Originally Posted by Hex

Why is it that so many people cannot simple push the OT into the 'myth/legend' category, but seem to need to have it all, word for word (in the KJV :Cheeky: ) be true?

I just don't get it. :huh:

Originally Posted by Hex

I guess this makes some of the best sense I've heard, though when -I- hear it it seems to just be knocking the legs out from under it's own table. If I reject just one part, like the 'great flood', I therefore -have- to reject the rest.

Originally Posted by makerowner

I think you guys are underestimating how much cognitive dissonance people will tolerate. You can see from the various creationists who post on here trying to defend their "theories" that no matter how many times people prove them wrong, they won't believe it.

Originally Posted by Lucretius

That is if course a fair point.
It may not be easy or quick to get to the hardcore creationists, but I do hope that it will happen
Look at the record of one of our "resident creationists" here who has apparently gone from just a literal belief in Genesis to ever more wild and fanciful pseudo scientific ideas as I think he himself has begun to see that the purely literal approach just isn't good enough anymore .

Originally Posted by Hex

Perhaps it's just me, but after some of the discussants here (dramatic examples could be Larsguy and afdave) have gone to great links to reconcile a literal belief of the Bible (especially the OT) with the factual evidence of archaeology/ historical documentation.

Originally Posted by Hex

As an archaeologist, I'm of course of the opinion that artifacts trump documents, and a wealth of agreeing documentation trumps a single source. In this instance, I have issues with a literal view of the OT. The lack of geological/ genetic evidence of a 'great flood' and the lack of archaeological/ documentary evidence for the plagues of Egypt or the ensuing exodus cast enough doubt in my mind that I just logically couldn't see a literal interpretation of the OT, case closed.

Originally Posted by Hex

Now, with that in mind, when I see something like Harpur's work getting such publicity, I can only think that Christians are looking for ways to discount a literal view in order to hang onto the structure/worldview of the NT and thus have a basis for the messages encoded within.

Originally Posted by Hex

Why is it that so many people cannot simple push the OT into the 'myth/legend' category, but seem to need to have it all, word for word (in the KJV :Cheeky: ) be true?

I just don't get it. :huh:

Originally Posted by reniaa

You say you are an archeaologist Hex?

What do archeaologist think when discoveries back up the bible for example

http://biblicalstudies.info/top10/schoville.htm

I'm just curious how Archeaologists feel when they find stuff like this, which in this case was an accidental find after a extensive archeaological dig for many years, which hadn't realised much in itself till this find?

Originally Posted by NinJay

Reniaa -

I don't want to seem confrontational, but what does this find imply to you?

It's been pointed out in other threads that nobody claims that there aren't historical accuracies in the Bible, so finding something that corroborates a Biblical reference isn't really that remarkable.

(Pardon the potential derail.)

regards,

NinJay

Originally Posted by reniaa

You say you are an archeaologist Hex?

What do archaeologists think when discoveries back up the Bible for example?

Originally Posted by Farrell Till

The fact is that some archaeological discoveries in confirming part of the Bible simultaneously cast doubt on the accuracy of other parts. The Moabite Stone, for example, corroborates the biblical claim that there was a king of Moab named Mesha, but the inscription on the stone gives a different account of the war between Moab and the Israelites recorded in 2 Kings 3. Mesha's inscription on the stone claimed overwhelming victory, but the biblical account claims that the Israelites routed the Moabite forces and withdrew only after they saw Mesha sacrifice his eldest son as a burnt offering on the wall of the city the Moabites had retreated to (2 Kings 3:26-27). So the Moabite Stone, rather than corroborating the accuracy of the biblical record, gives reason to suspect that both accounts are biased. Mesha's inscription gave an account favorable to the Moabites, and the biblical account was slanted to favor the Israelites. The actual truth about the battle will probably never be known.

Other archaeological discoveries haven't just cast doubt on the accuracy of some biblical information but have shown some accounts to be completely erroneous. A notable example would be the account of Joshua's conquest and destruction of the Canaanite city of Ai. According to Joshua 8, Israelite forces attacked Ai, burned it, "utterly destroyed all the inhabitants," and made it a "heap forever" (vs:26-28). Extensive archaeological work at the site of Ai, however, has revealed that the city was destroyed and burned around 2400 B. C., which would have been over a thousand years before the time of Joshua. Joseph Callaway, a conservative Southern Baptist and professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, spent nine years excavating the ruins of ancient Ai and afterwards reported that what he found there contradicted the biblical record.

The evidence from Ai was mainly negative. There was a great walled city there beginning about 3000 B. C., more than 1,800 years before Israel's emergence in Canaan. But this city was destroyed about 2400 B. C., after which the site was abandoned.

"Despite extensive excavation, no evidence of a Late Bronze Age (1500-1200 B. C.) Canaanite city was found. In short, there was no Canaanite city here for Joshua to conquer (Biblical Archaeology Review, "Joseph A. Callaway: 1920-1988," November/December 1988, p. 24, emphasis added).

This same article quoted what Callaway had earlier said when announcing the results of his nine-year excavation of Ai.

"Archaeology has wiped out the historical credibility of the conquest of Ai as reported in Joshua 7-8. The Joint Expedition to Ai worked nine seasons between 1964 and 1976... only to eliminate the historical underpinning of the Ai account in the Bible (Ibid., p. 24)."

Originally Posted by Farrell Till

The article in this issue on the Tyre prophecy referred to Ezekiel's promise that Nebuchadnezzar would be "given" Egypt as compensation for his failure to take Tyre as the prophecy had predicted, but when the ensuing prophecy against Egypt is analyzed, it becomes clear that it failed too. In a four-chapter tirade against Egypt, Ezekiel said that Yahweh would give Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as "wages" for the labor he had expended on Tyre in an unsuccessful siege (29:19-20). The devastation of Egypt was to be complete. The land would be an "utter waste and a desolation" from Migdol (in the north) to the border of Ethiopia (in the south). So thorough would the devastation be that "neither foot of man nor foot of beast would pass through it, and it would be uninhabited for 40 years and the Egyptians scattered among the nations (29:9-12). At the end of the 40 years, Yahweh would gather the Egyptians back to their country from where they had been scattered, but Egypt would forever be "the lowliest of kingdoms" (v: 15). It would never "exalt itself above the nations" and would not "rule over the nations anymore" (v:15).

Needless to say, none of this ever happened. There are no historical records of a 40-year period when Egypt was so desolate that neither animals nor humans inhabited it, and the population of Egypt was never scattered among the nations and then regathered to its homeland. It's political influence has fluctuated through the centuries, but there has never been a time when it could have been considered the "lowliest of kingdoms." No self-respecting biblicist, however, would allow minor details like these to deter him in his insistence that the Bible is inerrant, so all sorts of attempts have been made to show that this is not a prophecy failure.

The fulfillment is yet future: Some inerrantists admit that this prophecy has not been fulfilled, but they insist that it will be someday. This explanation ignores some rather explicit language in the prophecy. It began with Yahweh telling Ezekiel to "set [his] face against Pharaoh king of Egypt" and "to prophesy against him" and to say, "Behold I am against you, O Pharaoh, king of Egypt" (29:2-3). Specific language is also directed to "Pharaoh king of Egypt" in 30:21-22, 25; 31:2, 18; and 32:2, 31-32. Furthermore, the prophecy was very clear in stating that this desolation of Egypt would be done by Nebuchadnezzar, who would be "brought in to destroy the land" and to "fill the land with the slain" (30:10-11). Needless to say, the rule of the pharaohs ended in Egypt centuries ago, and Nebuchadnezzar has been dead even longer, so if the total desolation of Egypt and scattering of its population did not happen in that era, it is reasonable to say that the prophecy failed. Inerrantists, however, are not reasonable when the integrity of the Bible is at stake, so some will go so far as to say that even though the rule of the pharaohs has ended, it will be restored someday, at which time Yahweh will bring about the fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy, possibly by a ruler who will come from the same region as Nebuchadnezzar.

Although seriously proposed by some inerrantists, this "explanation" is such a resort to desperation that it hardly deserves comment. It makes Yahweh a petty, vindictive deity who will punish Egyptians in the distant future for something that their ancestors did, and it makes possible the explanation of any prophecy failure in any religion. Believers in the prophecy could simply say that even though it has not yet been fulfilled, it will be "someday." That type of "logic" may impress biblical fundamentalists, but rational people will see it for exactly what it is--desperation to cling to belief in prophecies that have been discredited by time.

The prophecy was figurative in its meaning: This "explanation" may take two forms: (1) Some contend that this prophecy was fulfilled but that critics of the Bible have not recognized it because they have interpreted literally what Ezekiel conveyed in figurative language. They quibble that he meant only to say that great damage would be inflicted on Egypt and that this was done when Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt in 568/7 B. C. The fact that total devastation of Egypt obviously didn't happen at that time (or any other time) doesn't matter to those who hold to this view. By rationalizing that plain language in the Bible was actually "figurative," they are able to convince themselves that the prophecy was fulfilled. (2) Other proponents of the figurative view number themselves with the futurists. They accept that the prophecy was obviously predicting a total devastation of Egypt, and they admit that this has not happened yet. They use the figurative argument to explain away not the descriptions of destruction but Ezekiel's references to Nebuchadnezzar and the pharaoh's of Egypt. To them, it doesn't matter that Nebuchadnezzar and the pharaohs are long gone, because they contend that these were only "figures" or "symbols" of the rulers who will be in power when Yahweh finally brings about the fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy against Egypt. This "explanation" of the prophecy is really no better than the one that sees a futuristic restoration of the Egyptian pharaohs and Babylon's former empire. It reduces the god Yahweh to a petty, vindictive deity who will punish future Egyptians for what their ancestors did. It's most obvious flaw, however, is that it resorts to unlikely scenarios to try to make the Bible not mean what it obviously says. In rather plain language, Ezekiel predicted a total destruction and desolation of Egypt that would last for 40 years. It never happened, and no amount of rationalization can make that failure a success.