The Bible

ToadBrother · June 25, 2011

Well, that means you haven't been paying attention to the discussion. You can read back to understand where I'm coming from.

Let's just short circuit this. Do you believe there was a global flood that wiped out just about everything but eight people and all the animals they could stick in a big boat?

ToadBrother · June 25, 2011

He then admits that the story of the flood as told in the Bible is likely a greatly overinflated dramatisation of what may have been actually a local event, thought by those ignorant saps that got caught up in it to be their god destroying the planet, and the legend lived on until it found itself written into a Jewish book of fables about the origins of life. This good Christian himself understands that, though the Bible may still be a source of "theological points concerning human depravity, faith, and obedience and divine judgment, grace, and mercy", it's necessary to accept that some of it is, as proven by science, just myth.

Time to bring out St. Augustine:

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

– De Genesi ad literam, 2:9

betsy · June 25, 2011

However, I thought you were a Biblical literalist, Betsy, and an interpretation that talked about a localized flood (ie. perhaps one in Mesopotomia, as some scholars posit) would be as much an anathema to you as no flood at all.

Actually, let me get to that again. I am a literalist in a way that I adhere to what Jesus said, not to change the words or message of the Bible. That's why translations/interpretations must be as close to the Bible, if not dead-on!

Regarding that localized flood, there was nothing literally changed in Genesis.

Edited June 25, 2011 by betsy

g_bambino · June 25, 2011

Well yes, if one sufficiently reinterprets away from a literal reading of Genesis, one can come up with solutions that do not defy science. However, I thought you were a Biblical literalist, Betsy, and an interpretation that talked about a localized flood (ie. perhaps one in Mesopotomia, as some scholars posit) would be as much an anathema to you as no flood at all.

betsy loves to shift the goalposts. The Bible is to be read literally when she wishes it to be and then not read literally when it suits her. Her exclamation "No archaeological discovery has contradicted a Biblical reference" came without caveat. Now that she's on the losing side, that claim has changed to "No archaeological discovery has contradicted a Biblical reference as I've personally interpreted it away from the literal".

g_bambino · June 25, 2011

Time to bring out St. Augustine:

Lovely fellow. He does, however, do nothing to back up your claim that "No archaeological discovery has contradicted a Biblical reference."

A completely misdirected reply. My apologies, ToadBrother!

Edited June 28, 2011 by g_bambino

betsy · June 25, 2011

Let's just short circuit this. Do you believe there was a global flood that wiped out just about everything but eight people and all the animals they could stick in a big boat?

I believe it is localized, not global. But then you have to consider that what they must mean "global" in those times is not exactly the way we understand global today! Do they even know how big earth is?

The existence of the olive branch is a clear indication that there was life elsewhere.

I believe very strongly that Genesis is only a summary - not a very detailed account. I base that on the fact that other graphic details - which are not in Genesis - are in other parts of the Bible, written by different authors, in different times.

I also somehow see that as some sort of a "pattern" in how and when information is being revealed to mankind, all the way from Biblical times to the present. It seems that God wants us to know certain things at certain times. We are more fortunate since we have God-given science and technology to somehow help us understand - depending on how we use them, of course.

Edited June 25, 2011 by betsy

betsy · June 25, 2011

betsy loves to shift the goalposts. The Bible is to be read literally when she wishes it to be and then not read literally when it suits her. Her exclamation "No archaeological discovery has contradicted a Biblical reference" came without caveat. Now that she's on the losing side, that claim has changed to "No archaeological discovery has contradicted a Biblical reference as I've personally interpreted it away from the literal".

But that's the thing. It may have contradicted how some folks interpreted Genesis....but your article did not contradict Genesis.

FACT: No archaeological discovery has contradicted a Biblical reference

And yes, that still comes with no caveat!

BIBLICAL REFERENCE. NOT interpretation!

BIG difference!

You know what? You're like the evangelical preachers that Davis A. Young was criticising in that article - being stubborn to fit everything in your own interpretation, even when evidence is showing otherwise.

You're trying so hard to fit me in your little box to suit your argument.

Edited June 25, 2011 by betsy

g_bambino · June 25, 2011

FACT: No archaeological discovery has contradicted a Biblical reference

A statement that has been proven to be wrong. The Christian author of the piece I linked to accepts that. And, given that you've now resorted to an illiteral reading of the Bible's references, I suspect you know you have to as well. You just don't have the fortitude to admit you were wrong.

[+]

Edited June 25, 2011 by g_bambino

ToadBrother · June 25, 2011

I believe it is localized, not global. But then you have to consider that what they must mean "global" in those times is not exactly the way we understand global today! Do they even know how big earth is?

I still think it's risky to try to draw correlations between myth and history. On the one hand, your explanation is quite plausible, but on the other hand, the Genesis account could be amalgam of many flood events, or not related to any in particular. The physical record of flooding in Mesopotomia, the birthplace of the Gilgamesh myth, is very long, dating back, as I recall to the end of the last Ice Age, so it would be impossible to pick which potential flood it could have been. In short, the "localized" theory, which is popular among many scholars isn't a theory so much as a guess.

The existence of the olive branch is a clear indication that there was life elsewhere.

I recall it being evidence that land had appeared. It has been a while since I read Genesis so perhaps I am mistaken, but the account clearly indicates that there was no dry land anywhere on the Earth.

I believe very strongly that Genesis is only a summary - not a very detailed account. I base that on the fact that other graphic details - which are not in Genesis - are in other parts of the Bible, written by different authors, in different times.

I also somehow see that as some sort of a "pattern" in how and when information is being revealed to mankind, all the way from Biblical times to the present. It seems that God wants us to know certain things at certain times. We are more fortunate since we have God-given science and technology to somehow help us understand - depending on how we use them, of course.

Alright, I think I get you. You are willing to interpret Genesis, or at least parts of it, in a non-literal fashion.

ToadBrother · June 25, 2011

A statement that has been proven to be wrong. The Christian author of the piece I linked to accepts that. And, given that you've now resorted to an illiteral reading of the Bible's references, I suspect you know you have to as well. You just don't have the fortitude to admit you were wrong.

[+]

To cut Betsy a wee bit of slack, the whole point of interpretation is, in large part, to "solve" problems of apparent inaccuracy. The Ancient Hebrews may have believed the Earth was flat, but certainly by Greco-Roman era, learned Jews had absorbed Greek learning and certainly no longer read Genesis in the same way as their ancestors had. That was largely St. Augustine's point, a caution against ludicrous interpretations which bring Scripture into disrepute. Or, to put it another way, and this is the standard theological position of most of the major churches, if there is an apparent contradiction between what we see in the physical world and what it is written in the Bible, the fault, so to speak, is in the interpretation. To a theologian, ature cannot lie and thehe Bible cannot lie. Therefore it is human in between the two that's screwing up.

betsy · June 26, 2011

Of course it did; the idea that it didn't cannot be based upon editing out the author's words that do say the Biblical flood story has been disproven by science and the misinterpretation of other words written by the author.

No one's editing out anything. Genesis does not say it was a global flooding. This article, which also supports Davis Young's claim explains:

A Local Flood

The language used in Genesis 6-9 does not insist that the flood was global.

First of all, the Hebrew kol erets, meaning whole Earth, can also be translated whole land in reference to local, not global, geography. The Old Testament scholar Gleason L. Archer explains that the Hebrew word erets is often translated as Earth in English translations of the Bible, when in reality it is also the word for land, as in the land of Israel.6 Archer explains that erets is used many times throughout the Old Testament to mean land and country. Furthermore, the term tebel, which translates to the whole expanse of the Earth, or the Earth as a whole, is not used in Genesis 6:17, nor in subsequent verses in Genesis 7 (7:4, 7:10, 7:17, 7:18, 7:19).7 If the intent of this passage was to indicate the entire expanse of the Earth, tebel would have been the more appropriate word choice. Consequently, the Hebrew text is more consistent with a local geography for the flood.

Moreover, in this period of history, people understood the whole Earth as a smaller geographical area. There is no evidence to suggest that people of this time had explored the far reaches of the globe or had any understanding of its scope. For example, the Babylonian Map of the World,8 the oldest known world map, depicts the world as two concentric circles containing sites of Assyria, Babylon, Bit Yakin, Urartu, a few other cities and geographic features all surrounded by ocean. There are also small, simple triangles that shoot out from the ocean labeled as nagu or uncharted regions.9 Contextual evidence also suggests that Greek geographers developed comparable maps during the middle of the first millennium, where Greece was positioned in the middle of a circle surrounded by oceans.10 These maps remind us that people were most familiar with the regions surrounding their homelands. Therefore, to say that something happened in the kol erets –– or referring to "all people" (Genesis 6:13), –– would have been an appropriate way of referring to the entirety of Earth and its population in a manner in which ancient Israelites would have been familiar.

Furthermore to support localized flood, how can rain for merely 40 days and 40 nights covered up the whole earth?

The existence of the olive branch is another strong support that the Biblical deluge was not global!

Life existed elsewhere.

He was quite explicit:

In summary, several centuries of effort to locate physical remnants of the biblical deluge have completely failed.

He was quite explicit indeed, more explicit than your quote above. He wrote:

In summary, several centuries of effort to locate physical remnants of the biblical deluge have completely failed. Any physical evidence that has been claimed to support a global flood has eventually been demonstrated to have a different explanation.

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p82.htm

Clearly, he was referring to a global flood! That statement does not negate localized flooding.

Furthermore, generally speaking, just because something has not been found does not necessarily mean it doesn't exist. How many parts of the Middle East and Africa remain unexplored?

He then admits that the story of the flood as told in the Bible is likely a greatly overinflated dramatisation of what may have been actually a local event thought by those ignorant saps that got caught up in it to be their god destroying the planet, and the legend lived on until it found itself written into a Jewish book of fables about the origins of life. This good Christian himself understands that, though the Bible may still be a source of "theological points concerning human depravity, faith, and obedience and divine judgment, grace, and mercy", it's necessary to accept that some of it is, as proven by science, just myth.

He's simply making his own conjecture, giving his own opinion.

Edited June 26, 2011 by betsy

DogOnPorch · June 26, 2011

I find the actions of some folks on this thread, to keep posting here when you've already decided the evolution/creation/bible matters(and normally don't care what others think, hey it's a free country and they can think what they want), are at odds with their 'stated' beliefs. Are you sure you believe that the Bible/God thing is bunk if you keep coming back here to argue about it?

Yet here you are, now. Thanks for playing.

:lol:

betsy · June 26, 2011

Just so to be clear that Davis A.Young is not abandoning or trying to discredit the Bible, here is something you ought to understand:

Excerpt from the AFFILIATION OF CHRISTIAN GEOLOGISTS (ACG)

The Great Evangelistic Task

Davis A. Young

Department of Geology, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

In common with all Christians in every walk of life, Christian geologists share in the great evangelistic task with which the Lord entrusted his church. We all participate in bringing the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to the lost around us.

One of the tasks of ACG is to be a witness to unbelieving geologists. However, we need to go beyond the general evangelism in which we are individually engaged. Perhaps it is time to initiate discussion about what ACG can do collectively to reach other geologists for Christ.

As evangelism is the task committed to the church, ACG ought to be on guard against usurping the place of the church. We want to work in concert with the church. But we are in a unique position to bring the good news to members of our profession. There is, for example, no question that many geologists face intellectual barriers to Christianity. The idea that science and religious faith are incompatible is so ingrained that many geologists feel they would have to abandon science and rationality in order to become a Christian. Surely ACG is uniquely qualified to discuss such issues with unbelievers and to dispel these misconceptions about Christianity. In fact we ought to show that Christianity by virtue of its doctrines of creation and providence lays the basis for the very possibility of doing science. We should challenge unbelievers to show on what possible basis pure atheism, materialism, or naturalism can provide grounds for a rational science. We should challenge unbelievers to see the intellectual bankruptcy of some of the other options open to them. We should all become more acquainted with some of the quality science-theology and apologetic literature that is available so that we can recommend it to unbelievers.

Let us be in prayer that we may be an instrument in the Lord's hands for bringing geologists to Christ. But we cannot be satisfied with having them become members of ACG. We need to encourage new believers to become part of a local congregation, to become involved with Bible study and prayer in their home towns, and to enjoy fellowship with all kinds of believers, not just geologists.

To metamorphose Jesus' evangelistic metaphor of the harvest into geological terms, the ore is ready to be mined.

http://www.wheaton.edu/ACG/essays/young1.html

Edited June 26, 2011 by betsy

jbg · June 26, 2011

Can what betsy's doing here be qualified as spamming?

I would certainly consider it spamming. It would be nice if she actually had hypotheses worth debating.

I normally like and respect Betsy. This thread disappoints me.

BubberMiley · June 26, 2011

This thread disappoints me.

Baby Jesus is disappointed too.

DogOnPorch · June 26, 2011

Baby Jesus is disappointed too.

Oh yeah??

:lol:

betsy · June 26, 2011

I normally like and respect Betsy.

Meaning you don't respect and like me anymore?

For defending myself?

For standing up to my belief?

For standing firm, for trying to prove my point?

The purpose of this thread is clearly spelt out in the introductory post. And that's what I've been trying to do - sticking to that purpose.

If this thread was hypothetically a book - just like Dawkins wrote his book God Delusion - and you atheists are all the counterpart of William Craig, trying to refute my posted FACTS the same way that Craig will critique Dawkins' God Delusion, will you have respect for me then if I do not stand behind my thread in the very same way like Dawkins refuses to stand behind his book?

Anyway, you can keep your respect. No hard feelings. I am not here to earn any respect.

I'm here to have my say - whether you happen to agree with what I say, or not.

This thread disappoints me.

Not as much as you disappoint me, believe me.

I never really read much the discussions in this forum - not as much as I used to in the past anyway.

Your comment is quite a revelation to me. It knocked down what I seem to remember about you that now I wonder if perhaps I must've mistaken you for somebody else. That makes two now....for I've been wrong about another one too.

Just shows how we can be so wrong about how we perceive others. I guess you were wrong about your perception of me too.

As for liking me.... I never asked you to like me.

Perhaps that's your reason for joining Mapleleaf, but I'm not here for that.

I'm not here aspiring to be liked....or to be accepted. I'm not here craving for any validation.

I'm here to discuss, and in the process, trying not to compromise (or sell out) my GOD or my faith....just so to be "accepted" or "validated" by the gang.

Edited June 26, 2011 by betsy

betsy · June 26, 2011

Going back to Young's explicit statement about global flooding,

In summary, several centuries of effort to locate physical remnants of the biblical deluge have completely failed. Any physical evidence that has been claimed to support a global flood has eventually been demonstrated to have a different explanation.

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p82.htm

and my statement of belief too on that matter,

betsy:
I believe it is localized, not global.

Of course I do have to remind you that these statements are based on empirical evidences that do not seem to support global flooding.

For that reason, these beliefs could also change if there are any other empirical findings in the future that would warrant that change.

One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts. —Albert Einstein[1]

From topic Video Debates and Interviews

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science

Edited June 26, 2011 by betsy

betsy · June 26, 2011

FACT: ARCHEOLOGICAL FIND AT KHIRBAT EN-NAHAS IN LINE WITH BIBLICAL NARRATIVE OF DAVID AND SOLOMON

Excerpt from...

King Solomon's (Copper) Mines?

Deep Dig Finds Confluence of Science and the Bible

October 27, 2008

By Inga Kiderra

Led by Thomas Levy of UC San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan’s Friends of Archaeology, an international team of archaeologists has excavated an ancient copper-production center at Khirbat en-Nahas down to virgin soil, through more than 20 feet of industrial smelting debris, or slag.

The 2006 dig has brought up new artifacts and with them a new suite of radiocarbon dates placing the bulk of industrial-scale production at Khirbat en-Nahas in the 10th century BCE – in line with biblical narrative on the legendary rule of David and Solomon.

The new data pushes back the archaeological chronology some three centuries earlier than the current scholarly consensus.

The research also documents a spike in metallurgic activity at the site during the 9th century BCE, which may also support the history of the Edomites as related by the Bible.

Khirbat en-Nahas, which means “ruins of copper” in Arabic, is in the lowlands of a desolate, arid region south of the Dead Sea in what was once Edom and is today Jordan’s Faynan district. The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) identifies the area with the Kingdom of Edom, foe of ancient Israel.

For years, scholars have argued whether the Edomites were sufficiently organized by the 10th to 9th centuries BCE to seriously threaten the neighboring Israelites as a true “kingdom.” Between the World Wars, during the “Golden Age” of biblical archaeology, scholars explored, as Levy describes it, with a trowel in one hand and Bible in the other, seeking to fit their Holy Land findings into the sacred story. Based on his 1930s surveys, American archaeologist Nelson Glueck even asserted that he had found King Solomon’s mines in Faynan/Edom. By the 1980s, however, Glueck’s claim had been largely dismissed. A consensus had emerged that the Bible was heavily edited in the 5th century BCE, long after the supposed events, while British excavations of the Edomite highlands in the 1970s-80s suggested the Iron Age had not even come to Edom until the 7th century BCE.

“Now,” said Levy, director of the Levantine Archaeology Lab at UCSD and associate director of the new Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), “with data from the first large-scale stratified and systematic excavation of a site in the southern Levant to focus specifically on the role of metallurgy in Edom, we have evidence that complex societies were indeed active in 10th and 9th centuries BCE and that brings us back to the debate about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible narratives related to this period.”

More...

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/10-22KingSolomon.asp

Excerpt from...

David and Solomon

Published: December 2010

By Robert Draper

Levy, an anthropologist, first came to southern Jordan in 1997 to examine metallurgy's role in social evolution. The lowland district of Faynan, where the blue-green glitter of malachite can be seen from a distance, was an obvious place to study.

It also happened to be where the American rabbi and archaeologist Nelson Glueck unabashedly proclaimed in 1940 that he had discovered the Edomite mines controlled by King Solomon. Subsequent British excavators believed they had found evidence that Glueck was off by some three centuries and that Edom actually dated to the seventh century B.C.

But when Levy started probing the site known as Khirbat en Nahas (Arabic for "ruins of copper"), the samples he sent off to Oxford for radiocarbon dating confirmed that Glueck had been on the right track: This was a tenth-century copper-production site—and, Levy adds pointedly, "the closest copper source to Jerusalem."

The team headed by Levy and his Jordanian colleague Mohammad Najjar has uncovered a four-chambered gate similar to ones found at sites in Israel that might date to the tenth-century B.C. A few miles from the mines, they've excavated a cemetery of more than 3,500 tombs dating to the same period—perhaps filled with the remains of Iron Age mountain nomads known from ancient Egyptian sources as Shasu, who Levy thinks may have been "corralled at certain points in time and forced to work in the mines." Most work in the mines appears to have ceased by the end of the ninth century—and the so-called "disruption layer" uncovered by Levy's students may explain why.

They found in this layer 22 date pits, which they dated to the tenth century B.C., along with Egyptian artifacts such as a lion-headed amulet and a scarab, both from the time of the pharaoh Shoshenq I. That ruler's invasion of the region shortly after Solomon's death is chronicled in the Old Testament and at the Temple of Amun at Karnak.

"I definitely believe that Shoshenq disrupted metal production here at the end of the tenth century," says Levy.

More...

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/12/david-and-solomon/draper-text/9

Edited June 26, 2011 by betsy

jbg · June 26, 2011

Meaning you don't respect and like me anymore?

For defending myself?

************

As for liking me.... I never asked you to like me.

Perhaps that's your reason for joining Mapleleaf, but I'm not here for that.

I'm not here aspiring to be liked....or to be accepted. I'm not here craving for any validation.

I'm here to discuss, and in the process, trying not to compromise (or sell out) my GOD or my faith....just so to be "accepted" or "validated" by the gang.

I'm more disappointed by the stylistic things such as huge font size. Nothing more.

cybercoma · June 26, 2011

betsy, if you're arguing that archaeology supports the Bible, so the Bible must be an accurate scientific resource, you ought to have the intellectual integrity to address the posters that have shown numerous cases where archaeology contradicts the Bible.

betsy · June 26, 2011

betsy, if you're arguing that archaeology supports the Bible, so the Bible must be an accurate scientific resource, you ought to have the intellectual integrity to address the posters that have shown numerous cases where archaeology contradicts the Bible.

I am addressing those claims that allegedly show archeology contradicting a Biblical reference.

I've asked for a cite that supports their allegation - same as I do whenever I make a claim.

I'm not about to go on a rebutting spree without anything substantiating any claims.

You, of all people on this board, is one big sample why I wouldn't - and shouldn't - take anyone's words without any substantiating source.

So far, G Bambino gave me a cite - the article by Davis A. Young - which we've just finished discussing. Of course, you don't know that since you don't read.

Before you lecture me about intellectual integrity, you ought to look at yourself.

Bye-bye.

Edited June 26, 2011 by betsy

betsy · June 26, 2011

I'm more disappointed by the stylistic things such as huge font size. Nothing more.

Well, what can I say. We've got our own style I guess. Some want to make a statement through pictures, some by adhominem. Mine happen to be boldness and fonts sizes.

If you follow the discussions, you know which poster here is the constant biggest baby-whiner about my style. :rolleyes:

Basing from the responses, I find that it's usually the thinking people who don't make a big deal and tend to look past the styles to go for the substance. They're usually the ones too that got something relevant to say. Those are the ones I hope to engage.

Edited June 26, 2011 by betsy