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garysibio
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This is what you reap when you sow doubts about the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis. (Not you personally.) If you can reject them, why believe any of it?
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EnterCanaan
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Hebrews 11:1I have come across certain people who claim that the exodus was never an event of history and that the ten commandments were not really given to Moses on mount Sinai.
Is there any historical evidence to back the authenicity of the ten commandments; perhaps some archaeological evidence that the Church uses to substantiate her faith in the truth of the Mosaic Law…
Please help.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
We cant see them or prove when and where they were made scientifically, but God transcends science.
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Your friends make invalid points because the whole idea is foolish, they need scientif proof, hard evidence, facts beyond measure which they can quantify, well that is not faith is it, and so it is foolish to them.
2 Peter 1:20-21 (King James Version)
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
They can read the account of the ten commandments, and whether they like it or not, it is true. The story isn’t arbitrarly put into the bible, it was from the mouth of God and documented for the rest of mankind through all generations. The true believer will have faith and believe the account, no questions asked.
July 1447 BC
Moses receives the word of God on Mt Sinai, and the Ten Commandments, this was 3456 years ago. Furthermore, the tablets containing the word of God were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant along with the rod of Aaron and the mana from heaven.
1068-1067 BC (7 mon) The Ark is captured.in Philistine hands for 7 months.
1067-1047 BC (20 years) The Ark is returned and remains with Samual who is the Judge for that 20 years period.
This is the last mention of the Ark until the book of Revelation, where John sees it in his vision.
The Ark and the Ten commandments and the rod of Aaron and the mana from heaven are gone. As well as they should be, for imagine if these relics still existed, people would put there faith in them and would eventually turn away from God. The same happened with the Bronze serpent, people are spiritually dead, born into sin, this is human nature, it is a mercy these artifacts are gone, as God says in Hebrews…
and we read in Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
M
MarcoPolo
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I did a paper that included a piece on Exodus and the plagues. Here is an excerpt if it helps:Sometimes, the historical scrutiny of a scientist need not be reconciled with Scripture at all, due to its own shortcomings. For instance when addressing archaeologists who say “there is no conclusive evidence that the Israelites were even in Egypt…ever enslaved…wandered in the Sinai wilderness…or ever conquered the land of Canaan,”20 a simple appeal to a different scientist may suffice.
As mentioned on page 1, one of the reasons some scientists doubt the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness, for example, is because of the lack of materials found there in excavations that would indicate a civilization passing through. According to the research of Dr. Bryant Wood, director of the Associates for Biblical Research in Maryland, “they would not have left evidence of their wanderings because they were nomads with no material culture.” 21
Regarding the Conquest, we can look to a Greek historian, Procopius of Caeserea, from the sixth century A.D.:
20 Watanabe, Teresa. Doubting the Story of Exodus. Los Angeles Times. April 13, 2001. Reprinted at: http://hierographics.org/DoubtingTheStoryofTheExodus.html Accessed October 12, 2008.
21 Watanabe. Doubting.
22 Quoted in Frendo, Anthony J. Two Long-Lost Phoenician Inscriptions and the Emergence of Ancient Israel. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 134:37-43, Quoted in Wood, Bryant G, PhD. Extra-Biblical Evidence for the Conquest. Associates for Biblical Research. May 30, 2007. http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2007/05/Extra-Biblical-Evidence-for-the-Conquest.aspx Accessed October 13, 2008.
23 Russell Grigg. The ten plagues of Egypt: Miracles or ‘Mother Nature’? Creation 27(1):34-38. December 2004. Reprinted at http://answersingenesis.org/creation/v27/i1/plagues.asp#f4 Accessed October 19, 2008.
24 Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. II.B.1.f.
25 Divino. #37.
Anyway, there isn’t “conclusive” evidence that it didn’t happen. Scripture itself is a historical document transmitting a tradition too. Also, the sheer volume of people during the Exodus described in Scripture may be more figurative. Perhaps there were not quite as many crossing the wilderness? It is difficult to be definitive, and that’s why studies remain ongoing.
As mentioned on page 1, one of the reasons some scientists doubt the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness, for example, is because of the lack of materials found there in excavations that would indicate a civilization passing through. According to the research of Dr. Bryant Wood, director of the Associates for Biblical Research in Maryland, “they would not have left evidence of their wanderings because they were nomads with no material culture.” 21
Regarding the Conquest, we can look to a Greek historian, Procopius of Caeserea, from the sixth century A.D.:
They [the Canaanites] also built a fortress in Numidia, where now is the city called Tigisis. In that place are two columns…having Phoenician letters cut in them which say…“We are they who fled from before the face of Joshua, the robber, the son of Nun.” 22
Examining the aforementioned challenged to the ten plagues, we can scrutinize the claim of the species of algae, Haematococcus pluvialis and Euglena sanguinea. (edit for this post: there are scientists who try to explain the plague of blood in the river at the time of the Exodus by a certain species of algae releasing that color) However, science can be found that says these two species are normally not red, and “in turbid, flowing water, they are green.”23 Nor have they been known to exist in Egypt and the Nile. Like alternative theories of the Resurrection, this type of science is purely speculative, specious, and based on plausibility rather than evidence.
But suppose there was little or no counter-science to defend history as has been commonly read in Scripture. Suppose there was definitive evidence that a historical statement in Scripture could be definitively disproved by a historical-critical examination. What does the exegete do? As we learned from Augustine, we embrace the truth, and then reread the text, as the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church tells us: “The literal sense is, from the start, open to further developments, which are produced through the ‘re-reading’ of texts in new contexts.” 24
The historical-critical method can also help the exegete bring special attention to a potentially scientifically inaccurate text:Nevertheless no one, who has a correct idea of biblical inspiration, will be surprised to find, even in the Sacred Writers, as in other ancient authors, certain fixed ways of expounding and narrating, certain definite idioms, especially of a kind peculiar to the Semitic tongues, so-called approximations, and certain hyperbolical modes of expression, nay at times, even paradoxical, which even help to impress the ideas more deeply on the mind. 25------------
But suppose there was little or no counter-science to defend history as has been commonly read in Scripture. Suppose there was definitive evidence that a historical statement in Scripture could be definitively disproved by a historical-critical examination. What does the exegete do? As we learned from Augustine, we embrace the truth, and then reread the text, as the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church tells us: “The literal sense is, from the start, open to further developments, which are produced through the ‘re-reading’ of texts in new contexts.” 24
The historical-critical method can also help the exegete bring special attention to a potentially scientifically inaccurate text:Nevertheless no one, who has a correct idea of biblical inspiration, will be surprised to find, even in the Sacred Writers, as in other ancient authors, certain fixed ways of expounding and narrating, certain definite idioms, especially of a kind peculiar to the Semitic tongues, so-called approximations, and certain hyperbolical modes of expression, nay at times, even paradoxical, which even help to impress the ideas more deeply on the mind. 25------------
20 Watanabe, Teresa. Doubting the Story of Exodus. Los Angeles Times. April 13, 2001. Reprinted at: http://hierographics.org/DoubtingTheStoryofTheExodus.html Accessed October 12, 2008.
21 Watanabe. Doubting.
22 Quoted in Frendo, Anthony J. Two Long-Lost Phoenician Inscriptions and the Emergence of Ancient Israel. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 134:37-43, Quoted in Wood, Bryant G, PhD. Extra-Biblical Evidence for the Conquest. Associates for Biblical Research. May 30, 2007. http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2007/05/Extra-Biblical-Evidence-for-the-Conquest.aspx Accessed October 13, 2008.
23 Russell Grigg. The ten plagues of Egypt: Miracles or ‘Mother Nature’? Creation 27(1):34-38. December 2004. Reprinted at http://answersingenesis.org/creation/v27/i1/plagues.asp#f4 Accessed October 19, 2008.
24 Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. II.B.1.f.
25 Divino. #37.
Anyway, there isn’t “conclusive” evidence that it didn’t happen. Scripture itself is a historical document transmitting a tradition too. Also, the sheer volume of people during the Exodus described in Scripture may be more figurative. Perhaps there were not quite as many crossing the wilderness? It is difficult to be definitive, and that’s why studies remain ongoing.
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