Bible way to Heaven

[TheRocketSurgeon]

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*sigh* The archaeology is against almost every point the Bible makes. It is fairly clear that, for instance, Jericho was never a walled fortress conquered by anyone anywhere near the time when Joshua would have had to exist, and that there was no mass migration of Hebrews from Egypt at that time, and that Egypt controlled the place they went to in the story, at the time (indeed, was fighting a border war with the Hittite empire just north of Canaan, at the time). This information was clearly not available to the priests who were making up a collective history of Israel/Judea for the people returning from the Exile in Babylon, so they could establish an "historical" claim to control of the people in that region and a collective identity that could help them stick together. They cobbled together a semi-coherent book from the fragments of scripture of the various peoples of the area, excised the polytheistic roots of the Hebrews (leaving a few traces, though most of the evidence of it comes from archaeology), and formed what we now think of as the Old Testament.

The flood is not only not supported, it is against every known law of physics, a fact which the writers were obviously unaware as they plagiarized the story from Sumerian/Chaldean legends and adapted it to the Hebrew history-tale they were weaving.

The Creation myth is not only blatantly silly (night and day were created before the sun... oops!) and defiant of everything we know about science from actually investigating the question systematically, it indicates a genetic bottleneck that would show up in modern DNA testing, due to all the incest, a factor which simply does not show up. How can it not be obvious to you that its writers simply did not know about genetics, physics, chemistry (claiming we are made from molded clay, which is made of Aluminum-Silicate and other similar inorganic molecule crystals, not the stuff humans are made of), and biology?

Archaeology shows that there was no unified and powerful Hebrew Empire, as claimed in the stories of David and Solomon, and that the descriptions given of their powerful kingdom were in reality small outposts and mediocre villages during the 10th century BCE. All the evidence of that era is 9th century or later. Except for a small, hard core of Evangelical Literalists who struggle to keep believing in the tales as-written, no serious scholar thinks that the Bible is valid archaeology.

Continue in your delusion if you want, but we actually read from multiple sources and grasp the actual historical record, which does not  support the claims you are making here. No matter how many times you repeat your drivel it will become no more true than it was last time. Go read some books not written by people who already agree with you, for fork's sake!

That is why we call you arrogant. You already claim to have all the answers, from the Napkin you worship, and you openly admit that nothing could ever make you change your mind. How can you expect us to take you seriously after making a statement like that?

You're saying: "My mind is totally closed. I refuse to learn anything I don't already agree with. You should listen to me!"

GTFOH with that nonsense.

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I don't agree with Finkelstein israel,who is a minimalist, someone who detests the very idea of God and who strives mightily to debunk each and every statement in the Bible. 
Alas for the minimalists, pretty much every other week some archaeologist uncovers yet another proof that the Bible is true. It has really been a very discouraging few decades for them, hasn't it? 

Not that mere proof has stopped Finkelstein and his ilk from continuing to do as much harm as they can, bless their unhappy little hearts. And to think that there are people who insist there is no God when we have people like Finkelstein. After all if there is no God, why is he exhausting himself trying to prove to other people God doesn't exist? WHy not spend his time in wine, women, and song? Personally, I consider Finkelstein and his cohorts proof positive of the existence of God. 

David and Solomon were fictional characters, insisted the minimalists! And they kept that up, right up until the ninth-century BC stone tablet was found at Tel Dan and there was the radio carbon dating at Megiddo that confirmed the existence of David. 

Now all Finkelstein can mutter on about is how, well, maybe there really was a David, but he was only a pathetic, little king, nothing as grand as the Bible suggests. 

Yes, that is how badly Finkelstein and the minimalists have been refuted. Between that and the blinding, horrifying, massive proof of evil in our midst - the murder of one hundred and fifty million people by the atheist communists, all within living human memory - you would think that the atheists would be sensible and retire to their lairs to drink themselves to death. Never seems to happen, however. 
Here are good books to refute everything that poor Finkelstein has written: 
The Archaeology of Ancient Israel by Amnon Ben-Tor for the Old Testament
Ancient Israel in Sinai by James Hoffmeier for Genesis
There are many critic's against him,

 Believing in what you said will only get me to Hell.

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]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hallq/2012/10/pulling-some-devastating-punches-a-review-of-the-bible-unearthed/

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http://www.denverseminary.edu/article/th...unearthed/

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Finkelstein is not a Minimalist. You consider him a Minimalist because you think there's more evidence than he discusses in his lectures--- by the way, he has a great lecture on the finds at Tel Dan, if you care enough to go look it up. I'm not going to bother because it's pretty obvious to me you're not interested in listening, but if you do promise to watch it, I'll go look it up for you.

Why in the world would you use such bitter and vicious terms like "their lairs" and "drink themselves to death" to describe atheists? Why should we not be scholars on such important questions, when religious ideology is a source of political motivations, worldwide? Why should we be any less dedicated to our search for the truth than anyone else?

I think you spelled out your own prejudice quite clearly, when you said "Believing in what you said will only get me to Hell". You are afraid to question. I am not. What do I have to lose, if you are right? Nothing! How nice it would be, how easy and comfortable, to be able to rejoin the religious belief set shared by literally every other member of my family except my siblings, the belief of almost my entire town/community, and the overwhelming majority of fellow Americans? I began as a Christian, when I started my research on these subjects, and I came to the conclusion that it's unsupportable-- I was and remain an inherently honest person, so I changed my mind. I am perfectly willing to change it back in light of better evidence, but I have seen nothing that suggests the things you are claiming are true, except for a lot of presuppositionalism and observer-bias.

Why do you loose your venom at us, and at researchers like Finkelstein (who is hated by the Minimalists just as much as he is hated by the extremists on your side), who try to walk an honest path and really look at what the evidence does and doesn't say? For the record, though, I will say that I think Finkelstein stood on a position that was dead-wrong, some time ago, and that a lot of his work these days has to do with slowly backpedaling from that position, trying to justify having said it, rather than coming out and saying he was totally wrong. But I don't think he's as dishonest by any stretch of the imagination as you and the fundamentalist "researchers", who start and end with the Bible, have sought to portray him.

If you come to a debate and start by saying, essentially, "My mind is made up, and nothing you can say will change it!!!", what kind of person should I conclude that you are?

Incidentally, I in no way rely on Finkelstein alone. In fact, I consider many of Finkelstein's claims invalid, or based on assumptions too far-fetched to be reliable. (Just wanted to emphasize that so you don't miss it.) You might look into the criticisms of the Tel Dan stele by archaeologists like Niels Lemche, who claims it is a forgery based on the poor use of the Aramaic in the inscription (among other reasons to do with the chisel marks on it, and the condition of the find), or Aaron Demsky's claim that the circumstances of the find are more than a little bit suspect, or Francesca Stavrakopoulou's claim that it does not support an historical King David based on the usage of the phrasing. Many others question the dating of the inscription, such as Thomas L. Thompson and Francis H. Cryer... but all these are beside the point. Whether or not there was an historical King David (which the stele does not confirm, only that there was a "House of David" and that the king referenced in the actual stele belonged to that lineage), it does not make the Bible any more valid. It only means they didn't fuck up the history they describe.

In other words, just because someone in the year 4000 finds evidence that proves there was in fact an historical President Obama, it doesn't mean that the Prophet Joseph Smith received a divine revelation from God through the angel that appeared to him, two centuries before in the Kingdom of North America! Especially if the reference is not to President Obama himself, but to one of his successors "of the political party of Obama". Does it suggest there was a President Obama? Sure! But whatever agreement between the book and the stone inscription we find that tells us these things does not mean that the Book of Mormon is accurate. Each claim must be examined independently. Even if David was really a powerful king, it doesn't mean the conquest of Joshua really happened. It doesn't mean that the Israelites were in Egypt (the evidence against those is pretty powerful), and it doesn't mean that the Bible should be relied upon as more than a side-reference after  finding archaeological evidence for things. No one things the writers of the Bible were trying  to create provably-incorrect fiction; likely, they were doing the best they could with the information they had. It's a surprise to no one that parts of the Bible are correct.

Let me agree for a moment, for the purpose of this exchange, that the Bible got every historical detail about the kingdoms of Saul, David, and Solomon correct, and Israel was powerful in the 10th and 9th centuries, BCE... what does it change? 

The only reason I can think of why you think that I have a burning need to disprove the historical Israelite kingdoms, why you think I need the whole Bible to be false (I don't), is because you have a burning need for it all to be true. If we're going to discuss prejudices and presuppositions here, let's be really really clear about where we stand, eh?

You've made your position of dishonesty quite clear. Now please do try to understand my position.