Angrillori

Spot on Crowley.

People want the bible to be inspired by god.
They want god to be super powerful and super smart.

Yet, when it comes down to it, the bible gets more wrong than right on origins. And attempts to reconcile it with reality get bogged down incredibly quickly, all in the face of the fact that the origin myth could have been written in a way that it was both accurate and easy to understand. Wouldn't it be a feather in the cap of any particular religion to be the single one whose creation myth got it right?

Wouldn't it be nice for christians to be able to look at other religions and say: "Hey you! My religion is right because it's origin myth at least got the order right!" As opposed to: "Hey, I know my myth-handbook is just as accurate and inaccurate as anyone else's, but if you squint hard enough and ignore the out-of-order and missing stuff, mine makes some sense too?"

"In the beginning was nothing, then god formed the stars and the heavens, and the stars spread through the heavens, yes, to this very day! And near one of those stars he set the earth, fully aflame and unihnabited. When the flames had died and the earth had cooled he set forth there water, and filled the water with all manner of creeping things and plants. Then he caused these creeping things and plants to spread to the land. And it was good. And then from these creeping things he chose one for a special place amongst life, that one he called man."

Look, we can all write simple stories that are easy to understand, keep the message of "man's special place in creation" and that creation was by fiat and was good, and yet still get the details right. So, why didn't god? What message was impossible to transmit without getting the facts all wrong? What message necessitated the wrong-ordering of creation? What message necessitated "firmament?" What message necessitated the wrong order of fruiting plants and animals? Hmm?







Wait, let me guess....will your answer involve "mysterious ways?"

_Naturalist_

How can an ancient uninformed myth be better than the more accurate modern descriptions?

scigirl

:notworthy

scigirl

Asha'man

If you are going to claim that the text is accurate, then you can't exaclty just ignore blatant errors, now can you?

The creation of the Sun, Moon, and stars seems like a pretty big thing to misplace, especially by billions of years. This is like a historian thinking that the American Revolutionary War occured sometime after Watergate.

This looks like conclusive proof that the text is not historically accurate, which is the argument you are trying (and failing) to make. You have just admitted defeat.

WILLOWTREE

What makes anyone think they can obtain accurate information about the Bible from an atheist/Celsus ?

Obviously Celsus has an axe to grind (to establish the validity of atheist worldview).

How is this done ?

Answer: By deliberately attempting to appear "objective" then proceed to matter-of -factly conclude against all Scriptural claims.

Atheist/Celsus hides the presuppositions of his worldview and makes an endless amount of assertions above.

He is also is a state of rant against me. This began with his rage in reaction to linguisitic evidence plainly showing the effects of the Tribe of Dan in European history.

The paragraph above ASSUMES the Torah was not written by Moses for many reasons. But the issue is that it is an assumption packaged as "researched evidence".

How could atheists admit the Torah was written by Moses ?

That would be a nail in the coffin of their worldview.

Atheists ASSUME writing style change = different authors and they don't tell you that. All the Patriarchs can be likened to CEO's who have their secretaries do the actual authorship. Yet, even though the Torah says Moses wrote down all the words of the Law - atheists erase this direct evidence and ASSUME it does not mean what it says = no surprise.

Many atheist scholars assert the failure of the Torah to name the Pharoah of the Plagues and Exodus supports late authorship.

Official New Kingdom language NEVER named the Pharoah. This fact supports early authorship as Moses, raised in Egypt, conformed to the custom.

In fact only when the O.T. names Shishak did the Egyptian custom change prior (circa 10th century).

Atheist Bible Scholarship

The above title contains a premise that has a predetermined conclusion:

The Bible is wrong.

What else could Celsus conclude ?

WT

someotherguy

I think the above post deserves a WinAce pic:

WILLOWTREE

Meh. Job's date is completely unknown, but it is not the oldest book of the Bible. If it were written c. 1500 BCE, it would predate the Ugaritic corpus (14th century) from Ras-Shamra, and that would be a surprise indeed, since its imagery is very obviously a late development on the Ugaritic myths (lotan --> Leviathan, etc.). None of the biblical corpus precedes the Iron II.

The Pentateuch was conservatively dated according to 4 "sources", J, E, D, and P, with J dating to about the 9th century at the earliest. Putting J in the Iron Age I or early II has numerous difficulties, not least of which that the language it was written in hadn't appeared yet, nor had the nation it was about to establish. So of course, it is disputed: John Van Seters has dated J to the Babylonian Exile (6th century), while several others dates it just before that (7th). E is completely disregarded these days, except by R.E. Friedman (and one banned member of this board), and D is usually dated to the Josianic reform (c. 620 BCE), though of course there's disagreement there too. P is generally regarded as post-exilic, around the construction of the Second Temple (Ezra/Nehemiah, 5th-4th century) at the earliest, but suggestions have been made to place it with the Maccabeans (3rd-2nd century). Most people who recognise the continuity between Deuteronomy and Joshua-Kings will give D an exilic date at the earliest, noting the similarity in language with Jeremiah and Isaiah. The thing is, even the conservatives arguing for early dates are still much later than they need to be for the fundamentalists. [Willowtree type argument]The only people who believe the biblical books were written around the time of their events are the fundamentalists. All the other biblical scholars pay no attention to that nonsense.[/Willowtree type argument]

[/BC&H mode]

Joel

I responded to the ad hom which was ignored by your ad hom.

WT

someotherguy

I'm confused. Was that response directed at me?

WILLOWTREE

Anybody have any evidence that the Tribe of Dan was among those carried into bondage by the Assyrians in 721 BC ?

Where was Dan ?

WT

WILLOWTREE

Are you talking to me ?

WT