(April 16, 2014 at 7:41 pm)Polaris Wrote:(April 16, 2014 at 1:30 pm)Chas Wrote: Obviously, only the Old Testament could be argued to have been written BCE.
The OT is not historically accurate: no Flood, no Egyptian captivity, no flight from Egypt, no great kingdom of Israel, and on and on.
The "Dark Ages" is when Christianity began to gain political power in Europe; by the Middle Ages, it was very well established.
You see, your 'facts' mostly aren't facts.
Citation required. I don't know of any 'atheist' scholars who do so.
Well if my facts are wrong, then I guess all non-religious universities in the wolrd (the religious ones would never mention the 5 sources of the Torah) are wrong as well.
I wasn't aware the information likely provided via the Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah had any mention of the Flood, Egyptian captivity, the Exodus, etc. etc.
It wasn't that the Kingdom of Israel was great compared to the world powers of the time (since it disappeared before the penning of the OT as you call it, I assume you mean the Kingdom of Judah), it was more sophisticated than its neighbors....that's the biggest detractor for the Canaanite slave/underclass hypothesis.
Look up the works of Eric H. Cline and his contemporaries. I still read to this day when Christians attack him for his statements about the the Biblical record....he accepts the validity of much of Kings and Chronicles, but accepts theories (Sea Peoples for him....he hasn't be able to definitely back it up, but little is known about that group save for the fact almost everyone I have read blames them for the Bronze Age collapse) outside of the Biblical framework for the origin of the Israelites in Canaan.
So having read Cline you are aware that more than referring to the bible as an historically accurate text, he points out major errors and looks for scientific and historical explanations behind mythological stories of the flood.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringou...cline.html
Because it seems to me you were painting Cline as an atheist who references the bible as an accurate historical text.