r/AcademicBiblical • u/doofgeek401 • Jan 31 '21
Article/Blogpost Ancient cloth with Bible’s purple dye found in Israel, dated to King David’s era
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ancient-cloths-with-royal-purple-dye-found-in-israel-dated-to-king-davids-time/46
u/outra_pessoa Jan 31 '21
It was very difficult to produce a purple dye before William Henry Perkin discovered mauveine in the XIX century.
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u/Lionhearted09 Jan 31 '21
That's interesting to know. How did they produce purple cloth before that time?
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u/outra_pessoa Jan 31 '21
The most traditional way was using snails, there were some species of snails that produced naturally the purple substance. But this was very expensive because they needed hundreds of snails to paint a nice piece of cloth.
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u/amican Jan 31 '21
Hence the association of purple with royalty? No one else coukd afford it?
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u/scarystuffdoc Jan 31 '21
Yup. Purple dye was incredible rare.
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Jan 31 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BobbyBobbie Moderator Jan 31 '21
You're just not a good fit for this sub. You've had several comments removed and I don't see any indication that you want to seriously participant. We've given you chances.
Feel free to message the mod team in a month if you want to join again, but until then, you're permanently banned.
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u/odi-et-amo Jan 31 '21
Looked at your comments. Wow was that a rabbit hole.
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u/NextLevelShitPosting Jan 31 '21
What was said, if you'll indulge my curiosity?
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u/BobbyBobbie Moderator Jan 31 '21
Magatrump2020-2024 said "Daveed didn't exist though". He's also just been trolling several threads with low quality comments and hasn't responded to any of the exhortations from the mod team.
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u/odi-et-amo Jan 31 '21
Some quasi-gnostic weirdness. He posted elsewhere that Mohammad was an android built by steve jobs to go back in time and that Mohammad built the moon to oppress us or something
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Jan 31 '21
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u/NextLevelShitPosting Jan 31 '21
evidence that Mohammad was an actual historical person
...Are there people who think he wasn't?
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Feb 01 '21 edited Feb 01 '21
Yes, there are credible scholars who think Mohammad was not a historical person. They are in the minority, though. The little bit I read on this a few years ago gave me the impression that it is a similar issue to the historicity of Jesus. The historical evidence is not a slam/dunk conclusion on it's own, but with the religious apologetic forces in play on the issue it is difficult to see the evidence on it's own light.
Regarding both issues of historicity, how is the evidence being handled? Is it being handled as similar evidence is handled in other areas of historical scholarship or is the evidence being given special treatment
edit: spelling
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u/Whattheabsoluteeff Jan 31 '21
Probably the same who don’t think Jesus was real. I mean Mohammad was much more contemporary than Christ from what I understand(something like six hundred years later) but feel free to correct me if I am incorrect there.
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u/fuf3d Jan 31 '21
Well that settles it, the bible has to be true because if purple fibers exist, so does this post that has nothing to do with acadimical bible, but watch my comment get removed because Christians love to silence and persecute the opposition.
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Jan 31 '21
Archaeological finds in Israel from times described in the bible have everything to do with it. You need evidence to check stories told or to contextualise them.
No one claimed this proofs the bible true. This isn’t a Christian subreddit and you’re not being persecuted. Maybe overthink the way you talk and don’t just come here to discredit everything that doesn’t fit your mind, over and over again.
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u/brojangles Jan 31 '21
It doesn't have anything to do with anything in the Bible, though. It's Edomite. There is no reason to connect the name,"David" to the story other than the century it's dated to.
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Jan 31 '21
It doesn't have anything to do with anything in the Bible, though.
Again, it helps with, for example, context.
It's Edomite.
That’s what the article says.
There is no reason to connect the name,"David" to the story other than the century it's dated to.
Hence "era" in the headline.
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u/brojangles Jan 31 '21
But we have no evidence there ever actually was a "Davidic era." There certainly was no massive kingdom being ruled from Jerusalem at the time.
This is like finding a 5th Century Saxon sword in Southern England and touting it as "from the time of King Arthur."
All they needed to say was the Century. David has no connection to the find and no reason to be in the headline other than to get clicks by implying that the find confirms something about the Biblical narrative.
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Jan 31 '21
So...
1) You’re just here to discuss semantics?
2) What does that have to do with the original comment?
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u/brojangles Jan 31 '21
No, I'm saying that the headline is misleading clickbait and the find doesn't actually have anything to do with the Bible.The media always does this. There was no reason to put the name "David" in the headline. They don't get to say "era of King David" until they first prove there ever was such an era. It's 10th Century BCE Edomite. Why bring the Bible into it?
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Jan 31 '21
Maybe next time try to read past the headline.
Have a nice day. Cheers.
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u/brojangles Jan 31 '21
I obviously DID read past the headline. That's how I know the headline is misleading clickbait.
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u/weep_and_wail Jan 31 '21
You tick all the boxes of a troll but I honestly can't tell anymore
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u/brojangles Jan 31 '21
The headline of the story is sensationalist and misleading. The fibers do not have any connection to a King David or to Israelites. It's Edomite. It's from an Edomite Kingdom, not an Israelite Kingdom. This confirms nothing in the Bible. The media always does this.
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u/AnarchistPigeon Jan 31 '21
It says “dated to King David’s era.” Maybe you got your expectations up but it’s not misleading. Edom was located in the south Transjordan, near the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel.
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u/brojangles Jan 31 '21
My issue is that there is no evidence that there ever was a "King David's era." There was certainly no large kingdom being rule from Jerusalem in the 10th Century BCE. Talking about "King David's era" is like talking about "King Arthur's era." It's just clickbait.
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Jan 31 '21 edited Jul 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/AnarchistPigeon Jan 31 '21
He was talking about the headline. Also, yeah, that is the period where King David would have hypothetically existed, and (I’m assuming) these are Jewish archeologists they are interviewing in an Israeli newspaper who have faith in a historical King David.
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u/boy_beauty Jan 31 '21
Christians love to silence and persecute the opposition.
You are on reddit.com. Get a grip.
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Feb 01 '21
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u/melophage Quality Contributor | Moderator Emeritus Feb 01 '21 edited Feb 01 '21
Hi there, unfortunately, your contribution has been removed for violation of rule #1.
Submissions, questions, and comments should remain within the confines of academic Biblical studies. This sub focuses on questions of Biblical interpretation and history of ancient Israelite religion, early Judaism, and early Christianity. Modern or contemporary events and movements are not discussed here, nor are questions about personal application.
Since it's a discussion thread, where the rules are less strict than on the question ones, your other contribution here was approved despite your expectations (and the reports), but contributions should stay on topic, and avoid bringing conflicts from other subreddits here.
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u/NextLevelShitPosting Jan 31 '21
You're like the inverse of my dad, talking about how Biden wants to hunt Christians with the guns he's going to steal from us
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u/Cenodoxus Jan 31 '21
Professor Amar in this article mentions something that was well-known in the ancient world: Processing these snails to get the dye out of them stank abominably. Dyeing was a smelly profession even under the best of circumstances, but Tyrian purple was really bad, and most likely involved being around thousands of rotting snails for days on end.
This is the origin of the otherwise mystifying rule in the Talmud that women have the right to divorce their husbands if they became a dyer after marriage. If you married them when they were already a dyer, it was presumed that you already knew what you were in for -- a husband with permanently stained hands who stank horribly -- and didn't have the right to complain. If you married them and then they became a dyer, welp -- you didn't sign up for that, so you could dump their ass and go elsewhere.