Cute Little Baby

E_muse,

Ok: all of New York City burned to the ground and was rebuilt in less than a year. Do I have any evidence for it? No.But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!
The fact that tons of overwhelming evidence would be mandatory for such an event, yet none exists.
"seems" to you, because you are incapable of thinking rationally.
Metacrock,
Then they accept that the Bible has a serious flaw. It is, for all practical intents and purposes; IMPOSSIBLE to reconcile the Genesis story of creation with evolution. The theistic evolutionists stance is more bankrupt rationally than MC Hammer is financially. Adam and Eve and the Genesis events that happened to them, are described in geneologies and other parts of the Bible as real people, not mere figments of parables or stories. There is nothing at all in the Genesis story which implies long days, indeed days given in sequential order pretty much always mean literal days. The statement "And there was evening and there was morning," indicates a real day. Even if you stretch them out into long epochs, the order of creation is horribly out of touch with the fossil record.

[ July 18, 2001: Message edited by: Cute Little Baby ]

MOJO-JOJO

Metacrock....I can't believe this is coming from you. So then what you are saying is that God really DID create the universe some 12-15 billion years ago, the Earth some 5 billion years ago, then very slowly began life from primordial soup, evolving it as he pleased over the past billion years or so until he got to us today?? Is this supported anywhere in the infallible, God-inspired manual we know as the Bible?? Are you saying that the Bible is wrong? If so, where do you, as a Christian, "sign on" to the Bible?? Noah? Abraham? The birth of Christ maybe?? And if THAT is the case...who are YOU to stand in judgement of that which you claim to be the infallible word of God?? Your position now makes that Word fallible, n'est ce pas?? This is the problem I see with the position asserted by many fence-straddler Catholics who get on this board and ask what's so wrong with the Christian acceptance of evolution? They say that even the Pope accepts evolution (which goes to show where the Vatican's true interest is $$$). If the Pope truly believed the Bible, he would believe what it says about the origins of man, that God created man out of dust, not that man arose by evolutionary processes over a billion or so years.

Any of the truly knowledgeable theologians like John MacArthur, Hank Hannegraff, RC Sproul would have a real problem with your theistic evolutionist beliefs regarding the origin of mankind. You better re-think your position if you want to hold yourself out as a Christian.

[ July 18, 2001: Message edited by: MOJO-JOJO ]

E_muse

So your independent claim is intended to be held on the same level as the purported chronicle of a nation's history?

Such as?

O.K, down to the personal insults already. As I'm so incapable you'd better help me out then.

[ July 18, 2001: Message edited by: E_muse ]

E_muse

So does this mean that the linking of Cannan, Egypt and the people of Israel in the Bible is historically accurate to a degree?

Another question - to all really.

The 40 year peregrination in the wilderness mentioned in the OT is clearly put down to a curse from God as a result of disobedience and obstinance. In fact the writer of Hebrews picks up on it and uses it as an example to Christians as to what people of God shouldn't be like!

The slavery in Egypt itself can hardly be viewed as a historical highpoint!

This then seems to beg the question - why did the people of Israel invent these aspects of their history - particularly as some of it would have had stigma and shame attached to it? Why was this then protected with a strict oral and scribal tradition to protect these stories from alteration. I can see why it would have been prudent to erase the 40 year wanderings in the wilderness from the history of the nation. Why not skip the 40 year wanderings as a result of failure and go from victorious exit from Egypt straight into entry into Cannan?

Even if the events in the OT are laced with unecessary theological trimmings, why would the events themselves need to be changed to include such failure?

Any ideas?

Family Man

For the same reason that Christians promote the idea of original sin. The Judeo-Christian heritage is replete with examples of self-flogging, of the need to make humanity worse to glorify God more. After all, who would need a god if humanity was good enough to fend for itself?

The wandering fits in perfectly with the recurring religious theme that we need to please God -- and the terrible consequences if we fail.

sighhswolf

I agree to a certain extent that the story
is intended to expound on what can happen to
a society that places the Divine in second place.

And it would seem that the Hebrews self esteem was greater than their "God" wanted it to be, so a humbling experience was in order.

But, be that as it may, it is still inconceivable that a group of people wandered around the dessert lost for a disputed number of years and left no traces of it's daily survival.

What we are to believe here is that a large number of people who were nomads in the dessert, did not leave traces of food production, utensils, clothing, housing remains, waste products, human or material.

What did they do? Did they hunt for food? Did they grow some food? If they were nomadic they were not farmers.
Did they herd animals, cattle, sheep, goats?
Did anyone die? Where are the remains?

In an arrid atmosphere artifacts are usually well preserved with very little moisture to break down organic material.

It would seem that if archeologists could find surviving copies of ancient manuscripts in ancient pottery,preserved well enough to read the inscriptions, that there would be some artifacts found that would definitively
put the Hebrews wandering in the dessert.

But so far, that find has not been made.
Of course there is a political agenda and considerations, that may hinder the work.

E_muse

In essence much of this is accurate. But even the concept of sin is built upon what mankind is actually like and what it actually does. Human behaviour does not have to be invented in order to create the concept of sin - it is simply that theological significance is assigned to existing human behaviour (from one point of view).

Secondly, a purely historical writer such as Flavius Josephus includes these events in his history - and he is not wanting to make any comment about sin in the Christian sense!

My question remains - why would the people of Israel need to invent the events of the OT in order to make the theological points you mention? The same warnings concerning human disobedience could have been made by highlighting the demise of Israels enemies - and is in fact.

[ July 18, 2001: Message edited by: E_muse ]

[ July 18, 2001: Message edited by: E_muse ]

E_muse

On top of this - scholars can be wrong!

A desire to prove the Bible wrong can also hinder scientific objectivity - a desire to prove it right can have the same effect!

It would appear that any scholastic conclusions are purely theorectical. It is unfair to say that there is no evidence for the people of Israel ever having been in Egypt - the article cited above says that evidence in not conclusive.

However, even the theory links Egypt, Cannan and the people of Israel albeit in a different way suggesting that the Biblical accounts cannot be entirely fabricated.

Family Man

No, but it could, and very frequently is. Many scholars, for example, believe that many of the New Testament stories were later inventions and not an accurate report of what Jesus did or said. Some of these stories got so fantastic that even the church had to reject them -- which is why there are apochyrphal gospels. And in many ways, it's a lot easier to make things up to press home a point.

And how many centuries after the fact was Josephus writing? And what was his source material? And he wasn't proud of his Jewish heritage? Saying Josephus was reporting this indicates that this story has any historical validity is laughable on it's face.

Your question has been more than adequately answered.

Ion

This is to E-muse's "Such as?" and "Any ideas?".
The same article writes:

"Kadesh Barnea in the east Sinai desert, where the Bible says the fleeing Israelites sojourned, was excavated twice in the 1950s and 1960s and produced no sign of settlement until three centuries after the Exodus was supposed to have ocurred. The famous city of Jericho has been excavated several times and was found to have been abandoned during the 13th and the 14th centuries BC.";
"The ancient desert at the time could not support so many nomads, scholars say, and the powerful Egyptian state kept tight security over the area, guarded by fortresses along the way.";
"...the Exodus story was produced for theological reasons: to give an origin and history to people and distinguish them from others by claiming a divine destiny.".