skepticalbip

You obviously don't understand what the scientific method means. What I see in this claim is confirmation bias. They believe something and interpret any finding as whatever fits the belief. The scientific method is to first think of all the possible explanations they can think of for a finding then, one at a time, test for all that they should see (and should not see) if it is true. One by one the possibilities are eliminated either because what else should be expected isn't there or what shouldn't be expected is there. If all explanations are eliminated then they need to think of other possibilities and test them or shrug and admit that they don't know.

xaxxat

This guy did it:

skepticalbip

................... :notworthy: ........................................


My all time favorite movie. Thanks for the flashback..

fromderinside

I'll stand by patiently while you try to demonstrate validity beyond face and perhaps construct validity.

In reference to your type validity of evidence it is ... ...which is pretty much what I already wrote.

If you want to discuss the place for correlation in scientific study you've already lost the science argument.

Toto

At times this is true, but I don't think you will find anything peer reviewed on the discovery of the historical Sodom.

Shanks is still basically an entrepreneur and a journalist. The need to sell magazines is primary.

The James osssuary is a notorious forgery, even if the Israeli government could not prove that Oded Golan was guilty. Part of the reason for the verdict was that the Egyptian who worked for Golan and did the actual work could not be extradicted to testify.

skepticalbip

And, even if true, it is a major logical fallacy to say they are "experts" therefore what they say is TRUE. It is appeal to authority - big in religion but a really big no-no in science. Even Einstein was questioned and his predictions tested before being accepted. Some are still being tested after nearly a hundred years of his other predictions being verified.

It isn't who someone is that makes their proclomations valid but what they say. If the world's leading authority on celestial mechanics declared that the universal law of gravitation did not apply to some specific region of space then his word is valueless unless independently confirmed by observation. Though such a declaration from such a person would be more likely to be tested than if "Reverend Bob" made it.

ETA:
In fact, that is what this whole thread is about. ThePainefulTruth blindly and unquestionably accepts the authority of biblical historical accuracy. "Thus it is written. Thus it is." As support, he appeals to other authorities. No facts or reason, only what someone interprets to be TRUTH but only if that interpretation agrees with biblical history.

Montgomery Scott

The Lot story is another Bible story that was a head scratcher to me.

Lot was the nephew of Abraham and although heterosexual (was married and had at least two daughters), moved into this town that is seemingly teeming with homosexuals. It would seem to me that Abraham would have of objected to this, since he is basically the founder of three religions that are basically anti-homosexual, and being a major player over a book called the Bible which is definitely anti-homosexual.

God decides to save Lot, and sent to angels into town to stay with Lot and family and were noticed by all these homosexuals. Lot gets the men into the house, warning the angels that it was not safe on the streets.

Question: If the town was filled with homosexuals, wouldn't the town have dried up and died after one generation due to the lack of offspring? Or was the town some Middle Eastern gay mecca like Castro Street or Fire Island? So again, why would a married man with children, live there??

The crowd outside starts banging on Lot's door demanding to see the two strange men so that they can "know them". Maybe the crowd wanted to see the two new guys and talk about sports, politics, chat it up over some mead, but the guys wanted to see the angels to have sex with them.

But why them? Were they all just tired of each other? No, just asking any male traveller if he was gay, and then invite the guy for drinks, dancing and a play (since there were no movies in 1900 BC) and then some kissing before the actual rape came into play?

Lot does not want to give up the angels and offered his daughters instead. Hey Lot, your town is filled with homosexuals. Even if there were lesbians out in the crowd who would have taken the daughters, the fact remains is that is not what they are interested in.

Did Lot know that these guys were angels? If Lot did, then he could have told the crowd to go fuck themselves and try to storm the house, or if Lot did not know, he could have shoved the two angels out the door so his property was not destroyed (which would beg the question of why in the hell would Lot live in such a violent, prison like community.)
So, if this was the reaction of every stranger who spends the night in town, there must not have been too much of a hospitality industry.

Lot's wife. Since the town was filled with crazy homosexual men raping travellers, and a city that was shown by Lot not to be safe at night, I cannot see why she would be enamoured with the place enough to look back there. The two daughters, to whom her father was going to offer up instead of the two blokes they have never seen before, thinks that the World is coming to an end and decide to get their father drunk and have him concieve children with both of them to continue the family. In some dank cave instead of returning to Uncle Abe's caravan. Where's Lot? Oh, up in a cave banging his daughters so he can get more field hands.

If my story was homophobic, well it was. So is the Bible, a book I have casually read for over 40 years. In the end...........it is such a loony story that like most Bible tales, makes no fucking sense, filled with circular logic, basically defies logic, and offers a strange and always unsatisfying ending that leaves both the devout and the skeptic collectively scratching their heads wondering what in the hell this means.

But Genesis pushes the envelope on the crazy, improbable, non sensical Bible stories.

semiopen

It was enough to glance at the OP to know that this thread would be ridiculous.

I had dinner at my Shul a few years ago when a guy asked the Rabbi if he read BAR. I was stunned by the multiple levels of meaning in this question and even wondered if the Rebbetzin had laced the meal with marijuana. I would bet pretty big money that the Rabbi has never looked at BAR, but he said he did read it once in a while with an expression that showed he considered it way too secular.

There isn't very much that happened in the distant past that people actually remember. Once you get past the various flood myths, it's hard to think of a single example.

For example, the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii

There is a question about how long eventually took, probably a few years. You'd think someone in Rome might have written about it because of tax revenue or something, but so far as I know - nothing.

the earthquake in the days of Uzziah

This might actually have happened which is why part of Amos is generally considered to be this old.

People apparently don't remember natural disasters.

The Jewish concept of Zakhor (rememberance) might apply here. We just observed Shabbat Zakhor where we remember the treachery of Amalek. This coincides with Purim where we remember how Haman tried to annihilate the Jews. The thing is that it is extremely unlikely that either of these things ever happened. I guess we can remember Sodom also.

ThePainefulTruth

The write up on the author, Steven Collins, says, "he has written extensively on the archaeology of the Bible, especially the geographical and archaeological evidence for the location of Sodom." And since he's the dean of his college's archaeology department, it would be reasonable to assume that he the majority of what he has written on the subject would be scholarly, peer-reviewed articles.

Archaeologists and other scientists often publish an overview of their findings here first while they're putting the finishing touches on the much more extensive and detailed publication. Not that they don't have to answer to the public as well as other scholars in the pages of BAR as well. It you really want to find if there might be some problems, check the next issue. Besides the letters section, they often have rebuttal articles on weak (seldom due to editing) or controversial articles.


The most damaging testimony to the state's case was from
the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority himself, Shuka Dorfmann, with his testimony that was so contradictory and incompetent about the age of the patina, it caused the judge to chide the prosecution about continuing the case. He's either incompetent, corrupt or both, and he was testifying outside of his specialty. He motivation isn't science, its his crusade against the antiquities market. He even went against the findings of the Israel Geological Survey on the ossuary. And André Lemaire, perhaps the most respected Semitic epigrapher in the world, is the one who published the findings about the translation in the first place.

The most you can say is that archaeologists are divided, but if you look close, the proponents of the fraud theory have a vested interest in supporting religion in some way or another, while the ones who're standing for the original story are taking the heat, including Hershel Shanks.

ThePainefulTruth

A city was seen to be destroyed by fire from above. People went to their spiritual leaders and asked why, thinking they might be next. The leaders said, "Nah, don't worry about it. That was just God killing off a bunch of evil homos", which just added to, inflamed and perpetuated the existing prejudice.

The point about this thread is that a city was destroyed by fire from above, and that that city was likely the Biblical Sodom, but that it was a natural occurrence. Or at least and as usual there isn't one spec of evidence for the supernatural, leaving us to speculate on the human origin of that "evidence".