First thing I'll say is that the official Christian narrative of the Bible which is presented as 'Literal' is not actually described in the book. 


I'll jump right in with Lot's Wife. A woman, who the Christians tell us, was turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying God. 

This is what "Biblical" Christians insist is described, and what Atheists tend to agree on, and then attack the idea of a woman being transformed into salt for simply looking back.

24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
25 And he overthrew those cities and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
26p But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. 

First thing to notice; no mention of her being killed as punishment for disobedience. It also makes no attempt to explain why she became a 'pillar of salt' only that she did, and it was because she was looking back at the destruction instead of actively fleeing. The author, who himself was fleeing, presumably witnessed this transformation himself, suggesting it wasn't simply looking back. The Christian narrative thereby is not contained in the words. 

What we can learn from other disciplines shows that at least one city with surrounding towns, was wiped out by a comet airburst around 1500bc, at a site now called Tall El-Hamman, just north of the Dead Sea. The flash from the airburst is calculated to have been around 8000c, burning pottery. If you also understand the perspective of the people doing the writing, then it looks much more likely that the 'pillar of salt' is a visceral personal description of seeing another human getting evaporated by a brief moment of very intense light, as the result of a comet strike in the next valley. 


As far as I can tell this is the reading with Empathy, that unlocks the authors, and who they are, and what they can individually understand and can communicate. 

When I see atheists fighting with young earth creationists I usually see them fighting over little snipets and quotes which neither side can put a reasonable interpretation. 
Throw all of those here and I'll see what I have to say about them. I need to keep my brain occupied in the evenings :V

You left out verse 17:


17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said: 'Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the Plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be swept away.'

But as far as pointless punishments go, I think a better example is the fable of Elisha and the bears.

Boru

(May 8, 2022 at 7:09 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: You left out verse 17:


17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said: 'Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the Plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be swept away.'

But as far as pointless punishments go, I think a better example is the fable of Elisha and the bears.

Boru

That's a very easy interpretation duality. 
It can be read as a "Do exactly as I tell you or I'll kill you" which seems to be how it is taken by "Fundamentalists" particularly in the USA and Africa, but it's more Biblically interpreted as "Get out exactly right now or you'll get caught up in this." The Old Testament is full of these. 
One of the main arguments in the New Testament between Jesus and the Pharisees is that they presented things like this in the former way, while he demonstrated himself as a personality to be likened unto God, and Jesus would have been undoubtedly speaking in the latter tone. That's effectively what the New Testament, Old Testament relationship is, stripped down. 

As for Elisha and the bears. It could be an example of imperfection in a person being written of. Most books in the Bible include unflattering events and personal details which seem to just be included for posterity, and probably to demonstrate that even the best people can act weird. It could also have been added by the Pharisees, as it contains the number 42, which is part of their numerology derived from Babylon. 

Elisha cursed some kids in the name of the Lord. Noah got drunk and bullied his son. Elijah was prone to tantrums, etc. The kings of Israel were always doing stupid things and having to sort each other out. It's not condoning the actions, just recording.

There's also a strong possibility though that the correct translation would be 'fighting age men' rather than Children, which does change the nature of the threat somewhat.

(May 8, 2022 at 6:53 am)Green Diogenes Wrote: What we can learn from other disciplines shows that at least one city with surrounding towns, was wiped out by a comet airburst around 1500bc, at a site now called Tall El-Hamman, just north of the Dead Sea. The flash from the airburst is calculated to have been around 8000c, burning pottery. If you also understand the perspective of the people doing the writing, then it looks much more likely that the 'pillar of salt' is a visceral personal description of seeing another human getting evaporated by a brief moment of very intense light, as the result of a comet strike in the next valley. 

Are you aware that the authors of the papers that claim cited have roundly debunked that claim and repeatedly asked for a correction or retraction?
 
Outside of that, do you notice how you begin with the suggestion that magic book need not be literal - but default to psuedo-literalism anyway, as a conclusion, in the insistence that the story (and others, apparently) recount a historic event?

Now..wholly within the context of just your own conclusion, and needing nothing other than your own critical thinking skills. What sort of thing do you think would vaporize another human being circa 1500bce..within visual range of a witness, but leave that witness alive to tell the tale?

I do like your approach though. Reading it with empathy, trying to feel for the human beings involved. The trouble is that you're doing so in an implicitly literalist context. What would you feel if you were a character in the story. The authors, are not the characters. It's the predispositions and messages of the authors that explain the narrative contents. It's not a report from any front about a real event. It continues on in this fashion to the very end. With rebels, revisionists, polemicists, and pundits contextualizing their own life's experience, in their own time, through stories of an imagined past and characters familiar to their intended audiences. In a word, mythbuilding.

Man made god(s). Often to explain/describe/give god credit to 'supernatural' events for natural events or observations.

In the story she became a pillar if salt because they saw salt pillars in the area. No god necessary for salt pillars, but it makes a wonderful manipulation story.

(May 8, 2022 at 8:24 am)brewer Wrote: Man made god(s). Often to explain/describe/give god credit to 'supernatural' events for natural events or observations.

In the story she became a pillar if salt because they saw salt pillars in the area. No god necessary for salt pillars, but it makes a wonderful manipulation story.

Why would the authors of the Bible be interested in manipulating anyone?

(May 8, 2022 at 8:07 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:

(May 8, 2022 at 6:53 am)Green Diogenes Wrote: What we can learn from other disciplines shows that at least one city with surrounding towns, was wiped out by a comet airburst around 1500bc, at a site now called Tall El-Hamman, just north of the Dead Sea. The flash from the airburst is calculated to have been around 8000c, burning pottery. If you also understand the perspective of the people doing the writing, then it looks much more likely that the 'pillar of salt' is a visceral personal description of seeing another human getting evaporated by a brief moment of very intense light, as the result of a comet strike in the next valley. 

Are you aware that the authors of the papers that claim cited have roundly debunked that claim and repeatedly asked for a correction or retraction?
 
Outside of that, do you notice how you begin with the suggestion that magic book need not be literal - but default to psuedo-literalism anyway, as a conclusion, in the insistence that the story (and others, apparently) recount a historic event?  

Now..wholly within the context of just your own conclusion, and needing nothing other than your own critical thinking skills.  What sort of thing do you think would vaporize another human being circa 1500bce..within visual range of a witness, but leave that witness alive to tell the tale?

I do like your approach though.  Reading it with empathy, trying to feel for the human beings involved.  The trouble is that you're doing so in an implicitly literalist context.  What would you feel if you were a character in the story.  The authors, are not the characters.  It's the predispositions and messages of the authors that explain the narrative contents.  It's not a report from any front about a real event.  It continues on in this fashion to the very end.  With rebels, revisionists, polemicists, and pundits contextualizing their own life's experience, in their own time, through stories of an imagined past and characters familiar to their intended audiences.  In a word, mythbuilding.

I was aware that the site was claimed to be roundly debunked, but I never saw anything other than sophistic arguments based on mockery of religion, and using individual scientist's misinterpretations to rubbish their whole dataset, in the same way YECs rubbish everything from NASA just because of fish eye lenses in launch vehicles. 

Yes, I am completely aware of these different schools of thought. I'm trying to break apart the false dichotomy between them. The entire main point of my first post in this thread is that people are locked into a 'literal' reading which is just religious myths inserted on top of the Bible, and the text itself doesn't support that view. This effectively locks a huge area of study into the realm of "anti-science nonsense" which is avoided by anyone who wants to keep hold of a career, unless they want to go into the other lucrative business of pushing Anti-science nonsense, who are not concerned with truth. 


What do you mean by wholly within the context of just my own conclusion?

That is generally how you can understand religious stories, which have a lot of well documented patterns and a flexible relation to reality, yes. Understanding this is how you understand how specific "Bible Stories" and their surrounding cultural literature have been derived from a book which doesn't contain those stories.

Welcome to the forum Diogenes,

It's a little hard for me to tell exactly what you are advocating for, because on the one hand you are saying that we shouldn't take this story from Genesis literally but on the other you are offering, and defending, physical evidence as well as historical evidence from areas near Sodom and Gomorrah.

I'm trying to gain a better understanding of just what exactly you mean here. The Bible speaks to many layers of truth, historical, literal, spiritual and metaphor, just to name a few. But the book of Genesis falls under the category of history so I tend to read it in that context first, just like the Psalms are mostly poetry or music so they are heavy laden with metaphor and ought to be read as one would read poetry.


As for the bears which attacked children for telling Elisha to, "rise up you bald head" it reveals to us that when a true servant of God calls down a curse from heaven God is not slow to answer. Now God could have just given the boys a tummy ache, but instead he chose to kill 42 of them. These boys were telling a prophet to "rise up" or go to heaven already. Basically they were wishing death upon him, apparently neither God nor Elisha took that lightly. This verse always gets brought up when people are looking for indictments against YHWH but it never really bothered me that much. You shouldn't wish death upon one of God's servants, perhaps the reason why we don't take such ideas as seriously today is because we live under the New Covenant where the holy spirit is far more active here on Earth and Christians are called to love not just their neighbor but also their enemy.


Boru

(May 8, 2022 at 9:03 am)Ahriman Wrote:

(May 8, 2022 at 8:24 am)brewer Wrote: Man made god(s). Often to explain/describe/give god credit to 'supernatural' events for natural events or observations.

In the story she became a pillar if salt because they saw salt pillars in the area. No god necessary for salt pillars, but it makes a wonderful manipulation story.

Why would the authors of the Bible be interested in manipulating anyone?

Because you would be one of their favorite/easy victims.

(May 8, 2022 at 6:53 am)Green Diogenes Wrote: First thing I'll say is that the official Christian narrative of the Bible which is presented as 'Literal' is not actually described in the book. 


I'll jump right in with Lot's Wife. A woman, who the Christians tell us, was turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying God. 

This is what "Biblical" Christians insist is described, and what Atheists tend to agree on, and then attack the idea of a woman being transformed into salt for simply looking back.

24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
25 And he overthrew those cities and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
26p But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. 

First thing to notice; no mention of her being killed as punishment for disobedience. It also makes no attempt to explain why she became a 'pillar of salt' only that she did, and it was because she was looking back at the destruction instead of actively fleeing. The author, who himself was fleeing, presumably witnessed this transformation himself, suggesting it wasn't simply looking back. The Christian narrative thereby is not contained in the words. 

What we can learn from other disciplines shows that at least one city with surrounding towns, was wiped out by a comet airburst around 1500bc, at a site now called Tall El-Hamman, just north of the Dead Sea. The flash from the airburst is calculated to have been around 8000c, burning pottery. If you also understand the perspective of the people doing the writing, then it looks much more likely that the 'pillar of salt' is a visceral personal description of seeing another human getting evaporated by a brief moment of very intense light, as the result of a comet strike in the next valley. 


As far as I can tell this is the reading with Empathy, that unlocks the authors, and who they are, and what they can individually understand and can communicate. 

When I see atheists fighting with young earth creationists I usually see them fighting over little snipets and quotes which neither side can put a reasonable interpretation. 
Throw all of those here and I'll see what I have to say about them. I need to keep my brain occupied in the evenings :V

Nope, sorry, this is moving the goal posts after the fact. Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt was literally what the writers wanted the reader to believe. Just like a psychic is a fraud but convinces suckers they are not. There was a time in American/western history that far more people literally believed that the woman really was being sawed in half, and now more people know it is an illusion.