re: Besides Jesus or Mohammed, who are the most influential figures in history?

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Adam Smith

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Took 6 pages before somebody got it right.

You got it all figured out. Must be nice.

How daaaaaaaaaare you!!!

Continued…

Now, a little “evidence” for you to dismiss (out of hand).
gotquestions.org

• Pyramids built of mud-and-straw bricks (Exodus 5:7–8) and both written and physical evidence that Asiatic people were enslaved in Egypt (Exodus 1:13–14).

• Skeletons of infants of three months old and younger, usually several in one box, buried under homes in a slave town called Kahun (Exodus 1:16), corresponding to Pharaoh’s slaughter of Hebrew infants.

• Masses of houses and shops in Kahun, abandoned so quickly that tools, household implements, and other possessions were left behind. The findings suggest the abandonment was total, hasty, and done on short notice (Exodus 12:30–34, 39), consistent with the Israelites’ sudden exit from Egypt in the wake of Passover.

• Court advisors used rods that look like snakes (Exodus 7:10–12). This partly corroborates the magical opposition against Moses performed by Pharaoh’s advisors.

• The Ipuwer Papyrus, a work of poetry stating, in part, “Plague stalks through the land and blood is everywhere. . . . Nay, but the river is blood . . . gates, columns and walls are consumed with fire . . . the son of the high-born man is no longer to be recognized. . . . The stranger people from outside are come into Egypt. . . . Nay, but corn has perished everywhere.”

• The Amarna letters, ancient correspondence between Egyptian and Middle Eastern rulers, blame significant unrest on a people group labeled as Habiru or ‘Apiru (Exodus 9:1).

• Discoveries also include evidence of cities such as Jericho being conquered during that timeframe.

Top ten discoveries related to Moses and the Exodus

10. Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions

In the early 20th century, Sir Flinders Petrie discovered examples of alphabetic writing inscribed on stones at Serabit el-Khadim, an Egyptian turquois mine in the Sinai.6 They date from the 19th to the 15th century BC.7 The proto-Sinaitic script, as it is often called, was invented by Semites who worked at the turquois mine and adopted Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols as pictographic letters for their language. Most scholars agree that the language behind this script is from Canaan, but which language it is has been a matter of debate. Douglas Petrovich has presented evidence that these inscriptions were written by Israelites, and that Hebrew is the language behind the script. His translation of one inscription (Sinai 361) contains the name of Moses. Not all scholars are convinced, however, and this has resulted in much debate. It is interesting that an alphabetic script developed at the precise time the Israelites were in Egypt, and that the language behind it is from their place of origin. At the very least, we now know that there was indeed an alphabetic script Moses could have used to write the first five books of the Bible.

9. Egyptian Words in the Hebrew Text

The Egyptian loanwords in the Hebrew text are difficult to explain unless one acknowledges Moses’s Egyptian education and authorship.

8. Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446

Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446 is an Egyptian document written in hieratic script that names 95 household servants of a noblewoman named Senebtisi. Forty of the names are Semitic (Hebrew is a Semitic language), and several have been identified as Hebrew names.

7. Egyptian Records of Slaves Making Bricks

The painting depicts Nubian and Asiatic slaves (Egyptians called people from Canaan “Asiatics”) making bricks for the workshops of the Karnak Temple

6. Discoveries at Avaris

Bryant Wood summarizes the occupational history of the site: “The excavations at Tell el-Dab’a have revealed the presence of an ‘Asiatic’ community who first settled as pastoralists, then grew in number as well-to-do entrepreneurs, became subservient to the Egyptians and finally left. This scenario exactly matches what we read in the Bible.”

5. Evidence for Amenhotep II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus

Numerous scholars have identified Amenhotep II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus; he was reigning in 1446 BC when the Israelites left Egypt. Amenhotep II is known to have spent considerable time in the delta region, likely in the 18th-Dynasty palace at Avaris, where he would have met with Moses.

4. Seti War Relief

The famous relief of the campaigns of the pharaoh Seti I (ca. 1291–1279 BC) at the Karnak Temple depicts the eastern border of Egypt in pictorial form (like a map) and likely relates to the route Moses and the Israelites took during the Exodus. In Exodus 13:17 we read, “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, ‘Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.’” The Seti relief depicts this road, known as the Horus Way, as well a number of fortresses, including “Tjaru,” the staging point for Egyptian campaigns into Canaan.

3. Soleb Inscription

At the end of the 15th century BC, the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III built a temple to honor the god Amun-Ra at Soleb in Nubia (modern-day northern Sudan). He left a list of the territories he claims to have conquered on a series of columns in the temple. Each territory is depicted by a relief of a prisoner with his hands tied behind his back over an oval “name ring” identifying the land of the conquered foe. One of the enemies is from the “the land of the Shasu [nomads] of Yahweh.” Given the other name rings nearby, the context would place this land in the Canaanite region.

2. Berlin Pedestal

The Berlin Pedestal is an Egyptian inscription housed in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin that almost certainly refers to Israel as a nation in Canaan.

1. The Merneptah Stele

The most famous, and arguably the most important, discovery related to Moses and the Exodus is the Merneptah Stele. In ca. 1208 BC Pharaoh Merneptah erected a 10-foot tall victory monument (called a “stele”) in a temple at Thebes to boast of his claims of victory in both Libya and Canaan. It was discovered in 1896 by Sir Flinders Petrie. On it, Merneptah boasts, “Israel is wasted, its seed is not; And Hurru [Canaan] is become a widow because of Egypt.”

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It seems that this is pure speculation with no evidence

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Seems ridiculous when someone else does it, huh? Now you know how we feel when reading your posts.

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The fact that there is no corroborating evidence to those biblical claims gives us the reason to dismiss such claims.

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So, an argument from silence, then? Question- what is the difference when an atheist claims that science will undoubtedly answer all questions (consciousness comes to mind, along with the actual origin of life) in the unknown future; and the theist, who claims that the evidence exists- we just haven’t found it yet? Answer- none. Both are acting on faith.

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Claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

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Do you have any evidence to support that claim?

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Good argument. I don’t know enough to refute that but it seems reasonable. You got me.

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What a relief! And the Shrubber says there’s no point to these dialogues. Pfft.

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The identical story in the legend of Sargon is over 1000 years, maybe 2000 years older than the story of Moses in the Bible.

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Identical? That’s quite a stretch- even for you. Do you have any evidence to support this claim? Anything besides the subjective interpretation of competing worldviews? Think not. But, rather than outright dismissing your claim, I prefer to present alternative perspectives, and let those whom it concerns decide for themselves.

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From the article you clearly didn’t read) “Manetho, the 3rd century BC Egyptian priest and historian who recorded the history of Egypt in Greek to be placed in the Library of Alexandria, included the story of Moses in his Aegyptiaca. According to Manetho, Moses was an Egyptian and not a Hebrew, who lived a

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You didn’t read my post. Here’s what I posted. And I did read the article.

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The other crap in that article was about “other” Moses. I’d never heard of that but regardless they aren’t talking about biblical Moses.

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Writers of the four gospels.

William Tecumseh Sherman

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I read it. I also read this article about ancient aliens from the same website. Nice sources you got there.

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Interesting, that you attack the website and not the material. Besides the fact that the authors are not the same. Very telling.

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Yet you probably believe we came from a hot pool of mud and gases. Pot meet kettle.

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I acknowledge and accept reality that can be demonstrated via the scientific method. I accept cell theory, germ theory, theory of relativity, theory of gravitation, genetics, biological evolutionary theory, among others. I also accept mathematics, physics, etc.

The genesis of carbon based life on earth really is a guess at this point. Biogenesis is separate from the other theories I mentioned. Who knows how life began? Nobody. Was it a spirit being, aliens? Maybe. Maybe we are in a simulation.

Regardless I can reject the gods of the Bible because there isn’t any evidence of the existence of the ones described in the Bible. It’s not the word of any of the gods in the Bible, and it certainly isn’t infallible and not even close to correct.

You suffer from the “god if the gaps” fallacy. We don’t know how X happened, therefore “God” did it. Oh and it must’ve been the specific “God” in the Christian Bible instead of the numerous other gods of other religions or even the other gods in the Bible. Just because we don’t know something, it doesn’t mean that El Elyon, El Shaddai, Asherah, Ba’al / Yahweh, or other Elohim or Theos did it.