Does history support the bible?

[Max]

So I was having a topic about Brokeback Mountain, which is a great movie. After about 5 posts, it turned into a 'homosexuality is immoral' thread. Which soon turned into 'the bible is accurate because history supports it'. I posted this:

Creation, Jesus’ decent from David, and the resurrection all contradict each other. There are many huge errors, such as bats being classified as birds, hares and badgers being identified as animals which chew cud, etc. Science out and out contradicts the stories of the creation in Genesis, as well as failing to find any evidence for the Great Flood, and historians and archaeologists have pointed out that Egypt’s and other civilizations were uninterrupted by any huge catclysms like that. The various books of the Bible were agreed to be canon by a vote of bishops some four hundred years after Jesus’ supposed death. And the miracles and wonders, as well as the very existence of Jesus are entirely uncorroborated by any other historical evidence. In short, the Bible is an unreliable source. That's why it's not used as a reference source in any history classes.

...to which I got...

Do you actually have your own thoughts on the subject, or do you cut-and-paste out of anti-Biblical webpages or something?

The Hebrew Scriptures were canonized by the writer Ezra, which was completed well before Jesus. And the Catholic church did not settle the canon of the latter portion of the Bible. There were letters and fragments circulating in the 2nd century that had lists of letters to be compiled into the Scriptures. bzzzt. Wrong, MAX. So much for your user title.

No evidence for the Great Flood? Fossil records, climate change, etc...Biblical Archaeologist --“It is important to remember that the story of a great flood is one of the most widespread traditions in human culture .*.*. Nevertheless behind the oldest traditions found in Near Eastern sources, there may well be an actual flood of gigantic proportions dating from one of the pluvial periods .*.*. many thousands of years ago.”

You can't ignore the fact that nearly all civilizations had stories regarding a global flood. All around the world. Somehow, I doubt they all conspired to play a hoax.

Does anyone have any good reference material for WHY the bible isn't considered 'history', except by christians?

[The Spartan]

Short answer? No, generally history does not support the bible.

If you go here: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html there's a more or less complete list of all the science/historical accuracies that are in the Bible.

[Frank Hipper]

No evidence for the Great Flood? Fossil records, climate change, etc...Biblical Archaeologist --“It is important to remember that the story of a great flood is one of the most widespread traditions in human culture .*.*. Nevertheless behind the oldest traditions found in Near Eastern sources, there may well be an actual flood of gigantic proportions dating from one of the pluvial periods .*.*. many thousands of years ago.”

Gee, if "widespread" flood myths can be accepted as proof, guess you'd better begin worshipping the One True God, AKA The Sun.
There's nothing so widespread as the sun as deity...

[OmegaGuy]

You should tell him that there is no physical evidence for a flood, and all of the flood myths are different.

[The Spartan]

Something else came to mind that lays waste to all the world wide flood myths: when any of these floods are supposed to have occured, Egypt was flourishing, IIRC. There are also other civilizations but Egypt is the one that particularly springs to mind. So, if the flood wiped out all life on Earth save for Noah and his Supertanker of Wood, how did the Egyptians, and their culture and architecture survive said flood?

Easy. They survived because there was no world wide flood.

Severe localized flooding? Sure. I can buy that. Perhaps new lakes forming when rivers change course? I can buy that too. Having one of these or something similar being blown out of all proportion into a worldwide, god kills/saves the world flood myth. Don't have to make that one up.

[OmegaGuy]

That doesn't work for me because when I tell that to people they say the flood was before that.

[SirNitram]

That doesn't work for me because when I tell that to people they say the flood was before that.

They're welcome to prove it. Or do you simply let them claim whatever they want without evidence?

[Rye]

The bible gives a ballpark date for the time of the flood, no fossil record supports it, and early civilisations lived in flood plains. You would have to be inbred to not get the obvious conclusion from that.

As for biblical history, well, fuck, according to the plain reading of the text, the world is younger than the old site of Jericho. Look up Phoenicia and Ugarit with google or a local library, read infidels.org, choose life.

Oh, and yeah,the hebrew canon wassettled waaaay before nicea, and nicea wasn't to do with canon, that was carthage a century or two earlier, IIRC.

[Max]

You should tell him that there is no physical evidence for a flood, and all of the flood myths are different.

He's claiming "Fossil records, climate change, etc" for proof of the flood. I'm trying to find out where he got that particular quote, because it looks like a cut and past job, he's not normally that articulate.

[OmegaGuy]

Well that just seems too vague like he's not really saying anything. Fossil records don't support a flood.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Tell him the fossil records DON'T support a flood. He has to back up the claim.

Also point out that it's rather obvious that early civilizations would have flood myths, since all the early civilizations were based around natural water sources... which tend to flood on occasion.

[Wyrm]

No evidence for the Great Flood? Fossil records, climate change, etc...Biblical Archaeologist --“It is important to remember that the story of a great flood is one of the most widespread traditions in human culture .*.*. Nevertheless behind the oldest traditions found in Near Eastern sources, there may well be an actual flood of gigantic proportions dating from one of the pluvial periods .*.*. many thousands of years ago.”

You can't ignore the fact that nearly all civilizations had stories regarding a global flood. All around the world. Somehow, I doubt they all conspired to play a hoax.

No, they're not a hoax, but they're not at all indicative of a global flood. Think about where humans are likely to settle: in places where the soil is rich, which are usually in flood plains -- near lakes, rivers, and seas that occaisionally flood and carry in sediment, which is why the soil is good enough to support a permanent human settlement. Any human settlement loitering around these flood plains will experience some flooding at various points in its history, and some of them will be pretty severe. It is then not a great leap of logic to go from local severe flood to global flood of epic proportions. It's perfect fodder for flood mythologies.

But consider, if a flood was truly global, then all human populations would have flood traditions. But, not all do! You'll find that in the semi-arid Central Asia, we find a drought of flood mythologies. So too in central africa, where the closest David Livingstone (from the famous quote "Dr. Livingstone, I presume.") gets to it in Africa is a legend of a particular lake. http://www.mystae.com/restricted/stream ... flood.html

What do these regions have in common? They never experienced flooding of any sort whatsoever during the time when their mythological traditions were developing. Of course, these populations tend to be nomadic heathens, and therefore don't count.

Remember: A geologically recent global flood implies no region without a flood mythology. Therefore, by contrapositivity, that there are (sizable) regions without flood mythologies implies that there was no geologically recent global flood.

[Surlethe]

Does anyone have any good reference material for WHY the bible isn't considered 'history', except by christians?

(emphasis mine)

You're claiming a negative; thus, by default, they have to provide evidence. Thus, when they post, you should press them for evidence, and then find holes in their claims and evidence, rather than acceding to their demands for evidence of your negative proposition.

[Elfdart]

If they're falling back on the Biblical Flood, point out that the flood story in Genesis was (like so much of the Bible) plagiarized from Sumerian myths like the Epic of Gilgamesh. So not only is their story bullshit, but like the stories of space aliens, derivative and unoriginal bullshit. This common myth thing is nonsense. Most ancient societies believed dead bodies could be animated by magic. I guess zombies are real, too.

[Rocker5150]

Try to get an approximate date from him. Looking at various Christian websites, they all seem to agree on a date of 2300-2500 for when the Noachian flood happened. The First and Second Dynasties of ancient Egypt lasted from 2920 BC to 2575 BC. That is called the Early Dynastic Peroid. The Third through Sixth occured from 2575 BC to 2134 BC and marks the Old Kingdom time period. Those facts alone destroy the claims of a world-wide flood.


-Kevin

[PrinceofLowLight]

I guess you could consider the non-crazy parts of the Bible to be a primary source for the early history of the Hebrews. But otherwise, no.

[Edi]

Most of the even somewhat arcahelogically useful parts of the Bible suffer from a phenomenon known as backward projection. That emasn that at the time the oral history was written down, the writers looked around them and assumed that the situation in the past had been much the same (cities as large, prosperous and well fortified etc) when it was not the case. That's where you get the walls of Jericho myth and a lot of others.

Archaeological evidence also suggests that the Israelites were a group that fled one of he outer settlements of Egypt north of the Sinai and the supposed Pharaoh of the Bible was just a regional governor. The Sinai wanderings myth could well be the result of stories by escaped mine slaves grown in the telling (Egypt had mica mines in Sinai where the presence of Hebrew slaves was confirmed). Mix, match and add a few centuries and you easily get the Exodus myths.

So, no, it's not reliable unless you can verify through outside sources.

Edi

[Molyneux]

I notice, also, that he did not respond to your point about the errors of classification in the Bible. He's trying to ignore a point that he can't refute...

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

No, it dosen't. Men and women do indeed have the same number of ribs. Its all downhill from there.

[Darth Wong]

If I've said it once I could say it a hundred times: the Bible has talking shrubbery in it. It describes a Global Flood which somehow allows Egyptians to make similar pyramids before and after. It describes an Exodus of hundreds of thousands of people from Egypt to Israel which mysteriously failed to leave an archaeological trace. Anyone who thinks it should be taken seriously as a literal history rather than a set of myths and fables is an idiot.

[Elfdart]

If I've said it once I could say it a hundred times: the Bible has talking shrubbery in it.

To say nothing of talking snakes.

[Mange]

And that God saves snow and hail in Heaven, for use in "time of trouble" (Job 38:22-23).

[Surlethe]

And that God saves snow and hail in Heaven, for use in "time of trouble" (Job 38:22-23).

I once got into an argument with someone who claimed God has snow and hail in heaven stored up for the events in Revelation, and those are entirely distinct from the snow and hail in the rain cycle.

[hawkwind]

The Bible And Christianity-The Historical Origins by Scott Bidstrup.

Does anyone read this?

I t deals with real archeological record and kown history. It is quite good.

[OmegaGuy]

And that God saves snow and hail in Heaven, for use in "time of trouble" (Job 38:22-23).

I once got into an argument with someone who claimed God has snow and hail in heaven stored up for the events in Revelation, and those are entirely distinct from the snow and hail in the rain cycle.

Someone said that same thing to me, too.

And the worst argument I've heard is that all the babies deserved to die in the flood because they had 'original sin'.