(May 3, 2012 at 10:58 pm)Drich Wrote: You are unbelievable. You were looking for a discussion and you got one that you personally could not refute. So rather than seriously consider what was being said, your plea is for one of your peers to supply you with a come back so you can continue with an argument that has exceeded your abilities.

Yeah, don't you just hate theists who keep digging into a problem to get to the truth?

ProTip: Applied to ANY OTHER EFFORT, what he did would be considered resourceful.

We can easily see how far from the light of reason you have strayed.

So where is that Hebrew fucking Bible of yours?

I figured by now that you'd have the tablets of the 10 fucking commandments.

I am always disappointed by religious shits who can't deliver on their promises.

well thank-you for the constructive criticism. Look like I have more to learn before I can truly debate/destroy there argument.

(May 3, 2012 at 11:17 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Hey, all you have to do is produce a Hebrew document of the torah which pre-dates the Septuagint. I'm sure there will be legions of biblical scholars in your debt because you have found something that all of them combined have missed.

All you have to do is post it.


You'll forgive me if I do not hold my breath waiting for you to come up with something which does not exist?

http://www.livescience.com/8008-bible-po...gests.html
http://digitaljournal.com/article/285265
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...091035.htm

(May 4, 2012 at 7:11 pm)Abishalom Wrote: ...

http://www.livescience.com/8008-bible-po...gests.html
http://digitaljournal.com/article/285265
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...091035.htm

I'm not very knowledgable in matters of archeology and manuscripts, but my first impression is how does a little fragment of some verses that somewhat matches verses in the Bible, prove any of the OT scriptures existed back then in their final form? I think the most popularly excepted theory of scholars is that the OT was composed from many different earlier sources. What if this fragment is just another one of the early sources?

Basically the logic I'm hearing is:

Fragment found,
Therefore, Bible was developed the way it says it was developed.

(May 4, 2012 at 7:35 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote:

(May 4, 2012 at 7:11 pm)Abishalom Wrote: ...

http://www.livescience.com/8008-bible-po...gests.html
http://digitaljournal.com/article/285265
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...091035.htm

I'm not very knowledgable in matters of archeology and manuscripts, but my first impression is how does a little fragment of some verses that somewhat matches verses in the Bible, prove any of the OT scriptures existed back then in their final form? I think the most popularly excepted theory of scholars is that the OT was composed from many different earlier sources. What if this fragment is just another one of the early sources?

Basically the logic I'm hearing is:

Fragment found,
Therefore, Bible was developed the way it says it was developed.

No I think your logic might be a tad bit off. Maybe you can point out where you read that at.

Let's examine the facts...

Scholars widely believed that the Bible could not have been written earlier than 6th century BC.
Archaeologists find Hebrew artifact with a message consistent with several bible verses that was dated 10th century BC.

So in spite of this discovery are you trying to insist (perhaps desiring) that the bible still could not have been written prior 6th century BC? What conclusion should we draw if we find a 3,000 year old artifact with a Hebrew inscription consistent with several bible verses? The logical conclusion seems to be that it is plausible that the Hebrew scriptures were already around AT LEAST since the 10th century BC.

(May 4, 2012 at 8:10 pm)Abishalom Wrote: No I think your logic might be a tad bit off. Maybe you can point out where you read that at.

Let's examine the facts...

Scholars widely believed that the Bible could not have been written earlier than 6th century BC.
Archaeologists find Hebrew artifact with a message consistent with several bible verses that was dated 10th century BC.

So in spite of this discovery are you trying to insist (perhaps desiring) that the bible still could not have been written prior 6th century BC? What conclusion should we draw if we find a 3,000 year old artifact with a Hebrew inscription consistent with several bible verses? The logical conclusion seems to be that it is plausible that the Hebrew scriptures were already around AT LEAST since the 10th century BC.

Firstly, I'm not "insisting" or "desiring" anything. Even if I was, that's irrelevant. You have to defeat my arguments, not my motives. Motives don't affect the validity of my argument.

Look, again, I'm not knowledgeable in this field, I'm just finding the arguments in the pop science articles you linked to very lacking. You said the inscription is consistent with several Bible passages. It doesn't match identically with any of them. This seems to me to be assuming that if you find something consistent with something out of a few books of the OT, then those OT books must have come first. From what I understand, if any sort of Hebrew scripture was around then, we cannot say just yet that it was the same scriptures we have today.

Perhaps this is a nit-pick, but they used carbon dating to date the ancient hebrew texts. Surely fundies aren't saying that we should TRUST carbon dating now?

Anyway, it seems that the religious side has actually been correct about the date of the hebrew texts. I'll need to re-read the rest of this thread to see what the significance of that is, however. . .

---

Right. I re-read the thread, and. . . there doesn't seem to be much significance to the date of the texts. Some of the stories in the bible are very old, yes. It now seems likely that some were in hebrew before Greek. That doesn't prove that they're valid. They're still just very old stories.

Will someone explain to me why this is a major argument?

(May 4, 2012 at 8:22 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote:

(May 4, 2012 at 8:10 pm)Abishalom Wrote:

---

No I think your logic might be a tad bit off. Maybe you can point out where you read that at.

Let's examine the facts...

Scholars widely believed that the Bible could not have been written earlier than 6th century BC.
Archaeologists find Hebrew artifact with a message consistent with several bible verses that was dated 10th century BC.

So in spite of this discovery are you trying to insist (perhaps desiring) that the bible still could not have been written prior 6th century BC? What conclusion should we draw if we find a 3,000 year old artifact with a Hebrew inscription consistent with several bible verses? The logical conclusion seems to be that it is plausible that the Hebrew scriptures were already around AT LEAST since the 10th century BC.

---

Firstly, I'm not "insisting" or "desiring" anything. Even if I was, that's irrelevant. You have to defeat my arguments, not my motives. Motives don't affect the validity of my argument.

Well I was just asking because it seemed to be that way. So I apologize if that's not the case. Anyway, you're right, it's irrelevant to my main point.

Quote:Look, again, I'm not knowledgeable in this field, I'm just finding the arguments in the pop science articles you linked to very lacking. You said the inscription is consistent with several Bible passages. It doesn't match identically with any of them.

Well I'm not knowledgeable in this field either but I do not see what that has to do with the FACT that Archaeologist (the experts) find a Hebrew artifact dated to the 10th century BC. I think you're confusing something being "consistent" with something being "identical". I said it is consistent with the OT.

Here's the translation...

Quote:1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

The message present here is consistent throughout the bible. Here are a few verses corroborating this theme...

http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/poor.htm

This is not exhaustive as it focuses mainly on the poor. But this should be sufficient enough to support my point.

Quote:This seems to me to be assuming that if you find something consistent with something out of a few books of the OT, then those OT books must have come first. From what I understand, if any sort of Hebrew scripture was around then, we cannot say just yet that it was the same scriptures we have today.

First of all I made no such statement that "the exact scripture we have now were the exact ones around then" (for some reason you keep trying to keep this assertion into the discussion). Especially if you consider the fact that the OT could not have been completed until the 2nd century BC at the latest (since the Septuagint was complete by then). We found a Hebrew artifact with a similar message found in the OT that was dated 10th century BC (earlier than generally accept among scholars). Please explain to me how we "cannot say just yet" that the scriptures were not around yet. I am not saying the scriptures were complete 10th century BC (because they were not) but they must have been already in circulation by that time. Are you insisting that this is not a plausible explanation?

(May 4, 2012 at 8:44 pm)Abishalom Wrote: ...
Sir you're confusing something being "consistent" with something being "identical". I said it is consistent with the OT.

Here's the translation...

Quote:1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

The message present here is consistent throughout the bible. Here are a few verses corroborating this theme...

http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/poor.htm

This is not exhaustive as it focuses mainly on the poor. But this should be sufficient enough to support my point.

No, I'm not confusing the two. I made it quite clear that I distinguished between consistent and identical. Just because the message might be consistent (not identical) does not prove that it came from any OT books as we know it today, and that those OT books that it's consistent with must then predate that 10th century pottery. What if both the OT books and the pottery have another older source or sources in common?

As I've said before, I'm not knowledgable in this field, and I could very well be wrong. It's just that saying that a fragment proves the existence of some books of the Bible being from the 10th century BC seems like a huge leap to me.