What are some valid facts that disprove the bible? I believe in God but not how the bible explains it. I have no idea how to present my case. I am sure many of you do, any suggestions of valid ideas that my friend cannot shoot down when I bring up the possibility of the bible being something other then holy. And maybe controlling lies. I dont know. Any suggestions would help.

The Bible Unearthed is a good place to start!

In The Bible Unearthed, Finkelstein puts forth his own non-mainstream theory that Israel grew out of Palestine and did not migrate into and conquer it. There are many good scholars that disagree with him. Read this book if you like, but I would also check those who oppose his theories. William Dever is one good scholar that opposes his theories. In Biblical Archaeological Review (BAR), Dever gave this book a big thumbs down.

BTW, bella, have you thought about an unbiased and questioning approach, or have you already made up your mind in setting out to disprove the bible?

Ish


[This message has been edited by Ish (edited April 05, 2001).]

First off, I note that this site contains a whole page of Biblical-errancy resources:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...y/errancy.html

Internal evidence that the Bible contains errors comes from the contradications it contains; a page describing some of them is: http://www.ffrf.org/lfif/contra.html

This, along with its numerous repetitions, has led to the view that the Bible is not a single coherent document but a mishmash of a variety of documents.

You may want to entertain yourself by comparing the Resurrection accounts in the four Gospels -- when it happened, who first saw JC resurrected, and so forth.

Dever's criticism is mainly about the view that Kings David and Solomon were not as great as the Bible depicts them as being; Finkelstein views them as rather small-scale monarchs who were exaggerated by later generations who wanted to believe that these kings had been glorious leaders.

Imagine if our main sources on George Washington were the sort of "historians" who prominently feature stories like him and the cherry tree -- how much could we really tell about him?

There is little, if any, archeological support for anything older than those kings:

Some destroyed cities were destroyed at the wrong ages for them to be destroyed at the Conquest

There is no trace of the Exodus or the wanderings in the desert in Egyptian records; a big event like that would be hard to cover up, and would likely have been presented as some great triumph ("We drove out those wicked slaves and their traitorous leader").

And there is no physical trace of Noah's Flood -- not to mention the absurdity of a lot of the animals getting to out-of-the-way parts of the world with none being left behind. Why did all the kangaroos hop to Australia and none of the rabbits? Why did all the rattlesnakes slither to North America with none being left behind? Why did slowpokes like koalas and sloths make such long journeys? Why did polar bears go the Arctic and not the Antarctic, and penguins go to the Antarctic and not the Arctic?

Children, why do you seek to show what is true to be false? Must you also seek to show that light is dark, black is white? Rejoice, for I am returned!

Ish, can you supply a link to any of Dever's critiques of the book, or perhaps supply a volume number for the BAR article? Being new to archeological reading of any kind (accept for the back of the Indiana Jones videos), I'm interested to read all sides of the debate.

Thanks!

The Biblical Archaelogical Review? I bet you anything that if that's a christian magazine the thumbs down is for the The Bible Unearthed telling them what they don't what to here. I would like to see the review though, is the magazine online?
Hey Richard Carrier responded to that review.
here's a short quote.
Those fundamentalist make me lauph. Just look for it with the book of the month.

[This message has been edited by Fire Jack (edited April 05, 2001).]

Bella: the Skeptics Annotated Bible has just about every Biblical contradiction. But, for me, the biggie is the Genesis creation account. In Proof that Genesis is false, I've explained how the pattern of the fossil record fits common descent so closely that the odds against this sequence occurring by chance greatly exceed the estimated number of atoms in the Universe.

http://www.humanist.net/religion/thebible.html