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I do not intend to prove that the bible is errant. The bible is not more errant than Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. It only becomes errant when you misunderstand it as a historic, geographic, or scientific record. The error is in the interpretation, not in the bible.



What's interesting to me is that its incredibly reliable when it comes to historical, geographical facts. With the exception of scientific facts on the age of the earth, and the origin of humanity.

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Your impression is wrong, but national pride was just the reason for the writing of Genesis 1.



So we're hearkening back to the "old school" of biblioskepticism? Along with the JEDP hypothesis I see.

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Now you see the problem of apologetics: when attempting to adapt bible sentences to today's science, you must utterly change their meaning.



The fact that there are some, rather shallow, similarities between the Hebrew and Babylonian myths is little more than ambiguous evidence that tells us just about nothing. For all we know they both descended from a common source, and that's why they're so similar, and its the Babylonians that turned the myth to fit their culture better, while the Hebrews retained a myth that stayed closer to its source. Careful with that sort of idea, though: its dangerous thinking.

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It's tempting to ask for an example, but in your view there probably must be many cases, so I guess this would result in a futile attempt of trying to understand and probably make the entire discussion go right back to square one. Comments like yours are a bit too easy to make without backing them up though,



I can see what you're saying, since you're still entertaining that Jesus Myth tripe. The only "scholars" that reject a minimalist description of Jesus Christ in the antiquities, are the same who claim Jesus never existed. Otherwise scholars of all stripes concede that (with as much certainty as one can hope for), Josephus is making a pretty unambiguous reference to Jesus.

But why not an example? I've run into plenty of them, so I'll try and scrape one up.

Oh, I totally ripped this guy a new one on the issue of slavery just a little while ago. I mean, this guy is a fundy atheist to the core. You can shove all the evidence you want in this guy's face, and he will refuse to budge.

But I finally piled on so much of an argument that he didn't have so much as an argument from emotionalism for me. That may not sound amazing to you, but I was proud. Especially on such a touchy issue.

There are better examples, and when I think of one I'll let you know.

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 03/16/07 04:04.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."