₦airaland Forum

[quoter]NOPE. I have never committed an EVIL act in my life.[quote][/quote]Should we call you "Saint Huxley"?

I would consider an evil act to be something that the majority consider to be immoral.

huxley:
Oh, yes, I am a very good person.

So you're a good person? But then I'll bet anything you like that you have committed at least one evil act in your life.
According to that quote, as you're a good man, that evil act must have been the result of religion.
You are your own counter-example.

for good people to do evil — that takes religion.

Good people commit evil acts every day, Huxley. Religious and non-religious alike.

Are you a good person, Huxley? Do most of the people who know you think you're one of the good guys? Or do they think that you are scumbag?

huxley:
Yes, the comment did not say that religions is the cause of all fucking-up.  It just said that where good people do evil, religions is that cause.

You seem not to understand English. The passage attributes all evils made by good people to religion. That is quite simply bullshit.

Can one be evil and also sinless?

It's relative.
If you're an atheist, you don't believe in sin.
Therefore, how can you consider yourself to be anything but sinless?
You can consider yourself to be immoral or evil but sin is in the realms of religion.

Did you really read the comment?   It clealy does imply that ANYONE can do evil,  but it takes religions for good people to do evil.

Read my comment again.

It does not take a religion to make good people do evil.
There have been plenty of good people who have been athiests who have bleeped up and committed evil acts.
There have been plenty of believers who have bleeped up where there religion has had no impact on thier actions.

Religion has been used as a justification to commit evil but to say that the only good people who mess up do so because of religion is complete and utter bullshit.

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.

This statement is just utter bullshit. Anyone can do evil. It does not take a belief in religion to do so.

OLAADEGBU:
Thus, there is a conflict between Egyptian chronology as generally interpreted and the Biblical records. Neither the first dynasty of Egypt nor the pyramids could have existed before the flood. If the Bible is historically reliable, as I believe it is, then there must be a mistake in the usual interpretation of Egyptian chronology which needs to be reduced by centuries.

A ridiculous argument.
One has to discard all scientific evidence and rely on a Babylonian myth to believe your theory.

Taking the Bible's figures into account, the Biblical account of Exodus would mean that 2 million Hebrews fled. That's half the population at that time. Yet nowhere was this noted. The Egyptian economy would have been utterly devastated yet the evidence points totally the other way - Egypt flourished.

There is plenty evidence for Israelite slavery in Egypt–the sudden disappearance of these slaves, the devastation of Egypt by the ten plagues, the destruction of the Egyptian army.

No there isn't.

huxley:
Now, tell me, how is this related to blood-money?

This bit here:

he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

It was old Jewish custom for the victims' relatives to decide the punishment. They could choose to have the same punishment meted out to the culprit as he put on the victim or they could choose financial recompense.

And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life.

That child in the womb is considered a soul in the womb, and if the fight carried on after the damage was done to the woman, then the man that caused the loss of life will be tried as a murderer; a life for life.

There's a pretty good explanation of the passage here:

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/786-does-exodus-21-sanction-abortion


After doing some searching I can see that those who argue for abortion do use this passage. I do feel that it is a poor example though. Incidentally, the Muslims use this passage too - they put the blood-money price of a foetus as the same as that of a baby girl.

What I find puzzling is the need for the passage at all. It refers to two men fighting and the woman having a miscarriage as a result. How many pregnant women would get in the way of two men having a fight and lose their baby to warrant a law being written?

A bad example to use, Huxley.

The verse is referring to paying blood-money. The family of all murder victims were entitled to choose wether they wanted the culprit to be punished or to pay a personal fine - it is still practiced in Islam today.

By making bloody-money payable for the death of a foetus, the verse is saying that the life of an unborn child is as important as that of an adult.

Like I say: bad example. This is not a subject that I really feel strongly about (I believe in the woman's right to choose) but it wouldn't suprise me if the fundamentalists don't actually use that passage to back their stance on anti-abortion.

For some people it comes out both end.

Regarding the Bible and medicine.

Stating that the Bible is erroneous because it doesn't tell people to go to hospital is stupid.

There was no such thing as hospital when the Bible was written.
Not only that but medicinal practices were totally and utterly different to those today.
No messing guys but the practice of medicine one hundred years ago is totally different than modern day technique so how can you expect to use the Bible as an argument?

The link below contains the works of Josephus and the Egyptian scribe Manetho.
Both equate the Hyksos with the Jews.

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/manetho_hyksos.htm

@ Huxley. The strange thing here is that Josephus says the Hyksos were Jews even though he must have known about their worship of the god Set. You've mentioned Marcion before, possibly this is why he saw the OT god as evil and how he formulated his doctrine.

OLAADEGBU:
Isaiah 52:4 tells us that the pharaoh of the oppression was an Assyrian.  He became insecure and threatened as this race of Hebrews multiplied and became powerful, so he enslaved them.

We have the records of the Egyptian kings at that time. There wasn't an Assyrian amongst them.

There was an Assyrian pharaoh almost a thousand years later:

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

52:4 probably speaks of two separate oppressions. The one by the Egyptians and one by the Assyrians at a later date.
The author is basically saying that Babylon is no different to Egypt or Assyria in terms of oppression.
History tell us that Israel was first a subject state of Egypt, then of Assyria and then of Babylon.

Archaeology supports the Bible as you will find out in the link below as you cannot compare the word of the dead with that of the living God

There is no archeaological evidence whatsoever that shows a mass migration as written in Exodus. Instead, it shows a steady infiltrating back into Israel from Egypt over a number of years.

which God though? some people have discovered Allah or krishna on their quest for the truth.

There is a multitude of supreme beings so the questions arises on which one is real.

Belief is up to the individual.
I'm a firm believer in Relativism.

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

I do not dismiss other gods but what is right for other people is not necessarily right for me.

Same as Huxley - UK.

Not to worry. There is plenty more out there on the same subject.

Unfortunately, the videos in the links don't work for me.

We're sorry, but due to rights restrictions this program is only available for online viewing in the United States. You appear to be connected to the Internet from outside this area.

There are some tantalising glimpses in the Bible.

8Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
9And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:
10Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.
11Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.

The Hebrews were "more and mightier". Back in those days, "more and mightier" meant you ran the country!!! I believe that the Israelites that the Pharoah is talking about are those left in Egypt after the War of Independence. The same group who made the Exodus. Notice also that this new King doesn't have time for Joseph - the Hyksos have been overthrown and the natives have retaken Egypt. This new king "arose up". This would seem to point to his taking over the throne by force. This new king was probably Ahmose I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmose_I#Conquest_of_the_Hyksos

Numbers 13:22
And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

Zoan was also known as Tanis. This was another seat of the Hyksos kings. Why would Zoan be important enough to use as a comparison to Hebron?

Returning to Moses and his position in society. There are many, many claims that Moses was not just aristocracy but Egyptian/Hyksos royalty.


If we look at Exodus we can perhaps read between the lines.

2:11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

Notice there that he is Hebrew.

2:19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew [water] enough for us, and watered the flock.

But there he is Egyptian.

Wouldn't "Egyptian Hebrews" be the Hyksos? The Bible claims that Moses had Hebrew parents but that he was adopted by the Pharoah's daughter. Could this just be a metaphor for being Hyksos - we know that the story about him in the basket on the river is not true as it has been lifted from Babylonian myth.

We've also got to remember that according to the Bible, Moses was able to speak to the Pharoah. No ordinary man would ever be given the opportunity to speak directly to the king. You had to wield real power to be able to talk to him personally. Maybe Moses was deposed Hyksos royalty?


Let's also not forget that the first monotheists (or at least monolatrics) are generally regarded as being the Hyksos. Once they were deposed, the Egyptians demonised their god (Set) and slowly returned to thier polytheistic ways. Many scholars agree that the main reason the Hyksos were kicked out of Egypt was because they tried to systematically eradicate all traces of other gods. The comparison to the Hebrews and their monotheism cannot be overlooked.

An example of how the Egyptians erased their history.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/quest/lost-queen/program/program.html

More powerful than Cleopatra or Nefertiti, Hatshepsut stole the throne from her young stepson, dressed herself as a man, and in an unprecedented move, declared herself Pharaoh. Though her power stretched across Egypt and her reign was prosperous, Hatshepsut's legacy was systematically erased from Egyptian history — historical records were destroyed, monuments torn down and her corpse removed from her tomb.

But the Hyksos kings are documented. They weren't wiped from history and we know a bit about them.
Exodus wasn't entirely wiped from Egyptian records either. It is told in a different way by the Egyptians.
To the Jews, Exodus has them fleeing slavery. To the Egyptians, it is the eviction and victory over a race of tyrannical invaders.

huxley:
It cannot be the case that all these rulers have been wipe out from history.  Further,  the positions of Joseph and Moses seem to be relatively minor ones compared to that of kings/rulers.

The Egyptians were masters at eradicating the history books and did it on a few occasions that we know about.
Atenism is an example - at one time the dominating religion in Egypt but when it was deposed, nearly everything that was recorded about it was destroyed - temples were torn down, reliefs defaced, even the Pharoah's name was changed from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamen. There are Pharoahs in the Valley of the kings whom we know nothing of, simply because they fell foul of the system and everything about them was erased.

Moses was probably Hyksos aristocracy but Joseph's position certainly wasn't minor. The Grand Vizier was the senior minister and the Chief of all priests answerable to only Pharoah himself. When the position first opened, it was only the son of the King who could hold it. If Joseph held the position stated in the Bible, he was the most powerful person in the whole of Egypt after the Pharoah and his immediate family.

http://www.king-tut.org.uk/ancient-egyptians/vizier.htm

The Role of the Vizier
The vizier was traditionally the head of the government administrators, the court officials. However as his power grew a vizier might also be the chief priest. One of the later titles held by a vizier was the High Priest of Heliopolis. Important documents were only considered legal if they had the seal of the vizier. The role of the vizier was therefore quite varied and changed through the various generations. The Vizier Ay himself became Pharoah (incidentally, he was one of the guys who went about rewriting history books). Through the ages of Ancient Egypt the Vizier was responsible for the following:

    *

      The appointment of government officials
    *

      Master of Works for the royal monuments including labor and resources
    *

      Hearing major legal disputes
    *

      Controlling civil order
    *

      Controlling the food supply and distribution
    *

      Conducting a census of the population in order to collect taxes
    *

      Taxation
    *

      Managing important industries
    *

      Controller of the Archives - All important legal issues were documented including wills, trials, deeds, census lists, conscription lists and inventories
    *

      Recording rainfall and water levels of the Nile - Nilometers were gauges which were set up to measure water levels. Levels above and below the average indicated catastrophes such as floods or famine. Good years indicated the level of taxes which could be obtained from the farmers

huxley:
This is a stack contrast to the bible narrative which does not make any claims that the Israelites ruled Egypt. Instead, the bible portray them as slaves in Egypt.  How does your view that the Hyksos were Isarelites tally with this discrepancy?

Yes, they ruled. And if you look at characters like Joseph you can see them up there in the ruling class.
Joseph worked as Grand Vizier, interpreting the Pharoah's dreams (a very, very important job) but then you'll notice that the new Pharoah comes along who "knows him not". This was probably one of the Pharoah's after the Hyksos had been deposed. He wouldn't have "known" Joseph because he was the opposition. Moses, on the other hand, seemed to have a hand in both the Hyksos and Egyptian camps although he eventually turned to the Hyksos.

The actual date that the Hyksos were deposed predates Exodus calculations by a hundred years or so. So there was plenty of time for them to get deposed and turned into slaves - although I reckon they were discriminated against and treated as the lowest caste rather than properly enslaved. The actual flight of Exodus could have taken place when a mini rebellion broke out against the Egyptian pharoahs due to this treatment, was put down and they were either forced to flee or thrown out for good. The Egyptians destroyed many records and tried to wipe the Hyksos from the history book but we do know that it took them many attempts to subjugate them on the Egypt/Israeli border before they chased them into Sinai.

Keep reading. Like I said - it's a really interesting subject. So much tallies with what's in the Bible. Not only with what we could consider to be pretty good evidence but we can also see where things have been twisted and manipulated - for example, Moses and his followers took the mantle of victimhood, but the fact is that they were probably the instigators. So in answer to your question "Why do the authors of the Bible not mentiion the Hyksos as rulers", I would reply "Would you?"
It simply wouldn't fit into the politics of the book - the Bible story has the Hebrews starting from nothing and becoming powerful due to their god. It wouldn't be half as powerful if it turned out that they were tyrants who got defeated and deposed because of their god!!!

In the case of the Hyksos it has recorded historical fact.
Maybe not as accurately or as precise as one would like, but when we compare it with what we know from other records, it's still pretty convincing. You've also got to bear in mind that the people who wrote about these events did so, hundreds of years later.

I've often said, that the Bible has to be put up there and looked at with other contemporary works to understand it. Exodus is one of those examples.
To understand the OT, you've got to look at Egyptian, Hebrew, Canaanite and Babylonian religious practices and history, etc. With the NT, you've got to study up on Roman, Judaic, Pagan and Egyptian practices and their accompanying histories.
Often, when you do this, you can see what the authors were up to.

babs787:
@Bastage
OK. You may check 2nd Timothy 3 v 16 for that

LMAO. The pathetic Sola Scriptura argument.
It's been blown out of the water so many times, I'm not even going to bother.

There have been 1000s of authorised translations of the Bible from ancient to modern times. Nobody but a fundamentalist fool would claim that those translators are any more inspired than the next guy. Nobody but a complete slowpoke would suggest Timothy is an advocate for Sola Scriptura.

It seems moving from Christianity to Islam was definitely the right move for you. You've just moved from having your head up your ass to shoving it in even deeper.

huxley:
I don't quite get it.  I need to do some research into this area.  But first,  are you saying that the Hyksosians are the Israelites?

Absolutely.
Do the research. You'll find it very interesting.
It's quite possible that some of them came from Canaan (many of the Egyptian Hyksos had Canaanite names) but in general they are referred to as a Semetic Asiatic race - possibly also coming from Syria and the Lebanon. It's also argued that they may have originally been an Indo/Aryan race.

http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/10367/Hyksos.html

Not Biblical evidence but Egyptian evidence:

The details of his military campaigns are taken from the account on the walls of the tomb of another Ahmose, a soldier from El-Kab, a town in southern Upper Egypt, whose father had served under Seqenenra Tao II, and whose family had long been nomarchs of the district. It seems that several campaigns against the stronghold at Avaris were needed before the Hyksos were finally dislodged and driven from Lower Egypt.
After the fall of Avaris, the fleeing Hyksos were pursued by the Egyptian army across northern Sinai and into southern Canaan.

Go take an in-depth look at Set (or Seth) too. You'll see that just like the early Yaweh god, he was a Desert God, God of Storms and War and God of High Places. You'll also find that Set's arch enemy was Osiris, the god represented by the Apis bull. When Moses came down from the mountain and had a load of followers put to death, there is the possibility that they were making Apis bulls (the OT says golden calves). Not suprising then if Set was the fore-runner of Yaweh that Moses went mad and had them executed - they were worshipping the rival god.
Or it's possible that they were making red oxen and because of the ban on graven images he went crazy.

http://sacred-texts.com/sex/ipi/ipi08.htm

That Seth had some special connection with the Hebrews is proved, among other things, by the peculiar position occupied in their religious system by the ass--the firstborn of which alone of all animals was allowed to be redeemed 80--and the red heifer--whose ashes were to be reserved as a "water of separation" for purification from sin. 81 Both of these animals were in Egypt sacred to Seth (Typhon), the ass being his symbol, and red oxen being at one time sacrificed to him, although at a later date objects of a red color were disliked, owing to their association with the dreaded Typhon. 82 That we have a reference to this deity in the name of the Hebrew lawgiver is very probable. No satisfactory derivation of this name, Moses, Mosheh (Heb.), has yet been given

@Mazaje.
There's no evidence of the exact Biblical narrative, but the circumstantial evidence coupled with what is contained in the Bible makes the Hyksos theory very compelling.

@ Pastor AIO.

The second link looks a bit unreliable to me when making concrete claims that there was a Hebrew military invasion.
What little evidence there is suggests the Hebrews leaving Egypt and slowly taking over the land by means of integration rather than by warfare. That's not to say that there weren't the occasional tribal battles, but in general, the "Promised Land" was settled in a far more orderly fashion than stated in the OT. If this was the case, they were probably so successful because they were able to introduce elements of Egyptian technology and also it's social system.
I have to admit that my jury is out - I don't know wether the evidence can be totally trusted - the Hyksos were certainly easily capable of taking the "Promised Land" by force and it was in their character to do so. But it's a moot point - the overwhelming evidence does show that the early Hebrews were Hyksos.

If we look at the Hyksos, they were driven out of power in a nationalistic revolt but may not all have left Egypt straight away. In fact, evidence shows that a lot of them just moved or stayed to the North-East of the country where their main power base had been when they ruled (which just happens to border Israel). These could have been the Hebrews that Exodus talks about - the inidigenous Pharoahs didn't trust them, saw them as a threat to stability and decided to kick them out when they finally had the strength to. Some scholars are quick to dismiss the Hyksos theory on the basis that the civil war that kicked them out was not in the Exodus time-frame. They completely fail to take into account that the Hyksos did not leave Egypt immediately - although the native Egyptians regained the throne, it took years for them to control the whole country and there is no reason why the Hyksos should have left immediately once the Pharoahs recaptured the land. In fact, probability is that the Hyskos, now being a defeated people, were now treated like second class citizens - exactly as Exodus tells us they were!! This discrimination (although probably justified) may have been the trigger for the Exodus.

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/hyksos.htm

Even Jewish scholarly bodies do not dispute the argument that the early Hebrews were Hyksos:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0009_0_09361.html



@ Huxley.

There is no record of this event in any of the Egyptian records (I know this is argument from silence, but in this case, this silence is very loud)

Exactly. The silence is very loud because we know that once the Hyksos were deposed, the Egyptians systematically went around removing all evidence of them. Coincidence?

The entire region from Egypt right up to the Promised Land was under Egyptian rule at the time.

As already stated, the border region was the Hyksos stronghold. Their capital was at Avaris.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaris
Incidentally, Avaris was also known as Goshen - the land that the Bible states Joseph and his family moved to. It was also known as Rameses - the starting point for the Exodus in the Bible:
Exodus 12:37 (King James Version)
37And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children.

Logistics.  How could 1.2+ million people and their livestock survive is such a desolate and destitute region for 40 years?  Highly unlikely.

There were probably Hyksos already settled in the area. These would have been the people who had left during and after the Egyptian war of independence. It's doubtful the area was as hostile as we are led to believe.

The Old Testament does contain some historical fact. There can be no doubt about that.

As for Exodus? There are many, many theories. To get to the bottom of it, we have to look away from the Bible and at Egyptian history.

I believe that the Hebrews who escaped Egypt were the Hyskos.

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

There is so much in the Bible that backs this theory up, it looks like the only logical one.
Things like Moses' name (it's Egyptian), Joseph's position, the fact they originally came from Canaan, etc. There are other apsects we'll never know entirely for sure as the Egyptians totally wiped the records clean once they deposed them and forced them out (could point to the reason for the lack of evidence though)


There is one major problem with it though. One problem why it will never be accepted by the mainstream.
The Hyskos worshipped the Egyptian god Seth. Now Seth had all the attributes of Yawheh - it is easy to see how one became the other. Literally all they had to do was change the name. The problem is, Seth was the template for Satan.

Why not?

Jesus drank wine. You take wine at communion.
Alcohol is not banned in the Bible at all in either the Old Testament or the New.

We have heard so many times that the bible was written by inspiration. So going by your above quote, do we say God didnt inspire them when they were translating or authoring?

Translators translate. Nobody claims that they were inspired by god. Nobody at all.
Translating is an academic task - not a spiritual one.

Obviously, just like everything else, this simple fact is beyond you.

huxley:
Yes, I have every justification to feel superior when faced with this sort of rationalisation of acts or behaviour that is universally regarded as reprehensible. And why would I not be?

Ever heard of a word called "humility"?

You may have a better argument, you may feel morally correct, but superior?
Only complete assholes ever think they're superior. Go take a look at the Christian right. They think they're superior too.

Well done. You exemplified all of my reasoning without any prompting from me.

huxley:
If you were a thinking man, you would not display this outburst of profanities.

I use language to match the mentality of the person I'm replying to.

"Oh, you naughty boy, Bastage. Using bad language means you are unintelligent".

No. Using bad language means that the dipshit who cannot understand my original post can normally understand my second.

I'm not interested in this thread any more Huxley. Any answer I give will be treated with derision and scorn by your superiority complex. Even if I back it up with evidence as above.

The sad thing is, you could have been a beacon for atheism. You showed some knowledge. Instead you let your hatred cloud that knowledge. Now you're just a fundamentalist and the ironic thing is that you do more damage to your cause than good, without you even knowing it.
Fundamentalists who thrive on blind hatred just tend to drive their enemies deeper into the oppositions arms.

You really are a complete prick sometimes.

Saying it's a parable is not an "excuse".

It is a fucking parable. It even says it's a fucking parable.

I've had enough of this one already.

Very biased and misleading video.

Just one example is where it uses Corinthians 5 to say that the NT ordered slaves to obey their masters.
Corinthians 5 isn't about slaves. The Greek word used in the original text is not "skavlos" but is "douloi".
Doulos were not always slaves. Anyone who worked for an employer could be called a douloi as could anyone who had no voting rights. Serfs and paid servants were also known as doulos.

If Jesus was referring to slaves, it's almost certain that the word "skavlos" would have been used.

No.

It is a parable.

Take it in full context and that becomes clear.

41Peter asked, "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?"

42The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? 43It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. 44I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. 46The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

47"That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. 48But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

He is also not advocating beating servants. He is saying that it is already a common practice in this instance and is using it as an analogy.