Would love to get somes thoughts on this:
http://www.africanaquatics.co.za/_christian/_articles/authenticity_of_the_bible.htm
http://www.africanaquatics.co.za/_christian/_articles/authenticity_of_the_bible.htm
Biblical authenticity
- Thread starter ggazoo
- Start date
Much of what this site presents has been discussed at length in this forum and elsewhere, some of it refuted. But the main premise of the site is that it is refuting the notion that the Christian Bible is a recent fraud.
I know of no one who alleges that this is the case to the degree the author of this site suggests. Most historians and impartial scholars agree that the Bible is comprised of many written works compiled by many authors, some of which (the Pentateuch, for instance) were first written as early as the first millennium BCE. There aren't any physical sources that exist that can be directly dated to this extent, but there are some literary trends in the Bible as well as other mythologies both contemporary to and prior to the Pentateuch.
Having said that, there are some very clear indications that much written in the Old Testament was adapted from other, earlier myths and stories. Many elements exist that are indicative of missing information; added information; or otherwise incomplete contexts. There are also clear indications of origins for biblical myths outside of the Jewish and Canaanite culture.
The author of the site relies on the tautological premise that the bible is the "word of god" because it "says so," an endeavor that creates a house of cards for biblical mythology as a whole. The Noachian flood myth, for instance, is easily debunked and the refutation easily understood by those with even a modicum of critical thinking skills. Its origin lies in the Gilgamesh epic, which, in turn, has its own origin in other Sumerian and Mesopotamian myths of floods (early Mesopotamians lived in the flood plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, after all). But the Noachian story is almost word-for-word the same as Gilgamesh in some passages. The expected embellishments and literary evolution of a story transmitted from culture to culture are there. And this is not even taking into account the science of geology which refutes the notion of a global flood on so many levels that it takes a truly ignorant and under-educated person to even accept the idea.
So, with the Noachian flood gone (and we could have done this with many other points made by biblical mythology), the house of cards collapses. For, if one biblical tale is just a myth, then the entire compendium becomes suspect: either it is *not* the "word" of an alleged god; or the alleged god lied to biblical authors.
I'm also surprised that the author of the site was willing to mention that the inclusion of "prophecies" from the old testament offer a "proof" of authenticity since the events predicted took place. This is very poor logic, typical of someone with a preconceived conclusion who looks for confirmation, but ignores questions that might be problematic. The only way to resolve the question of did the New Testament authors tailor their stories to existing prophecy in order to offer legitimacy to their propaganda?, is to assume first that all in the bible is true.
But, since we've shown above that at least portions of the bible are bollocks, this question remains valid and now probable.
Finally, the site's author fallaciously claims that since there are more written copies of the bible that are dated closer to the events that are alleged to have occurred than with comparable histories (the Roman history is used as his example), this offers proof of authenticity. This author ignores, or is just ignorant of, the archaeological evidence that comprises the core of what we know about Roman history: various written documents serving only to confirm or fill in the gaps. This sort of archaeological evidence simply does not exist for the main claims and themes of the bible. In some cases, claims involving entire cities and geographical regions are completely wrong or non-existent.
The site's author mentions works of such people as Tacitus, Josephus, (he doesn't name them, but mentions extrabiblical sources in one sense or another) etc., which have been well refuted by Iasion elsewhere in this forum.
The one thing that I'll agree with that the site's author said: "anyone who denies that these books are factual and genuine, must therefore doubt all historical literature written in the last 3 millennia."
As an archaeologist, I'll get behind that 100%. I refer to works like Herodotus and Homer as well as the written works of early antiquarians and historians all the time, but each must be read with an eye of skepticism and doubt, looking for clues that can be confirmed via physical remains of the culture itself. But we compare these not because of their accuracy, but because we realize we can learn as much from the disinformation as we can the information that epigraphical records can provide. Ramesses II (if memory serves correct... maybe III?) recorded his tale of defeating the Sea Peoples, where he smote the enemy until "there seed was no more." Hyperbole? Sure. But there is much information to be gained from Ramesses' account nonetheless and he provides us with some important clues as to the identity of the "Sea Peoples."
I know of no one who alleges that this is the case to the degree the author of this site suggests. Most historians and impartial scholars agree that the Bible is comprised of many written works compiled by many authors, some of which (the Pentateuch, for instance) were first written as early as the first millennium BCE. There aren't any physical sources that exist that can be directly dated to this extent, but there are some literary trends in the Bible as well as other mythologies both contemporary to and prior to the Pentateuch.
Having said that, there are some very clear indications that much written in the Old Testament was adapted from other, earlier myths and stories. Many elements exist that are indicative of missing information; added information; or otherwise incomplete contexts. There are also clear indications of origins for biblical myths outside of the Jewish and Canaanite culture.
The author of the site relies on the tautological premise that the bible is the "word of god" because it "says so," an endeavor that creates a house of cards for biblical mythology as a whole. The Noachian flood myth, for instance, is easily debunked and the refutation easily understood by those with even a modicum of critical thinking skills. Its origin lies in the Gilgamesh epic, which, in turn, has its own origin in other Sumerian and Mesopotamian myths of floods (early Mesopotamians lived in the flood plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, after all). But the Noachian story is almost word-for-word the same as Gilgamesh in some passages. The expected embellishments and literary evolution of a story transmitted from culture to culture are there. And this is not even taking into account the science of geology which refutes the notion of a global flood on so many levels that it takes a truly ignorant and under-educated person to even accept the idea.
So, with the Noachian flood gone (and we could have done this with many other points made by biblical mythology), the house of cards collapses. For, if one biblical tale is just a myth, then the entire compendium becomes suspect: either it is *not* the "word" of an alleged god; or the alleged god lied to biblical authors.
I'm also surprised that the author of the site was willing to mention that the inclusion of "prophecies" from the old testament offer a "proof" of authenticity since the events predicted took place. This is very poor logic, typical of someone with a preconceived conclusion who looks for confirmation, but ignores questions that might be problematic. The only way to resolve the question of did the New Testament authors tailor their stories to existing prophecy in order to offer legitimacy to their propaganda?, is to assume first that all in the bible is true.
But, since we've shown above that at least portions of the bible are bollocks, this question remains valid and now probable.
Finally, the site's author fallaciously claims that since there are more written copies of the bible that are dated closer to the events that are alleged to have occurred than with comparable histories (the Roman history is used as his example), this offers proof of authenticity. This author ignores, or is just ignorant of, the archaeological evidence that comprises the core of what we know about Roman history: various written documents serving only to confirm or fill in the gaps. This sort of archaeological evidence simply does not exist for the main claims and themes of the bible. In some cases, claims involving entire cities and geographical regions are completely wrong or non-existent.
The site's author mentions works of such people as Tacitus, Josephus, (he doesn't name them, but mentions extrabiblical sources in one sense or another) etc., which have been well refuted by Iasion elsewhere in this forum.
The one thing that I'll agree with that the site's author said: "anyone who denies that these books are factual and genuine, must therefore doubt all historical literature written in the last 3 millennia."
As an archaeologist, I'll get behind that 100%. I refer to works like Herodotus and Homer as well as the written works of early antiquarians and historians all the time, but each must be read with an eye of skepticism and doubt, looking for clues that can be confirmed via physical remains of the culture itself. But we compare these not because of their accuracy, but because we realize we can learn as much from the disinformation as we can the information that epigraphical records can provide. Ramesses II (if memory serves correct... maybe III?) recorded his tale of defeating the Sea Peoples, where he smote the enemy until "there seed was no more." Hyperbole? Sure. But there is much information to be gained from Ramesses' account nonetheless and he provides us with some important clues as to the identity of the "Sea Peoples."
Oh, I left a lot out! 
In fact, there are several gems in what I wrote that those offended by biblical criticism will no doubt question, to which I have some ready replies. Keep an eye out for those and jump in!
In fact, there are several gems in what I wrote that those offended by biblical criticism will no doubt question, to which I have some ready replies. Keep an eye out for those and jump in!
I can't remember who said it first, and wish I could remember how it has been said best, but the annoying thing about arguing with a fool is that you can point to the source of their lunacy and they will simply nod and carry on with their foolishness.
The frustrating thing about having the theistic/atheistic argument is that you can always win every single point, and they will just ignore those losses and throw a dozen more claims at you. It gives you a sense of the frustration that Hitler must have felt while destroying the Russians. He kept winning, so how could he be losing?
The frustrating thing about having the theistic/atheistic argument is that you can always win every single point, and they will just ignore those losses and throw a dozen more claims at you. It gives you a sense of the frustration that Hitler must have felt while destroying the Russians. He kept winning, so how could he be losing?
I wonder what the author of your link would make of this link:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/proph/long.html
(this is a brilliant site that everyone interested in these pointless debates simply must bookmark)
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/proph/long.html
(this is a brilliant site that everyone interested in these pointless debates simply must bookmark)
In addition to just being wrong this is too freaking funny.ggazoo said:
"From the table above, we see that the earliest existing documents concerning Roman history were found 900 years (almost 1 whole millennium!!) after the events happened, and that only 20 original copies exist."
"Consider then that the Bible manuscripts date from only 30 -150 years after they happened, and that more than 30 000 original manuscripts exist!!"
And don't each of those 30,000 manuscripts mention Rome?
~Raithere
Sure,
herte are my thoughts :
It's total bolocks.
Complete and utter nonsense.
The same ol' tired apologetics long since proven false.
Claims about the NT being the "authentic" confuse two UN-related issues -
* reliability of the text,
* truthfulness of the contents.
Firstly, it is not true that the NT is "the best-attested document in all of antiquity" because there are some documents even older than the NT for which we have the ORIGINAL literally carved in stone (e.g. Behistun inscription, Egyptian tomb inscriptions, the Rosetta Stone, the Moabite Stone) - making them absolutely 100% accurately attested from the original because they ARE the original, and thus much better attested than the NT.
http://visopsys.org/andy/essays/darius-bisitun.html
It's true the NT is fairly well-attested (in terms of quantity) compared to SOME ancient writings - in the sense that we have many old copies (24,000 or more in total). However the vast majority of these copies are from the middle-ages. The number of NT manuscripts from before the dark ages is about a hundred.
http://faculty.bbc.edu/RDecker/documents/nmbr_manuscripts.pdf
But there are NO originals for ANY of the NT writings - all we have is copies of copies, all varying from each other (that's right - every single manuscript we have is slightly different from every other - not counting very tiny scraps) from long after the alleged events :
* NO copies from 1st century,
* a few tiny fragments from 2nd century (e.g. P52, P90),
* a few UNCOMPLETE copies from late 2nd / early 3rd (e.g. P75, P46),
* several fairly complete copies in 3rd / 4th century.
List by century :
http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/extras/Robinson-list.html
Detailed contents of all NT MSS :
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Head/EGBMP.htm
It is totally FALSE to say we have 30,000 MSS from 30-150 yers after the alleged events.
In FACT, what we have is :
Only TWO fragments from late 2nd Century.
A handful of incomplete MSS from 3rd century
Several almost complete bible from 4th century on.
The 30,000 figure counts MSS as late as the middle ages - it's an outight lie.
And, there is considerable variation in Gospel manuscripts, and it often DOES reach to core beliefs and events :
The words of God at the baptism in early MSS and quotes have "...this day have I begotten thee" (echoing Psalm 2) - later, as dogma about when Jesus become god had crystallized, thus phrase became "..in thee I am well pleased". If scribes can change the alleged words of God, they can change anything.
Another important variation is the ending of G.Mark - there are four different endings to this Gospels in various MSS, the original ending being 16:8
Other MSS variations include :
* the issue of salvation through the Christ's Blood,
* the Trinity - found in no MSS before the 16th century!
* the Lord's prayer - much variations in manuscripts,
* the names of the 12 apostles are highly variable in MSS and indeed the Gospels.
http://members.aol.com/PS418/manuscript.html
These are just some issues of manuscripts variations - contradictions between different Gospel's versions of the Jesus stories is another very smelly kettle of fish :
* the widely variant birth stories,
* the names of the 12 apostles vary among Gospels.
* the completely irreconcilable Easter morning stories :
http://www.ffrf.org/books/lfif/stone.php
The NT legends were tampered and changed and added to and deleted from many many times. They are not authentic in any way.
Iasion
herte are my thoughts :
It's total bolocks.
Complete and utter nonsense.
The same ol' tired apologetics long since proven false.
Claims about the NT being the "authentic" confuse two UN-related issues -
* reliability of the text,
* truthfulness of the contents.
Firstly, it is not true that the NT is "the best-attested document in all of antiquity" because there are some documents even older than the NT for which we have the ORIGINAL literally carved in stone (e.g. Behistun inscription, Egyptian tomb inscriptions, the Rosetta Stone, the Moabite Stone) - making them absolutely 100% accurately attested from the original because they ARE the original, and thus much better attested than the NT.
http://visopsys.org/andy/essays/darius-bisitun.html
It's true the NT is fairly well-attested (in terms of quantity) compared to SOME ancient writings - in the sense that we have many old copies (24,000 or more in total). However the vast majority of these copies are from the middle-ages. The number of NT manuscripts from before the dark ages is about a hundred.
http://faculty.bbc.edu/RDecker/documents/nmbr_manuscripts.pdf
But there are NO originals for ANY of the NT writings - all we have is copies of copies, all varying from each other (that's right - every single manuscript we have is slightly different from every other - not counting very tiny scraps) from long after the alleged events :
* NO copies from 1st century,
* a few tiny fragments from 2nd century (e.g. P52, P90),
* a few UNCOMPLETE copies from late 2nd / early 3rd (e.g. P75, P46),
* several fairly complete copies in 3rd / 4th century.
List by century :
http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/extras/Robinson-list.html
Detailed contents of all NT MSS :
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Head/EGBMP.htm
It is totally FALSE to say we have 30,000 MSS from 30-150 yers after the alleged events.
In FACT, what we have is :
Only TWO fragments from late 2nd Century.
A handful of incomplete MSS from 3rd century
Several almost complete bible from 4th century on.
The 30,000 figure counts MSS as late as the middle ages - it's an outight lie.
And, there is considerable variation in Gospel manuscripts, and it often DOES reach to core beliefs and events :
The words of God at the baptism in early MSS and quotes have "...this day have I begotten thee" (echoing Psalm 2) - later, as dogma about when Jesus become god had crystallized, thus phrase became "..in thee I am well pleased". If scribes can change the alleged words of God, they can change anything.
Another important variation is the ending of G.Mark - there are four different endings to this Gospels in various MSS, the original ending being 16:8
Other MSS variations include :
* the issue of salvation through the Christ's Blood,
* the Trinity - found in no MSS before the 16th century!
* the Lord's prayer - much variations in manuscripts,
* the names of the 12 apostles are highly variable in MSS and indeed the Gospels.
http://members.aol.com/PS418/manuscript.html
These are just some issues of manuscripts variations - contradictions between different Gospel's versions of the Jesus stories is another very smelly kettle of fish :
* the widely variant birth stories,
* the names of the 12 apostles vary among Gospels.
* the completely irreconcilable Easter morning stories :
http://www.ffrf.org/books/lfif/stone.php
The NT legends were tampered and changed and added to and deleted from many many times. They are not authentic in any way.
Iasion
But more importantly, this apologist has confused two fundamentally different issues - he is arguing that because we have so many copies this proves the contents true. Well, this is obviously not true - the number of copies has nothing to do with the truth of the contents. Consider -
* the Iliad - over 600 manuscripts, more than the NT until after 1000AD - does this mean that the Iliad was more true than the NT until about 1000AD, but from the middle ages on, the NT became MORE TRUE than the Iliad?
* the works of 10thC. Yen-Shou of Hangchow - about 400,000 copies exist, about 4000 times as many copies as NT copies at that time - does this make the work over 4000 times MORE TRUE than the NT?
* the Book of Mormon - there are millions of copies of this work, many dating maybe a FEW YEARS after the original - would this make the Book of Mormon much MORE TRUE than the NT?
* the Lord of the Rings - there are many millions of copies of this work, (including the original manuscript AFAIK), dating from very soon after its writing - does this makes the Lord of the Rings of vastly more true than the NT?
No.
It should be obvious that the NUMBER of copies attesting to a work gives no support to the truth of the contents - yet apologists repeatedly bring this point up as if it proves something.
Iasion
* the Iliad - over 600 manuscripts, more than the NT until after 1000AD - does this mean that the Iliad was more true than the NT until about 1000AD, but from the middle ages on, the NT became MORE TRUE than the Iliad?
* the works of 10thC. Yen-Shou of Hangchow - about 400,000 copies exist, about 4000 times as many copies as NT copies at that time - does this make the work over 4000 times MORE TRUE than the NT?
* the Book of Mormon - there are millions of copies of this work, many dating maybe a FEW YEARS after the original - would this make the Book of Mormon much MORE TRUE than the NT?
* the Lord of the Rings - there are many millions of copies of this work, (including the original manuscript AFAIK), dating from very soon after its writing - does this makes the Lord of the Rings of vastly more true than the NT?
No.
It should be obvious that the NUMBER of copies attesting to a work gives no support to the truth of the contents - yet apologists repeatedly bring this point up as if it proves something.
Iasion
swivel said:
At the risk of changing topics, I wanted to reply to this link. Like many of those who argue against The Bible, they are misreading it, and thus misunderstanding what it's saying:
God says that if Adam eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then the day that he does so, he will die. But later Adam eats the forbidden fruit and yet lives for another 930 years.
When Adam ate the fruit he was a dead man, meaning he will begin to die. Before that day, he would never die in a spiritual sense.
God promises Abram and his descendants all of the land of Canaan. But both history and the bible show that God's promise to Abram was not fulfilled.
History is not finished. He did not say when the promise would be fullfilled. He just said that it would.
God promises to make Isaac's descendents as numerous as "the stars of heaven", which, of course, never happened. The Jews have always been, and will always be, a small minority.
Again, history is not finished.
Contrary to the prophecy in 48:21, Joseph died in Egypt, not Israel. Gen.50:24
Joseph died in Egypt but The Jews carried his bones to Israel.
God promises to give Joshua all of the land that his "foot shall tread upon." He says that none of the people he encounters will be able to resist him. But later we find that God didn't keep his promise, and that many tribes withstood Joshua's attempt to steal their land
It wasn't all the lands, it was the lands that God had instructed him to conquer. Some peoples they made treaties with, some were scared to battle, etc.
God promises Josiah that he will have a peaceful death. But Josiah's death was anything but peaceful
"Peaceful" refers to his burial, not his death.
Those are just the ones that stood out to me.
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If adherents have weasel out of every contradiction like this, then their god is incompetent.
They look like contradictions to me. Contradictions that need excuses. Since an incompetent god isn't logical, this indicates that the bible was written by incompetent people -not "divinely written."
In fact, that house of cards called the Christian bible collapsed with the Noah myth. If Noah is a myth, then why bother accepting anything else as "literal truth?"
In fact, that house of cards called the Christian bible collapsed with the Noah myth. If Noah is a myth, then why bother accepting anything else as "literal truth?"
ggazoo said:
Myth:a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
You know... water to wine, feeding 5,000,000 people with a single turnip, walking on water, enabling the blind to see, resurrection, ascention, virgin birth... These are just off the top of my head.
Do you think a storm that flooded all land within 40 days is possible and that it has historical merit?
I laugh when theists sell their faith short and attempt to reason away the biblical contradictions. Whatever happened to just saying, "I believe"? Now they want to have their superstitions and appear rational as well. It seems by trying this that they do dishonor to both persuits... the naive purity of blind faith is destroyed as is any semblence of reason or intellect.
I guess people want some respect here AND the virgins after...
I guess people want some respect here AND the virgins after...
ggazoo said:
How very ethnocentric of you to refer to the religions of others as myths but refuse to acknowledge the mythology of your own cult. The Christian gods are myths as well.
ggazoo said:
I think I *did* explain to you that bit in my first post in this thread. If you want a class on geology or archaeology, I'll be happy to recommend a good university in your area. Otherwise, if you have a specific question about my post above, I can address it here.
ggazoo said:
Oh yes, we're all misreading and misunderstanding it, while you give us yet another correct version.
But, that's not what it says, it states explicitly he will die on that day. And, it says nothing about a 'spiritual' sense.
So, when will history be finished? Where does it state history has to be finished?
So, when history finishes, which will be when all humans are wiped from the earth because history will remain as long as people remain. It appears you're putting the cart before the horse.
But he allegedlydied in Egypt, not Israel. It doesn't matter where his bones were carried.
No, it says 'the land his foot shall tread upon, which does not imply conquering at all.
Then, why does it say he will have a peaceful death. Of course the burial will be peaceful, HE'S DEAD!
Methinks it is you who is doing the misreading and misunderstanding.
If you're talking about the flood being a myth,I've heard that before too. And, again, it's misunderstanding the Bible, and/or taking it literally.
IMO, the flood happened, but it was localized. When the Bible says that God "flooded the earth", it deosn't say the "whole earth". If I water my plants, I "flood the earth" too.
Is that what you were referring to?
IMO, the flood happened, but it was localized. When the Bible says that God "flooded the earth", it deosn't say the "whole earth". If I water my plants, I "flood the earth" too.
Is that what you were referring to?