the so fallible Bible

[xpastor]

Remember, you probably won't get responses to elephant hurling, so is this the contradiction you want to lead with?

Frankly, John, I've ceased to be interested in anything you might say. All you are interested in is a weaselly appearance of having won a debate. I could write your responses for you.

[Minimalist]

Our resident bible-thumpers are the personification of this observation:

http://etb-biblical-errancy.blogspot.com...ailed.html

Bible-believers are full of clever (and some not so clever) rationalizations. The crucial question, however, is not whether "answers" can be generated in response to Bible difficulties but whether credible answers can be produced. What is the best explanation? Bible-believers seem to think that any loophole, however improbable, that gets the Bible off the hook has solved the problem. Thus, it is not surprising that different, conflicting answers are often presented side by side. It never seems to occur to these people that such logic will also support the story of Goldilocks and the three bears! Or the Koran. Or, anything else. Once we abandon the probable in favor of the improbable--or even the less probable--we have abandoned objectivity. Without objectivity, there is not much hope of finding the truth; we only succeed in confirming our own prejudiced views--even as a group of flat-Earth folks in California did for years in their newsletters.

I think D-P refers to these creative solutions to bible problems as "ad hoc." D-P is far more polite than I. I call them bullshit.

[xpastor]

Jesus was known to come from Nazareth, but if he truly was the messiah, then prophecy demanded that he should be born at Bethlehem.

Not really. The Bethlehem bullshit of Micah 5 is exhibit A for xtian cherry-picking of OT texts.

To me this and all the other OT prophecies co-opted in the NT to point to Jesus go way beyond cherry-picking. I would define cherry-picking as citing Bible passages without considering those which contradict them, as in my last example. Fundamentalist Christians are always picking up on the Romans 5 verses and every other thing Paul wrote about justification by faith while steadfastly ignoring all the other passages (like Ezekiel 18) which insist that everyone is judged on the basis of his own works, and this includes texts supposedly uttered by JC himself. However, the OT prophecies are simply ripped out of context. Someone has already decided that something applies to Jesus, King of Israel, for instance, and any text in the OT which mentions that is fair game. Like Matthew's little story of Jesus' traveling to Egypt and back so that he can cite "Out of Egypt have I called my son."

However, I think this is just the way a lot of minds worked in ancient times. I'm sure we could find similar examples in pagan writings about the Sibylline prophecies or the Delphic oracle. No point getting excited about it unless someone is seriously arguing the point today.

[Bucky Ball]

So, that's what? The Cherry Pickers' Bible?

Seems more like the Unanimous Consent Bible.

Actually when Eusebius cut down the number of gospels to 4, (from all the many circulating, by order of the Roman emperor), his criteria for 4 were : "Well, there are 4 winds, and 4 pillars upon which the Earth stands".
There was no criteria, that would, or could be seen as "inspired".

And the councils at which the canon was discussed and formed, (even though it STILL is not completely agreed upon), NEVER ONCE had a VOTE of unanimous consent. The canon was NON-unanimously voted, and formed.

[John V]

Frankly, John, I've ceased to be interested in anything you might say. All you are interested in is a weaselly appearance of having won a debate. I could write your responses for you.

You're tired of losing. There was nothing weaselly about camels. It was the first item in your list, so it was natural to first address it, and your source was wrong. You could save yourself some embarrassment by checking these things yourself. But, like all of us, you suffer from confirmation bias, and accept charges against the Bible without verification.

[xpastor]

You're tired of losing. There was nothing weaselly about camels. It was the first item in your list, so it was natural to first address it, and your source was wrong. You could save yourself some embarrassment by checking these things yourself. But, like all of us, you suffer from confirmation bias, and accept charges against the Bible without verification.

I never conceded that I lost. My response to your first post on camels was very measured.

All right, John. I will tentatively concede the presence of camels as an outside possibility pending any other research coming to my notice.

However, I will note that your sources say that camels were first domesticated for meat rather than transport and that they did not come into common use until 1000 BC. Moreover, it is said that the Egyptians did not even hear of camels until 525 BC, which would seem a bit odd if Abraham had vast herds of camels and his grandson Jacob moved to Egypt. There is another even bigger historical faux pas in Genesis 12 where Abraham lets the Egyptian Pharaoh take his wife Sarai, and in return he grows wealthy with the livestock (including camels) given to him by Pharaoh.

So it is far from clear to me that camels were known in the region of Palestine at that early date (ca 1800 BC). In the pre-missile days it was not very close to Iran.

It is quite clear that camels were virtually unknown in Egypt until much later. Some say they were introduced by the Persians, some even later by the Romans. In ancient Egypt long distance transport was all by water along the Nile. They had little need of camels, so the story of the pharaoh giving Abraham herds of camels is evidently unhistorical.

I did not say that your response about camels was weaselly. However, it is definitely weaselly to preen yourself on having won an argument, when you have made a stab at answering one of eleven points.

It's time for you to shit or get off the pot. I don't care which.

[Minimalist]

http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/foodpr...camel.html

The one-humped camel or dromedary (camelus dromedarius) is already sporadically attested in the Early Dynastic Period, but it was not regularly used until much later. Foreign conquerors (Assyrians, Persians, Alexander the Great) brought the camel on a greater scale to Egypt.

While trying to explain anything to a bible-thumper is usually a waste of time if it doesn't include the words "goddidit" the entrance of camels as beasts of burden is a much later addition in Egypt. There is no hieroglyph which makes use of a camel and transport in Egypt was normally done via the Nile rather than overland.

Whether or not anyone knew about camels and kept them or killed them for meat is irrelevant. We have firm archaeological evidence that they were domesticated en masse as beasts of burden by the 9th-10th centuries BCE.

http://www.livius.org/caa-can/camel/camel.html

The dromedary is easy to domesticate and the first evidence for tame dromedaries dates back to the late third millennium BCE. The domestication first happened on the Arabian peninsula, and it seems to have been connected to the exploitation of distant copper mines. However, it was only much later, in the tenth or ninth century BCE, that the dromedary became a really popular animal in the Near East.
From now on, long distance trade and desert nomadism became possible.

Importantly, however, the camel anachronism:

The use of dromedaries in the second millennium BCE by nomadic tribes, as implied in the Biblical book Genesis, is almost certainly unhistorical and shows that Genesiswas composed at a later age.

Provides evidence that the bible is full of shit. Like the Philistine anachronism, the Matty-Luke anachronism, and the David-Goliath anachronism.

Xtians avoid all of this by ignoring history and clinging to their silly bible.

[John V]

I never conceded that I lost. My response to your first post on camels was very measured.

I know you didn't concede, but you did lose.

It is quite clear that camels were virtually unknown in Egypt until much later.

According to Minnie's links, they were known in Egypt in the early dynastic period, ~3,000 - 2,500 BC.

Some say they were introduced by the Persians, some even later by the Romans. In ancient Egypt long distance transport was all by water along the Nile. They had little need of camels, so the story of the pharaoh giving Abraham herds of camels is evidently unhistorical.

On the contrary, if they had little need of them, it makes perfect sense that they'd give away what they had.

I did not say that your response about camels was weaselly. However, it is definitely weaselly to preen yourself on having won an argument, when you have made a stab at answering one of eleven points.

It's time for you to shit or get off the pot. I don't care which.

No, what's weaselly is your habit of elephant hurling. When I refute a point in your list, that point is suddenly not very important, even though you led off with it.

You posted multiple alleged contradictions. Tell us up front which aren't that important so I don't waste time on them. That should be easy - if you're not a weasel.

[xpastor]

I know you didn't concede, but you did lose.

So, was that just like I lost on FA when you made a fool of yourself trying to reconcile two incompatible accounts of the death of Judas? You are a legend in your own mind, but no one else sees it that way.

It is quite clear that camels were virtually unknown in Egypt until much later.

According to Minnie's links, they were known in Egypt in the early dynastic period, ~3,000 - 2,500 BC.

You don't read very carefully, do you? I wrote "virtually unknown" and Min's quote said "sporadically attested" which amounts to much the same thing. His quotes went on to say

[The dromedary] was not regularly used until much later. Foreign conquerors (Assyrians, Persians, Alexander the Great) brought the camel on a greater scale to Egypt. ... The domestication first happened on the Arabian peninsula, and it seems to have been connected to the exploitation of distant copper mines. However, it was only much later, in the tenth or ninth century BCE, that the dromedary became a really popular animal in the Near East. ... The use of dromedaries in the second millennium BCE by nomadic tribes, as implied in the Biblical book Genesis, is almost certainly unhistorical and shows that Genesiswas composed at a later age.

It seems pointless to italicize every word. You have a real gift for ignoring (accidentally on purpose?) anything contrary to your pre-established position.

The Egyptians had little need of camels, so the story of the pharaoh giving Abraham herds of camels is evidently unhistorical.

On the contrary, if they had little need of them, it makes perfect sense that they'd give away what they had.

That's an amazing paradox. In a single breath you demonstrate that you are a great bullshit artist and that you know fuck-all about farming. Large animals consume lots of feed, so people do not keep herds of large animals which they have no use for.

When I refute a point in your list, that point is suddenly not very important, even though you led off with it.

You can't have it both ways. Above you acknowledge that I have not conceded defeat on this issue, and here you try to claim that I dismiss the issue as unimportant. I never said that. Don't try to put words in my mouth.

You posted multiple alleged contradictions. Tell us up front which aren't that important so I don't waste time on them. That should be easy - if you're not a weasel.

You seem really confused. The camel issue pertains to the unhistorical nature of the Bible and not to the subsequent question about contradictions which you have as yet made no attempt to respond to.
As far as I'm concerned, all the points I made for both questions are important, and until you respond to all of them, you have said jackshit worth listening to. You're just hiding behind this phony claim of having triumphed on one point, so that you can avoid making even more of a fool of yourself by trying to prove the unprovable.

[John V]

You can't have it both ways. Above you acknowledge that I have not conceded defeat on this issue, and here you try to claim that I dismiss the issue as unimportant. I never said that. Don't try to put words in my mouth.

You shouldn't lie when there's a written record for all to see. You said that the bit about camels was less important than the other bits you threw against the wall:

OK, in response to my last question about the historical reliability of the Bible there was some quibbling about camels, but no one attempted to respond to the major claims, that the central narrative of the Old Testament never happened, there was no liberation from Egypt, no wandering in the desert, no conquest of Canaan.