the so fallible Bible

[Minimalist]

Oh wow, mighty comeback there Minnie.

All that your kind is worth, asswipe.

[Searching4truth]

Regardless, you have to love him, or you're like a father who beats and rapes his children.

Whoa dude. You have some serious issues to address within yourself. All beliefs aside, talking like that isnt going to get any conversions to your Christianity. I think you should take a step back and gather your thoughts because you are either extremely desperate for attention, or your brain is baked from all this discussion and that evil book you call the Bible. I cant even imagine being a non-believer and coming with a sentence like that. Youre a vile person

[John V]

Whoa dude. You have some serious issues to address within yourself. All beliefs aside, talking like that isnt going to get any conversions to your Christianity. I think you should take a step back and gather your thoughts because you are either extremely desperate for attention, or your brain is baked from all this discussion and that evil book you call the Bible. I cant even imagine being a non-believer and coming with a sentence like that. Youre a vile person

I think you need to step back and read the entire conversation. I was merely applying his own standards to him. He's the one who initially said that if you don't love unconditionally you're like a father who beats and rapes his children.

Of course, now that you know it came from an atheist, it won't be so vile.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Whoa dude. You have some serious issues to address within yourself. All beliefs aside, talking like that isnt going to get any conversions to your Christianity. I think you should take a step back and gather your thoughts because you are either extremely desperate for attention, or your brain is baked from all this discussion and that evil book you call the Bible. I cant even imagine being a non-believer and coming with a sentence like that. Youre a vile person

I think you need to step back and read the entire conversation. I was merely applying his own standards to him. He's the one who initially said that if you don't love unconditionally you're like a father who beats and rapes his children.

Of course, now that you know it came from an atheist, it won't be so vile.

No, I wasn't, you idiot.

Learn to read. You're the one making a false equivocation between a god who supposedly invented 'love' and 'is' love (or whose facet is love) an a human who is in no way claiming perfection. I specifically applied the murdering raping god analogy to your version of god, not a human who by definition would find it impossible to meet tr presumed standards that a god (whatever that is) would have.

Again. Learn to read, it's not that difficult. Please desist in misrepresenting my posts. Look! I'll even quote it for everyone to read, bearing in mind we're talking about your version of god which supposedly invented love:

Come along John, then I was talking about the reality of a multifaceted, complex interwoven system of structures that contribute (and/or exacerbate) cyclical poverty.

Here we're talking about whether to take a statement in a fairy tale prima facie or not. So you'll forgive me (because you're full of love for your fellow man) for not seeing the equivalence.

regardless of whether you 'see' it or not, my (and several others) interpretation of the bible is that it says god is love. I've had a lot of theists say that of their version of god, regardless of what it is (many Xtians).

Interpretation is key. It's the only thing that one can rely on on the bible. But if you're saying your god only uses love when it sees fit, then I'll take your word for it. Sounds bit like an arsehole, though. Like a father who beats and rapes his child.

[John V]

I think you need to step back and read the entire conversation. I was merely applying his own standards to him. He's the one who initially said that if you don't love unconditionally you're like a father who beats and rapes his children.

Of course, now that you know it came from an atheist, it won't be so vile.

No, I wasn't, you idiot.

Learn to read. You're the one making a false equivocation between a god who supposedly invented 'love' and 'is' love (or whose facet is love) an a human who is in no way claiming perfection. I specifically applied the murdering raping god analogy to your version of god, not a human who by definition would find it impossible to meet tr presumed standards that a god (whatever that is) would have.

Again. Learn to read, it's not that difficult. Please desist in misrepresenting my posts. Look! I'll even quote it for everyone to read, bearing in mind we're talking about your version of god which supposedly invented love:

Come along John, then I was talking about the reality of a multifaceted, complex interwoven system of structures that contribute (and/or exacerbate) cyclical poverty.

Here we're talking about whether to take a statement in a fairy tale prima facie or not. So you'll forgive me (because you're full of love for your fellow man) for not seeing the equivalence.

regardless of whether you 'see' it or not, my (and several others) interpretation of the bible is that it says god is love. I've had a lot of theists say that of their version of god, regardless of what it is (many Xtians).

Interpretation is key. It's the only thing that one can rely on on the bible. But if you're saying your god only uses love when it sees fit, then I'll take your word for it. Sounds bit like an arsehole, though. Like a father who beats and rapes his child.

Are you seriously claiming that you don't love unconditionally because you're a fallible human being who can't reach that level, but you think that ideally you should love unconditionally and you strive to do so?

If so - seriously?

If not - the argument basically stands. I merely need to change it to "you think that ideally everyone should love god, or they're like a father who beats and rapes his child. They're only excused to the extent that as fallible humans they're not able to do so."

[Searching4truth]

I think you need to step back and read the entire conversation. I was merely applying his own standards to him. He's the one who initially said that if you don't love unconditionally you're like a father who beats and rapes his children.

Of course, now that you know it came from an atheist, it won't be so vile.

I don't care what your beliefs are... the words are the same. Knowing god allowed for the torture and rape of his children and justifying it is what FC was talking about. You used it as a conclusive statement. It amuses me how you try to sit back and make cocky assumptions that im judgemental and bias against Christians more than atheists. I'm not judgemental at all, but by that statement I can tell you are. I really don't like you . it's Christians like you that fuel so much hate toward your belief system

[John V]

Oh, and speaking of equivocation of god and imperfect humans - if humans should not be held to the same standards as god, then neither should their judgments be considered as valid as god's. You can't have it both ways.

[Searching4truth]

god doesn't freaking exist! you are basing all your arguments on the claim of an empty variable, John vile.

[xpastor]

Well, this discussion has gone on for quite some time, and it's plain we all agree that the God represented in the Old Testament is an evil bastard. The only difference is that those who believe in him want us all to call evil good.

Moving on to the next question, I ask:

Q: How much reliability does the Bible have as a historical document?

A: Almost none.

Here is a summary of the findings of an important book on biblical archaeology. The Bible Unearthed: archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its sacred texts. Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. The Free Press (Simon & Shuster), 2001. 385 pp.

There was no historical basis for the legends of the patriarchs recorded in Genesis. Here are a few historical discrepancies in the patriarchal narratives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. By the biblical chronology these patriarchs would have to be dated to the Bronze Age, ca 1800 - 1700 BC. Camels regularly appear in these stories, but in fact the camel was not domesticated until about 1000 BC, and camel caravans were not common until the 7th century BC when these stories were written down. Isaac is said to have met the Philistine King (Gen 26:1) but in fact the Philistines did not invade from the sea until ca. 1200 BC. The Moabites and Ammonites arrived on the scene even later, and the story of Lot incestuously fathering Moab and Ammon reflects the ethnic rivalries of the 9th - 7th centuries, as does the story of Esau as the supposed progenitor of the Edomites, who do not appear in history until the late 8th century.

Most shocking of all, the central narrative of the Old Testament never happened, that is, the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, their deliverance, and wandering for 40 years in the wilderness, and the subsequent conquest of the promised land.

As for the sojourn in Egypt, a population of Israelites in the hundreds of thousands would necessarily leave archaeological traces, but they are nowhere to be found. In the opinion of the authors the Exodus story reflects the conflict in the 7th century between Judah and Egypt with Judah hoping to annex the lost territories of the northern kingdom (Israel) and the mighty nation of Egypt wanting to control the land route to Asia Minor. Likewise Exodus names some of the camp sites where the Israelites supposedly stopped in the Sinai desert (Kadesh and Ezion-geber). These have been identified and excavated, but again there is no evidence for this host.

The ancient cities of Jericho, Ai, Gibeon, Lachish, and Hador have been located and excavated, and the evidence for a conquest is very weak. Indeed it seems that those walls at Jericho never came tumbling down because most of these cities had no walls and were not sacked. It appears that the Israelites had no need to invade Canaan because they were already there. The evidence is that in this region there were cyclical fluctuations in the population. Three times over the centuries the settled agricultural populations vanished, and nearby pastoralists moved in and gradually became farmers. The third wave was comprised of the Israelites.

The great kingdom of David and Solomon? An earlier generation of biblical archaeologists thought they had uncovered the remains of Solomon's mighty buildings described in the Bible. However, these buildings were all in the north, and contemporary Jerusalem was by contrast a rustic one-donkey town of 1000 inhabitants with perhaps a total population of 45,000 for all of Judah. It is inconceivable that the southern tail was wagging the northern dog, and the palaces in the north were re-dated to a few centuries after the time of Solomon and attributed to the monarchs of Israel. It would appear that far from being rulers of a powerful united kingdom, David and Solomon were actually just hill country chieftains, perhaps along the lines of the Scottish clan chiefs in medieval times.

A similarly falsified story is told in the Bible about the religion. We are given the impression of an original adherence to a strictly monotheistic cult of YHWH from which the people (especially the northerners) lapsed into the polytheism of the neighboring nations. However, polytheism was there from the beginning. The archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of figurines of naked fertility goddesses, and a few inscriptions are found in both Israel and Judah referring to the goddess Asherah as the consort of YHWH, Of Judah too the authors say, "the idolatry of the people of Judah was not a departure from their earlier monotheism. It was, instead, the way they had worshiped for hundreds of years."

Judah finally rose to prominence after the Assyrians destroyed Israel in 720 BC. The influx of refugees from the north swelled the population, and by co-operating with the Assyrians the Judahite kings increased their power for a while. With an interest in claiming the old northern territory the scribes under Hezekiah began to re-write the history of the two kingdoms and to promote the YHWH-alone movement which had started earlier in the 8th century.

Under the rule of Josiah there was a concerted effort to stamp out polytheism. IN 622 BC it was claimed that a hitherto unknown book of the law had been found during the temple restoration, and shockingly the traditional practice of the cult of YHWH in Judah had been all wrong, and even the passover had not been kept properly since the long ago days of the Judges. This newly minted ancient document was surely the book of Deuteronomy, in which the literary form of the covenant is strikingly similar to Assyrian vassal treaties of the early 7th century.

It was only at this point that the monotheistic religion of YHWH became a reality a scant 35 years before the southern kingdom was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.

There is much dispute about the central figure of the New Testament. Some scholars, known as mythicists, believe that Jesus never existed, that the gospels are just a retelling of the myths around pagan deities like Osiris. I believe the weight of evidence supports the historicist position, that there really was a 1st century teacher known as Yeshua, who was probably crucified by the Romans. Moreover, the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) preserve much of his authentic teaching in the parables, the sermon on the mount and the apocalyptic prophecies of the end of the world. Of course that does not mean that everything in the gospels is "gospel truth." Myths and legends are attached to Jesus as they were to other ancient figures such as Apollonius of Tyana, who was also said to have been born of a virgin mother impregnated by a god, to have worked miracles and healed people and finally ascended into heaven.

As for the historical unreliability we may take one example from Luke. There is another thread about Mary's 10-year pregnancy, the point being that Luke first places the conception of both John the Baptist and Jesus in the reign of King Herod who died in 4 BC but then puts Jesus' birth in the time of Quirinius as governor, 6 or 7 AD. Moreover, he states that there was a census of the entire Roman Empire, but we have no other knowledge of that. It is quite inconceivable that there would be no surviving records from the Romans of such a massive undertaking. Neither is it very plausible that Augustus would have ordered such a clumsy procedure as having everyone travel back to the town where his distant ancestors came from. It is simply a device to get Jesus' parents from Nazareth to Bethlehem where the Messiah was supposed to be born.

So the facts suggest that for the most part both the Old Testament and the New Testament are on very shaky ground historically.

[Minimalist]

My only complaint with The Bible Unearthed, X-P, is that Finkelstein follows an exacting methodology right to the end...and then goes off the rails with Josiah. Throughout the book he carefully details the archaeological attestation from extra-biblical sources for various rulers and places. He glosses over the deficiencies of the Tel Dan stele but a lot of people did and it is only now that an understanding is spreading that bytdwd does not mean "House of David" in the sense of a dynasty. (See George Athas' "The Tel Dan Stele")

But in Josiah's case there is no archaeological attestation for his existence. Not a coin. Not an inscription. No reference in Assyrian, Egyptian or Babylonian records. The Book of Chronicles, a late 4th century work at best, creates a battle in which Josiah was heroically killed fighting Necho. Presumably later writers felt this was more dignified than the 2 Kings version in which Necho summons Josiah to a meeting and has him whacked, mafia style. In any case, the Egyptians do not seem to know they won a battle that day. I can't attribute that to uncharacteristic "modesty."

We have no indication, beyond the OT itself and that is the document under scrutiny, that there was anything particularly "jewish" about 7th century Judah. William Dever ("Did God Have A Wife" )paints a picture in which there was a perpetual struggle between the priests in the capital who were trying to establish a Yahweh-based male-dominated cult and the more traditional folk religion of the countryside in which the Canaanite pantheon, particularly the female fertility goddess Asherah is an integral part and even Yahweh's "consort." Unlike the bible-thumpers, however, Dever has evidence in the form of inscriptions and fertility figurines and shrines in the bamah (high places) which even the OT admits.

Dismissing the Davidic Empire for the sheer nonsense it is, Finkelstein is correct that the late 7th century is one of the few periods in the entire first millennium when Egypt and Judah would have been potential rivals. Egyptologist Donald Redford has reached the same conclusion using evidence from the Egyptian side of the border in the form of anachronisms written into the story. But the story does not need "judaism" to work. All it needs is the one heroic creator god for the people to rally around. Babylon had promoted Marduk to the position of "king of the gods" and his fortunes rose and fell as the city did. This model would have been obvious to the Judahites who, like the Babylonians at this time were part of the Assyrian Empire.

I find Philip Davies work about the introduction of the male creator god cult in the aftermath of the Persian conquest of Babylon to be the most convincing. Again, this is a political not a religious driven-event but the Yahweh who emerges in the Persian period seems to mirror the Persian Ahura Mazda. And Cyrus the Great was quite a hero to the "jews."