the region.

As for how it all came together, remember it is fiction. There are all kinds
of ancient references in the TV series Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. That does
not mean Buffy existed or that any particular reference has any meaning.

As we AGREE no matter what the source of the stories they are all fiction
there is no reason to prefer one source of fiction writers over another
source. Do we prefer Chris Carter (X-Files) over Joss Whedon (Buffy) as more
correct? The discriminant here is simply NO evidence in favor of a bibleland
origin of the bible. We either deal with the evidence or we do not.

Assuming there was an original written in a language there is no evidence
anyone ever spoke and for which there is no time for it to develop is not
reasonable. Calling inscriptions in Phoenician proto-hebrew is using the bible
as a guide to interpreting archaeology, a long discouraged practice.

>>> Besides your Septuagint is a real hack writing job.
>> Speaking of rigid, scholarly standards...
>> What is or isn't a hack job is clearly a matter of personal
>> opinion, and hardly relevant to this or any other discussion.

> You're right. On this one he hasn't got a clue. It is rather spare and elegant
> Greek, and a good example of the Greek of the period.

Except for the modest point that the "hebraisms" is the Septuagint were once
used as evidence it was a translation. Then around 1880 Koine Greek was
discovered and the hebraisms became Koine Greek constructions "proving" just
the opposite.

--
I consider it 1000% reasonable to demand a sign from heaven for anyone
claiming to know what god wants to save them from the stake for blasphemy.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4388

http://www.giwersworld.org/holo/ a8
Mon Mar 5 06:32:38 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> JTEM wrote:
>

> > The same could be said for Egypt, the greatest of the ancient
> > empires... right down to the circumcision.
>
>         Your favorite Jews were no better than the animal worshipers.

They weren't animal worshipers. Ironic, isn't it, that a man
who purports to be an expert on middle eastern religions &
people -- and even claims to have found a link between
Judaism and Egypt -- lacks a basic understanding of the
greatest middle eastern empire?

>         The red heifer needed to consecrate a temple and the Apis bull differ how
> other than color? Yahweh has the head of a Ram as does Amun/Amen. The Shofar
> horns and the forelocks are his symbols. The scapegoat is his messenger. All
> those "unexplained" things in the OT are part of the Amun/Yahweh cult. "Thou
> shalt hold no other gods are older than me."

Keeping with the irony theme here...

Samaria was Egyptian. You have even argued yourself
that it was the location of an Egyptian palace, and
not only does history record Sheshonq I conquest of
the Levant, but it's traditional dating is transparently
wrong.

So we have an Egyptian king at the right place
(Samaria), at the right time (10th century), right
before the age when the Egypt splintered and the
Priest-Kings reigned... followed by the Assyrians
and the Persians... the Greeks... And "Jew"
is even Egyptian for Mountain!

There. You've just talked yourself into a literally
true bible. Congratulations.

[Matt Giwer]

I meant hack job as in hack writers. An americanism perhaps. It means people
who turn out formula novels like romances and westerns but in general means
just writers for wages based on words per hour.

Let me start with what I have learned from you, that the Septuagint is a
single style and reads congruently not as you describe the Hebrew version.

If we assume the different styles of the hebrew indicate it is the original
how do we explain the different styles? It was easy back when Moses wrote the
first five and later folks wrote other parts over the centuries. Languages
evolve we all agree. But when everything older than the "return from Babylon"
was written after the return, where did all the styles come from?

Should not everything prior to the mid 5th c. BC be all the same style? I do
not see how it is possible to commit campfire tales, oral material, into
"ancient" writing. Would we record an oral folk story from Elizabethan times
using Elizabethan spelling and grammar? Of course not we might fake it by
copying but in bibleland there was nothing to copy much less fake. So where
did the "hebrew" styles come from?

The simplest explanation I can come up with is the Greek was translated into
local variations of local dialects at different times by people with varying
degrees of mastery of Greek. We KNOW we cannot explain those differences by
creation over centuries. What is left to explain the differences?

I add to this the letter of Aristeas, Josephus, the Mishna and the Talmud ALL
declaring the Septuagint is a perfect translation with increasing degrees of
miracles involved in the accuracy of the translation. Everything you are
talking about comes from the Masoretic which is about 1000 years old. It is
only from the Masoretic that there are claims the Septuagint contains errors.
Yet the Masoretic is a redaction of the DSS which is a redaction of the
Septuagint.

--
How would a sovereign state of Utah differ from
the sovereign state of Israel?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4386
http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/sewer-bible.phtml a15
Mon Mar 5 07:03:09 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/04/2012 03:19 PM, JTEM wrote:
>
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> As you still do not have physical evidence for anything prior to the
>> Septuagint
>
> It's odd that you keep saying that as you know it's not
> true.

I know for a fact you have never reciting anything older than the Septuagint.
But if you think I missed it, please post it again.

--
What idiot thought there could be a decrease in smoking that would not cause
an increase in obesity? Does second hand smoke really control obesity?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4383

http://www.haaretz.com What is Israel really like? http://www.jpost.com a7

Mon Mar 5 07:43:40 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/04/2012 03:29 PM, JTEM wrote:
>
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, I agree you have no evidence there was anything
>> to translate into Greek.
>
> Besides the physical evidence such as regional texts
> (the Ugarit texts, for example) which were clearly the
> source material for much of the bible...

If you are claiming there are Ugarit texts of Eden and Noah and Abraham and
Moses I suggest you are ignorant of what was found at Ugarit. If you are not
claiming that then you have no evidence of anything to TRANSLATE.

google def:translate to learn the meaning of the word

>> Besides your Septuagint is a real hack writing job.

> Speaking of rigid, scholarly standards...

> What is or isn't a hack job is clearly a matter of personal
> opinion, and hardly relevant to this or any other discussion.

google hack writing. It is producing words to formula without significant
content. There is no significant adult content in the OT. There once was but
science intervened.

As Julian observed, the Hebrew god is baser than the most jealous human for
his wrath in his jealousy. A decent writer would give the god some admirable
attributes instead of portraying it as a petulant child. The Septuagint god
has no admirable qualities. Emulation of any of its qualities is damnable.

And it is a rather dim witted god as it can be out-reasoned in the matter of
the destruction of Sodom.

--
Listen up, assholes. My people were holocausted so I can mouth off to you
like Jeremiah. Got it?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4391
http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/sewer-bible.phtml a15
Mon Mar 5 07:47:41 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/05/2012 07:20 AM, JTEM wrote:
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>> JTEM wrote:
>>> The same could be said for Egypt, the greatest of the ancient
>>> empires... right down to the circumcision.
>> Your favorite Jews were no better than the animal worshipers.

> They weren't animal worshipers. Ironic, isn't it, that a man
> who purports to be an expert on middle eastern religions&
> people -- and even claims to have found a link between
> Judaism and Egypt -- lacks a basic understanding of the
> greatest middle eastern empire?

Rather it is a matter of looking at the pre-Greek original, the Ptolemaic
sanitizing of the Egyptians which cannot be distinguished from animal worship.
It was personified in Serapis the man and the apis bull who dressed as a
Greek. We have been over this.

>> The red heifer needed to consecrate a temple and the Apis bull differ how
>> other than color? Yahweh has the head of a Ram as does Amun/Amen. The Shofar
>> horns and the forelocks are his symbols. The scapegoat is his messenger. All
>> those "unexplained" things in the OT are part of the Amun/Yahweh cult. "Thou
>> shalt hold no other gods are older than me."

> Keeping with the irony theme here...

> Samaria was Egyptian. You have even argued yourself
> that it was the location of an Egyptian palace, and
> not only does history record Sheshonq I conquest of
> the Levant, but it's traditional dating is transparently
> wrong.

Not me nor anyone else I have read here has said anything like that. What is
your weekly 'shroom consumption?

--
At least 35% of Israelis are anti-Zionists. What's the big deal?
The Iron Webmaster, 4379

http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/ a12
Mon Mar 5 08:13:11 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

Anonymous authority. Agreed.

--
In ancient history the term "believed to be" is a
technical term meaning bullshit.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4389

http://www.giwersworld.org/holo/ a8
Mon Mar 5 08:28:42 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

Why would I care of your opinion?

--
Listen up, assholes. My people were holocausted so I can mouth off to you
like Jeremiah. Got it?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4391

http://www.giwersworld.org/antisem/ Antisemitism a10
Mon Mar 5 08:29:42 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> JTEM wrote:

> > As you've argued many times:  Josephus is a latter day concoction,
> > the product of Medieval monks back-dating their religion. the type of
> > missing details you introduce here are highly indicative of just that.

>         I am willing to review the evidence of that you produce.

Wait. You're denying it? Previously you have said this:

: What I have said about Josephus is as I have said. Evaluations and
opinions
: change over time. Attempting to hold a person to an opinion from
years earlier
: is foolish. Attempting to hold a person to a position misremembered
from years
: earlier is foolish even if the misremembering is honest.
Message-ID: <4d914e1c$0$29703$9a6e...@unlimited.newshosting.com>

Which brings you to a full THREE DIFFERENT claims regarding your
views on Josephus...

#1. He's a medieval forgery, or at least highly embellished.

#2. You changed your mind about him.

#3. You've always considered him authentic.

Dude, you can't keep track of your own history here, in this
one group, and you want to tell us what happened more than
2 thousand years ago?

> > Duh. And you insist on a literal reading even when pretending to
> > be discussing underlying truths -- bible as metaphor/parable.

>         Seems to me there are two possible sources for underlying truths.

Sources? Unlimited.

>         The first is people, educated Greeks in Alexandria or illiterate goatherds
> from the hill country of Palestine.

Of course.

> It do not see how either group can produce
> "underlying truths."

Why not? Where's the difficulty? Our culture manages them
with urban myths. A famous one from a few years back was
the man who visits a prostitute and wakes up, after apparently
having been drugged, in a bath tub with a kidney missing...

It don't take a rocket scientist to see the morality tale in
that one...

>         Pardon if I do not see a reason to read the crap as other than literal.

But you see no reason to read it as literal. In fact, you've spent
years
arguing that not one word of it is accurate...

This is what lead to our off & on argument over Alexander the Great.
After all, it mentions him, and he is a real figure...

See what I mean here?

It's impossible to discuss anything with you. Everything you say,
absolutely everything -- from your position to what you claim is
your supporting evidence -- changes at the drop of a hat, and in
radical ways.

Now here's three facts for you:'

#1. The Septuagint is found in bible land.

#2. The Septuagint as a literal read is amazingly inaccurate.

#3. The people of bible land knew that the Septuagint as a
literal read is amazingly inaccurate.... appallingly inaccurate.

So we can only draw one conclusion: They didn't care! Accuracy
didn't mean to them what it means to you. The message must've
been more important than the way they chose to say it.

>         [For our British audience, Santorum is a candidate for the Republican
> presidential nominee who is extremely redneck and Christian.]

Actually, he's not redneck at all. He's a yankee and a Catholic,
though agreed he's the Catholic equivalent to any Protestant
fundamentalist and NOT representative of the typical Catholic...

> > Which is weird, because even in the case of what people enjoy
> > accepting as literal truths -- the Iliad, for example -- the stories
> > were only retained BECAUSE they had a cultural value over
> > and above their literal words (underlying truths).

>         They were entertaining.

Maybe, but you're dead wrong when you think that's why they
were retold. Take the George Washington story about the
cherry tree, for example. Tens of millions -- if not hundreds of
millions -- of Americans who never read a Washington biography
know the story.

Seriously. You have this uncanny ability to take what we know
for a fact about people and not apply it...

> > This is true even in modern cultures -- the classic "Urban"
> > myth is usually a morality tale, A LESSON.

>         That is why they are told to children.

And adults.

> Adults know things are never so simple
> in the real world.

Well you clearly don't, with your overly simplistic to the
point of uselessness view of the world...

For example, a second famous urban myth tells the
story of a cheating husband who comes out from his
girlfriend to find his wife had filled his convertible with
concrete. Like most urban myths the morality lesson
is clear (and NOT for children), and millions have
claimed that it has to be true because they saw it
on a TV show (Adam 12, I believe).

> They are just training stories,

That's all any holy book is. It tells you what to do --
how to behave, what obligations you have -- and why.

Duh.

See? It's starting to sink into the wooden block you
call a head...

> > Dude, it doesn't take any code book. You can see the lesson
> > of Job with your eyes closed.

>         Not if you read it for the first time WITHOUT the "what it really
> means" book at hand.

Um, are you retarded? Because, yeah, anyone can see the lesson
in Job without the code book next to him....

> > And Noah, if nothing else, gives
> > moral license to enslave all the people of the Levant -- "The
> > Canaanites").

>         I read that a couple times. Once just to point out that nearly every sentence
> contains a false to fact statement making it at best in the same category as
> fairy tales.

So a literal reading fails, you're saying, but the "underlying
truth" -- the lesson of the story -- stands tall just the same.

Wow. It really is beginning to dawn on you....

> You will have to point out the enslavement part to me.

And you claim to have read it twice?

Dude, I don't even know if I voluntarily read it once in my
life, or if I've just picked it up here & there...

Anyhow, skip to the end. The part about his son seeing
him naked.

> > Sodom&  Gomorrah teaches so many things...
> > hospitality, a wife's obedience to her husband... a woman's
> > duty to birth the next generation of the chosen people... God
> > rewards the righteous...
>
>         The hospitality of savage barbarians

you're agreeing. You're throwing in highly biased and overly
emotional personal opinions while you're at it, but you just
agreed with me.

> > These things are as pain as the message in George Washington
> > chopping down the cherry tree or "Honest Abe" Lincoln. Not only
> > is there a strong moral component to such tales, but a man in
> > american society of the 19th century was never worth more than
> > his word.

>         Again you recite lessons for children

They weren't written for child. Your knowledge of history is
appalling.

>         But they all depend upon somehow knowing what they really mean.

Outside mental institutions, these things are never considered
difficult, but only because they are not.

>         Only a very few centuries ago your Noah example had no
> hidden meaning

Why do you keep saying "Hidden Meaning" when I not only
never made such a claim, but pointed out that hiding the lesson
would actually defeat the purpose?

I mean, again & again you fail to grasp the bleeding obvious
as it stares you in the eye and shouts your name, yet you
insist that you can decipher an alien culture as it existed
2000 years before you were born...

The words "Confidence Inspiring" don't enter the equation.

>         Yet your recent "oral tradition"

I'm glad you're repeating the "oral tradition" nonsense after
I already pointed out how wrong you are...

HINT: I've never suggested an oral tradition.

> > We had both plus the largest, most
> > advanced economy in Europe in Germany, back
> > under Hitler. Germany had -- past tense -- already
> > established itself as one of the most cultured on
> > earth, one of the most intellectually accomplished
> > and technologically advanced (again, past tense)
> > and yet brutal beyond measure.
>
>         Leave your holohuggery out of it.

Oops, the overt antisemitism rears it's ugly head...

Everything you say about the bible and the Levant,
everything you say about ancient history is bent to
conform to your antisemitism. Everything.

>         You do know I am talking about illiterate goatherds in the hill country of
> Palestine not having anything to offer the world in the ways of wisdom.

Only when you're not claiming to be talking about Egyptians,
Egyptian gods ("Yahweh is Amun," you've often argued) or
Greeks -- that it was Greeks who wrote it.

Remember that? Alexandrian Greeks wrote it, or so you
claimed? But that would mean that you're now arguing
that the Greeks weren't intellectually capable of slapping
together a morality tale...

See? See that? You can't even stick to your own position.
You just can't. It's impossible for you.

> > The Egyptians had priest kings, sure, but who else?  The
> > Sumerians?  Please.
>
>         Should you ever learn something of the subject you will learn Judah the
> Hammer declared himself and his family priest-kings.

So now you're claiming that the bible is literally true again?

> His civil war started as a revolt against Seleucid
> rule in favor of being ruled by Ptolemy.

Show us the physical evidence that you demand, or retract.

>         I am waiting for your evidence of something older than the Septuagint.

Why? You don't hold yourself to that standard. You claim that
the Septuagint was written in Alexandria, though the oldest known
remnants are found in bible land.

> > Nobody said "Hidden."  In fact, if you hide the lesson you're
> > defeating the purpose of writing it out in the first place.
>
>         If the lessons are not hidden why are the lessons of your examples only from
> the couple centuries?

Cites?

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Why would I care of your opinion?

It's not mine and it's not opinion. Ideas really are
transferable. You are wrong. Period. All of
history is a demonstration of this fact.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> JTEM wrote:
> > They weren't animal worshipers. Ironic, isn't it, that a man
> > who purports to be an expert on middle eastern religions&
> > people -- and even claims to have found a link between
> > Judaism and Egypt -- lacks a basic understanding of the
> > greatest middle eastern empire?
>
>         Rather it is a matter of looking at the pre-Greek original, the Ptolemaic
> sanitizing of the Egyptians which cannot be distinguished from animal worship.

So when you talked about the Egyptians you weren't talking about
the Egyptians? You're now claiming that you were talking about
the Greeks as they talked about the Egyptians?

And this makes sense?

> > Keeping with the irony theme here...
> > Samaria was Egyptian. You have even argued yourself
> > that it was the location of an Egyptian palace, and
> > not only does history record Sheshonq I conquest of
> > the Levant, but it's traditional dating is transparently
> > wrong.
>
>         Not me nor anyone else I have read here has said anything like that.

Actually, you have. Egyptian cartouhes have been found in
Samaria, as they have all over bibleland, and you yourself
have argued that is evidence for Egyptian occupation....

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:


>         If you are claiming there are Ugarit texts of Eden and Noah and Abraham

Abraham is mentioned, as is the proto flood myth, the one
universally accepted as the origins of Noah: Gilgamesh.

Eden? I'm not sure. But it hardly matters as Ugarit was not
the one and only source -- no single one of which was
required to contain everything.

As a matter of fact, we have but two models on the building
of a holy book: The N.T. and the Torah, and neither model
fits your requirements.

For both the N.T. and Torah, we know a selection took place.
That, a great deal of material was present, available, and
only a subset of that material was chosen for inclusion.

As you agree demanding that we ignore the only two actual
models that are available to us, why don't you explain why,
and what legitimate model you have to replace them with?

> > Speaking of rigid, scholarly standards...
> > What is or isn't a hack job is clearly a matter of personal
> > opinion, and hardly relevant to this or any other discussion.
>
>         google hack writing.

Google "personal opinion."

You have this defect which causes you to mistakenly view
your ever knee-jerk as fact.....

It is not.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         I know for a fact you have never reciting anything older than the Septuagint.

The Ugarit Text. Gilgamesh.

Oh, there's plenty of others....

[Martin Edwards]

Wait, "the Earth goes round the Sun" is nonsense? I'm sure you didn't
really mean that.

[Martin Edwards]

That's no excuse for crap pages.

[Martin Edwards]

Christian, but hardly what is normally regarded as redneck. He is a
Catholic. The contest is being extensively covered by news channels in
this country. It has almost knocked sport into second place.

[Martin Edwards]

On 05/03/2012 13:27, Matt Giwer wrote:
> On 03/05/2012 07:20 AM, JTEM wrote:
>> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>>> JTEM wrote:
>>>> The same could be said for Egypt, the greatest of the ancient
>>>> empires... right down to the circumcision.
>>> Your favorite Jews were no better than the animal worshipers.
>
>> They weren't animal worshipers. Ironic, isn't it, that a man
>> who purports to be an expert on middle eastern religions&
>> people -- and even claims to have found a link between
>> Judaism and Egypt -- lacks a basic understanding of the
>> greatest middle eastern empire?
>
> Rather it is a matter of looking at the pre-Greek original, the
> Ptolemaic sanitizing of the Egyptians which cannot be distinguished from
> animal worship. It was personified in Serapis the man and the apis bull
> who dressed as a Greek. We have been over this.
>

It is uncontested that the early Egyptians were animal worshippers. The
"goat of Mendes" (actually a ram) was one of their gods. The point is
that the religion evolved. The pictures of hybrid gods and tales of
anthropomorphic gods came from somewhere. The cult of Serapis was an
attempt at internationalising a religion for which prototypes already
existed. It was successful. It spread to other countries but never
caught on in Egypt. There is a fairly well preserved Serapion in
Bergama (Pergamon) from the /second century/. Clearly the victory of
Christianity was a nearer run thing than is often supposed.

[Martin Edwards]

On 05/03/2012 12:02, Matt Giwer wrote:
>
> Except for the modest point that the "hebraisms" is the Septuagint were
> once used as evidence it was a translation. Then around 1880 Koine Greek
> was discovered and the hebraisms became Koine Greek constructions
> "proving" just the opposite.
>

No contest. My point was that you said that the Septuagint is crap
Greek and it isn't. I believe in all modesty that I know more about
that than you do.

[Martin Edwards]

You have a point here. R C Zaehner pointed this out, though he ignored
his own insight by being a Catholic. What a piece of work is a man.

[Martin Edwards]

On 05/03/2012 12:42, Matt Giwer wrote:
>
> I add to this the letter of Aristeas, Josephus, the Mishna and the
> Talmud ALL declaring the Septuagint is a perfect translation with
> increasing degrees of miracles involved in the accuracy of the
> translation. Everything you are talking about comes from the Masoretic
> which is about 1000 years old. It is only from the Masoretic that there
> are claims the Septuagint contains errors. Yet the Masoretic is a
> redaction of the DSS which is a redaction of the Septuagint.
>

I would tentatively suggest that it is not a redaction /only/ of the
DSS, and that styles were preserved over centuries. After all, I could
copy out a passage of Chaucer accurately without even fully
understanding it.

[Martin Edwards]

See Thompson: The Messiah myth.

[JTEM]

Martin Edwards <big_mart...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> >   Martin Edwards<big_mart...@yahoo.co.uk>  wrote:
>
> >> That is rather the point.  The Sun does not rise or set at all,
>
> > That was the point. You've simply redefined "Rise" and "Set"
> > to mean something other than what it has always meant --
> > your own private definition -- and then declared some nonsense.

> Wait, "the Earth goes round the Sun" is nonsense?

So first you invented a new definition for the "rising" and
"setting" of the sun, and now you've invented an entirely
new conversation in which you did this.

Please stop that. It's childish, to say the least.

[JTEM]

Martin Edwards <big_mart...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> It is uncontested that the early Egyptians were
> animal worshippers.

It is uncontested that they had animal gods, yes,
but it's also not germane to this conversation.

> The cult of Serapis was an
> attempt at internationalising a religion for which prototypes already
> existed.  It was successful.  It spread to other countries but never
> caught on in Egypt.

As you just made clear, it's not really Egyptian. It's
an interpretation of Egyptian religion, but not Egyptian.

The Levant was Egyptian. Period. For further back than
any record could show, further back than any 100
living memories, for further back than anyone alive than
could have guessed, Egypt owned the Levant. It controlled.
it. It was Egyptian property.

[Martin Edwards]

Walk on.

[Matt Giwer]

How does Kings read in the Gilgamesh epic? Do the Psalms come through in
Ugaritic?

Are you pretending to be dumb or is not an an act?

--
In ancient history the term "believed to be" is a
technical term meaning bullshit.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4389

http://www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml a16
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. a16
Wed Mar 7 04:36:18 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/06/2012 03:34 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
> On 05/03/2012 12:02, Matt Giwer wrote:
>> Except for the modest point that the "hebraisms" is the Septuagint were
>> once used as evidence it was a translation. Then around 1880 Koine Greek
>> was discovered and the hebraisms became Koine Greek constructions
>> "proving" just the opposite.

> No contest. My point was that you said that the Septuagint is crap Greek and
> it isn't. I believe in all modesty that I know more about that than you do.

I may have to go back to the original use of my website, to have ready text
as preamble so I can repeat myself without retyping it all.

Not the language is crap but the content is. There was no attempt to produce
what would pass for literature for adults. The "moral lessons" are for
children. The big ten are suitable only for children. That and the "just so"
stories of Genesis should be enough to seal the case. The characters are
action heroes or kings. The stories are formulaic. Solomon is clever not wise.
The god is not wise but rather petty, jealous, vindictive and viscous.

They are clearly not "true" stories. Equally clearly there was little effort
put into creating them. Buffy has a better collection of stories that follow a
clearer story arc. It has better continuity. In the Septuagint not only the
Ark vanishes without mention but so also ten tribes without mention.
Disjointed story arcs by different writers without continuity. That is
perfectly understandable with Greek creation in Alexandria but not with
creation at any time in bibleland.

--
The extreme settlers have already murdered a Prime Minister.
What does a red line mean to them?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4373
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/holo-survivors.phtml a3
Wed Mar 7 04:38:48 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/05/2012 09:22 PM, JTEM wrote:
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>> If you are claiming there are Ugarit texts of Eden and Noah and Abraham

> Abraham is mentioned, as is the proto flood myth, the one
> universally accepted as the origins of Noah: Gilgamesh.

It may shock you to learn the Gilgamesh epic was well known in ancient times.
It was not REdiscovered by us until the 19th c. No surprise the Septuagint
writers drew on it for the Noah nonsense. Of course refusing to believe Noah
character in the epic means you hate Jews. Read Against Apion bk 1 for
details. That book is also evidence it was known in ancient times.

> Eden? I'm not sure. But it hardly matters as Ugarit was not
> the one and only source -- no single one of which was
> required to contain everything.

You are free to recite what in the Ugarit find is relevant beyond the names
of gods Ashara and Yahweh. Yahweh is a third rate deity in them. In the
Septuagint Yahweh has the characteristics of Amen, the eldest god of the
Egyptians.

> As a matter of fact, we have but two models on the building
> of a holy book: The N.T. and the Torah, and neither model
> fits your requirements.

The gospels are four variations upon a single text and only one of them at
significant variance on the other three. The letters are from members of a
Galilean of the local religion which is related to Judaism. How do you see
that as a model?

Why does not the Torah fit fanciful creation in the 2nd c. BC? But do not
tell me anything which does not fit 5th c. BC creation in bibleland unless you
are prepared to support a different time of creation in bibleland. We do know
the high priest Onias was given a complete city in Egypt modeled on Jerusalem
to rule. How is he excluded from the creation of the stories? I have never
claimed to trace it to Alexandria, just to Egypt. Alexandria is an admitted
conceit.

> For both the N.T. and Torah, we know a selection took place.
> That, a great deal of material was present, available, and
> only a subset of that material was chosen for inclusion.

Tell me how how you KNOW a selection took place for the Torah. I know there
were unselected gospels and epistles for the NT. Please be specific in how you
KNOW. Please recite the physical evidence which leads to knowledge.

--
The extreme settlers have already murdered a Prime Minister.
What does a red line mean to them?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4373

http://www.giwersworld.org/palestine/answers.phtml a9
Wed Mar 7 04:59:49 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/06/2012 03:41 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
> On 05/03/2012 12:42, Matt Giwer wrote:
>> I add to this the letter of Aristeas, Josephus, the Mishna and the
>> Talmud ALL declaring the Septuagint is a perfect translation with
>> increasing degrees of miracles involved in the accuracy of the
>> translation. Everything you are talking about comes from the Masoretic
>> which is about 1000 years old. It is only from the Masoretic that there
>> are claims the Septuagint contains errors. Yet the Masoretic is a
>> redaction of the DSS which is a redaction of the Septuagint.

> I would tentatively suggest that it is not a redaction /only/ of the DSS,

What else is there? If there were anything else I am clearly wrong. Depending
upon what else there is perhaps completely wrong. I can't find anything. I
can't find even a mention of anything.

> and
> that styles were preserved over centuries.

How can writing styles be preserved without writing?

> After all, I could copy out a
> passage of Chaucer accurately without even fully understanding it.

But there is no evidence of a "Chaucer" to copy from. All we have from
bibleland are some letters which all appear to have been written by itinerant
scribes. Circuit riders we called them in the early US along with lawyers and
judges. None of them suggest anything like the Septuagint narrative was going
on in bibleland, actually quite the opposite.

Another thing I have found is people back then were speculating as to where
the Judeans came from and there was no agreement and folks like Josephus did
not use the Septuagint as evidence. Nor did Josephus accept Genesis as true as
he claimed Jews were originally Hittites -- which is the origin of that
mythology.

Against Apion bk I. Josephus, a priest of the Yahweh cult did NOT accept
Genesis as true while he did object to the leper origin speculation. What is a
priest of Judea who does not know of or does not accept the Torah? What is the
Torah if not the authority of the priests? Looks to me like the Septuagint was
just a collection of entertaining stories of no particular merit or authority
for the priests of the 1st c. AD. It follows the Torah was a later invention.
Maybe it was just something the Essene cult latched onto.

--
It has never been in question that Izziehuggers are racists at heart.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4382

http://www.haaretz.com What is Israel really like? http://www.jpost.com a7

Wed Mar 7 05:25:20 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

You don't have to like the source. I did see a copy of the text offered at
auction with an ask price of $1500. I gave you the URL to my website with the
introduction pages. I can put up more pages if that much interests you.

--
The extreme settlers have already murdered a Prime Minister.
What does a red line mean to them?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4373

http://www.giwersworld.org/holo/nizgas3.html a4
Wed Mar 7 05:41:50 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

Yes, Egypt did come into contact with the Persia to Italy arch of god types
which so far as the evidence indicates were always of human form. While I have
not researched it sufficient to make declaration it appears to me the further
up the Nile the more animal which is sort of what you would expect given the
animal gods of equatorial Africa.

In the Persia to Italy arc the gods at most had preferred animal totems which
do not appear much different from Jesus and lambs.

Agreed animal worshipers is a touch extreme but it is only in the Greek
sanitized Serapis where the description is clearly off the mark. If it were
off the mark in general there was no need to create Serapis.

--
Another holocaust must be prevented because sequels are so much worse than
the original.
The Iron Webmaster, 4380
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo2/ a11
Wed Mar 7 05:45:20 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/06/2012 03:19 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
> On 05/03/2012 11:31, Matt Giwer wrote:

...

>> Seems to me there are two possible sources for underlying truths.
>> The first is people, educated Greeks in Alexandria or illiterate
>> goatherds from the hill country of Palestine. It do not see how either
>> group can produce "underlying truths."
>> The second is some god, albeit parochial, who inspired truths to be
>> written. I do not how that makes you other than a Santorum.
>> Pardon if I do not see a reason to read the crap as other than literal.
>> [For our British audience, Santorum is a candidate for the Republican
>> presidential nominee who is extremely redneck and Christian.]

> Christian, but hardly what is normally regarded as redneck. He is a Catholic.
> The contest is being extensively covered by news channels in this country. It
> has almost knocked sport into second place.

Roughly 80% of American Catholics are in favor of birth control as long as
the question is not skewed such as "are you in favor including brain-sucking
partial birth abortions" kind of questions. He is in the extremist fundie camp
which included maybe 20% of Catholics. As he does not promote the RC Church
hierarchy agenda but rather goes with the born-agains I'll stick with the
redneck characterization.

That said, I offer my pro forma apologies for your misguided media.
I can only assure you it is worse here.

--
If there are an infinite number of parallel universes then there
* is one in which there are no parallel universes.
* are an infinite number in which there are no parallel universes.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4374
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo/ a8
Wed Mar 7 05:52:51 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Martin Edwards <big_mart...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Walk on.

Are you honestly unaware that you've done these
things? Invented new definition for "Rise" and "Set"
so you can that the sun does not do these things?
Invented a new context for the exchange?

You're being childish.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Agreed animal worshipers is a touch extreme
> but it is only in the Greek sanitized Serapis where
> the description is clearly off the mark. If it were
> off the mark in general there was no need to create
> Serapis.

Also, this seems to be a late riser in Egyptian history.
Yes, they veneration of the bull does stretch way back,
but the status of the cult seems to have grown
significantly with later dynasties.

Just Googling things now, I see that we're both wrong
to some extend. The oldest Apis Sarcophagus found
at the Serapeum dates to the latter part of the 18th
dynasty, Amonhotep III. If I may speculate, perhaps
elevating the status of the Apis cult was an early
strategy in the struggle against the Amun priests.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         It may shock you to learn the Gilgamesh epic

> was well known in ancient times. No surprise the

> Septuagint writers drew on it for the Noah nonsense.

I have no way of ruling out that there may have been
transitional forms in between.

> > Eden?   I'm not sure. But it hardly matters as Ugarit was not
> > the one and only source -- no single one of which was
> > required to contain everything.
>
>         You are free to recite what in the Ugarit find is relevant
> beyond the names of gods Ashara and Yahweh.

Some of the text (A small portion or a remarkably large
amount considering how ancient it is, depending upon
how one looks at it) is found pretty much verbatim in
the bible.

As this is something I have posted ad nauseum without
acknowledgment from you, I suggest a 30 second Google
search on "Ugarit" "Bible"

Alternatively, you can visit my Google Groups profile and
search on the terms: Ugarit Pslam

You're welcome.

> > As a matter of fact, we have but two models on the building
> > of a holy book:  The N.T. and the Torah, and neither model
> > fits your requirements.

>         The gospels are four variations upon a single text

You're *Way* off base here. There was piles of materials,
mountains of books, and they cherry picked those gospels.
The torah was the same way. They waded through the
available material and cherry picked what to include.

As these are our only two models, it actually makes sense
to envision the Septuagint forming in much the same
way, with a particular authority or group cherry picking
from amongst the mountains of materials what to include.

> > For both the N.T. and Torah, we know a selection took place.
> > That, a great deal of material was present, available, and
> > only a subset of that material was chosen for inclusion.

>         Tell me how how you KNOW a selection took place for
> the Torah.

Wait. Are you telling me that you don't know? Yes or no.
Do you or do you know know if the Torah was compiled
from a small number of books selected from a much larger
pool of available works.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         How does Kings read in the Gilgamesh epic?

Ironically, in this very thread, on the very day you typed
the above, you already admitted that the writers of the
tale in the Septuagint would have had access to the
Gilgamesh story and did use it as a basis.

See what I mean about your wild -- even insane --
twisting and turning? The only thing that ever
remains constant is your debilitating antisemitism.
Everything else changes constantly.

[Martin Edwards]

http://www.telegoons.org/Images/Bluebottle_and_Eccles_C72.jpg

[Martin Edwards]

On 07/03/2012 09:57, Matt Giwer wrote:
> On 03/06/2012 03:34 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:
>> On 05/03/2012 12:02, Matt Giwer wrote:
>>> Except for the modest point that the "hebraisms" is the Septuagint were
>>> once used as evidence it was a translation. Then around 1880 Koine Greek
>>> was discovered and the hebraisms became Koine Greek constructions
>>> "proving" just the opposite.
>
>> No contest. My point was that you said that the Septuagint is crap
>> Greek and
>> it isn't. I believe in all modesty that I know more about that than
>> you do.
>
> I may have to go back to the original use of my website, to have ready
> text as preamble so I can repeat myself without retyping it all.
>
> Not the language is crap but the content is. There was no attempt to
> produce what would pass for literature for adults. The "moral lessons"
> are for children. The big ten are suitable only for children. That and
> the "just so" stories of Genesis should be enough to seal the case. The
> characters are action heroes or kings. The stories are formulaic.
> Solomon is clever not wise. The god is not wise but rather petty,
> jealous, vindictive and viscous.
>

What was his viscosity?

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/07/2012 09:52 AM, JTEM wrote:
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>> It may shock you to learn the Gilgamesh epic
>> was well known in ancient times. No surprise the
>> Septuagint writers drew on it for the Noah nonsense.
>
> I have no way of ruling out that there may have been
> transitional forms in between.

The requirement is to produce evidence there were transitional forms.

>>> Eden? I'm not sure. But it hardly matters as Ugarit was not
>>> the one and only source -- no single one of which was
>>> required to contain everything.
>> You are free to recite what in the Ugarit find is relevant
>> beyond the names of gods Ashara and Yahweh.

> Some of the text (A small portion or a remarkably large
> amount considering how ancient it is, depending upon
> how one looks at it) is found pretty much verbatim in
> the bible.

Which part might that be. Again, specifics. URLs required NOT "go search it".

> As this is something I have posted ad nauseum without
> acknowledgment from you, I suggest a 30 second Google
> search on "Ugarit" "Bible"

> Alternatively, you can visit my Google Groups profile and
> search on the terms: Ugarit Pslam

> You're welcome.

URLs please. NOT anonymous sources. Not "go search it".

Line for line comparisons are the only thing convincing of course.

>>> As a matter of fact, we have but two models on the building
>>> of a holy book: The N.T. and the Torah, and neither model
>>> fits your requirements.
>> The gospels are four variations upon a single text

> You're *Way* off base here. There was piles of materials,
> mountains of books, and they cherry picked those gospels.

Factually absent URLs to the contrary there are only other gospels which were
not included in the canon. There are no other sources. But if you have URLs
please provide them.

> The torah was the same way. They waded through the
> available material and cherry picked what to include.

No URLs No Shit just bullshit. Produce the evidence there was something to
wade through.

> As these are our only two models, it actually makes sense
> to envision the Septuagint forming in much the same
> way, with a particular authority or group cherry picking
> from amongst the mountains of materials what to include.

There is also the model of the invented god Serapis. There is the model of
inventing stories about gods that goes back to at least 500BC for the Greeks.
If you have every paid attention the same gods as in attributes are found from
Persia to Rome while the stories are localized. Inventing stories was not a
problem although the educated thought it blasphemy to believe the gods were as
in the stories. NO "canonical" god stories nor even a suggestion that such a
concept existed until Christians invented heresy.

>>> For both the N.T. and Torah, we know a selection took place.
>>> That, a great deal of material was present, available, and
>>> only a subset of that material was chosen for inclusion.
>> Tell me how how you KNOW a selection took place for
>> the Torah.

> Wait. Are you telling me that you don't know? Yes or no.
> Do you or do you know know if the Torah was compiled
> from a small number of books selected from a much larger
> pool of available works.

I have always said there is NO EVIDENCE of anything older than the
Septuagint. Of course the Torah is the Judean name for the original Pentateuch.

It is irrational to assume things for which there is no evidence.

--
Who really believed putting pennies in a blue box would cause the
land fairy to leave a country under their pillow?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4375

http://www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml a16
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. a16

Fri Mar 9 03:56:39 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         The requirement is to produce evidence
> there were transitional forms.

Wrong, as always. Theories EXPLAIN evidence. They do
not in themselves require evidence. The require predictions,
sure, but nothing in the definition of "Theory" says that a
prediction need be testable, much less proven correct.

Again, theories explain evidence. The test of a theory is
if there is any evidence which it does not explain, or which
is explained better by another theory.

You simply do not know what you're talking about with
your incessant demands....

> > Some of the text (A small portion or a remarkably large
> > amount considering how ancient it is, depending upon
> > how one looks at it) is found pretty much verbatim in
> > the bible.
>
>         Which part might that be. Again, specifics.

Again, I've posted this stuff repeatedly -- ad nauseum -- over
the years. I'm sick of it. Visit my Google Groups profile and
search on "Ugarit" and "psalms" or simply visit Google and
search on "Ugarit" and "bible."

Remember: You're wrong whether you do the 30-seconds
to find out why or not. The evidence is there, and you only
look like a bigger fool for missing it...

> >>> As a matter of fact, we have but two models on the building
> >>> of a holy book:  The N.T. and the Torah, and neither model
> >>> fits your requirements.
> >>          The gospels are four variations upon a single text
> > You're *Way* off base here. There was piles of materials,
> > mountains of books, and they cherry picked those gospels.

>         Factually absent URLs to the contrary there are only other gospels which were
> not included in the canon.

You just agreed with me.

You just admitted that you are wrong. Anyhow, this page talks
at length about the works that were ultimately left out of the
N.T., but unfortunately the link to the "Lost" texts doesn't work
for most browsers as gopher is a thing of the past...

Yes, I said gopher. I haven't used that since... I dunno... 1993?

> > The torah was the same way. They waded through the
> > available material and cherry picked what to include.
>
>         No URLs No Shit just bullshit.

This is basic stuff, rudimentary stuff. If you don't know what
the Torah is composed of -- and, by extension, what they
left out -- you have no businesses here.

So are you honestly as ignorant and unqualified to speak
as you represent yourself, or are you dishing out your
usual bullshit?

Seriously, you pretend to want to debate but then do nothing
but obstruct...

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/09/2012 01:46 PM, JTEM wrote:
>
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> The requirement is to produce evidence
>> there were transitional forms.
>
> Wrong, as always. Theories EXPLAIN evidence. They do
> not in themselves require evidence. The require predictions,
> sure, but nothing in the definition of "Theory" says that a
> prediction need be testable, much less proven correct.

Excuse but you agree a theory explains evidence. Then you say a theory does
not require evidence.

Do you not realize it is intrinsic to the definition that there must be
evidence before there can be a theory? If you do not have evidence you have
nothing but an imagining, a fantasy.

--
If you demand god think rather than emote you have established an untenable
battle line with people who can rhyme you to death.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4381
http://www.giwersworld.org a1
Sat Mar 10 07:32:05 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/05/2012 09:01 PM, JTEM wrote:
>
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>

>> Why would I care of your opinion?
>
> It's not mine and it's not opinion. Ideas really are
> transferable. You are wrong. Period. All of
> history is a demonstration of this fact.

And my statements on the OT/Septuagint can only at worst be considered
"jumping the gun" on the obvious.

Relax though. It will never bother the believers or the Zionist animals.

Ever notice Godwin's Law is intrinsically antisemitic?

--
If Israel is not the result of an international, jewish conspiracy then how
did not come into existence?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4390
http://www.giwersworld.org/environment/aehb.phtml a2
Sat Mar 10 08:08:06 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

As Gilgamesh is not mentioned in the Ugarit texts you need to learn the
meaning of irony.

Do you not realize you have not introduced a single fact into evidence in two
years now? When will you stop preaching like a fundie and start talking evidence?

Godwin's Law is intrinsically antisemitic.

--
I don't have much problem with a designer instead of evolution. I look at
the designs and have a problem with the intelligent part.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4377
http://www.giwersworld.org/palestine/answers.phtml a9
Sat Mar 10 08:12:07 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/06/2012 03:14 AM, Martin Edwards wrote:

> On 05/03/2012 09:10, Matt Giwer wrote:...

>> Use Firefox from mozilla.org and block scripts and ads with noscript and
>> adblock plugins. You are already using thunderbird from mozilla. If you
>> are using firefox already you set noscript to block everything
>> universally unless you set it otherwise.
>>
> That's no excuse for crap pages.

On the other hand if you do use firefox with noscript and adblock you can go
back there and see nothing but a clean website. This could be the best sales
pitch for firefox ever invented.

--
In politics if you do not have the initiative
you are losing.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4378
http://www.giwersworld.org/antisem/GAZA-pics/ a13
Sat Mar 10 08:23:07 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

And Judeans venerated the Ram as in the Shofar horn, the Scapegoat and the
forelocks as well as their eldest god having the characteristics of the
Egyptian god Amen. Amen is depicted as a human with the head of a ram. Of
course it is spelled Amun so as not to incite you peasants to attack at night
with torches. You do realize Hebrew cannot possibly have an arbitrary lead
vowel as a lead phoneme do you not? Ha Mu N. Only in Greek does it make sense.

I connected Apis with the red Heifer the ashes of which are required to
consecrate a temple to Yahweh. The search for it has two or three cults in
Israel these days.

A bull and a goat should not be confused. You may not like it but when
bibleland was ruled by Egypt from New Kingdom times and was clearly influenced
by it as a nearest neighbor on one side and by Hellenic culture on the other
side with Phoenician, aka syrio-palestinian, in the middle. It really does not
leave much room for a cult of illiterate goat herders to do other than adopt
what surrounds them.

--
If there is a dispute over the West Bank being occupied or not then there is
a dispute over whether a tomato is a vegetable or a fruit.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4384
http://www.giwersworld.org/environment/aehb.phtml a2
Sat Mar 10 08:26:07 EST 2012

[Matt Giwer]

On 03/05/2012 08:41 AM, JTEM wrote:
> Matt Giwer<jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:...

>> Seems to me there are two possible sources for underlying truths.

> Sources? Unlimited.

>> The first is people, educated Greeks in Alexandria or illiterate goatherds
>> from the hill country of Palestine.

> Of course.

>> It do not see how either group can produce
>> "underlying truths."

> Why not? Where's the difficulty? Our culture manages them
> with urban myths. A famous one from a few years back was
> the man who visits a prostitute and wakes up, after apparently
> having been drugged, in a bath tub with a kidney missing...

> It don't take a rocket scientist to see the morality tale in
> that one...

Dear Dummy,

Morality tales are not underlying truths. They are things we tell children to
entertain them as to what life might be like when they grow up. They are like
your tales of kings and people with super powers like Samson for entertainment.

--
I don't have much problem with a designer instead of evolution. I look at
the designs and have a problem with the intelligent part.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4377

http://www.giwersworld.org/holo/nizgas3.html a4
Sat Mar 10 08:54:08 EST 2012

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         As Gilgamesh is not mentioned in the Ugarit texts
> you need to learn the meaning of irony.

CITE:

The Gilgamesh Epic at Ugairt

: Fourteen years ago came the announcement that
: several twelfth-century pieces of the Babylonian
: poem of Gilgameš had been excavated at Ugarit
: [...]

http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/5654/1/U-2-3-George-Gilgamesh-Arnaud.pdf

>         Do you not realize you have not introduced a single
> fact into evidence in two years now?

You just made a huge fool out of yourself. Please, STOP
being a jackass and start listening.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Excuse but you agree a theory explains evidence.
> Then you say a theory does not require evidence.

The difference is __Not__ a subtle one. In the latter
you're demanding "proof" (or at least support for) the
theory, in the former you (speaking rhetorically) acknowledge
that there is existing evidence to explain and are not
making idiotic demands.

>         Do you not realize it is intrinsic to the definition that there must be
> evidence before there can be a theory?

Do you realize that reality is not created anew each and
every day, and that this group has been posting &
debating that evidence for years upon years?

> If you do not have evidence you have
> nothing but an imagining, a fantasy.

Which is quite an idiotic thing to say, but you agree that
there is piles of evidence, more than enough for you
to construct numerous theories of your own.

So why are you babbling along these lines?

Everyone including you agrees that there's piles &
piles & piles of evidence, and here you are pretending
that this matter is up for debate... Sheesh!

HINT: Your. Own. Theories.

Duh.

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> Dear Dummy,

You know he's going to shove his foot into it...

>         Morality tales are not underlying truths.

The morals are the underlying truths. The tale is
the means why which they are taught.

What is the underlying truth? The moral. The lesson
you're supposed to take away from the story. The
story itself is merely a delivery system. It's not the
story, it's the underlying truth -- the lesson, the morals
-- which is important. They make the tale worth
telling.

Morals are by no means universal.

Damn, you're really an idiot today....

[JTEM]

Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>         Ever notice Godwin's Law is intrinsically antisemitic?

No. But I did notice that it is the single least understood
concept on usenet. Again.