Agrippina wrote:

Then there's the ubiquitous "to this day" when they speak of historical places. If the text was written by a fictional Moses, and if he was writing in the 13th century BCE, then he wouldn't have used that phrase to confirm the antiquity of something.

And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months:it shall be the first month of the year to you

Sometime between the Torah and the codification of the Mishnah, the autumn new year gained ascendance, now transformed into a major celebration, and the Nisan new year was left as a marker of the months and festivals in the calendar year. Although theories abound about the causes of this transition, the mechanics are lost in the web of historical change. The Talmudic rabbis analyze the text of the Bible as they argue about when the New Year should began, yet different sets of verses yield different answers. Historians cite evidence from the ancient Near East, looking at the new years celebrated by neighboring peoples, but nothing is conclusive. Others look to archeology for support. But the truth remains murky.

Some ancient Semitic peoples considered the year to begin around the autumn harvest and the beginning of the rainy season, which both signified the start of a new agricultural year. Although the Torah never explicitly refers to an autumn new year, some scholars see in the Torah’s apparent timing of the fall harvest festival (Sukkot) a small hint of a possible fall new year. According to Exodus 23:26, the Feast of the Harvest, which closely follows Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, occurs, b’tzayt ha-shanah, at the going out of the year, signifying the close of one agricultural year and the beginning of the next. Similarly in Exodus 34:22, the Feast of the Ingathering is said to occur t’kufat hashanah, “at the turn of the year.” Further evidence of the fall as the beginning of the agricultural year in Palestine is a calendar from the 10th century BCE found at Tel Gezer, which begins with the two Months of the Ingathering.

Alan B wrote:Over half a million?

600 max. more likely.

Just like Plato who got his coils of rope and sheaves of wheat mixed up when reading Egyptian Hieroglyphics - hence Atlantis. Or so I've heard.

Exodus 12:37 And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children.

Alan B wrote:That's what I meant. Someone got their 'hearsay' figures muddled up. And so we have this ludicrous figure of 600,000 men...

I wonder what the native population of Egypt was at that time?

Alan B wrote:And of course, you mustn't forget the sheep...

Agrippina wrote:I've started promoting the books on my blog site: http://rationalisingthebible.blogspot.co.za

The people who wrote the Gospels were selling a product. They wanted their readers to buy the product, in exactly the same way that the peddlers of religion still want their congregations to put money into their coffers, so they sell the idea of miracles, and “mysterious ways,” and “we don’t always get our prayers answered” and so on. It’s really a no-win situation for those of us who don’t support religion.

There is no defence against the blind faith that makes people who believe the magic (also known as miracles) in the Bible is miraculous, while people who learn how to make their assistants disappear are evil, or that Harry Potter is casting real, effective spells, when they believe that Moses actually did cause an army of Egyptians to be drowned in an opened, dry seabed

Leucius Charinus wrote:

Agrippina wrote:I've started promoting the books on my blog site: http://rationalisingthebible.blogspot.co.za

Cool blog.

Will have to read more.

I liked this: http://rationalisingthebible.blogspot.c ... craft.html

The people who wrote the Gospels were selling a product. They wanted their readers to buy the product, in exactly the same way that the peddlers of religion still want their congregations to put money into their coffers, so they sell the idea of miracles, and “mysterious ways,” and “we don’t always get our prayers answered” and so on. It’s really a no-win situation for those of us who don’t support religion.

Yes. It was, and to some extent still is, a ruthless monopoly business.

There is no defence against the blind faith that makes people who believe the magic (also known as miracles) in the Bible is miraculous, while people who learn how to make their assistants disappear are evil, or that Harry Potter is casting real, effective spells, when they believe that Moses actually did cause an army of Egyptians to be drowned in an opened, dry seabed

FWIW in todays world I see a spectrum of the faithful. At one end we have the fundamentalists and radicals and extremists who tend to be extremely prejudiced, ignorant and destructive. At the other end we have the progressive religious leaders and spokes-people who are clearly neither prejudiced, ignorant nor destructive.

It is apt to have biblical Miracles and Harry Potter both mentioned in the one sentence.

Well done.

Alan B wrote:Sensible approach. 'Though some theists are their own worst enemy.

This is really a bit much. First he tells Moses to come up the mountain to tell him that he will take care of the people if they obey his law. So Moses goes down to tell them this.
Then he tells him to come back up the mountain to hear about how they should wash their clothes and be sanctified before he will come to visit them. Fine. He does that. It’s a bit of a big deal because they’ve been in their clothes for three months, and they're in the desert, so there’s not that much water for drinking, let alone for washing clothes, and knowing human nature, with all the bodies wandering around waiting for the newly-washed clothes to dry, there had to have been more than a little excitement, and some hanky-panky going on, otherwise why would Moses add the bit about not “coming at your wives”?
When this is done, he goes up the mountain again, this time in the midst of a huge thunderstorm, only to be told by God to stop the people, and the priests, who haven’t yet been appointed, from coming up the mountain. Then when Moses, who must have been a little peeved by now, says “but you told me to fence the mountain so they can’t come up to bother you”, God has a hissy-fit and tells him to go away, and not to come back without his brother, but not those non-existent priests.
I have to ask the question: why didn’t God just make everything happen? Why didn’t he just deposit some rocks at the foot of the mountain, with all his laws written on them, then tell Moses to just pick up the rocks and inform the people of the laws? Why all the posturing and the lying about appearing to the people?
Seriously though, how do people reading the Bible, and who claim that it was written by Moses, and that it makes sense, still believe that this is the basis of human morality? It doesn't make sense. It’s just jumbled mythology, written by authors who didn't collaborate on the project, and assembled by someone who cobbled it together, after someone else filled in the gaps with some of his own writing.

This chapter contains two main threads: one is the ten laws handed down to the people gathered at the foot of the mountain, the other is the instruction about altar-building.
These eleven rules make a total of sixteen laws handed to the Israelites until the more complex ones in the following chapters, and in the subsequent books.
They are:
Circumcision (Genesis 17).
Passover (Exodus 12).
Redemption of the firstborn (Exodus 13).
Obey God in all things (Exodus 15).
Gather food on the 6th day so there is plenty for the 7th (Exodus 16).
Worship only God and love him (Exodus 20:2 & 6).
Do not make idols, or worship idols (Exodus 20:4-6).
Do not speak his name (Exodus 20:7).
Keep the sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11)
Honour your parents (Exodus 20:12).
Do not kill (murder) (Exodus 20:13).
Do not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14).
Do not steal (Exodus 20:15).
Do not commit perjury (Exodus 20:16).
Do not covet your neighbour’s possessions (including his wife and livestock) (Exodus 20:17)..
Make an altar for burnt offerings, without using carved stone, or steps leading up to it. (Exodus 20:24-26).

I want to comment on these laws.
There is an excess of law about how God is to be worshipped. He is to be loved, indeed to not love God is to welcome his wrath brought down on your head. His name is not to be spoken in vain. How this is to be achieved is evidenced by the way that Jewish websites spell his name without the “o” :G-d”. Also there is much said about the altar that is to be built for the worshipping of him. No axe may touch the stone, it is to be made of raw rock, and no steps should lead up to the rock where the burnt offering is to be placed. Also a whole day, every week, is to be set aside for the worshipping of him.

Not only that, all the earlier laws also apply to the worshipping of God. Circumcision is the outer sign of the covenant made with him. The covenant is that he will be the god of the circumcised. By circumcising your son you are making the pact with God for his protection over the life of your son without his consent.

The Passover is more about worshipping the God that allowed the Israelites to escape from Egypt. History has no record of this event, thus when the Jewish people celebrate this holiday, they are blindly obeying a law based on a myth, or to be blunt, a lie.

Obeying God in all things, handing over your firstborn to God, gathering extra food on Friday so you don’t have to prepare food on the sabbath, all have to do with worshipping an egotistical god who will punish you with severe punishment, while of the sixteen laws in this first part of the canon of laws, only six of them apply to people.

Do not kill other people, do not steal from them, do not cheat on your spouse, obey your parents, do not lie, do not envy other people’s possessions.

Six laws, and not one of them about treating your wife and children with respect. That’s understandable, because under this canon of laws, your wife and children are mere possessions.

What is interesting though is that if your wife is only a possession, is her adultery against the law of adultery, or is it against her lover coveting her as a possession?

Also there is no law stating the rules of the marriage ceremony. Throughout all of the previous texts it speaks about “taking a wife”. It doest not state specifically how the wife is to be taken.

These men are commanded to have their genitals mutilated, spend their lives grovelling to a god who has to be worshipped at an altar without steps because the climbing of the steps is akin to exposing those mutilated genitals to him, while they are merely told to not lie to, or about, their friends, not steal their possessions, not kill them, and to obey their parents, no matter how horrible those parents are.

Here’s the laws I would have like to have seen in ten “commandments”:
Treat your children well.
Do no harm to other living things.
Do not steal.
Do not lie.
Do not cheat on your spouse.
Clean up after yourself.
Treat nature with respect leave it the way you would have like to have found it.
Make laws that encourage participation by all members of your community to make the lives of the members of that community worthwhile.
Make provision for the care of the sick and the elderly.
Do not waste your time in the worship of characters in mythology.