John A. Broussard

One would think that for a divinely inspired book there would have been a better choice of proofreaders.

Wallener

First, you need to establish which KJV. There have been many.

Then, for starters, you don't have to look any further than Daniel 9. Wealth of material there. First, they mistranslate "annointed one" as "Messiah" (with capitals, no less). KJV translates exact same phrase as "annointed one" all 3 dozen times it appears elsewhere in Tanakh, which makes Daniel not a mistake, but an intentional redaction. Bringing beliefs to the text rather than deriving them from the text, tsk tsk. Second, they rearrange the punctation to turn "something in 7 weeks, then something in 62 weeks" to sound like "something in 7 and 62 weeks".

For more fun and games, google "KJV only 1611" for a wealth of material. IMO, the Strong KJV-only stand is the equivalent of idol worship.

Wallener

John: You can also play on the confluence between KJVers and "America Founded as a Christian Nation" crowd. Pilgrims and Puritans come to north america armed with the Geneva bible, not with the not only widely-available but (in England, ie, where the Pilgrims came from) almost exclusively available KJV. And the KJV was created and mandated by the same monarchy the supposedly christian founding fathers fomented a revolution against.

And there are always the Apocrypha and Papacy wedge issues: how can King James, who passed a law outlawing possession of any bible not containing Apocrypha, be the source of the "one true" English variant? Even better, how can KJ be the source when the reason he created the "More Apocrypha" law was to...ah...make nicey-nice with the Papacy.

Modern evangelicals should be using the Geneva bible, not the KJV.

David Mooney

Hi Lee,

anothr place you can go and debate bible propehcy fulfillment is Farrell Till's site. If you email him at jftill@mailaka.net and request to be put on his list, he will do so. Most of the people on the list are well educated in bible prophecy claims and they have handled themselves very well. The list is broad enough to include contradiction claims, absurdities, and other biblical nonsense. The going is pretty slow right now and if you were to join the list your posts would generate considerable attention.

There has been quite the lack on the list lately of a level headed apologist to defend the Christian faith and your posts would be appreciated. You will receive a challenge and you will encounter many arguments against prophecy you may not have heard before.

Hope you can make it.

David

David Mooney

DAVID
The actual Hebrew word meant "land-monster". However, since modern translators know there are no such thing as "land-monsters" they have theorized the word had a dual meaning, as many words usually do. They settled on Jackal, a ugly looking beast that can be found in the general region of ancient Babylon. If a word in the ancient Hebrew named an animal that we know did not exist another meaning is sought for by translators. The Jewish Tanach renders it as jackal.

lee_merrill

Go Tarheels!

Pity the poor Panthers, and the Hurricanes have been downgraded to a tropical storm, breaking up over the east coast.

That's all I have time for, tonight...

Hasta mañana,
Lee

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Well, if it's arbitrary, then I'm mistaken, for sure. So the question is, does the Bible ever do this, and if so, does it do this, here?

Well, here I would find some indications:

Isaiah 13:4 Listen, a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations massing together! The Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war.

Now Babylon was not so much the Lord's army, mustered by him.

Isaiah 13:5 They come from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens…

Again, this is surprising if this is a reference to Babylon, I would have expected "from a faraway land" here, not "lands," and "from the ends of the earth," instead of "the ends of the heavens."

Isaiah 13:7 Because of this, all hands will go limp, every man's heart will melt.

Even Babylon's?

Isaiah 13:11 I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins.

And the Babylonians were sinners, like the rest of us, so I don't think we can avoid applying this to every sinner on earth at this time.

But not if the focus indeed shifts, as in another example, here:

Genesis 3:14-15 So the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Then let's rebuild Babylon! Only I would be asked to be excused from that endeavor…

Again, doesn't the focus shift, in this reference?

Obadiah 1:15-16 The day of the Lord is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head. Just as you drank on my holy hill, so all the nations will drink continually; they will drink and drink and be as if they had never been.

Just as Edom is to be punished, all nations are to be punished.

But if nobody saw it, how could we know it was desolate? And doesn't the saying "A nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there" apply to Petra? Only it's not even a very nice place, by all accounts, it's basically a rock fortress, as I understand.

But it doesn't specifically say they would destroy it, the Medes are actually not mentioned here:

Jeremiah 25:12 "But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt," declares the Lord, "and will make it desolate forever."

But if Herodotus says there were Medes in their army, then they weren't all resistant to being ruled by the Persians. We at least have a possibility that there might have been a Medo-Persia, do we not? Just as Peru is not called Inca-Peru, though Incans live there as proper citizens, who consider themselves Peruvians as well as Incans.

And never be rebuilt or reinhabited? Forever?

As far as the current state of Babylon, thanks for the idea to check for images, this link seemed most promising. Now I see there a restored Greek theater (does this count as rebuilding Babylon?), the restored Ishtar gate, and Nebuchaddnezzar's palace (with an incomplete wall). But I daresay Neb had a better palace!

Well, here are the meanings in Strong's: "common(m)(1), countries(16), country(44), countryside(1), distance*(3), dust(m)(1), earth(656), earth's(1), fail*(m)(1), floor(m)(1), ground(120), land(1582), Land(2), lands(60), open(1), other*(m)(2), piece(m)(1), plateau*(1), region(m)(1), territories(1), wild(m)(1), world(3)."

So "region" would fit what I am wondering about, here. And here is TWOT: "earth, land, city (-state), (under)world."

So city/city-state would fit well, here, it would seem…

Regards,
Lee

lee_merrill

Hi again, everyone,

But the Romans and the Jewish people had two different ways of reckoning the start of the day, one at midnight, and the other at sunset, and the Jewish people had three watches in the night (the Romans had four), so couldn't this explain the difference here?

As far as three days and three nights, here is what one source has to say about this:

Regards,
Lee

David Mooney

DAVID
The "different method of reckoning time" defense is no longer maintained by most knowledgeable apologists. Instead, they now claim that a copyist erred in his copying from the original. The reason they have changed it has in recent years become obvious there was no difference between Roman and Jewish time when it came to reckoning hours of the day.

Here is an article written by Ray Briggs in 1998:

ROMAN TIME VS. JEWISH TIME

Ray:
OK, I will also present some of the material leading to the study as
well.

The contradiction:

Mark 15:25: "And it was the third hour, and they crucified him."

John 19:14-15: "And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about
the 6th hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! "But they
cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him."

How could he have been crucified before Pilate released him to the
crucifiers?

The harmonization (what the inerrantist that ran the site posted as a
refutation of the contradiction) :

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts use Hebrew time for their reckoning. John
uses Roman time. Another example of this is in John 18:28 - early
morning refers to the fourth Roman watch, which was 3 a.m. to 6 a.m.

Ray:
He is claiming here that the authors of the synoptics use a “Hebrew
time� in which the 1st hour is sunrise and the 6th hour is noon but John
uses a “Roman time� in which the 1st hour starts at midnight and the 6th
hour is 6 AM. In other words essentially our time keeping.

This ploy does get Jesus released to the crucifiers before he was
crucified. How they got Jesus tried and interrogated by Pilate and even
by Herod (see Luke) between “when dawn came� and about 6 AM and what
they did for the 3 hours between this time and when they crucified him
would be a mystery with this scenario. This is nonsense however, as
there never any difference between Roman time and Hebrew time.

The first thing one notices about this harmonization is that it doesn’t
even attempt to prove there is such a thing as a Roman time. It simply
states there is something called Roman time (without any evidence) and
then claims that John uses this Roman time without any proof. The
reference to John 18:28 as being “another example", is a non-sequiter at
best. The verse referred to just talks of Jesus being taken to Pilate.
Presumably we are to assume they were of the 4th watch. So what? I might
add that a reason was given for John using this Roman time was that he
(supposedly) wrote his gospel in a Roman town. This doesn’t make any
sense even if there were such a thing as Roman time.

Later a “justification� for Roman time was brought up and which I will
deal with later (it too is without merit). First I will show there was
no difference between Roman time and Hebrew time.

This Roman time was supposed to be the same as we keep time now. We
begin the day at midnight and divide the time until the next midnight
into 24 60 minute hours. It can be seen that this is hardly likely in
ancient times when their “clocks� depended on the sun. There was about
that time a very expensive water clock that could keep time at night but
they were extremely rare. John had probably never even seen one. In
ancient times the nights and days were each divided into 12 equal hours
and the hours of the night were not equal to those of the day except at
the equinoxes.

I first got suspicious of this harmonization based on a different Roman
time when I read a biblical scholar who just casually mentioned that in
Roman times the 3rd hour was 9 AM. He didn’t say in Hebrew time, he said
in Roman times. That made me think and I looked into it. What I found
was that keeping time from midnight as we do now was not adopted until
modern times, after decent clocks became widely available. Before then,
everyone based the time of day on the sun. This includes Hebrews and
Romans and everyone else (at least in the mediterranean area). With this
system the 1st hour of the day commenced at sunrise. The 6th hour was
noon. The first hour of night began at sunset.

I will now prove that. I have used in this proof data from ordinary
works that show very clearly that the Romans used the same time as the
Hebrews. The works I quote from have nothing to do with an argument
about biblical inerrancy. In two cases they are scholarly books
discussing time in Roman times and in the other just a book about life
in Roman times that happens to get into the time of day.

The first comes from a book called “Sundials History, Theory, and
Practice� by Rohr (University of Toronto Press 1970). The following
table can be found on page 15. It is copied from the “Opus Agriculturae�
by a 4th century Latin agriculturist named Palladius. It is a guide for
use by farmers, who were still using the primitive gnomon, to tell the
hour of the day. The gnomon is simply a vertical pole or obelisk that
casts a shadow from the sun. The longest shadow occurs at sunrise or
sunset and the shortest at noon. The length of the shadow between these
times can be calibrated to give the time of day. The values in the table
change with latitude and time of year, meaning one must have a number of
them for any accuracy. This particular table is for a particular height
Gnomon and is for use in Sicily in January. The first column is the hour
and the second is the length of the shadow in "feet" (et is and). I left
the table in the original Latin, which is the way it was in the book. (I
hope this table comes out as a table and not just text)

----hour-----------shadow length
Hora I et XI ------ Pedes XXIX
Hora II et X ------ Pedes XIX
Hora III et IX ---- Pedes XV
Hora IV et VIII -- Pedes XII
Hora V et VII ----- Pedes X
Hora VI ----------- Pedes IX

Clearly, the Gnomon is not very precise, but it clearly shows that when
the sun is very low and the shadow very long (as at sunrise and sunset)
the hours are called the first hour (Hora I) and the 11th hour (Hora
XI). Noon (when the shadow is the shortest) is called the 6th hour (Hora
VI). As can be seen, the hours of the morning and afternoon are given
for when sun casts the same length shadow as it casts the same length
shadow as it descends as when it ascends, relative to noon.

This simple table all by itself totally destroys the concept of Roman
time being different from Hebrew time. It shows that in this Roman area
the 1st hour is sunrise and the 6th hour is noon exactly as in Hebrew
time. There is much more however.

In “The History of the Hour�, which is a scientific study of the
subject by Gerhard Dorn-van Rossum. (University of Chicago Press), we
find (page 19):

“The Babylonians had separated the day into daytime and nighttime,
dividing each period - daylight from sunrise to sunset and nighttime -
into 12 segments (hours) of equal length. The duration and temporal
location of these hours varied with the length of daylight, with the
‘6th hour’ always designating the midday point. Only twice a year, at
the equinoxes, were the hours of the day and night equal ---. In
addition, in Rome the 4 divisions of the day and the division of the
night into four equal watches continued in use, because they were
sufficient for most practical purposes. In Roman cities these segments
were publicly signaled by the officials. --- As points in time, hour
indications - with the exception of the first hour, hora prima - must
always be understood in the sense of the expired hour (hora expleta hora
completa). A brief example: ‘nona’ [Latin for 9 - my note] as a space of
time could designate the ninth hour of the day, more rarely also of the
night, it could refer to early afternoon encompassing the seventh,
eighth, and ninth hour. --- In addition the cock’s crow ‘gallicantus’,
was in common use to indicate the point in time just prior to dawn�.

Please note he is speaking of Rome and most clearly states that the 6th
hour is ALWAYS noon. This quote also proves that in Roman time the hours
of the day were named exactly as they were in Hebrew time. But there is
more.

The following information is from a book by Jerome Carcopino called
“Daily Life in Ancient Rome� published by Yale University Press. The
book has nothing whatsoever to do with arguments about the bible, or
arguments about time or clocks. It is simply a book describing daily
life in Rome from about the middle of the 1st century A.D. to the middle
of the 2nd century, which overlaps perfectly with the time the gospels
were written. The cover of the book says: “This book by a world famous
archaeologist brings to life imperial Rome as it was during the 2nd
century A. D.� The American Journal of Archaeology says: “Here we find
exactly the kind of information, abundantly supported by evidence of all
kinds, that paints a vivid picture of the city�. This is simply a
history book in which the author is attempting to give the reader a
feeling of what a day in the life of a Roman citizen was like.
Interestingly, at a time which just happens to have been when the
gospels were written and it also proves that the hours of the day in
Roman time were exactly as they were in Hebrew time.

First, he discusses the fact that the length of the hours varied between
winter and summer. Carcopino says (page 149):

“For the twelve hours of the day were necessarily divided by the gnomon
between the rising and the setting of the sun, while the hours of the
night were conversely divided between sunset and sunrise; in proportion
as the day hours were longer at one season, the night hours were, of
course, shorter, and vice versa. ----�. He then presents a table
describing what the hours in Rome at the winter solstice were in our
time. The following following is the morning portion of that table:

Hour---From----To
1st----7:33---8:17 AM
2nd----8:17---9:02 AM
3rd----9:02---9:46 AM
4th----9:46--10:31 AM
5th---10:31--11:15 AM
6th---11:15--12:00 (Noon)

Again we see clearly that the first hour of the day starts at sunrise (I
calculate sunrise at Rome (lat about 42 deg) on Dec 22 as at
approximately 7:30 AM) and the 6th hour ends at noon. Clearly this is
exactly the same schedule of the Hebrew hours.

The following are statements of Romans from the 1st and 2nd century from
Carcopino:

Persius says only roisters and drunkards from the night before slept
late and even they had made up their minds “by about the 5th hour� and
were usually out by noon.

Comment: obviously the 5th hour was the hour before the noon hour.

Juvenal says that the public baths were open to the public regardless of
sex “from the 5th hour of the morning�. At the “6th hour� the central
building was opened, but only to women after Hadrian’s decree. At the
eighth or ninth hour, according to whether it was winter or summer, the
bell sounded again and it was now time for men to have access, where
they were allowed to stay “till the eleventh or twelfth hour.�

Comment: Again, are we to believe the baths were opened an hour before
sunrise and closed at noon? The baths were an afternoon activity.

Suetonius tells of the last hours of Domitian who was terrified by a
prophesy that he would die on the 5th hour of Sept 18, 96 AD. Suetonius
says that he stayed in bed that day the whole morning because of this
fear. He the got the (false) news that the 6th hour had begun and he got
up. He is said to have been assassinated then and it was the 5th hour.

comment: The details of the story are questionable, but it is clear that
Suetonius thought the 5th hour was just before noon and not just before
sunrise. We wouldn't say he stayed in bed the whole morning if he had
gotten up at sunrise!

The result of these quotes from scholarly books about clocks and history
clearly show that Romans kept the time of day exactly as it was by the
Hebrews. They both learned it from the Babylonians. I would add that all
translations of the bible I know of that translate the hours of the
bible to our time do exactly the same for John and the synoptics. They
do not consider John’s hours to be any different than Marks. The 3rd
hour in Mark (KJV) is translated in the NRSV to 9 AM and “about the 6th
hour� in John (KJV) is translated in the NRSV as "about noon".

A later attempt to “justify� the Roman time was based on a quotation
from Pliny's “Natural History�. Pliny (when discussing fashions in time
keeping) says in Book II lXXV. 185-LXXIX:

“The actual period of a day has been differently kept by different
people: the Babylonians count the period between two sunrises, the
Athenians that between two sunsets, the Umbrians from midday to midday,
the common people everywhere from dawn to dark, the Roman priests and
the authorities who fixed the official day, and also the Egyptians and
Hipparchus, the period from midnight to midnight.�

The justification for this "Roman time" is supposedly based on
this "official day" and "Roman Priests" (whoever they were).
Please note that the quote actually says nothing about keeping the hours
of the day, but only how one day was separated from the other. Note that
he says that this was done by “common people from everywhere from dawn
to dark�. This means they didn’t bother defining what portion of the
night went with what portion of the day to make a “full day�. The day
was just from dawn to dark. Common folk just considered the period of
daylight as a full day. Days just happened to be separated by a time of
darkness. They made no attempt to connect the dark time before day or
the dark time after with it. It was just days separated by darkness. You
can say a week is comprised of 7 12 hour "days" each separated by a
night. You can also divide the night into 12 hours but until you invent
a better clock you will be hard pressed to know the hour of the night.

Whether you decide to consider a full day from sun up to sun up or sun
down to sun down, you will always start the keeping of the hours from
those two specific points defined by sunrise and sunset.

Romans therefore started the clock like everyone else at sunrise and
sunset (as the previous information proves). This can also be proven by
reading some more from Pliny. It will be seen in the following quotes
that when it comes to telling the time of day Pliny does as all did and
starts the clock at sunrise and sunset.

Regarding an eclipse of the moon, Pliny says (Book II LXXI. 178 -
LXXII):

“The Victory of Alexander the Great is said to have caused an eclipse of
the moon at Arbela at 8 PM while the same eclipse was seen in Sicily
when the moon was just rising�. The 8 PM is the author’s translation of
noctis secunda hora, which is the 2nd hour of the night. This shows
clearly that the scholar who translated Pliny knows that the second hour
of night is 8 PM our time. If Pliny used a clock like ours it would not
need translating from the second to eighth, he would have said the 8th.
That it was about 8 PM (the 2nd hour of night) can be seen from the
following argument. If the moon was just rising (and eclipsing) in
Sicily, it was by definition the 1st hour of night (sunset) there. As
Arbela is in Iraq, which is about 2 hours later than Sicily, it was
indeed about the second hour of the night. If Pliny actually used a
clock like ours he should have said it was the eighth hour. You cannot
argue that Pliny meant the 2nd hour to mean after midnight because it is
absolutely impossible for the moon to be just rising in Sicily at
midnight (2 hours earlier), when an eclipse of the moon occurs. The moon
must be full for it to eclipse, which means it rises at sunset.

There are a number of additional arguments that can be made but it
really isn’t necessary. It is clear that the Roman time was a fantasy
and Romans and Hebrews counted the hours of the day the same, even if
they divided one 24 hour day from the next differently.

Regards, Ray

As you can see, there were no differences between Roman and Jewish hours during daytime.

LEE
As far as three days and three nights, here is what one source has to say about this:

DAVID
I will deal with the three days and three nights defense later. I have come down with the flu and don't feel too well. But I will get back with you on this, just be patient. I appreciate your responses although I have seen these responses before. I will still try to respond later today if possible.

David Mooney

LEE

Quote:
Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties: A similar usage is apparent from the narrative in 1 Samuel 30:12, where "he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights" is equated in v.13 with hayyom se losah ("three days ago")--which could only mean "day before yesterday." But if the Egyptian slave fell ill on the day before yesterday (with relationship to the day on which David found him), then he could not have remained without food or water for three entire twenty-four-hour days. We simply have to get used to slightly different ways of expressing time intervals.


DAVID
Gleason Archer is way off the mark. Suppose the slave had been discovered on Sunday afternoon (I am using weekday names for sake of convenience). If he had no eaten in "three days and three nights" then that would mean he had not eaten since sunset Thursday, the beginning of the sixth day of the Jewish week. Three days and three nights later from Thursday sunset would place you during the daytime on Sunday. There would be three nights (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) and three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday).

If the slave had fasted three days and three nights, then we know he began his fast on Thursday evening around sunset. This was the sixth day of the Jewish week (remember I am using the days of the week as a matter of convenience only). Since the Jews counted their days inclusively, we know that "three days ago" from Sunday afternoon, the first day of the week, would be sometime between Thursday sunset to Friday sunset, the sixth day of the Jewish week.

The slave began his fast on Thursday evening at the beginning of the sixth day of the week and sometime during that sixth day of the week he was abandoned by his master, and it could even have been during the daytime portion of the sixth day of the week, Friday daytime. It would still be "three days ago" from Sunday according to Jewish usage (as the Jews often counted the first and last days in a series of three or more days as whole days). The time of the abandonment came at or shortly after the slave ate his last meal. So, the slave eats his last meal on Thursday night at the beginning of the sixth day of the week; later. during that same 24-hour day, his master abandons him, and on the third day of the count, i.e., Sunday, the first day of the week he is discovered and cared for.

There is nothing in this passage to show that two nights and a day (or three days and two nights) could be counted as three days and three nights. There are no such examples in Jewish literature.Three days and three nights had at least a portion of three days and three nights and not one night or one day less.

You can bring on more, of you wish. Josh McDowell, Gleason Archer, Norman Geisler, and many others have tried. But their arguments have failed.