TonyN

But the massacre was noticed and written in historical documents at the time. The conquest of Canaan was also written in historical documents of the time and preserved to date. Have you not read them?

Roger Pearse

Or to anyone else? If so, is it here in this thread, and if so where?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Brother Daniel

That's better.

FatherMithras

Why not read the thread? Like, how the exodus has no evidence, and is counter to what we find, as well as the invasion of Canaan, united Israel, etc etc. Assertions don't make something true. Especially when you make one like "Nothing in this thread supports the bible being refuted in any historical aspect" when there are numerous examples. sheesh.

FatherMithras

You haven't read the story then. He commanded all the babies born a few years before and around the time of Jesus to be physically slaughtered. He didn't order a generation imprisoned.

spin

You shot too quickly. Next time ask.

spin

You need to demonstrate these "historical documents". You cannot just assume them.

How do you verify their historicity??

When the earliest copies of a text are from the second century BCE, how do you date them earlier?

On what grounds do you claim the texts you refer to to be "historical documents" without voiding the term of significance?


spin

Brother Daniel

If you are not referring to me, please ignore this post.

If you are referring to me, please retract.

My objection was limited to a small subset of the "polemic" in this thread: that which allows some supernatural aspects of an alleged event for the sake of argument, and then denies the possibility that the supernatural agent in question will tie up the loose ends. For example, allowing that most of the earth might (miraculously) stop spinning, and then insisting that the momentum and energy of the surface matter would not have been similarly manipulated.

The fact of the matter is that the constraints of nature as revealed by science are the strongest possible pieces of evidence about what has or has not happened in history. So-called "supernatural" events are ultimately indefensible. Any attempted defence of miracles is, at best, an exercise in straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

But that doesn't mean that every imaginable argument against an alleged miracle is valid. Hence my objection to spin, Avatar, et al.

Brother Daniel

Ask what? Of whom? I don't follow you.

Sauron

You must have missed the examples of non-history in the thread.

No, what's curious is your decision to cut the OT loose, and focus on the NT. Apparently you are cutting your losses and regrouping around the part you feel safer about.

That's being somewhat disingenuous. All that person said is that if you're going to suspend one natural law, then why not suspend them all - or at least as many as you need to make the miracle happen. Which is a fancy way of saying that whenever you need to prop up a miracle claim, inerrantists reach into the bag of tricks and pull out another miracle - even if the second miracle is undocumented, and only gets introduced because of a contradiction spotted in the first miracle. In other words, ultimate unfalsifiability. From a scientific standpoint, then, the question of contravertibility is meaningless in a context where one side has an unfalsifiable claim.

And of course, said person's rationale utterly fails to address the question of historical-based contradictions mentioned in this thread. That's a point that "said person" (Brother Daniel) seems to recognize - and a point that your response failed to answer.

Isn't that curious?