(May 17, 2015 at 10:04 pm)Minimalist Wrote:Quote:You've yet to demonstrate that the buy-bull is historically accurate
For that matter he is yet to even cite a piece of historical information in the buy-bull which could be evaluated for historicity.
Some parts of the Bible actually do have historical connections to real people, such as the Persians Darius, Cyrus, Xerxes, Artaxaxes. The Greek Diadochi, who were Alexander the Great's generals, carved up his empire after his death and played a major role in the area and they get some bad reviews in the Bible. The Selecuid emperors get star billing in some of the Bible stories.
In fact, Antiochus IV Epihanes in the villian in the Maccabees books and the "anti-christ" in Daniel chapter 11. He was indeed a nasty character and considered himself to be God. The rant in Zephaniah is something he might have said.
The problem with a lot of the stories is that they mix a lot of the characters up and it causes a pile of confusion. For example, the book of Daniel was supposedly written between 605-516 BC. Yet we are supposed to believe that he prophesized about Antiochus some 400 years into the future. That's silly. The writer simply added that part later on to give the "Daniel" character a star rating for non-existent prophesying ability.
In all probability the stories are nothing more but biased accounts of life under a series of nuts who considered themselves to be gods like Antiochus claimed to have been. So is it a Greek or a Jewish or a Persian or an Engyptian fairy tale or a mixture of all of them?
One thing is for sure: There's no invisible or visible God of any kind as depicted in various religous fairy tales in this solar system.
