Johnny Skeptic

It is incredible that many Christians defend the Bible by claiming that some people and places that the Bible mentions existed. Now why in the world would someone who makes up a religion make up non-existent cities, thereby immediately discrediting their writings? Surely few religious writers who want to promote a religion would make up non-existent cities that they lived in, and travelled to.

There is nothing unusual about the book of Acts having some reasonably provable secular claims about geography, and some supernatural claims that are not reasonably provable.

The Bible says that King Nechadnezzar existed. That claim is reasonably provable, but not the claim that he ate grass with cows.

Ancient texts claim that Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot. Most historians believe that Alexander existed, but they reject the claim that he cut the Gordian Knot.

Mixing facts and myths is nothing new in ancient literature.

Surely the criteria for evaluating supernatural history require more evidence than the criteria for evaluating secular history.

James Brown

I've seen the Empire State Building in New York.

Therefore, Spider-Man exists.

Keith&Co.

I've seen James Brown posting on FRDB.
That means the godfather of soul has powers that transcend death.

James Brown

arnoldo

I've seen Santa Claus at the Mall, therefore a historical Santa Claus is a proposition that makes a lot of sense

Johnny Skeptic

Do you believe that my arguments in the opening post are valid?

arnoldo

I believe that Santa Claus (who travels the entire world every Dec 25)can be based on a real historical person just like how an apparently mythological creature who rose from the dead can be based on a HJ.

Johnny Skeptic

But this thread does not have anything whatsoever to do with a HJ. Do you wish to comment on the opening post or not? If you wish to discuss Santa Claus, please start a new thread.

archaeologist

NO. Simply because you ignore the fact that 'history is in the eye of the historian'. They are at liberty to accept, reject. alter, distort ancient events at will.

An example. Bruce Catton wrote extensively on the Civil War, yet took a Southern bias. His information, though similar with Shelby Foote's differed in many ways and interpretation as did Macpherson's work.

You also ignore that secular historians work under different rules as christian authors. We are bound to tell the truth whereas the secular historian has a lot of leeway in what they present and how.

So your reasoning in the OP is too general and distorted allowing you the opening to dismiss scriptures based upon a faulty premise.

Johnny Skeptic

No, I never ignored that at all. Well of course anyone who writes anything is at liberty to write anything that they want to write, including Eusebius, who apparently told some lies because he believed that the ends justify the means.

But that does not refute what I said in the opening post.

Did David work under God's rules when he had Uriah the Hittite killed?

Are you not aware that many skeptics are honest, and do not tell lies? Would you like for me to produce some evidence of deliberate, dishonest quote mining from today's Christians?

But according to the Bible, all men are sinners. What about religious writers who are not Christians? Would you like to claim that they are dishonest?

Do you accept supernatural claims from all religious books that have some accurate geographical and biographical information?

Are you suggesting that people should believe that Nebuchadnezzar ate grass with cows just because Nebuchadnezzar existed?

Would you like to discuss inerrancy at the Abrahamic Religions forum?

Would you like to discuss the global flood at the Evolution/Creation forum?