The Evidence against the 'Israelites-from-Indus' thesis

This is no problem at all!

  1. The Exodus narrative is widely considered to be legendary not historical. I would also note that you have provided no evidence for the historicity of the Exodus narrative.

  2. Even if we accept the Exodus narrative as largely historical, that does not mean that every element of it is historical. That you reject Egypt as historical, but expect us to accept that “God wrote on stone at Sinai” as historical, is towering hypocrisy!

  3. You have provided no evidence for “1500 bce” as “the time of exodus”. As I demonstrated above:

the scholarly consensus, even among those who agree that the Exodus had a (modest) historical core, seems to be that it occurred in the 13th to 12th Centuries BCE

You have presented no evidence for these dates, or that the events you refer to actually happened, so your claims based upon them are unfounded.

So really, the only basis for your objection is that it contradicts your ‘Israelites-from-Indus’ thesis.

Hebrew is a Canaanite language. The Canaanite languages did not develop from Egyptian, although there was considerable mutual influence.

That does not follow. All ancient language developed before script.

You are making something complicated which is actually pretty straightforward.

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I just thought of something

Scripts one can see later due to visual

Language audio it fades.

How does one know what audio language is the oldest - when audio fades and audio doesn’t stay like how visual does?

We don’t. And none of us were talking about “oldest” language – rather which languages are related to, and are descendants of, other languages.

Yes, researchers base their understanding of ancient spoken languages on written script. But it is not as simple as ‘script A derives from script B, so language A derives from language B’ as (i) both languages would have existed long before written scripts existed and (ii) written scripts can be borrowed and adapted from unrelated (or very distantly related) languages – so analysing similarity of scripts does not tell you anything about the relationship between the languages.

I would suspect that the actual process involves something similar to first reconstructing each language based on how they use (and have adapted) the script, and then comparing the reconstructed languages.

The result of this is the finding that proto-Canaanite speakers borrowed and simplified the hieroglyphics of Egyptian, a distantly related, but geographically proximate, language, to form the proto-Caananite script. This proto-Caananite language and script in turn evolved into the Canaanite language and script (the latter being more commonly referred to as the Phoenician script), and into the Hebrew language and proto-Hebrew script (the modern Hebrew script was borrowed from the Assyrian script later).

(This may all seem rather messy and complicated – but I’m afraid cultural, including linguistic, influences almost always are messy and complicated.)

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So Canaanite, Egyptian and Hebrew all developed indecently de novo?

I will take you as meaning:

So Canaanite, Egyptian and Hebrew all developed independently de novo?

(Although the idea that those languages developed “indecently” is far more amusing.)

This is however a complete misrepresentation of @RonSewell’s statement.

He explicitly stated that “Hebrew is a Canaanite language” and that “there was considerable mutual influence” between them and Egyptian – this contradicts independence.

Also, all of these languages are members of the Afroasiatic family – so clearly did not come into existence “de novo”, but rather evolved from a common ancestor.

Addendum:

The issue of “considerable mutual influence” opens a whole can of worms – that of Language contact – which appears to be involve fairly complex and far-reaching subfield within Linguistics (that of “Contact Linguistics”). I’m not even remotely qualified to comment on this subfield, but I do note that the Wikipedia article has a General references section that appears to list a number of texts on the subject, for anybody interested in researching the matter further.

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There are two ways of knowing about languages spoken long ago. The first is written evidence, as with Latin or Sanskrit, and the second is reconstruction based on language phylogenies, as with Proto-Indo-European. I have no idea what you’'re trying to get at with “the oldest”.

You are still confusing languages with the scripts used to write them.

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How would we determine whether it was a Canaanite or Indus language?

Correction accepted. So how did r.m124 haplotype get into Ashkenazi Jews?

As I have told you repeatedly, IT DIDN’T “get into Ashkenazi Jews”:

[Source]

See? No R-M124 in Ashkenazi Jews!

I’ve even put a red box around it this time to make it all the more blatantly clear.

R-M124, is therefore irrelevant – as I have told you repeatedly, including in the OP of this thread – yet you keep bring this unsubstantiated claim up, over and over again.

Now can we please turn our attention away from R-M124 to all your other unsubstantiated and irrelevant claims?

I’d suggest starting out by reading the early chapters of a book like this one:

You could then read the papers referenced in that book.

That would help tell you how it was determined that Hebrew is a Canaanite language.

If you wanted to determine it for yourself, you’d probably need to get yourself a degree in Linguistics (or equivalent training) and then a post-grad qualification (or equivalent) in Comparative Linguistics, and then duplicate all this research for yourself.

Or you can simply accept the apparently-overwhelming weight of scholarly opinion, and the evidence that this opinion is based upon, that Hebrew is a Canaanite language. :slight_smile:

@John_Harshman @Tim @OneGod @Mercer @RonSewell

@OneGod writes about R-M124.

What about R1a and R1b found in ancient DNA? Does this help or not help about R-M124?

Can you look at vAsiSTha’s blog? I’m amazed at the information in his blog.

Not really. (i) R-M124 is also known as R2a, and so is a cousin of R1a and R1b, not a descendant of them. (ii) The question is whether we have any evidence that R-M124 was in the ancient (i.e. pre-Diaspora) Jewish population and in the ancient Indus Valley population (both being necessary for it to provide a potential link between the two populations). And we have no evidence of either, let alone both.

The blog post that you link to is principally about R1a/R1b, but does have a map showing ancient R2 being found in western Iran. This is consistent with R2a/R-M124 being found in West Asia (which we know to be true), where it likely entered into post-Diaspora Jewish populations there through intermarriage.

I would suggest that “@OneGod writes about” a large number of things that he appears to have only a very superficial understanding of.

You live in an opaque house in self righteous beliefs. I am happy to learn and try to answer all your questions if you are peaceful. Research requires an open mind not red herrings and stops.

Thank you Bharat for that irrelevant piece of Tone policing. :roll_eyes:

Far from being “opaque”, my viewpoint is perfectly transparent – evidence matters – and you have provided none for your claims.

I would also point out that reliability of sources also matters – and I have twice caught you out misattributing sources to SR Rao, that were in fact written by somebody else.

I will stop awarding you with red herrings when you stop flinging irrelevancies around with such complete abandon. They were meant as a visual cue to demonstrate just how often you were indulging in irrelevancies.

I find it absurd that you state “research requires an open mind”, when it is very clear that your mind is completely closed to anything that does not support your ‘Israelites-from-Indus’ thesis. My mind is open to the evidence, but not to unsubstantiated claims. I would note that evidence means relevant facts – and so to be accepted as evidence (i) you need to demonstrate that they are factual, and (ii) you need to demonstrate that these facts are relevant.

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@AllenWitmerMiller I’m serious about learning about Proto-Indo-European.

I was learning from @OneGod about R-M124. Have you ever heard about R-M124? Also, what are your thoughts about Sanskrit onward east and Germanic onward west?

@riversea – in spite of @OneGod bringing them up repeatedly, he has established no relevance of either Proto-Indo-European, or R-M124, to his ‘Israelites from Indus’ thesis.

This renders both topics off-topic on this thread, unless and until some hard evidence can be produced demonstrating their relevance.

(You can however start a new thread on either topic, if you wish to. :slight_smile:)

I already suggested you read the Wikipedia article on that topic as an introduction:

Have you read this article? Have you tracked down any of the cited sources listed for the article, to see if they can give further information?

@Tim @AllenWitmerMiller @OneGod

I started a new thread

https://www.religiousforums.com/threads/yadavas-hebrews-farmers-how-come-jews-thought-hebrews-were-slaves.261059/post-8338701

OneGod wrote
The problem lies in the time. We would have to believe that the Hebrews had no language and script before 1500 bce, the time of exodus. Now God wrote on stone at Sinai. The narrative continues as if those people knew the script at that time. Also God added h to Abram c. 2000 bce. Also if Hebrews were in egypt 1900 to 1500 bce. Hebrew would develop from Egyptian.

@Bthoth @Bharat Jhunjhunwala from OneGod who wrote there - you can find it in middle of OneGod message

I @River Sea ask this is why I looked at h. H THATS WHY I STUDY H that’s why I study that letter H

@Bthoth wrote people could learn how to be good without submission to a man-god to be their pinnacle of capabilities.

I @River Sea ask, how about a relationship with inner “I” we all carry and allow learn from

@Bthoth at least we acknowledge we can learn from without man-god submission to. That’s why I think relationship - Maybe we’re saying same thing

@OneGod can you help me with this

I’m looking up who’s Joseph, who carried the Hebrew language to Egypt.

Joseph would need to be born after Moses, because Moses left the Indus Valley. I’ll go research this to see when Joseph was born.

Because when did the Hebrew language develop after the Yadavas left the Indus Valley?

I found this just now.

  1. There is no evidence that “Moses left the Indus Valley” – that is just one of the things that @OneGod wants to be true – but has no evidence is true.

  2. According to the Biblical narrative, Joseph lived before Moses. It was Joseph who brought the Jews to Egypt, leading to their later captivity there. Moses was born during that captivity. But, as they are both widely considered to be mythical figures, their dates of birth are unlikely to be established.

There is no evidence that the Hebrew language had anything to do with the (likewise mythical) Yadavas or the Indus Valley.

Addendum:

I just noticed (maybe I knew this previously, but had forgotten) that the Wikiepdia article on the mythical Yadava makes no mention of the Indus Valley:

It can be inferred from the vamshanucharita (genealogy) sections of a number of major Puranas that, the Yadavas spread out over the Aravalli region, Gujarat, the Narmada valley, the northern Deccan and the eastern Ganges valley.[16] The Mahabharata and the Puranas mention that the Yadus or Yadavas, a confederacy comprising numerous clans were the rulers of the Mathura region.[17] and were pastoral cowherds.[18] The Mahabharata also refers to the exodus of the Yadavas from Mathura to Dvaraka owing to pressure from the Paurava rulers of Magadha, and probably also from the Kurus.[19]

Further addendum:

I did a skim back through that ‘Religious Forums’ thread, and came across this:

Yes. I can find nothing to suggest that Bharat Jhunjhunwala is a credible source on any topic other than, perhaps, economics.[1]

So my question to you @riversea, is why you insist on keeping on citing him, and repeating his claims, as though they were gospel truth?