Did Abraham ever really exist?

a reply to: andy06shake

I imagine Judaism, Christianity and Islamic religious will have rather a few issues regarding their authenticity should he prove to be fictitious!

Christianity wouldn't.
The New Testament treats the subject as fables anyway.
Judaism was nothing but a temple cult, when there still was a temple.
What we think of as Judaism today is nothing but a modern invention that is just a form of self-worship so will not be affected.
Islam is a depository of superstition so they will not be affected either.

a reply to: jmdewey60

One could possibly conclude from the above that you do not place much stock in organized religious parables. LoL

I thought according to all three sets of control constructs aka Christianity Judaism and Islam that there holy books indicated we were all sons of Abraham?

a reply to: andy06shake

. . . were all sons of Abraham?

The New Testament laughs at that.
"No, father Abraham" the dead rich man says, in the Lazarus parable, meaning, 'you and your god just doesn't do it.'

a reply to: jmdewey60

The New Testament also introduces the whole notion of Jesus being a messiah and resurrection without a shred of empirical evidence to support such. So why we should hold that particular interpretation with higher regard or reverence over the former is a mystery to me.

New testament or old, Koran or Torah, there all just books written by Man with all his idiosyncrasy and fallibilities included.

a reply to: andy06shake

. . . why we should hold that particular interpretation . . .

One is useful, the other isn't.
Generally speaking.
Even in Islam, Abraham just sets up this idea of Arab supremacy, so if you were black, or something, even though you were Muslim, the Arab will never accept you as an equal since your father wasn't Abraham.
So that is just so much trash.
Jesus can be your brother no matter who you might want to trace your ancestry to.

a reply to: jmdewey60

The God of the old testament in no way resembles the God of the new testament. One may possibly conclude that they are different deities all together. Which seems to bring into question the notion of there only being a God as opposed to there being a pantheon of such.

The contradictions contained within our holy scriptures are numerous which only goes to reinforce the fact that were indeed the product of Man rather than the exact word of God.

Don't get me wrong i'm not saying that there are no God or Gods. I just have a problem with organised religions attempt to hijack the concept, hence control the masses with there control constructs and also promote intolerance and hatred towards others. Never mind their inability to share knowledge, sacred or otherwise outside there priesthood and or class systems.

a reply to: andy06shake

. . . promote intolerance and hatred towards others.

You have to think about things like why there is this thing in Palestine calling itself Israel, while the people making that claim are Polish with no hereditary tie with the ancient Judeans.
It's because the Old Testament is a national constitution, a blueprint for how they wanted a country to be.
Once you have a resourceful, cohesive group of people to accept it as a holy book, then inevitably you end up with them trying to fulfill it.
That shows the book for what it really is, instruction for a dream society, except one that is sadly outdated from the Late Bronze Age.
Christianity, if it was followed according to a straightforward interpretation of the New Testament, would be close to an objective ideal, derived from a cultural high point, with the wisdom of the Greeks, and the bad (meaning a negative example, of how not to run society) example of empire gone bad under the Romans.

a reply to: FlyersFan
Abraham... so be it... was asked by God to give up his son and heir to death.
That was/is the beginning of the ultimate DEBT!
So... when Abraham's people were in dire need... God sent Jesus! Yay!
But yeah... The payback was awesome...

originally posted by: andy06shake
The God of the old testament in no way resembles the God of the new testament.

VERY TRUE.

The 'god' of the old testament orders Moses to slaughter 3,000 Israelites in their camp who supposedly don't believe in god the right way. He had families slaughter other family members. And supposedly he had Joshua slaughter entire cities - everyone even right down to the chickens and dogs - and then had Joshua leave the city without even moving in.

Jesus says to forgive and teach others about God. He taught people not to stone others to death. He taught that it's better to turn the other cheek. Can you picture Jesus ordering these mass slaughters?

a reply to: FlyersFan

A well thought out and written thread. Cudos!

The Jews, Muslims and Christian believe he did in fact exist however archeology finds are left up to whoever wrote that book or thesis on that find.

I no longer trust our historians, archeologist and some science because it is nothing more than one man's opinion or educated guess and not a fact. How often have we all read one month the scientist say this is bad for you and then 4 months later a new study comes out and they find out it is healthy for you. This yo-yo effect proves one thing - man wants to know - but does not.

I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that over 50% of all info supplied by wannabe historians, archeologist and scientists is nothing more than their own imagination because they either "publish or perish".

ATS followers love in demanding proof for anything they disagree with I do not follow this madness of demanding proof - life is too short.

a reply to: HardHead

. . . this madness of demanding proof - life is too short.

An excessive demand of "proof" would be like asking if a "God" really did things like part the Red Sea, when a more mundane explanation might exist, like wind strong enough in a particular direction.

A more reasonable demand for proof would be that if there is a story in the Old Testament purporting to be actual physical history, that there should be some sort of physical evidence.

There is literary evidence that the writers of this OT story copied from earlier Egyptian stories of events tied to unrelated people.

originally posted by: HardHead
I no longer trust our historians, archeologist and some science because it is nothing more than one man's opinion or educated guess and not a fact

I trust historians, archeologists and scientists more than I trust 4500 year old stories that were passed down ... like Chinese whispers ... by exceptionally religious people people who were uneducated.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Since I was not there at the time, I can not vouch for the existance of him or any of the other biblical figures.
I am always amazed though, how we have so many "ver batum" statements and conversation by these people. Many times when no one else was present. Yet the same situations which have been handed down through other cultures are all dismissed as "myth and fable".

I was once told that evolution, which I know is not a part of this topic so bare with me, is only a theory because no one was there as a witness. My only reply to this statement is, "Who was there to witness the "creation" and where is the original text of the event"? Both would seem to fall in the same classification to me.

originally posted by: teamcommander
how we have so many "ver batum" statements and conversation by these people. Many times when no one else was present.

Seriously true. No one was there or no one could write words to record them or even make paper, etc.

I was once told that evolution, which I know is not a part of this topic so bare with me, is only a theory because no one was there as a witness..

We have scientific evidence that shows evolution happened.
So the eyewitness to evolution is ... science.

The patriarchs, who all had Hebrew names, supposedly lived around 2000-1800bc. The problem is, the Hebrew language wasn't even invented until around 1200 bc.

This thread was brought up in another thread ... HERE , so I"m necrobumping the thread for anyone interested. New crop of people at ATS, so there may be new interest.

a reply to: FlyersFan

i only have 1 problem with the 1500 years of mouth to ear

try telling your 5 nearest friends a story, see how many words changed
and the story evolved for forgotten details, better wording, or
a clearer, closer definition..exaggeration,,

what we call a cat today could have meant something far diffrent back then

even if through 1 bible story you made only 1 mistake, other people
make 1 mistake retelling it, original guy dies but other story told
many more times must be the original, right? after 50 years? lifetime?
especially going village to village,
it may take a while to get there and you tell better descriptions,
words change based on each persons understanding of the story
retelling what they believe the words meant, exaggerate just once
,llanguage diffrences
and the story could be much diffrent over 1000 years until written down
turning into mythology like vampyres, or werewolves, dragons, merlin