Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[Bucky Ball]

2 Timothy 3:16  “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;” 
Lets think - a vault - this is something that is used to place something precious in. Water comes from the sky - water is precious as life ceases without it. Am I missing something?

Yes indeed. You are totally ignorant. And you are missing everything.

1. When Timothy said that, there was no canon of scripture (yet), (for quite a long time), so in fact there is no way to even know what he was talking about.
"Scripture" means "that which is written", and at that time there were almost 200 gospels being written, and all kinds of other crazy shit, (100 books of Revelation), ... which of course you knew nothing about as you know nothing about the field in general. Is all that "scripture" ? LMAO

2. The Hebrew cosmos was TOTALLY inaccurate, (also something you know nothing about).

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re Bucky Ball post 566 

“Great. Let's have a list. Now.”
 
Archaeology is “the scientific study of extinct peoples through skeletal remains, fossils, and objects of human workmanship (as implements, artifacts, monuments, or inscriptions) found in the earth” The most important artifact any civilization leaves is its literature.

Sir William Ramsay graduated from Oxford University with a doctorate in philosophy, for his work with ‘orthotoluic acid’. He discovered Krypton and Neon and received distinguished awards from numerous societies (including Pope Leo XII, and the Royal Geographical Society). He taught at Cambridge and Oxford. Ramsay was raised as a Biblical non-believer, by his atheist parents.
Sir Ramsay, was determined to undermine the historical accuracy of the Bible (which he preferred to call a “Book of fables”).  He studied archaeology with the aim of disproving the Biblical account. Once ready with the necessary scientific tools and learning, he travelled to Palestine and focused on the book of Acts, which he fully expected to refute as nothing more than myth.
After 25 years of work and research, travelling Asia and the Middle East. Ramsay was awestruck by the historical accuracy and evidence of the New Testament. In his quest to refute the Bible, Ramsay discovered many facts which confirmed its precision. He was forced to concede that Biblical events and settings were exact even in the smallest detail. Far from attacking the Biblical account, Ramsay produced a book, St. Paul, the Traveler and Roman Citizen, which supported Biblical events.
Eventually, William Ramsay shocked the intellectual world by writing that he had converted to Christianity. Ironically, this man who set out to refute the Bible, found himself accepting the Bible as God's Word because of his academic explorations and factual discoveries.
Dr. Simon Greenleaf one of the greatest legal minds that ever lived. Dr. Simon Greenleaf believed the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a hoax. And he determined, once and for all, to expose the "myth" of the Resurrection. After thoroughly examining the evidence for the resurrection Dr. Greenleaf came to the exact opposite conclusion.
He wrote a book entitled, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice. In which he emphatically stated: "it was impossible that the apostles could have persisted in affirming the truths they had narrated, had not Jesus Christ actually risen from the dead,” 

Professor William F. Albright - He received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University, and was best known for his role in the authentication of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948.
He is considered the leading authority in theorist and practitioner of Biblical archaeology. Albright was awarded the "Worthy One of Jerusalem”- the first time it was awarded to a non-Jew. He insisted that the Biblical book of Genesis was historical and the details should be considered accurate.

Sir Frederic Kenyon - He was President of the British Academy and also director of the British museum. His expertise in archaeology showed us how science can corroborate many of the historical events of the Bible. A British palaeographer, Biblical and classical scholar, he made a life-long study of the Bible, especially the New Testament as an historical text. His book Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, showed how Egyptian papyri and other evidence from archaeology can corroborate the historical events in the Gospel.
Sir Frederic Kenyon is considered second to none, as an authority on ancient manuscripts by secularists, Muslims, and Christians. A former Director of the British Museum and one of the greatest authorities on the subject, said in his book Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts: “The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, or early translations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world”.
He was convinced of the historical reality of the events described in the New Testament - and is often quoted by those who share this most commonly with these words: “the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.”

Professor Nelson Glueck - He was President of the British Academy and also director of the British museum. His expertise in archaeology showed us how science can corroborate many of the historical events of the Bible. Specifically, he pursued the correlation between history and Biblical facts.
Gluck’s contention is that very little was lost in the transmission of text from more than 24,000 ancient manuscripts of the New Testament. He states, “There is more evidence for the reliability of the text of the New Testament than there is for any ten pieces of classical literature put together. It is in better textual shape than the 37 plays of William Shakespeare which were written a mere 300 years ago, after the invention of the printing press!”
Besides the massive numbers of early New Testament documents, the Old Testament can also be substantiated by the Jewish community who continue to corroborate the proof for its accuracy, as well as documents such as the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls which give added weight to the claim that it has never been changed. Even the Qur'an, possibly written during the 7th-8th centuries recognized the authority of our scriptures (see suras 2:136; 3:2-3; 4:136; 5:47-52, 68; 10:95; 21:7; and 29:46).
It has been proved that, outside of the very few scribal errors, the historical events and personages are adequately correct, as they do not confuse names, dates and events, and in fact, surprisingly, continue to coincide with current archaeological findings. This is indeed significant, since with each successive year, ongoing documental and archaeological discoveries fail to divulge any historical contradictions. Instead they continue to corroborate what the Bible has been saying for 2,000-3,000 years (examples such as the Ebla tablets, or the newly discovered tomb of the priest Caiaphus give continuing credibility to the scriptures historical trustworthiness).”

ALSO FOR CONDIDERATION
Professor Antony Flew was a prominent British philosopher, belonging to the analytic and ‘evidentialist’ schools of thought. He was considered to be one of the most influential and committed advocates of atheism. Flew took the position that atheism should be presupposed until the evidence for God was presented. However, in 2004 he shocked the academic world by stating his allegiance to a belief in the existence of God, and authored the book "There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind".
In a published interview shortly after his conversion Flew stated that, “reason, mainly in the form of arguments to design, assures us that there is a God…and the most impressive arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries.”
Flew expressed his belief in God was the result of his “growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientist that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe” and “my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself, which is far more complex than the physical universe, can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.

Gerald L. Schroeder was a scientist, author, and noted lecturer. He attained a reputation of focusing on a perceived inherent relationship between science and spirituality.
In 1965, Schroeder received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts institute of technology in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences. His authored works include Genesis and the Big Bang, the Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom and the Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth.


C.S. Lewis a British literary critic, scholar and author who became the chair of medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge. During his time at Oxford, Lewis went from being an atheist to being one of the most influential Christian writers of the 20th century.

Sir Isaac Newton was a physicist, theologian mathematician, astronomer and natural philosopher. His brilliant work in physics has influenced all of science. He established the foundation for mechanical science, with his work on laws of gravitation and the three laws of motion.
However, many are not aware of his factual Biblical writings, spending more time on Christian Theology than on science. His methodical scientific nature caused him to approach the Bible on a more pragmatic factual level. Newton was not one to waste his time on mythical fiction. He was motivated to pursue factual truth writing over 1.2 million words on Biblical subjects. One will have to question what logical premise motivates brilliant individuals to pursue the Biblical truth and why many skeptics choose not to understand or pursue the truth.

donald

Too bad for you, Donny-boy, your list of archaeologists is WAY WAY WAY out of date, and totally bogus. Totally.

1. You can't possibly be serious. Sir William Ramsay. Died in 1916. LONG before carbon dating, DNA, and all the modern archaeological tools even existed.

Dismissed.

2. Thanks for picking William F. Albright. He was the editor (actually in the 1950's) also LONG before carbon dating, and modern tools, of the "Interpreters Bible", where more than 100 scholars agreed with this :

"In 1952, a team was set in place by the world-famous, preeminent scholar, archaeologist and pioneer discoverer of Holy Land historical sites and documents, Dr. William Foxwell Albright, the professor of Semitic languages at the Johns Hopkins University. Their job was to write criticisms and scholarly work concerning all biblical texts. The team was composed of the most respected biblical scholars in the US and Europe, including Dr. John W. Bailey, Professor Emeritus, New Testament, Berkley Baptist Divinity School, Dr Albert E. Barnett, Professor Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Dr. Walter Russell Bowel, Professor, The Protestant Episcopal Seminary, Virginia, Dr. John Bright, Professor, Union Seminary and many others."

On page 15 of "The Interpreters Bible", Dr. Herbert F. Farmer, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University wrote about the indispensability of the texts, their importance and how the "truth" of them should be approached, after an exposition of the traditional conservative Christian view of person-hood, sin and the salvific actions of Jesus (aka Yeshua ben Josef), known as "the Christ" in human history.

"The reason has to do with the evidence afforded by the texts themselves, and calls for fuller treatment. Scholarly research into the texts themselves, has convincingly shown that they cannot be accepted in detail as they stand."

He then continues by discussing the details of what a "faith document" is and how it differs from what we would consider an historical text today. The next chapter, authored by Dr. Arthur Jeffrey, Professor of Semitic Languages at Columbia, deals with the formation of the Old Testament canon. He wrote what is seen as the fundamental insight in modern Biblical Study and summarized the central academic position of every mainline, respected, and credible center of Biblical scholarship in the world today :

"Historians can merely state that a canon of scripture is not something given, but something humanly devised. From the historical point of view, the canon is the result of human decision as to which among the religious writing existing in a community are those in which it recognizes the authentic voice of religious authority speaking to man."

Albright EDITED this work ... so no. He in no way supports literalism, or that the Bible is supported by archaeology.

Dismissed.

3. Sir Frederick Kenyon .... LMAO. AGAIN, died in 1931. WAY before modern tools and methods, and excavations. Can't you do any better ?

Dismissed.

4. Nelson Glueck was a JEW. You didn't say what work you are quoting. The thing is, there are NO original New Testament texts to even check, (as Ehrman says), so the POINT is fatuous and not taken. They have no way to know if anything ever changed. Again, he died in 1971 ... before current modern methods were being used.

Dismissed.

5. Flew Schroeder, Lewis and Newton are not Biblical scholars. YOU bringing them into this shows how desperate you are, and is the argumentum ad vericundiam fallacy, (argument from authority fallacy) .... they are not experts in THIS FIELD. They in fact knew NOTHING about modern archaeology. Nothing.

Just because there was a place called Jericho, doesn't mean the STORY about it is true. Any more than Harry Potter mentioning London makes that true.

4 more dismissed.

The Qu'ran saying anything is support of nothing, (unless you are trying to say you are a Muslim, and you buy into their scripture).

So there we have it. NOT one claimed expert in archaeology can he find to support the Bible as accurate.
We know for a fact, (they have the correspondence in Egypt) that the supervisors of he Egyptian strongholds in Canaan WROTE to their supervisors in Egypt, and they controlled the entire Near East. Going from Egypt to another place they controlled (Exodus) makes NO SENSE, and there is no evidence for it.  

We KNOW how the Hebrews viewed the cosmos.
It was totally inaccurate.

Literalism desperately grasps at straws to try to make literal what was never meant to be literal, as that culture's literature had no interest in, or concept of "literal writing" ... which these Fundies don't know, as they have never actually gone to school, and studied the matter.

Why is it, there are no CURRENT modern archaeologists who can bring modern tools and dating to this ?
LOL
We know the answer.