How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

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How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #1

Post by otseng »

From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:
nobspeople wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:42 amHow can you trust something that's written about god that contradictory, contains errors and just plain wrong at times? Is there a logical way to do so, or do you just want it to be god's word so much that you overlook these things like happens so often through the history of christianity?
otseng wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:08 am The Bible can still be God's word, inspired, authoritative, and trustworthy without the need to believe in inerrancy.
For debate:
How can the Bible be considered authoritative and inspired without the need to believe in the doctrine of inerrancy?

While debating, do not simply state verses to say the Bible is inspired or trustworthy.

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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #881

Post by TRANSPONDER »

It's worth looking up what is sometimes called proto - Hebrew' an obsolete term mainly maintained by Bible apologists who want to show that Israelites were in Egypt whenever they think the Exodus happened.

Rather it is proto Semitic/Sinaitic script which is to say, Canaanite. The Wiki reference references the Wadi -el Hol inscription as proto Semitic/Canaanite.

Proto-Sinaitic (also referred to as Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite when found in Canaan,[1] the North Semitic alphabet,[2] or Early Alphabetic)[3] is considered the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian script and the Phoenician alphabet,[4] which led to many modern alphabets including the Greek alphabet.[5] According to common theory, Canaanites or Hyksos who spoke a Semitic language repurposed Egyptian hieroglyphs to construct a different script.[6] The script is attested in a small corpus of inscriptions found at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, dating to the Middle Bronze Age (2100–1500 BC).[4]

The earliest Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are mostly dated to between the mid-19th (early date) and the mid-16th (late date) century BC.


I'm not sure whether the Sania 115 and Wadi el Holi scripts have been translated (apart from the proposed reading by our Creationist writer) but I'll try to find out.

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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #882

Post by TRANSPONDER »

"Wadi el Holi inscription.

Although he has not yet translated the inscriptions, Darnell is fairly certain that the first word of one section is "rb," for "rebbe" or "chief" (from which the word "rabbi" is derived). This most likely indicates that the person referred to is an Asiatic employee of the Eygptian Bebi." (Yale Bulletin and calendar)

While this looks tantalisingly familiar to Jewish stuff, the mainstream view is that the Hebrews, when they appeared in former Canaan borrowed much of this and it is in no way support for tyhe Bible -based belief in Hebrews in Egypt before the 11th c BC realistically, in any significant numbers.

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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #883

Post by TRANSPONDER »

There's a Wiki reference-comment on the Wadi el Holi inscription

Researchers also claim to have discovered Canaanite snake spells: "The passages date from between 2400 to 3000 BC and appear to be written in Proto-Canaanite, a direct ancestor of Biblical Hebrew." "The two latest discoveries, those found in the Wadi el-Hol, north of Luxor, in Egypt's western desert, can be dated with rather more certainty than the others and offer compelling evidence that the early date [1850 BC] is the more likely of the two (Simons 2011:24)."

I can't find any translation of Sania 115 except of course many references to Petrovich and his claim that it indicated Hebrews living in Egypt before the Hyksos. To me, it still resembles Canaanite script borrowing from Heiroglyphs rather than the Phoenecian alphabet and we shall have to be cautious about this claim of Bibleproof, one of many, none of which have turned out to be true.

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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #884

Post by JoeyKnothead »

otseng wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 12:19 am
Actually, I do not claim to know the details of how God created all the languages. It's a black box. All I claim is before the people embarked on building the tower of Babel, there was only a single language worldwide. Then after the tower of Babel, multiple languages arose out of the tower of Babel.
I always preciate that otseng tells his truth, and clarifies where he must. There's no games with this'n.

Right or wrong, this man is as straight shooting as any you'll find.
otseng wrote: What did not happen is cultures around the world independently came up with their own language.
I propose that language, coming from the grunts and groans of primitive humans, would naturally develop personal, and regional differences.

Not only do we not all sound our grunts and groans, differently, but even individual words...

To some, the word "can't " rhymes with "ant". Here in Lower Appalachia though, it rhymes with "paint". A relatively subtle pronunciation borne of no particular reason than geography.

We can also examine language across a broader scale, and see that some words are shared, as in "mama" or "papa". Various different languages share not only the same pronunciation, but the same spelling here.

More personally, I've observed the pretty things grand'n there learning to speak, and noticed his devopment of a lisp. I propose he simply misunderstood his "ess" sound for the "th" sound. As I've interacted more with him, explains how tongue placement affects pronunciation, his lisp has become noticeably reduced, to the point ya gotta kinda know he was lisp1ing before, just to notice.

So here's three examples of how language can change through subtle personal and regional means.

As an amateur, I don't know if I can say my data here is conclusive, but do contend my conclusions here are grounded in a reasonable and logical way based on it.
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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #885

Post by Diogenes »

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #884]
Good examples, Joey. Unfortunately you reminded me of Otseng's
"All I claim is before the people embarked on building the tower of Babel, there was only a single language worldwide. Then after the tower of Babel, multiple languages arose out of the tower of Babel."
and
"What did not happen is cultures around the world independently came up with their own language."

Both of these claims are so wrong "wrong" is an understatement. How on Earth an obviously allegorical story can be considered as fact is testament to the power of fable. Having been raised on such stuff, it is hard for some to get perspective. Looking at similar myths may help. Explanations for the origins of language are usually part of a larger creation myth.

The Sumerian-Hebrew creation myth is the familiar example in Judeo-Christian culture, but it is one of many. Why not take the other fables equally seriously? For the simple reason they are not the ones we grew up with.

The Aztec myth claims a man, Coxcox, and a woman, Xochiquetzal, survive by floating on a piece of bark. Then they have kids whoe at first could not talk. Upon the arrival of a dove they were magically endowed with language, although each one was given a different speech such that they could not understand one another.
__ Turner and Russell-Coulter, C. (2001) 'Dictionary of Ancient Deities'

The Gunwinggu of Australia tell of a goddess in dreamtime giving each of her children a language of their own to play with. Probably all cultures at one time had a creation myth that included the development of language and tries to explain language differences. But it is just silly to choose any of them. Instead we need look no further than children who develop their own languages, twins in particular.

"Twins are regularly reported to invent languages of their own, unintelligible to others. These languages are known as autonomous languages, cryptophasia or idioglossia. Despite current belief, this is not a rare phenomenon. Autonomous languages exist in about 40% of all twins...."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3434134/

That it is the nature of subcultures to develop their own jargon and slang which border on separate languages can be seen easily enough by simply going to different parts of a large city.

It's the same old debate, science or magic, Linguistic Anthropology or fables, the study of history or "God did it.'

Though it is obvious that many languages are related and there are 'root' languages like Latin, this hardly proves ALL languages came from a single source.
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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #886

Post by JoeyKnothead »

As always, I preciate your considerable knowledge across a broad spectrum of topics...
Diogenes wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:36 am ...
"Twins are regularly reported to invent languages of their own, unintelligible to others. These languages are known as autonomous languages, cryptophasia or idioglossia. Despite current belief, this is not a rare phenomenon. Autonomous languages exist in about 40% of all twins...."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3434134/
Dangitall, that puts the struggle to my notion.
Diogenes wrote: Though it is obvious that many languages are related and there are 'root' languages like Latin, this hardly proves ALL languages came from a single source.
I'm absolutely furious you'd correct me in public!

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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #887

Post by TRANSPONDER »

I once or twice told an opponent on my former board (when I'd trashed some argument of his and he was playing trhe 'disrespect' card) that if I didn't think they were worthy of discussion, I wouldn't be spending the time doing it.

I've said a couple of times that otseng does as good a job of Bible apologetics as any could do. And (given the nature of Faith -based apologetics) is a fair and honest opponent and I love it how I am pushed :D

I thought, after I'd done the debate on the Exodus on my former board and I researched into the Hyksos and Theban dynasties that I knew a bit about it. I knew nothing. :mrgreen: compared to what there was to know. I hope it hasn't been too off topic and boring as not everyone will be fascinated by the Hyksos, Sea peoples and the Bronze age collapse as I am, but it is needful to put Genesis and Exodus against what archaeology and inscriptions tells us about conditions in Egypt, which after all questions the Bible from the Flood through to the emergence of Israel in the 11th c BCE.

If that's correct as the history and archaeology seems to indicate.

The thing is that that Faith -based apologetics works differently. On the thread of the Genealogies we had a poster looking for someone who would give the 'line of Mary' apologetics an easier pass. That is absolutely the problem with having Faith in the Bible and trying to make possible explanations ('undisprovables' as I call them) credible. It is not about what the evidence says but about what Faith can be clung to, and that is absolutely the problem and why something that sounds frankly (as I said) as crazy as flat earthism (the tower of Babel) is seriously discussed.

While we have to trust the whole body of geology, anthropology, linguistics and ancient history which all gets investigated, argued about, verified and cross - checked before it gets into the text - books, Biblefaith has to replace
or reject a supposition that as humans (on genetics from one origin) marched all over the world a million or so years BC and changed in many ways, including languages (and we know from writing how languages can change in a few hundred years, with vowel - slips as well as new peoples), after Neolithic farming and herding communities 10,000 BC which surely already had different languages, we got the first cities around 3,000 BC and this human habit of piling up brick or stone to reach the heavens and the gods that lived there. That paints a picture that refutes one tower and an event (not clear what) that caused everyone speaking Adunaic (which might be Sumerian) to start speaking something else.

We'll note right away how Bible apologetics will work within the ancient history framework (Sumer, Egypt, ziggurats, pyramids) and even the Chronology until it conflicts with the Bible, and then it is simply rejected. This is symptomatic of Faith -based thinking and is not only biased and opportunistic (making honest debators look crafty) but is wrong -headed thinking that gets projected onto the skeptic side (1)

Even without the noticeable Babylonian elements of the story, Babel is so counter to everything that archaeology and anthropology shows about the continual growth of cultures 4-3000 BC that Babel shouldn't even be seriously considered as anything but a made -up myth, were it not that some want to believe in Genesis as a reliable literal record of events.

A possible topic, knobsdude, is why Genesis even matters. Well, there's the doctrine of Sin, without which atonement for and salvation from Sin falls flat, rather. But it's more a Shibboleth of Religious Faith. Icons, like the Pill in the 60's, transplants in the 70's, Stem cells in the 80's and mask wearing, vaccination and Dr Fauci right now are Icons of Faith to be fought for and the science is simply rejected.

Genesis - literalism and arguing for the Israelites in the Hyksos dynasty and Canaanite script actually being Hebrew is about Biblefaith and not about following the evidence and it's what rationalists like myself have to battle all the time.

Not only do I have to make the case for the 'science' but I have to eliminate any possibility of a Bible - fit hypothesis. Like otseng was arguing for 'indirect evidence' (which, being Interpreted, meaneth 'can we wangle the Bible - story into the archaeological one?' Perhaps we could, but why should we? Because someone dearly wants to believe a particular theory. And pointing this out is indicating the problem, not a personal attack, which is what they often mistake. I never take an accusation of Atheists being like Stalin or Pol Pot personally :D

It's a different mindset from the evidence-based one, which goes with the theory that best fits the evidence, not the preferred one that could possibly be true, even if it relies on supposed evidence that hopefully will turn up one day. It's why I have to scream in block caps 'You Have Nothing' :D because an absence of any credible evidence isn't what counts in Biblefaith but whether and how Faith in what the Bible says can be maintained (if only as an undisprovable remote possibility).

It's also why I realised (long ago) that discussion with the intent of getting the Believer to say 'I guess I was wrong - the Flood and Ark likely never happened' is better not made the intent but in arguing out the case to test it and present it to a wider audience. Which is one reason I left my former forum and came here and why I appreciate debating otseng so much, notwithstanding the Faith -based mindset which of course goes with the territory.

(1) oh God here we go. But the Bible - apologists are going to see it as 'Biblical Archaeology' and think that skeptical scientists are taking an archaeological/historical model that fits the Bible and fiddling it to suit the Bible -denier bias by arguing against anything Biblical. Absolutely that's how they see it. Absolutely in a par with the Flat earthist who believes that global science if faking space - photos to discredit his Truth. Bible apologists rarely look as crazy but the Faith -based thinking is the same.

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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #888

Post by TRANSPONDER »

Diogenes wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:36 am [Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #884]
Good examples, Joey. Unfortunately you reminded me of Otseng's
"All I claim is before the people embarked on building the tower of Babel, there was only a single language worldwide. Then after the tower of Babel, multiple languages arose out of the tower of Babel."
and
"What did not happen is cultures around the world independently came up with their own language."

Both of these claims are so wrong "wrong" is an understatement. How on Earth an obviously allegorical story can be considered as fact is testament to the power of fable. Having been raised on such stuff, it is hard for some to get perspective. Looking at similar myths may help. Explanations for the origins of language are usually part of a larger creation myth.

The Sumerian-Hebrew creation myth is the familiar example in Judeo-Christian culture, but it is one of many. Why not take the other fables equally seriously? For the simple reason they are not the ones we grew up with.

The Aztec myth claims a man, Coxcox, and a woman, Xochiquetzal, survive by floating on a piece of bark. Then they have kids whoe at first could not talk. Upon the arrival of a dove they were magically endowed with language, although each one was given a different speech such that they could not understand one another.
__ Turner and Russell-Coulter, C. (2001) 'Dictionary of Ancient Deities'

The Gunwinggu of Australia tell of a goddess in dreamtime giving each of her children a language of their own to play with. Probably all cultures at one time had a creation myth that included the development of language and tries to explain language differences. But it is just silly to choose any of them. Instead we need look no further than children who develop their own languages, twins in particular.

"Twins are regularly reported to invent languages of their own, unintelligible to others. These languages are known as autonomous languages, cryptophasia or idioglossia. Despite current belief, this is not a rare phenomenon. Autonomous languages exist in about 40% of all twins...."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3434134/

That it is the nature of subcultures to develop their own jargon and slang which border on separate languages can be seen easily enough by simply going to different parts of a large city.

It's the same old debate, science or magic, Linguistic Anthropology or fables, the study of history or "God did it.'

Though it is obvious that many languages are related and there are 'root' languages like Latin, this hardly proves ALL languages came from a single source.
It's almost a panicky feeling when I see a global evolutionary mindset (which is Old World and 'Scientific') vs a Creationist model which is American frankly, and Faith - based, not to say cult - think.

The evolutionary model sees everything as a gradual development of biosphere, life, consciousness, language, culture and morals, which is what I argued (on my former board (1) with someone who played the 'Science can't explain consciousness' card (2). To me it's obvious that neurally - driven instinctive reaction to stimuli became more complex and sophisticated, just as life did. The evolutionary model seems so evident (on the evidence ;) ) wherever you look with the explanations of science (3) that it shouldn't even be a discussion.

So the gradual development and diversification of languages should be the default hypothesis now that we understand human diversification better. We know about the evolution of language: over say half a millennium so it becomes quite different. So why on earth should we even consider the idea of everyone speaking the same language all over the world for 50,000 years (or a couple of thousand in the Genesis - literalist model) and because an ambitious ziggurat fell apart everyone began to speak different languages?

I know.... 'can't we wangle the Bible in there somehow?' Like maybe there was an earthquake and the people left and travelled to Egypt and China and somehow transformed the language.

"Where's the evidence for that?"

"Oh...it'll turn up someday."

:) Well fine..but until it does there is no evidence for it. And all the evidence favours a language - evolution model and ....(5) which I'll put here. :clap: On my former board :wave: during the Mitochondrial Eve fad some Believer pleaded with us effectively wanting the African evolutionary bottleneck to be reworded in Biblical terms or Mitichondrial Eve be presented in Genesis - scenario form. It's very like the Flood being scientifically accepted even if in a form that nullifies God's extermination. It's like the Bible matters more than what's in it.

I don't know whether this will be relevant but I have to talk about it. Just last night I watched a vid debunking the Gods from outer space stuff. It showed quite stunningly how the proponents peddle a lie, sometimes without knowing it but simply by repeating the claim in some Aliens were god book without checking.And fact is that Bible apologist will cut and paste apologetics without checking, and if you debunk it, they'll just go get another one looking for the Atheist - stumper and One Shot Win.

He noted just what Bible apologists do too - the sources say This but they really mean That. Just as Vimana actually means a royal palace (which, if it belonged to a god, could fly), nevertheless, it Really means 'Flying saucer' just as it SAYS Joseph son of Heli but it Really means 'Mary daughter of Heli, married to Joseph father (or so everyone pretended not to know he wasn't) of Jesus. Just as Slavery in the Bible has to mean something else, though provably (for foreign slaves) it didn't.

But even though this bod did a splendid job on the Pyramids and Baalbek stone, (4) he supported (on his own account) the Flood, and as the Biblical flood, too. He tried to debunk Sumer as the original (on the grounds that they changed the story) and argued meticulous transmission of Hebrew (citing the Dead sea scrolls). Also that the Sumerian ark was a primitive box and the Noachian Ark was a more feasible boat.

But while this fellow was brilliant at debunking UFO technology, he seemed oblivious to the other possibilities re. the Ark. The primitive box would work in a river valley 'world' flood but the boatlike Ark would reflect a better knowledge of ship building and thus be a version of the story that was later. I have pointed up Other Babylonian borrowings, but even so, the Bible has long been seen as an updating of the Sumerian version, in several transformations, too and thus added to the Torah in 500 BC (perhaps) That it is meticulously transmitted thereafter does not make it any more true. Fact is that the doing brilliant job in debunking Ezekiel's flying saucer, we had to have a Bible apologist making a very partial case not only for the Bible, but for Genesis literalism

Well, I just had to get that off my chest.

(1) I have to say that so no - one will ask me to link to the discussion. :D

(2) which is of course totally wrong -headed because it is Faithbased reasoning 'If science can't explain this (down to the lat nanoparticle so even I can't deny it (2a) then God, Bible and Jesus is the only answer." I swear that's the thinking behind Biblical apologetics.

(2a) though in actual practice, there's nothing they can't deny, including in yore face reality.

(3) :roll: which Creationist - think doesn't do. It looks at everything and wonders how all the complexity just 'got here'. Obviously some huge invisible person must have made it. The evolutionary model of course explains it all better but (I promise you this) evilooshun is dismissed purely as a kneejerk hate - icon.

(4) on my former board I worked with a brilliant debunker, but I had to correct her over the Tuwhuakana stones - they are soft sandstone, not hard granite or Diorite. She never really ever forgave me for that.

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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #889

Post by Diogenes »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:51 am As always, I preciate your considerable knowledge across a broad spectrum of topics...
Diogenes wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:36 am ...
"Twins are regularly reported to invent languages of their own, unintelligible to others. These languages are known as autonomous languages, cryptophasia or idioglossia. Despite current belief, this is not a rare phenomenon. Autonomous languages exist in about 40% of all twins...."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3434134/
Dangitall, that puts the struggle to my notion.
Diogenes wrote: Though it is obvious that many languages are related and there are 'root' languages like Latin, this hardly proves ALL languages came from a single source.
I'm absolutely furious you'd correct me in public!

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:D I didn't realize I had. But the use of "correct" brought back a vivid memory of a teacher's "AWK" in red pencil for one of my errant schoolboy sentences. :)
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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #890

Post by otseng »

TRANSPONDER wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:27 am I don't think you have ANY evidence. Not for Israelites in Egypt until Israel became a nation before it split into 2 Kingdoms. Then Israelites as such could well Immigrate and trade in Egypt. I don't think you can even point to indirect evidence.
I've produced multiple posts of evidence supporting the Biblical account. If necessary, I can summarize all the posts I've made so far regarding Egypt and it matching the Bible.
The current state of thought (as I understand it) is that Canaanites were working in Egypt and so any non - Egyptian script (especially if using Phoenecian script) is going to be Canaanite, not Hebrew.
There is no specific Canaanite language, but there are Canaanite languages.
The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects,[1] are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Ugaritic, all originating in the Levant and Mesopotamia. They are attested in Canaanite inscriptions throughout the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the East Mediterranean, and after the founding of Carthage by Phoenician colonists, in coastal regions of North Africa and Iberian Peninsula also. Dialects have been labelled primarily with reference to Biblical geography: Hebrew (Israelian, Judean/Biblical, Samaritan), Phoenician/Punic, Amorite, Ammonite, Philistine, Moabite, Sutean and Edomite; the dialects were all mutually intelligible, being no more differentiated than geographical varieties of Modern English.[2] This family of languages has the distinction of being the first historically attested group of languages to use an alphabet, derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, to record their writings, as opposed to the far earlier Cuneiform logographic/syllabic writing of the region, which originated in Mesopotamia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_languages

The existence of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet during the time of the Exodus makes it plausible for Moses to have authored the Torah. If there was not an alphabet available at this time, then it would make it implausible for Moses to have written the Torah.
Pretty strong evidence of this is the Armarna letters.
We'll get to the Amarna letters later.
That is the evidence (direct and Indirect) and nothing is evidence for Israelites/Hebrews in Egypt under the Hyksos or before.
Are you saying your claims (with no references) are actual evidence? But all the facts (with corresponding references) I've produced are not evidence?
You seriously expect me to believe that Moses was found in the Bulrushes in Egypt and later writers in Babylon decided to wish that on the king of Akkad who ruled before Babylon was even a state?
Like I said, it all depends on which account was written first.
In the same way the tower of Babel (clearly the ziggurat of Babylon) cannot be the real origin of different human languages as you admit by postulating an earlier Ziggurat of 'Babel' really before Sumer, let alone Akkad and then Babylon even existed (why not the tower of Ur? Why not the tower of Eridu?).
I've already argued in length about the tower of Babel.
On top of that the Flood which comes down from Sumer in two later versions and works well enough in a river valley does not work in a global flood as in Genesis.
I've also argued at length about the flood.
You may (clearly do) believe the Bible as broadly reliable through Faith - not evidence as there really is none.
I have not appealed to faith to support my arguments. I've produced verifiable evidence that anyone can look up for themselves.
TRANSPONDER wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 4:37 pm It's worth looking up what is sometimes called proto - Hebrew' an obsolete term mainly maintained by Bible apologists who want to show that Israelites were in Egypt whenever they think the Exodus happened.
Where have I said "Proto-Hebrew"? So far, I've only said "Proto-Canaanite" and "Proto-Sinaitic".
The script is attested in a small corpus of inscriptions found at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, dating to the Middle Bronze Age (2100–1500 BC).
Yes, I've already presented this in post 873.
TRANSPONDER wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 4:44 pm While this looks tantalisingly familiar to Jewish stuff, the mainstream view is that the Hebrews, when they appeared in former Canaan borrowed much of this and it is in no way support for tyhe Bible -based belief in Hebrews in Egypt before the 11th c BC realistically, in any significant numbers.
Well, this further supports the Proto-Sinaitic script had Hebrew connections.

More from your reference...
The inscriptions Darnell and his team discovered at the Wadi el-Hol -- which are themselves surrounded by other inscriptions from the late Middle Kingdom, around 1850 to 1750 B.C -- represent a particular kind of script associated with Semitic language-speaking people from a region far to the east of the Wadi el-Hol.

This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that, nearby, another inscription in non-alphabetic Egyptian writing refers to a certain Egyptian Bebi, who is designated as a general of the "Aamou," or "Asiatics," explains the Yale researcher. "The word 'Aamou' is what you would expect an Egyptian to call a Semitic language speaker, someone out of western Asia," Darnell says, adding that historians know that "Asiatics" from the Sinai and Syria-Palestine area in the north worked for the Egyptians as mercenary soldiers and laborers during the Middle Kingdom.

Although he has not yet translated the inscriptions, Darnell is fairly certain that the first word of one section is "rb," for "rebbe" or "chief" (from which the word "rabbi" is derived). This most likely indicates that the person referred to is an Asiatic employee of the Eygptian Bebi.
http://archives.news.yale.edu/v28.n16/story4.html

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