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RathDarkblade

Moderator
City Watch
Mar 24, 2015
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Melbourne, Victoria
#5
*shrug* I'm afraid my phone is carking it. I already have to recharge the battery at least once a day. If I were to use it as a book, I'd have to recharge the battery maybe twice or three times a day. ;)

Besides, why not just take the book with me? Then I could read the actual book. Books don't need batteries. :)
 

RathDarkblade

Moderator
City Watch
Mar 24, 2015
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Melbourne, Victoria
#7
Because I had no idea what Kindle was? :) I thought it was an electronic device of some kind -- I'd seen people use it on the trams and such. Now I've realised they were just using the app on their fondleslab (aka tablet). ;)

By the way, why is it called a tablet? It looks a bit too big to swallow. =P
 

RathDarkblade

Moderator
City Watch
Mar 24, 2015
16,059
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#9
I thought Moses had two of 'em? ;)

"God, those bloody Israelites are arguing again and giving me a headache."

"Fine, take two tablets and talk to me in the morning."

(Being Jewish myself, I hope I can make a joke about Jews) ;)
 

RathDarkblade

Moderator
City Watch
Mar 24, 2015
16,059
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#12
Hmm ... *thinks* If I remember rightly, while Moses was up on Mt Sinai, the Israelites decided to melt their gold (how did they have gold?! :oops:) and building a statue of a golden calf, then worshipping it etc.

When Moses came down with the tablets and saw this, he nearly had a conniption. :p In his anger, he smashed the tablets. Then he had to go back up and get them re-made. That's the story, anyway.

Some of this actually makes sense. In antiquity, bull worship was common in many cultures - not just in the Mediterranean areas, but in Mesopotamia (the Fertile Crescent) and in India too. Hathor, The Egyptian sky goddess, has bull horns (and had bulls sacrificed to her). Both the Romans and Gaulish Celts used to sacrifice bulls to ensure prosperity. The Minoans of Crete had bulls as a central motif of their religion. And, of course, cattle are sacred in India and always have been. (As an aside, for a very long time and in many cultures, owning cattle was a measurement of how rich you were).

So, maybe after Moses had been up on Mt Sinai for a long time, the ancient Israelites decided that he wasn't coming back, and thought that having some sort of god was better than no god at all. ;)
 

=Tamar

Lieutenant
May 20, 2012
12,004
2,900
#13
When they hiked out of Egypt, they took along their jewelry because it didn't weigh much, and since they were wearing it, they had their hands free to carry other stuff.
Tablet the Sequel (Part 2) probably was when "no other gods before me" was added.
 

RathDarkblade

Moderator
City Watch
Mar 24, 2015
16,059
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47
Melbourne, Victoria
#14
Did they have any jewellery? *puzzled* I thought that, being slaves, they wouldn't have much of anything.

(Then again, if I remember Exodus, the Egyptians gave them a whole bunch of things: cows, sheep, goats, food etc. "Take our stuff, just get outta here!") ;)
 

Tonyblack

Super Moderator
City Watch
Jul 25, 2008
30,852
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Cardiff, Wales
#15
There is no actual proof that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt (a race that made extensive records) let alone that they were slaves. And it's ridiculous to think it would have taken them forty years to walk from Egypt to Palestine. Cairo to Jerusalem is only 727km and walking, it should only take 148 hours.
 

RathDarkblade

Moderator
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Mar 24, 2015
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#16
Sure. Then again, who knows? Moses is supposed to have lived around 1400-1500 BC. The Sinai desert could've been much more populated in those days, before (as 71-hour Ahmed says in "Jingo") "The wind changed" - so the Israelites could have faced challenges to get to the borders of ancient Canaan.

Also, the story was written centuries later (just like the stories of Jesus and his miracles were written several generations later, and by four or five different authors - who were then translated from Aramaic to Greek, and re-translated time and again to all kinds of other languages. No wonder there are inconsistencies between them. And I won't even mention the Apocrypha).

It's all a matter of what you believe and how strongly you believe it.
 

=Tamar

Lieutenant
May 20, 2012
12,004
2,900
#17
Also, when the English translation was done, "desert" just meant "not thickly settled". e.g. the Great Plains, more recently called the Breadbasket of America, was originally called the Great Desert.
 

RathDarkblade

Moderator
City Watch
Mar 24, 2015
16,059
3,400
47
Melbourne, Victoria
#18
Fair enough. :) In the Bible (and in archaeological findings), it becomes clear that the Sinai Desert was originally settled by various tribes, here and there - the Midianites, the Amalekites and so on. IIRC, Moses's wife Zipporah and his brother-in-law Aaron were Midianites.

So the "walk" from Egypt to Canaan wouldn't have been as straightforward then as it is today, especially with other tribes blocking the way. The Israelites might have had to change course several times to avoid conflict. *shrug* Who knows?
 

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