- Jan 21, 2020
- 83
- 35
"Yes.....depends on the size."
we're talking about THE pyramids.
"Give me the money and the plans (blue print), the whole of the society does not have to be literate....to know what a volcano is. I have work with many individuals who can not read or write but their knowledge and memory is astounding."
If you knew how to build the Las Vegas pyramid you wouldn't need blue prints. We're talking about a society of people (the Israelites) who didn't build the pyramids; who were primarily herdsmen and paid laborers for the Egyptians.
Fast forward to Christianity when the Moors ruled in Europe, teaching the Christians Algebra and medical sciences like surgery. I'm not insulting their intelligence, but the fact is they attacked science simply because of it originating with non-Christians. Christians, EVEN TODAY, attack science, especially evolution, PURELY on the basis that it conflicts with their narrative driven by superstition. I JUST had one of these conversations with my mother. I even told her that evolution has been proven in a lab by using bacteria because of their faster reproduction rate.
I'm saying it's not about intelligence. It's about knowledge and information. And information, even if present around you, can be ignored, either because it is outside of your specialization, or because it conflicts with your beliefs. Do you disagree?
The idea that volcanoes existed IN THE WORLD before this time, doesn't mean any of the Israelites ever saw one. There's about 2500 years that the bible gives us between Adam and Moses. Volcanoes are not like seasons or storms. They don't simply randomly occur and they require volatile conditions under the ground. The very idea of a volcano, if you think about it, actually flies in the face of creation theory because there's no reason for a Creator to create in such a volatile way that would cause mountains to form in the first place, much less volcanoes that could kill his creations. I've never seen a volcano except on TV, movies, internet; none of which existed back then. The chances of seeing one that is active is rare.
Where and when did the first volcano erupt?
Professor of Geological Studies: Answer is not easy because definition of what a volcano is can vary
www.pressconnects.com
The first record of only dates back to 1500 BC.
The earliest date for the Exodus is 1445 BC while the late date is 1290 BC. This would require word to travel to Egypt and to the Israelites within a very short window of time. And still, the only thing they would have heard was a description, not a scientific understanding of what was happening. Who knows what supersitious logic they might have used to explain such an event. But can you be certain in telling me that with one recorded eruption, they understood what was happening?
Besides... this 1500 BC eruption that is the first recorded...
just so happens to be the very eruption I'm suggesting was seen by the Israelites; the Minoan eruption of Therea, aka Santorini. So if THIS is literally the first one on record how is it that even Moses could have understood what a volcano was?
As I said before, the way people reacted to the volcano does not indicate they knew what it was. This would allow someone to use this ignorance to tell people that it was God. Not literally God, but evidence of God's miraculous power or presence on earth. The idea that God had descended upon a mountain for example.
Numbers 12
4 At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them went out. 5 Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, 6 he said, “Listen to my words:
"So now the smoke from the volcano move and stood at the entrance of the tent and spoke to them....thats considerably less that a hundred miles away
After reading that quote do you still think its a volcano?"
Absolutely!
The problem with this quote is the same as the story about the burning bush. While we can speculate about how a buch may have caught on fire and didn't burn, we don't have to. All we have to do is realize that the story wasn't written in real-time. This means that the writer could use elements of the story that were true (people, places, things) to embellish other elements that weren't true.
In other words, if suddenly you have a god that descends in smoke and fire and your culture features a lot of altars with burnt offerings and such... there is already an association between god, fire, and smoke. And we really don't know which element influenced what because the story wasn't a journal written by a journalist. It's a story. It is not true by virtue of being old. Anymore than the Epic of Gilgamesh. And we can also see how elements of other cultures and their stories ended up in the bible.
Once we realize this, then you can see it is easy to use the volcano appearance and how scary that was, to create other story elements that used fire and smoke. Since he descended in fire and smoke in one place you have to do the same thing elsewhere just to be consistent. Otherwise, it makes no sense that YHWH could only appear in fire and smoke and Moses could only see his hind parts and then in the next chapter God can appear in a far less terrifying and dangerous form.
Now there is also historical evidence that tells us that priests (in general) often ate the food sacrificed to idols to make it look like the idols were consuming the food. In this case, someone could have simply started a fire near the tent so that people could see the smoke so that when they reported what happened they could tell people that the smoke was the presence of God. And the reason I think this is what happened?
Because NO WHERE ELSE... other than the story of Moses... does YHWH descend in fire and at no other time does such a description occur, like a pillar of fire or cloud. So what? No one else saw God? The bible says this because of the fact that this description is unique to Moses. Why?
Because they lied! That wasn't no god in no fire. It was JUST fire. But once they created that description they were forced to use it to describe God's presence because people wouldn't believe them unless they saw smoke. Keep in mind, that ONLY Moses ever saw YHWH and that was only his hind parts so no matter what it says, or how God "stood at the entrance" of a tent, that is simply artistic license and metaphor. The whole point of Moses going up a mountain... that was holy because God descended upon it... was because this was the only way for God to have this "face to face" interaction. Do you believe Numbers 12 invalidates the whole point of that?
"God is behind everything good and bad....he is the only creator of all things - Monotheism.
The Egyptians are known for their studies of the Stars which is significantly further than any mountain."
Yes, but you're leaving out an important point. They could see the stars because the earth rotates on an axis and there was no pollution to mask the stars in the night sky. One could stand at the top of a pyramid to get a much better vantage of the sky and surrounding territory. That is very different from seeing something over the horizon or around the curvature of the Earth.
"What ever Moses knew the Egyptians Taught him...so he could not use his knowledge to trick them only his expertise."
Magicians improve on tricks of other magicians all the time.
"My Mom does the same and I feel safer when she does it"
key word... "feel"
"Did it say the ate something, to keep them alive????"
Why would it say that? If I'm saying Moses is a con man, why would he explain the con?
"It was Jethro who told Moses that God was up there in the Mountain
You really believe these people do not know what lightening and thunder is"
And what religion was Jethro? (it wasn't the same as Moses)
Other people believed that gods were on mountain tops (because those places weren't explored yet); hence Mount Olympus.
