Part 5 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_(son_of_Jacob)#Historicity
The text of the biblical story is muddled over who sold Joseph into slavery - which of the brothers, Reuben or Judah, and whether he was sold to Midianite traders or Ishmaelite traders. What is clear is that Joseph was sold to serve Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard

The mass migration of Hebrews was during Joseph time before that there were already Jews in Egypt, we know there are some that are slaves base on what Joseph's brothers did when they sold Joseph to slavery.[/QUOTE]

Who are the Hebrews according to the Bible?

 

No one can make a person believe something they won't.
And proving something means the erson himself must agree he acceots evidence as proof enough to admit you proved it to him.

These attempts to require you to prove to these disbelievers is silly on their part.
All you can ctually do here is tell them what evidn=ence convinced you that Exodus happened, Moses existed, and the Pharaoh believed he serves God by fighting against Moses.

What seems much more sensible toi me is for us to examine how and why Moses was able to accomplish such an amazing feat as to defy the Pharaoh, avoid imprisonment or even death, and mamnage to get before the whole supreme court of Egypt with claims about what would be heresy and a death sentence in anyother Theocracy.

What evidence for these amazing feats can we come up with??
I am saying if it was all somehow feasible, then the story is more than possible.

 

Exodus 1:5
And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.

 

Yes, the fruit of Jacob were the Hebrews according to Exodus, correct?

 

Yep...

 

Then, there simply is no way that they could have been enslaved for thousands of years as WanRen stated.

 

God told Moses that He will harden Pharaoh's heart after Moses said to God that the Pharaoh will not listen to him.
Exodus 6: 29 That the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I am the Lord: speak thou unto Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say unto thee.
30 And Moses said before the Lord, Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh hearken unto me?

And God reassure and guarantee Moses not to be afraid even if God harden's Pharaoh's heart the Pharaoh will listen because God will show great signs. In fact it is only by hardening Pharaoh's heart that would allow the Pharaoh to set the Hebrews free even though in the end the Pharaoh change his mind again just like God have predicted.

If God had not harden Pharaoh's heart, Moses, Aaron and many Hebrews would have been put to death.

And as we go along Exodus 7

3 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
4 But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.
5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.

Here God is now telling Moses that even if God harden's Pharaoh's heart the Pharaoh will not listen to Moses until God show great signs. And the continue refusal and stubbornness of the Pharaoh will be his own downfall.

13 And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.14 And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.
Here God harden's Pharaoh's heart once again, God harden the Pharaoh's heart to make him listen not the other way around, the succeeding sentence will tell us that in spite of God hardening the heart of the Pharaoh to make him listen the Pharaoh refuse to listen because the Pharaoh's heart is harden already on its own not of God's doing.

And it will continue on until finally God will send His strongest sign the death of all first born and yet after the Pharaoh finally let the Hebrews go he again change his mind and lead his chariots to bring the Hebrews back.

 

According to the Bible the Hebrews started with Shem one of the sons of Noah and Shem will have many children descendant. Abraham a descendant of Shem will be bless by God and Isaac will become Israel the chosen people that Jacob and later Joseph and his brothers will descend from they will migrate in masse to settle in Egypt.. According to secular historians Hebrews are Canaanite.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hebrews.html

According to biblical tradition, the Hebrews are peoples descended from Shem, one of Noah's sons, through Eber, the eponymous ancestor, and Abraham. Gen. 7:22 f., reports that the flood destroyed all life except that in Noah's ark; consequently, the whole human family descended from Noah and his sons: Japheth, Ham and Shem. As yet, not all of the names of eponymous ancestors in the family lines can be identified,1 but some probabilities are listed in Chart 6.

From Shem, through Arpachshad and Shelah came Eber, the eponymous ancestor of the Hebrews, and from his descendants through Peleg, Reu, Sereg and Nahor came Terah, the father of Abram and his brothers Nahor and Haran. It becomes clear that if "Hebrews" are descendants of Eber, then others besides those of Abraham's line would be included (see Gen. 10:25-27).

There were already other Hebrew tribes or clans residing in Egypt before Joseph and his family migrated in fact Abraham's slave woman was an Egyptian name Hagar.

Jacob descendants were the chosen people not the other Hebrew the other sons of Shem and their descendants.

I think I have already explain why Hebrews were enslave for thousand of years. If you are referring only to the people of Joseph yes not for thousand of years but I am referring to all Hebrews which you seem to ignore. I have presented to you that there were Hebrews slaves in Egypt before Joseph time in fact Joseph was sold to an Egyptian to become a slave and Egyptian history have confirm that Egypt have capture thousands of Canaanite prisoners during Egypt empire expansion and enslave thousands of Canaanite, this Canaanite group of people that history said consist of Hebrews and then there were the Hyksos that again history confirm fought wars with Egypt eventually the Hyksos would disappear that historians believe were Hebrews. And between the Bible enslavement 1100 BC of Hebrews and history enslavement of Canaanite or Hebrews 2500 BC years is about 1400 years difference. Put them together, Hebrews in general have been enslave in Egypt for thousand of years. It is only during the time of Moses that finally they will be set free because the chosen people Hebrews of Jacob were enslave as well. If Egypt had not enslave the descendants of Jacob then the Bible story would have been different no Exodus and probably Egypt would have become a Jewish State?

 

If you can believe this, more power to you.
Fortunately, I was taught to read.

 

I have many times. There are 5 parts now to this thread. Your homework is to review all those threads and take notes, that way I won't have to keep repeating myself.

But as I've already said, what's the point of producing evidences?...you are only going to deny them.

 

Quote Posted by Woody:

You really should learn more about this myth.....because all you have is the Bible and thats hearsay at its finest...Secular and Non Christian sources please, primary and contemporary sources please. 500 saw him perform miracles no one wrote nothing, He traveled all over and not one single person of the period historian or otherwise writes nothing. He totally escapes the view of Philo and others of the period. An amazing feat for some one with his talent huh? No, you got nothing don't know why I bother.
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Most of the people were illiterate during the times of Jesus. Writing was in the hands of an elite of trained specialists, and reading required an advanced education available only to a few.

It is often asserted that writing was restricted to government and religious circles and would have had no place among the peasantry of Galilee, where Jesus did much of his teaching.

There is a widely-held opinion that knowledge of Jesus' words and deeds depended on oral tradition—people passed on what they saw and heard by word of mouth—until between 55 and 65 A.D., when the earliest of the Gospels, the Gospel of Mark, was composed.

Now little over 2,000 yrs. later, we are still talking about our Lord Savior Jesus Christ...isn't that amazing!

If the life, the ministry of His teachings, the miracles He performed, His death and resurrection were all lies, His story, that has certainly put a profound impact in the lives of many people thru-out the world, would have died a long, long time ago, but look we are still talking about Him some 2,000 yrs. later...haleluyah!

 

That isn't what your source says. Your source says that the Hebrews were descendants of Shem, through Eber, and Abraham. So, only people descended from Abraham are Hebrews?

I see no evidence of this from the Bible.

 

Quote Posted by Woody:

GP your wasting your time....this one and the other one are so brain washed it could be etched in stone and they will deny it....what they are doing is trying to use modern archeaology but what they fail to see is that we are talking 1st Century not frigging 21st Century. I clearly posted 2 pilgrim trade route maps of the 1st and 4th Century showing no Nazareth. I have lost all my research on this due to a computer failure...pisses me off...........
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I have read your atheist website concerning the city of Nazareth, and I have read the theist website concerning the city of Nazareth. I came away giving more credibility to the theist website.

Have you done the same thing? Or do you just expose yourself primarily to just one side of the story?

The question everybody needs to ask themselves, is do you want there to be a God? If you say yes, then there is enough evidence, proof, and historical facts (Not that you necessarily need them to be a Christian) to back what the Bible says... but if you don't want there to be a God, is there truly anything anybody can say, even if God was to send His only Son to earth to save mankind, to get you to change your mind? I doubt it.

 

Quote Posted by Giftedone:

The whole idea that God is this big bad tyrant who wants to control every aspect of the lives of humans through fear just does not make sense to me.
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We Christians have certainly not portrayed God as being a big bad tyrant. Where do you get that from? You have a gross misconception of Him.

And where do you come up with this notion that He wants to control every aspect of our lives?

All He did was give us commandments to guide us through our lives so that we can live the righteous way. Let's be honest with ourselves there is certainly a right way and a wrong way to live our lives.

He is not controlling us in the sense like we are His puppets, we all have free will, and as one can see by just turning on the daily evening news many people are expressing their free will by choosing to do what is evil. Of course there are others expressing their righteousness.

Isn't living the righteous way, the way God wants us to live, by far much much better than living a life of constant wrongdoing...of evil?

 

Everybody especially now a days knows how to read but not everybody knows how to understand or interpret the Bible for that matter.

 

Descendant of Shem are Hebrews.
Read Genesis 10 a summary of Shem's family line

and this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Noah#Shem.27s_descendants
Shem is traditionally held to be the ancestor of the Semitic people; Hebrews and Arabs consider themselves sons of Shem through Arpachshad (thus, Semites).
In the view of some 17th century European scholars (e.g., John Webb), the people of China and India descended from him as well.[6]
Elam, son of Shem. The Elamites called their land Haltamti and had an empire (capital Susa) in what is now Khuzistan, modern Iran. Elamite, however, is not a Semitic language.
Ashur, son of Shem, associated with Assyria.
Arpachshad, (also transcribed Arphaxad) son of Shem. He or his immediate descendants are credited in Second Temple tradition[7] with founding the city of Ur of the Chaldees, usually identified (following archaeologist Woolley) with the Sumerian city of Ur on the south bank of the Euphrates.[8]
Lud, son of Shem. Most ancient authorities assign this name to the Lydians of Eastern Anatolia.
Aram, son of Shem. There are references to a campaign against a place called 'Arame' as early as 2300 BC in the inscriptions of Naram-Sin of Akkad[9]
Uz, son of Aram.
Hul, son of Aram.
Gether, son of Aram.
Mash, son of Aram (1 Chronicles has Meshech).
[edit]Arpachshad's family (genealogy of Abraham) and the Line of Joktan
The genealogy at this point lists several generations of Arpachshad's descendants, on account of their connection with the Hebrew nation and the rest of Genesis:
Cainan is listed as the son of Arpachshad and father of Shelah in some ancient sources. The name is omitted in the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, but the Greek Septuagint and genealogy of Jesus in St. Luke 3:36 include the name.
Shelah (also transcribed Salah) son of Arpachshad (or Cainan).
Eber son of Shelah.
Peleg, son of Eber. In the table, it is said that the Earth was divided in the days of Peleg. A threefold division among Ham, Shem and Japheth preceding the Tower of Babel incident, is elaborated on in several ancient sources.[10]
Joktan, son of Eber.

Later on Hebrews will be specifically refer to the descendants of Abraham because they will become the centre of all events but now we are slowly seeing other people claiming to be Hebrews, group of people from Russia, Africa, China etc. and some of them are seeking right of residency in modern Israel.

 

You have repeatedly proved that point.

 

Yes I have that is why we have this thread "Post your tough questions regarding Christianity" and thanks to this this thread I have discover just how many literate people have been undermining, misinterpreting, distorting and misreading the Holy Bible.

 

See if you can figure out why all those things are highlighted in red above.

You have called us literate. Thank you. It's a start.
You may want to start with that.

 

So how old was NOAH when he died exactly?

 

Best guess 950 years old....people can live long and prosper in mythology.

 

So he had the ability to live until 950 yrs old but did not have the ability to swim?

 

They did not write swimming lessons into the script and they never said he drown.....maybe Jonah's whale got him?

 

To be fair to WanRen, English isn't his first language, so cut him some slack on punctuation and verb conjugation.

However, the rest of his points tend to be rather unsupported.

 

I know, but I couldn't resist as he was the one bringing up literacy.