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Late Bronze Age Collapse

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Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#301

Post by Jap2-0 »

marking-time wrote: post #149
upfrog wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author has been an established blogger since well before the modern AI boom. It is of course not impossible that their writing technique has changed, and they now use AI heavily, but preferring BC/AD over the alternative/not always clarifying which strikes me as incredibly weak evidence.

The lack of consistency in the usage is also telling. Also, perhaps the author simply a christian apologist. I am an archaeologist with 10+ years of experience, so now you know my bias.

Consistency: the only case where he used BCE is in an image caption. The description on Wikimedia Commons uses BCE, so my guess is that he defaults to writing BC but reading that subconsciously put him in the frame of mind to write BCE. From a skim, he never uses CE or AD in this article.

Omission: this confused me at first, but really the entire article is set 3000 years ago, so it's not particularly ambiguous. If you think in the context of "lecture on the bronze age" you wouldn't expect him to specify every time.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#302

Post by coffeecat »

krapp wrote: post #196
coffeecat wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During Albright's time, the archaeological evidence was generally interpreted as being in support of Old Testament narratives. Later generations of archaeologists mostly took the opposite view. The bottom line is, there's very little to go by, and the little archaeological evidence that exists can be interpreted either way, depending on one's preferred conclusion.

Could it be that later generations of archeologists took the opposite view because the preponderance of evidence uncovered in that time pointed in that direction (and because the cultural and political stigma against contradicting the Bible diminished over time,) or are you implying that the interpretation of archaeological evidence either way is simply a matter of arbitrary personal preference? And notwithstanding t…

> Could it be that later generations of archeologists took the opposite view because the preponderance of evidence uncovered in that time pointed in that direction (and because the cultural and political stigma against contradicting the Bible diminished over time,)

My understanding is that the shift can mostly be attributed to the rise of biblical minimalism as the dominant interpretive framework. Radiocarbon dating of the Jericho ruins did rule out Albright's preferred late Exodus date. But the radiocarbon date is consistent with an (in my opinion, far more interesting) earlier Exodus date, which would line up with the hypothesis that the Israeli people were the Hyksos, and which would also line up with a sequential interpretation of the timeline presented in Joshua, Judges, and Samuel.

> or are you implying that the interpretation of archaeological evidence either way is simply a matter of arbitrary personal preference?

Archaeological evidence constrains the set of defensible explanations. But the available evidence from this time period (Exodus, conquest of Canaan) is so scarce that it mostly comes down to personal preference.

> And notwithstanding that, there is absolutely no credible evidence of the supernatural at all.

How could it be otherwise? If there were reproducible evidence, then the phenomenon in question would be classified as natural.

> On what basis do you believe the Bible and its supernatural claims could have happened?

I'm quite certain that mind is more fundamental than matter, and I'm not very sure about a whole lot else.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#304

Post by tsimionescu »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #229
simiones wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they don't. But they do claim lineage to Alfred the Great, whose lineage is traced by legendary sources to Woden/Odin, and from there to Noah and Adam. In some versions, Beowulf is also part of that lineage.

The link from Odin to Noah and Adam is only made by explicitly Christian writers. From what we know, the Germanic gods far predate Christianity and even Judaism.

Oh, absolutely. I was merely pointing out that at least some early English kings claimed descent from Odin and from Noah - but this doesn't lend any special credence to the existence of Odin or Noah as real people/gods.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#305

Post by jccooper »

krzyk wrote: post #292

A very interesting read. I'm a bit puzzled by one thing. Author writes that the Greek alphabet is based on Linear B script, and also that it is based on Phoenician alphabet. So was it a mix of both?

> The Mycenaean palaces had developed a syllabic script, which we call Linear B, to represent their spoken Greek. This form of writing is entirely lost. In the 8th century, the Greeks will adopt an entirely new script – borrowing the one the Phoenicians are using – to represent their language

You've misread something. Linear B encoded Greek, but is not related to the Phoenician-based script.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#306

Post by alex0015 »

pocksuppet wrote: post #291
JohnMakin wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elites and ones in power were the ones most decimated by the bronze age collapse, so this reasoning feels flawed.

The descendants of bronze-age kings are surely more likely to be today's elite politicians than today's homeless people.

At that time distance from now, we're essentially all related to anyone who reproduced back then.

http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/Nature...

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#307

Post by Amezarak »

pqtyw wrote: post #288
Amezarak wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's exactly how Romans changed from their Roman worship to christianity. The conversion of the Romans to Christianity happened because of real events, even if elements of the stories became mythologized. Or are you saying there was never any man named Jesus who was crucified? I guess you may as well argue that - both him and Paul could have been invented. > It's how Muslims were able to rewrite Christianity into t…

I think the point is that Muslim accounts of the same events are sometimes very different to those of (Nicaean)Christians. Also we do know there were many competing narratives describing the life of Christ just a few hundred years after he died. After the Church become more established scholars spent a lot of time and effort trying to determine which ones were "accurate" or not and suppressing the other narratives. I…

> Also we do know there were many competing narratives describing the life of Christ just a few hundred years after he died.

There were meaningful competing theologies, there were not meaningfully different competing narratives of the historical events.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#308

Post by Amezarak »

cogman10 wrote: post #281
Amezarak wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's exactly how Romans changed from their Roman worship to christianity. The conversion of the Romans to Christianity happened because of real events, even if elements of the stories became mythologized. Or are you saying there was never any man named Jesus who was crucified? I guess you may as well argue that - both him and Paul could have been invented. > It's how Muslims were able to rewrite Christianity into t…

> The conversion of the Romans to Christianity happened because of real events Yeah, and in the process of converting to Christianity, Romans began rewriting their history and erasing their past. Which is exactly what we are talking about right now. You claimed "The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story was true and central to their identity - and it worked time aft…

> Quite similar to Romulus.

Yes, Joseph Smith played a similar role to Romulus in the founding of Rome: the leader and lawgiver. It's the Joseph Smith of Rome you are wishing away, not Moroni. It also seems highly unlikely that Smith simply "made up" everything as some cynical ploy for power, as you describe the motivation of the ancient Romans and Jews. It seems much more likely he was a true-believing wacko.

> Likely a man named Jesus existed because we have non-biblical documents from the time period (Josephus and the Sanhedrin) recording that he existed. F

You continually imagine historical sources that do not exist. Josephus is real, of course (although the extent to which the alleged reference to Jesus is an interpolation is debated; I personally side with no), but there are no "Sanhedrin" documents about Jesus. You should probably ask yourself why you keep committing gross errors of historical fact (like your argument that there were plenty of records contemporary with the traditional date for the founding of Rome) while making this argument.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#309

Post by michaelmrose »

Amezarak wrote: post #270
michaelmrose wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moses and exodus are completely counterfactual and at once central to Jewish and Christian mythology and identity. Our foundational stories are mostly lies because reality is depressing. Egypt exists even though the Exodus never happened. The mere existence of factual elements doesn't mean a foundational myth is real. Myths are normally interwoven with real elements. Moses is almost entirely distinguished as a person…

> Moses and exodus are completely counterfactual I don't see anything particularly counterfactual or unlikely about a group of Egyptian or Caananite-descended Egyptians leaving Egypt and returning to Caanaan, where they fused with an existing population. Can you explain this?

Egypt left for its era more than ample records. None of them record a mass population of Canaanite slaves escaping or existing, much less the direct interaction between any Pharaoh and a figure like Moses. If it wasn't dear to religion there would be no question about Moses being as imaginary as Noah.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#310

Post by cogman10 »

Amezarak wrote: post #308
cogman10 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The conversion of the Romans to Christianity happened because of real events Yeah, and in the process of converting to Christianity, Romans began rewriting their history and erasing their past. Which is exactly what we are talking about right now. You claimed "The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story was true and central to their identity - and it worked time aft…

> Quite similar to Romulus. Yes, Joseph Smith played a similar role to Romulus in the founding of Rome: the leader and lawgiver. It's the Joseph Smith of Rome you are wishing away, not Moroni. It also seems highly unlikely that Smith simply "made up" everything as some cynical ploy for power, as you describe the motivation of the ancient Romans and Jews. It seems much more likely he was a true-believing wacko. > Like…

> Yes, Joseph Smith played a similar role to Romulus in the founding of Rome: the leader and lawgiver

No he didn't. You obviously know nothing about what his role was.

> It also seems highly unlikely that Smith simply "made up" everything as some cynical ploy for power

Literally exactly what he did, and it's well documented that's exactly the sort of person he was.

You are very uninformed on this topic.

> but there are no "Sanhedrin" documents about Jesus

> You should probably ask yourself why you keep committing gross errors of historical fact

Please just google before insulting someone that knows more about a topic than yourself.

Here's what I'm referencing [1] [2]. "In Sanhedrin 43a, the Talmud records that Jesus was "hung" because no one came to his defense for charges of practicing sorcery and apostacy."

Now that you are simply insulting me and not engaging, I'm done. Good luck with yourself.

[1] https://mainstreamapologetics.org/evidences/HIS-EV63.html

[2] https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.43a.20?lang=bi&with=all&la...

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