| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"quibbler" |
| Date: |
12 Sep 2006 11:14:03 PM |
| Object: |
Abraham story sounds fishy |
The bible depicts Abraham as this totally old codger with a barren wife.
So he finally takes a concubine when he's 86 years old. One has to ask
what took him so long. Most men in the middle east would be very
concerned about obtaining a male heir, about five or six decades before
Abraham gets off his ***** and tries to do it. Now maybe he enjoyed
robbing the cradle with Sarah, but you'd think that he would have been
more concerned that he might die without an heir at an earlier time.
Even Sarah would likely have been concerned far earlier, because if
Abraham died and there was no heir, there might be nobody to take care of
her.
One "explanation" I've heard for this is that in the culture of the time,
sometimes great age would be attributed to a person as a sign of their
wisdom or as a measure of honor. So, for example, saying a person was 86
years old might be a metaphorical way of saying that the person has the
wisdom of an elder. But in Abraham's case the 86 year reference must
have carried to notion of cognitive impairment. The same presumably
would apply to Sarah. Of course, if we don't take his age literally, then
it's not really a "miracle" that he and Sarah were able to conceive
without Isaac having Downs Syndrome.
But, of course, if we're going to pick and choose which parts of the
Abraham story to take literally then I favor saying that the whole thing
was a fictionalized attempt to account for an unknown ancestor written
many hundreds of years after the supposed time that Abraham lived.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
.
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: Abraham story sounds fishy |
13 Sep 2006 12:51:55 AM |
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In article <MPG.1f713375f12745f1989c4b@news.readfreenews.net>,
quibbler <quibbler247@yahoo.com> wrote:
The bible depicts Abraham as this totally old codger with a barren wife.
So he finally takes a concubine when he's 86 years old. One has to ask
what took him so long. Most men in the middle east would be very
concerned about obtaining a male heir, about five or six decades before
Abraham gets off his ***** and tries to do it. Now maybe he enjoyed
robbing the cradle with Sarah, but you'd think that he would have been
more concerned that he might die without an heir at an earlier time.
Even Sarah would likely have been concerned far earlier, because if
Abraham died and there was no heir, there might be nobody to take care of
her.
One "explanation" I've heard for this is that in the culture of the time,
sometimes great age would be attributed to a person as a sign of their
wisdom or as a measure of honor. So, for example, saying a person was 86
years old might be a metaphorical way of saying that the person has the
wisdom of an elder. But in Abraham's case the 86 year reference must
have carried to notion of cognitive impairment. The same presumably
would apply to Sarah. Of course, if we don't take his age literally, then
it's not really a "miracle" that he and Sarah were able to conceive
without Isaac having Downs Syndrome.
But, of course, if we're going to pick and choose which parts of the
Abraham story to take literally then I favor saying that the whole thing
was a fictionalized attempt to account for an unknown ancestor written
many hundreds of years after the supposed time that Abraham lived.
Old Abe fathering a kid at 86 (when life expectancy was probably in the
40s) is unbelievable enough, but what about Noah begetting three kids at
age 500 and supposedly died when he was 950 years old!
http://www.thesignpost.org/noah-gph.html
Sorry, theists, I just ain't buying it.
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
.
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| User: "quibbler" |
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| Title: Re: Abraham story sounds even fishier |
13 Sep 2006 05:19:21 PM |
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In article <jhachmann-7B85AC.22515512092006@news.giganews.com>,
jhachmann@sbcglobal.com says...
http://www.thesignpost.org/noah-gph.html
Sorry, theists, I just ain't buying it.
The link above has some interesting math. I'm going to comment on an
issue it raises in a separate post. If Noah for 950 years, it points out
that he would have died when Abram was 60. Yet the article actually is
silly enough to ask if Abram knew Noah. How could anybody at that time
not? This guy would be the most celebrated human in history.
Furthermore, since the cultures of middle east, around this time (and
still today) were highly clan oriented, this wouldn't just be some nice
old guy to chat with. His word would have been law. He would be the
patriarch of every living person on earth and would have to be accorded
the respect and obedience that went along with it. Granted, perhaps he
had a falling out with Ham, but Shem and Japheth remained loyal.
Furthermore, they would almost certainly bring up their children in a
pious manner teaching them to honor the god of their father Noah. So how
is it that so many religions and separate warring kingdoms were able to
arise when these patriarchs were still around to keep their children in
line? It's not just the ages that are fishy. It's the idea that 350
years after the flood that the world could have already generated
multitudes of pagan religions and separate civilizations. I mean, I know
the ***** about the tower of babel, but if that were true then they
would all still have the same religious beliefs and respect the same
patriarch. They would simply use different words. And besides, Noah
could use sign language or other simple means of communication to
instruct these people, even if their language was confused from his. In
the ancient world even knowing about a dozen simple words would have been
sufficient to communicate the basics.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
.
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: Abraham story sounds even fishier |
13 Sep 2006 11:48:27 PM |
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In article <MPG.1f7231b52d24b1cc989c4c@news.readfreenews.net>,
quibbler <quibbler247@yahoo.com> wrote:
In article <jhachmann-7B85AC.22515512092006@news.giganews.com>,
jhachmann@sbcglobal.com says...
http://www.thesignpost.org/noah-gph.html
Sorry, theists, I just ain't buying it.
The link above has some interesting math. I'm going to comment on an
issue it raises in a separate post. If Noah for 950 years, it points out
that he would have died when Abram was 60. Yet the article actually is
silly enough to ask if Abram knew Noah. How could anybody at that time
not? This guy would be the most celebrated human in history.
Furthermore, since the cultures of middle east, around this time (and
still today) were highly clan oriented, this wouldn't just be some nice
old guy to chat with. His word would have been law. He would be the
patriarch of every living person on earth and would have to be accorded
the respect and obedience that went along with it. Granted, perhaps he
had a falling out with Ham, but Shem and Japheth remained loyal.
Furthermore, they would almost certainly bring up their children in a
pious manner teaching them to honor the god of their father Noah. So how
is it that so many religions and separate warring kingdoms were able to
arise when these patriarchs were still around to keep their children in
line? It's not just the ages that are fishy. It's the idea that 350
years after the flood that the world could have already generated
multitudes of pagan religions and separate civilizations. I mean, I know
the ***** about the tower of babel, but if that were true then they
would all still have the same religious beliefs and respect the same
patriarch. They would simply use different words. And besides, Noah
could use sign language or other simple means of communication to
instruct these people, even if their language was confused from his. In
the ancient world even knowing about a dozen simple words would have been
sufficient to communicate the basics.
I looked for the age of Noah when supposedlyy he died and found this
xtian site. The Babble has more holes than the whole Earth would if it
were made of Swiss cheese.
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
.
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Abraham story sounds fishy |
13 Sep 2006 05:44:40 PM |
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quibbler wrote:
The bible depicts Abraham as this totally old codger with a barren wife.
So he finally takes a concubine when he's 86 years old. One has to ask
what took him so long. Most men in the middle east would be very
concerned about obtaining a male heir, about five or six decades before
Abraham gets off his ***** and tries to do it. Now maybe he enjoyed
robbing the cradle with Sarah, but you'd think that he would have been
more concerned that he might die without an heir at an earlier time.
Even Sarah would likely have been concerned far earlier, because if
Abraham died and there was no heir, there might be nobody to take care of
her.
One "explanation" I've heard for this is that in the culture of the time,
sometimes great age would be attributed to a person as a sign of their
wisdom or as a measure of honor. So, for example, saying a person was 86
years old might be a metaphorical way of saying that the person has the
wisdom of an elder. But in Abraham's case the 86 year reference must
have carried to notion of cognitive impairment. The same presumably
would apply to Sarah. Of course, if we don't take his age literally, then
it's not really a "miracle" that he and Sarah were able to conceive
without Isaac having Downs Syndrome.
But, of course, if we're going to pick and choose which parts of the
Abraham story to take literally then I favor saying that the whole thing
was a fictionalized attempt to account for an unknown ancestor written
many hundreds of years after the supposed time that Abraham lived.
....the whole thing was a fictionalized attempt to account for an
unknown
ancestor written many years after the supposed time that THE UNKNOWN
ANCESTOR lived?
Does this make sense?
What is the time that the unknown ancestor lived?
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
.
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| User: "quibbler" |
|
| Title: Re: Abraham story sounds fishy |
13 Sep 2006 09:53:07 PM |
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In article <1158187480.404349.127070@e63g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
Codebreaker@bigsecret.com says...
quibbler wrote:
The bible depicts Abraham as this totally old codger with a barren wife.
So he finally takes a concubine when he's 86 years old. One has to ask
what took him so long. Most men in the middle east would be very
concerned about obtaining a male heir, about five or six decades before
Abraham gets off his ***** and tries to do it. Now maybe he enjoyed
robbing the cradle with Sarah, but you'd think that he would have been
more concerned that he might die without an heir at an earlier time.
Even Sarah would likely have been concerned far earlier, because if
Abraham died and there was no heir, there might be nobody to take care of
her.
One "explanation" I've heard for this is that in the culture of the time,
sometimes great age would be attributed to a person as a sign of their
wisdom or as a measure of honor. So, for example, saying a person was 86
years old might be a metaphorical way of saying that the person has the
wisdom of an elder. But in Abraham's case the 86 year reference must
have carried to notion of cognitive impairment. The same presumably
would apply to Sarah. Of course, if we don't take his age literally, then
it's not really a "miracle" that he and Sarah were able to conceive
without Isaac having Downs Syndrome.
But, of course, if we're going to pick and choose which parts of the
Abraham story to take literally then I favor saying that the whole thing
was a fictionalized attempt to account for an unknown ancestor written
many hundreds of years after the supposed time that Abraham lived.
...the whole thing was a fictionalized attempt to account for an
unknown
ancestor written many years after the supposed time that THE UNKNOWN
ANCESTOR lived?
Yes, obviously it was someone, but these people had no idea who it was.
The Habiru (Hebrews) were a bunch of illiterate savages living in the
wilderness around and waylaying travellers on the trade routes between
cities. They couldn't even spell the name Abraham (Abiram), much less
count back 1000 years.
Does this make sense?
Definitely. If you ask most people who their ancestor was 800 to 1000
years ago, most people honestly couldn't tell you and they probably
couldn't even find any decent records to trace it back. Those people who
aren't willing to be honest about the fact that they don't know will just
make some ***** up. Usually the more fanciful the better. Oh yeah, my
ancestor was Charlesmagne or Leif Erikson. Yeah, that's the ticket....
What is the time that the unknown ancestor lived?
Attempts to place the alleged life of the fictional abraham on a
historical timeline are usually somewhere between 2100 - 1800 BCE.
This is around the same time that the babylonians (aka akkadians) were
taking over from the sumerians.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
.
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