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> Yes, Troy existed - we know that because we found it.

We knew Troy existed long before that because it remained as a city at least into the 3rd century CE. We just didn't know which ruins it was.

by bjourne1 days ago|

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Noah's Ark may well be derived from the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In both stories the God(s) assert that the flood is a one-time event and promise to never repeat it. Many of the stories are probably amalgamations of different myths and legends of the near east.

by Ar-Curunir21 hours ago|

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There are flood myths across the entire world.

by 1 days ago|

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by logicchains1 days ago|

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>We also know that the monotheistic/henotheistic religion described in the Exodus narrative was not the religion practiced by the people of Canaan, nor of the early kingdoms of Israel and Judah, which worshiped several other gods in addition to Yahweh (there are temples and inscriptions attesting to worship of Asherah, El, and even Baal in addition to Yahweh, at least).

The Exodus narrative explicitly describes the early Israelites flocking to worship idols like that.

by simiones1 days ago|

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It describes it as a sectary offshoot relatively quickly corrected - while the historical evidence suggests that it was part of the main religion of these people for a long time. Note also that, while Baal became an adversary of Yahweh and/or a false god in later narratives, Asherah and El were ultimately identified with Yahweh - to the point that mentions of El in the Bible became identified as referring to the same being as Yahweh.

by Brendinooo1 days ago|

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> archaeologist, taking off his glasses: well actually the physical evidence suggests the ancient Israelites worshiped multiple deities

> Jeremiah, weeping and sighing: yes I know

(That's a tweet that pops up from time to time when exchanges like this happen.)

> the historical evidence suggests that it was part of the main religion of these people for a long time

I mean...yes, this is thoroughly documented throughout all of Judges/Kings/Chronicles/etc. Elijah is the one who stands against 450 prophets of Baal, and when he feels totally alone later on, God tells him that 7,000 haven't bent the knee - big enough to be reassuring, but certainly not a huge percentage of the northern kingdom's population.

by simiones1 days ago|

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Elijah (who, unlike Moses, is probably a real historical figure) lived long after the events depicted in Exodus. And Exodus ends with the all of the Israelites faithfully following Yahweh's commandments, after narrowly avoiding death for their worship of the golden bull idol. The book of Kings presents a time long after that, when the people of the now divided Israel have lost their way and started worshiping Baal - as opposed to their ancestors who only worshiped Yahweh.

by 1 days ago|

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by Pay081 days ago|

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FYI, "Baal" is a much later invention. In ancient Hebrew, the word "Ba'al" means lord/master/husband and is often used as a honorific.

by pfdietz1 days ago|

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Baal was an Ugaritic god. Ugarit is one of the cities that was famously destroyed in the LBAC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit

by tsimionescu1 days ago|

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The god Baal, or his more complete name Baal Hadad, Lord Hadad, is attested in one of the longest pieces of literature we have from the ancient middle east - the Baal cycle, written circa 1100-1300 BCE in Ugaritic, a different semitic language - which is in fact older than the oldest attestation we have of the Hebrew language; but you're right that Baal meant "Lord/Master/Owner" in various Canaanite languages. Calling gods "(The) Lord" is a very common tradition in many languages and cultures, certainly in that area (see Adonai as well). Elijah and king Ahab lived in ~830 BCE, for reference.

by Ar-Curunir1 days ago|

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[flagged]

by simiones1 days ago|

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Thanks! I found it quite interesting the first time I read about the current scholarly consensus around this, as I had before only ever heard of the mainstream religious (Christian, in my case) view of these events. Even after becoming an atheist, I had for a long time assumed that, while of course the parting of the Red Sea and similar miraculous events were not historical, the overall narrative was, and that Moses had existed and been some kind of spiritual leader, similar to the historical Jesus.

I think it's quite extraordinary how little the scholarly and historical consensus on these narratives has penetrated mainstream culture, even among a secular audience, so I like to bring it up whenever it is mentioned.