Dave Hawkins

If a historian writes an account of events in his lifetime, rather than passes them down orally, the account will be much more accurate, all other things being equal. IOW, written account are in general more reliable than oral tradition.

RE: your last question ... I don't follow you ... I don't think I mentioned these things.

For the funny guys ... "incredible remarkable historical and scientific accuracy ..." :-) CM ... you'll be getting what you're asking for in our Formal Debate as we progress. You've already gotten some of it.

Constant Mews

Dave is remarkably predictable, wouldn't you agree?

Constant Mews

You have cited no such evidence in our debate. You have cited no incidence of great 'scientific accuracy' of any passage in Genesis. You have cited no 'incredible' historical accuracy' of any passage in Genesis.

Does Genesis make reference to some places and peoples whose existence can be independently verified? Of course. So does the Iliad; so does the Qu'ran; so do the Vedas. But that does not establish that any of the events mentioned in conjunction with those places and peoples actually occurred. We have no confirming evidence that the events of Genesis are true. And as I have already shown in my debate posts, we know for certain that many of them are completely false.

Given your criteria, you must accept all those accounts as full of historical and scientific accuracy as well. I am puzzled why a Christian would accept the existence of the Greek Gods, but that is your cognitive problem, not mine.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to afdave: Regarding homosexuality, there are not any good reasons to rule out the possibility that the writers thought that they were speaking for God, but weren't. Innocent but inaccurate revelations are quite common in religious books.

Why do you assume that Jesus ever said anything about divorce and tithing?

Is it your position that God is obligated to provide Christians with copies of the originals that faithfully represent the originals?

Why must God conform to your emotional needs?

Occam's Aftershave

And if an author writes down an account of a fictional mythological event he was told during his lifetime, then the account will be no more true than the original oral tradition. IOW, written accounts of mythological events without corroborating empirical evidence are no more reliable that the oral tradition. But you can bet that some dumbass somewhere will swear up and down that just because it's written down it must be literally true.

Who witnessed and wrote down the events of the first week of creation Dave? Who witnessed and wrote down Abel's murder? Or Cain's "brother's keeper" denial speech? What language was it written in?

Steviepinhead

Dave, I've asked you many times now how it is that you justify your continued repetition of this "written more accurate than oral" statement while, at one and the same time, you urge us strongly to believe that the many other oral flood myths that you claim are distributed world-wide should be regarded as supportive of the written Biblical account.

1. If written is Da Bomb, and oral is Da Bum, then the oral accounts of floods from elsewhere add little or nothing to the accuracy of the written Biblical account, and you should stop using that "oral-supports-written" claim.

2. If oral accounts can add something of substance to the Bible's written account, then you accept that oral accounts may convey accurate information just as well as written accounts, and you should stop making the "written-beats-oral" claim.

In any event, you have never addressed the incontestable facts that many other ancient written accounts exist which contain cosmological origin stories and which mention real places, peoples, and personages, but which you nonetheless wholly ignore. Several of these accounts were mentioned by CM above. Why are these other written accounts not entitled to the same presumption of inerrancy that you confer upon the Bible? Answer: they don't conform to your belief system.

Why, in general, do you privilege some written accounts over others and some oral accounts over others, with no consistent rhyme or reason? Answer: the accounts you do privilege accord with your belief system.

I've got a Herodotus-Philitis question for you over on the pyramid thread, dave. I'm sure that you'll engage that question this time, instead of conveniently overlooking it as you have now done many times.

Now that we're at such a nifty cool forum and all, where not everyone will immediately be wise to your ways...

Doug Shaver

Does that justification work for all books that claim to be divinely inspired?

Johnny Skeptic

But there is not any credible evidence at all that God inspired the writing of the entire Bible. Have you ever heard of innocent but inaccurate revelations? Well of course you have, so why do you exclude a reasonable possibility of innocent but inaccurate revelations where the Bible is concerned? You claim that the Bible says that it is inerrant, but why must those Scriptures have been inspired by God? Why must God act like you want him to act?

Steviepinhead

Dave, getting back to your claims that written accounts trump oral ones--except when they don't--and that some written accounts that may contain references to real places, events, and people trump other written accounts, that contain similar references...

Are you ever going to address your contradictions and inconsistencies?

Because if you don't, then folks ought to feel perfectly entitled to ignore your claims, ought they not?

Gundulf

I fear I'm not sure what you're getting at - this is more a matter of the presupposition of inerrancy/inspiration than of any particular topic.

IF God really did inspire the Bible in the way that evangelical Christians believe, then, regarding EVERYTHING the Bible says about homosexuality, divorce, murder, tithing, kissing, marriage, turnips, grace, atonement, peanut butter, evangelism, or turtles were ALL instances of the writers BOTH speaking for God AND for themselves.

IF God did not inspire the Bible in the way that evangelicals believe, then EVERYTHING in the Bible (regarding homosexuality, peanut butter, hamburgers, grace, mercy, marriage, turtles, etc.) are instances of the writers speaking for themselves and NOT for God.