posted
I hesitate to put this on Hatrack because I can see the responses get very heated and go beyond my intention. To be direct, what is your reaction to this statement? How true is this?
I have done some minor research and don't believe this at all. On the other hand, I have heard this stated as fact so many times that it is driving me up the wall. And that isn't from just literalists, but people who I think should know better. The problem is, if you say it isn't than you are seen as anti-Bible or anti-religious. I believe in God and I believe the Bible contains the Word of God. I just don't believe it is "a perfect text and accurate history." That is the main reason for my hesitation.
This isn't about "I hate God," but rather wanting a better response to those who imply that scientists and historians have pretty much given the Bible a thumbs up. The only ones who seem to challenge the perfection of the Bible and its history are athiests. I guess a related question is if you have to believe this about the Bible in order to be a believing Christian?
Just for a minor background detail, this comes up whenever I read about my own religion. It is always used to prove the superiority of their version of faith and the inferior version of my own.
posted
I saw a facinating documentary about all the things that were cut or edited from the bible. I don't think any text is perfect and accurate as long as peopel can get their hands on it and alter it to suit their purposes.
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quote:To be direct, what is your reaction to this statement? How true is this?
The Bible was a work penned by man. It rebelled. It evolved. There are many copies. They make no sense. They offer internally inconsistent contradictions. Same copies are taught differently by everyone. Some things are read literally by some people. Some things are read figuratively by some people. Some things are translated by the word. Other things are not translated literally. Some explicit statements are handled explicitly. Some explicit statements are tacitly ignored. Different Christian factions have vastly different ways of doing this. Different Christian factions translate this perfect text differently.
There is absolutely nothing in the Bible which has not ended up being a matter of interpretation.
This includes the big things, like the nature of god, creation, life, the universe, everything, jesus.
The bible is only as perfect a text as we could write it. The bible is only as accurate a history as we can inerrantly interpret it. That is to say, not very. The bible as a perfect text that exists to be inerrantly interpret does not exist anymore even if at one point there was a perfect version created by beings endowed with the perfect truth in the perfect language by which this truth was endowed.
There is way way way way way too much wrong with the notion.
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posted
Here are some comments I wouldn't mind a response to. They are very common:
quote:The only places in the Bible that disagrees with science is were it is deemed a miracle by God
quote:Actually the Old Testament has had the strictest rules ever in its copying than any other ancient text. Priests had to follow rules like they could not copy whole words at a time they had to copy each individual letter so each word was a pain from small words and bigger words; spacing had to be exact in margins between lines, centering, and outside margins; and if there were more than 3 errors in the WHOLE copied document it was burned. That is just a few examples of how strict the copying of the Old Testament was, as you can see there was no room of error.
As for the New Testament, original manuscrips and texts are around, science proves dates and handwriting to be valid. On top of that each translation has been scrutinized and all can be traced back to the original Greek language, it is a statistic that each translation on average does not have more than 15 errors.
quote:If the Bible was appealing to the people in a political or cultural way then the message would have to shift to accommodate each of those political or cultural agendas.
quote:"There is no evidence of a global flood at the time the bible claims (or really any time, in fact) and not only that but Egypt was flourishing long before this "flood" and nothing ever interrupted it."
Bull. There is plenty of evidence, even non-christian scientists agree. Read some magazines now and again.
These quotes come from here, but they are representative of many arguments I have seen and heard.
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posted
The Bible is clearly not perfect considering that even the first two chapters of Genesis (the two creations) are contradictory.
EDIT: Even if you dispute the idea that the two creations are contradictory it is impossible to avoid the fact that they contain many events that are impossible (Adam naming the millions of species on earth in under a day).
posted
There's also some universal similarities between several different creation stories from across the globe.
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posted
While I agree the Bible certainly has mistakes, some ranging form trivial to fundamentally wrong, I think it's a greater mistake to think that God was powerless to do anything, and that the Bible has become some crazy compendium of thoughts retaining about 1-5% of it's original intent.
Christians should not underestimate God's efforts in creating the book.
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posted
On the topic of Genesis, that brings up something that's been on my mind. Is it possible for the first two chapters to co-exist? To be more specific, I mean do literalists believe that both of the first two chapters occurred?
I was always taught that there was a huge gap in time between the writing of the chapters; and one of them (the first I believe?) was newer because it explained a lot more about creation, and gave women and animals a more significant role. That is to say, having the two differing chapters was meant to better explain different aspects of creation to Christians. And while that makes perfect sense to me, it just always seemed in my head that you'd have to not read the Bible literally in order to side with that interpretation.
Does anyone know if it is widely believed that both chapters of Genesis occurred historically? Perhaps I'm missing something....I hope I wasn't too confusing in my question >_<
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Here are some comments I wouldn't mind a response to. They are very common:
quote:The only places in the Bible that disagrees with science is were it is deemed a miracle by God
quote:Actually the Old Testament has had the strictest rules ever in its copying ... [yadda yadda] That is just a few examples of how strict the copying of the Old Testament was, as you can see there was no room of error.
Isn't pi=3 somewhere in the Bible?
Also, the middle letter in the entire Pentateuch or Torah text was noted in ancient times and in modern times. It's not the same letter, therefore some errors crept in despite the efforts to avoid them. So it's not a perfect text, not even the first five books are perfect.
Sorry, no linkage.
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Perhaps. But it's well within the realm of a rounding error, so I consider that particular "inaccuracy" one of the cheapest shots against Biblical literalism that someone can make. The instant I hear it, I realize I'm dealing with someone either unfamiliar with the material or really, really unreasonable.
What's amusing to me is the number of Biblical literalists who are themselves so unreasonable that, rather than shrugging it off as a simple issue of significant digits, they've come up with an explanation that includes the thickness of the container in question and thus the difference between its inside and outside edges.
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: The only ones who seem to challenge the perfection of the Bible and its history are athiests. I guess a related question is if you have to believe this about the Bible in order to be a believing Christian?
I don't know what flavor of Christians you've been hanging around, but the idea that the Bible is a textually inerrent history book isn't current in any of the Christian groups that I hang around. Those would be mostly mainline protestant and some Roman Catholic circles. Both theological seminary and local church.
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posted
I hope dkw is right, but it seems like I always run into the literalists. Maybe they are just louder.
It's been known for over 3000 years that pi is not an integer. I don't consider that a cheap shot nor unreasonable against biblical literalists, perfectionists and infalliblists. And certainly not against the specific assertion that it never contradicts science.
The verse is I Kings 7,23, btw:
quote: 23 Now he [Hiram] made the sea of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference.
posted
Even Biblical literalists don't really take the Bible literally. Like when Christ says if thine eye offend thee then pluck it out, they interpret that metaphorically. There's a whole lot of metaphor in the Bible, and even if one considered some version of it to be perfect word for word as God intended in English then there would still be a lot to discuss when deciding which parts were metaphorical and how we are to understand them.
Literalism is an important part of fundamentalism, the idea that nothing is ever supposed to change, and it puzzles me. I consider that impulse to be one of fear more than anything else.
Mormons believe in continuing revelation, and in eternal progression, so we embrace change. We consider that people are able to learn more and more as they progress, milk before meat, line upon line and precept upon precept. I like that about the beliefs of the LDS.
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posted
Right. See how the unit of measurement there is the cubit? We're dealing with one significant digit, there; we're not talking about tenths of a cubit in any other dimension, so I think it's unreasonable for them to be accusing the Bible of inaccuracy here.
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posted
Tom, I see your point about significant digits, but 31 cubits would be more correct than 30 without invoking fractional cubits. And this is Solomon's Temple the text is talking about, so some precision is not too much to ask.
Pure speculation: it is Hiram, "the Widow's Son" mentioned in the verse, beloved of Masons who believe in esoterica. So perhaps it is an intentional error with meaning to those with hidden knowledge?
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: The only ones who seem to challenge the perfection of the Bible and its history are athiests. I guess a related question is if you have to believe this about the Bible in order to be a believing Christian?
I don't know what flavor of Christians you've been hanging around, but the idea that the Bible is a textually inerrent history book isn't current in any of the Christian groups that I hang around. Those would be mostly mainline protestant and some Roman Catholic circles. Both theological seminary and local church.
Same goes for me. As a matter of fact, pretty much the only place I ever hear an argument for biblical literalism is here.
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quote:Originally posted by Threads: The Bible is clearly not perfect considering that even the first two chapters of Genesis (the two creations) are contradictory.
EDIT: Even if you dispute the idea that the two creations are contradictory it is impossible to avoid the fact that they contain many events that are impossible (Adam naming the millions of species on earth in under a day).
They are not contradictory, and it doesn't say that he named them all in a day.
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quote:Originally posted by Morbo: I hope dkw is right, but it seems like I always run into the literalists. Maybe they are just louder.
It's been known for over 3000 years that pi is not an integer. I don't consider that a cheap shot nor unreasonable against biblical literalists, perfectionists and infalliblists. And certainly not against the specific assertion that it never contradicts science.
The verse is I Kings 7,23, btw:
quote: 23 Now he [Hiram] made the sea of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference.
That's just silly. You're assuming that this object had a thickness of 0. If it was 30 in circumference and 10 across, that means that means the walls were .7 cubits thick. With a cubit being about 18 inches (let's say), that's a little over 12.5 inches.
This is exactly the kind of criticisms that are so often leveled against the Bible:
1. Make a lame assumption. 2. Show that the Bible makes no sense based on that lame assumption. 3. Conclude that the Bible makes no sense.
Lovely.
So. Is the Bible a perfect text? Depends what you mean? Does it read the way a 21st century would write it? No. Is it self-contradictory? Only by design in order to communicate information in a concise way. The fact that you don't know how something is to be read doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense.
As far as it being an accurate history, what do you mean by that? Do you mean an objective, complete history, where all events are given equal importance? No, of course not. But then, who ever claimed otherwise? It's a didactic history, and tells what it tells in such a way as to teach certain ideas. Events that would teach incorrect ideas aren't included. That's not the way we'd write a history book, but that's not the purpose of the Bible.
Note, please, that I'm referring to the Tanach. The 24 books that Jews call the Bible. I have nothing to say about the Christian additions.
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Perhaps. But it's well within the realm of a rounding error, so I consider that particular "inaccuracy" one of the cheapest shots against Biblical literalism that someone can make. The instant I hear it, I realize I'm dealing with someone either unfamiliar with the material or really, really unreasonable.
What's amusing to me is the number of Biblical literalists who are themselves so unreasonable that, rather than shrugging it off as a simple issue of significant digits, they've come up with an explanation that includes the thickness of the container in question and thus the difference between its inside and outside edges.
Why is that unreasonable? It seems obvious to me.
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quote:Originally posted by Saephon: On the topic of Genesis, that brings up something that's been on my mind. Is it possible for the first two chapters to co-exist? To be more specific, I mean do literalists believe that both of the first two chapters occurred?
quote:Originally posted by Threads: The Bible is clearly not perfect considering that even the first two chapters of Genesis (the two creations) are contradictory.
EDIT: Even if you dispute the idea that the two creations are contradictory it is impossible to avoid the fact that they contain many events that are impossible (Adam naming the millions of species on earth in under a day).
They are not contradictory, and it doesn't say that he named them all in a day.
quote:And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
Ok, you're right in that it doesn't specify how long it took Adam to name them, however you still chose to ignore the real issue. How did Adam have enough time to name millions of species?
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quote:Why is that unreasonable? It seems obvious to me.
Because the precise thickness of the container, or even its precise dimensions, is largely irrelevant to the story being told. Shorting its span by a cubit, all things considered, isn't something that's worth wasting any thought on. It's one of those questions that will forever not matter in the least.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: This is exactly the kind of criticisms that are so often leveled against the Bible:
1. Make a lame assumption. 2. Show that the Bible makes no sense based on that lame assumption. 3. Conclude that the Bible makes no sense.
A blanket statement like that is just asking for trouble. Is it a "lame assumption" to say that the Bible cannot be taken literally because its creation story is wrong beyond any reasonable doubt?
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posted
In that case, why bother with the circumference at all? If the writer had not been mathematically ignorant, he'd have realised that one of the two numbers is sufficient.
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quote:Originally posted by Threads: Ok, you're right in that it doesn't specify how long it took Adam to name them, however you still chose to ignore the real issue. How did Adam have enough time to name millions of species?
For one thing, Adam lived to be 930 years old. For another, how did God create the world? For yet another, how many species were there at the time? You assume there were millions. Why?
There are theories that species evolve not by random mutations, but rather that the genome includes the potential for massive variations and that environmental cues can be responsible for what appears to be speciation. Who knows? But at least recognize that your question is predicated on an assumption that you can't substantiate.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: In that case, why bother with the circumference at all? If the writer had not been mathematically ignorant, he'd have realised that one of the two numbers is sufficient.
But that's not true. He could have given the diameter and the thickness, or he could have given the circumference and the thickness, or he could, as he did, have given the diameter and the circumference.
In a math textbook, where walls are infinitely thin, you can get one value from the second. But in the real world, you need two of the three to get the third.
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quote:Why is that unreasonable? It seems obvious to me.
Because the precise thickness of the container, or even its precise dimensions, is largely irrelevant to the story being told. Shorting its span by a cubit, all things considered, isn't something that's worth wasting any thought on. It's one of those questions that will forever not matter in the least.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: In that case, why bother with the circumference at all? If the writer had not been mathematically ignorant, he'd have realised that one of the two numbers is sufficient.
But that's not true. He could have given the diameter and the thickness, or he could have given the circumference and the thickness, or he could, as he did, have given the diameter and the circumference.
In a math textbook, where walls are infinitely thin, you can get one value from the second. But in the real world, you need two of the three to get the third.
Yes, but I was responding to Tom's suggestion that the thickness is not very interesting. But since you seem to be posting again, how about some response to my varves in the young-earth thread? You know, the one where you asked for evidence of an old earth and then completely ignored what you got?
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: This is exactly the kind of criticisms that are so often leveled against the Bible:
1. Make a lame assumption. 2. Show that the Bible makes no sense based on that lame assumption. 3. Conclude that the Bible makes no sense.
A blanket statement like that is just asking for trouble. Is it a "lame assumption" to say that the Bible cannot be taken literally because its creation story is wrong beyond any reasonable doubt?
Non sequitur. You say it's wrong beyond any reasonable doubt. But (a) that's not what I was referring to, and (b) I disagree.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Yes, but I was responding to Tom's suggestion that the thickness is not very interesting. But since you seem to be posting again, how about some response to my varves in the young-earth thread? You know, the one where you asked for evidence of an old earth and then completely ignored what you got?
I'll go look. I generally skip over your posts. I actually only read this one because I'd scrolled down and didn't see it was you. Don't take it the wrong way, but you irk me, and replying to you tends to get me in trouble.
Seeya over on the young earth thread.
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posted
As someone who just spent two years talking to tens of different people a day about their belief in the Bible, my experience has been that very, very few Christians (who made up the vast majority of those I talked to, especially when it comes to people that had any belief in any part of the Bible) took a literal stance. Most of those who did were Born Again Christians in the non-denominational range. There were a few members of the Assembly of God faith who believed that way, but not many.
Personally I'm not a Bible literalist, I recognize errors and corruptions exist in the text; however I'm always a little miffed at the idea that the Bible is obviously so full of error and contradiction and internal inconsistencies. I've heard a lot of people say it, but very few people actually show any evidence. Certainly I think it would be easy to find inconsistencies if one decided to read the text in such a way as to generate them, but I hardly find that convincing. In terms of errors, I'm not aware of any serious ones. There's the kind that Morbo is talking about which I agree with both Tom and Lisa on (talk about internal inconsistencies!) And then there's historical problems which basically comes down to which record you trust. Obviously it would be impossible in the world as we understand it for Joshua to make the Sun stand still in the sky, or for the world to appear out of chaos by the Word of God and then populate itself based on His pattern, but I think we we've established a belief in the Bible at all (meaning we're participating in a discussion about how literally to take it) I think we've established were working within the dictates of a faith and a world view that does believe that can happen. At least I'm not sure I really would define the view some have as the Bible as inspiring, but not actually true stories as belief in the Bible. But to each his own.
quote:[Do] you have to believe this about the Bible in order to be a believing Christian?
Perhaps some specific denomination with which I'm not framilar will require this, but "Christian" in general, no.
quote:The only places in the Bible that disagrees with science is were it is deemed a miracle by God
I suppose if you define "miracle" as "act of God" (which isn't a toally unreasonable defenition) then, yes. Since the Bible isbasically an account of how God has dealt with His people... I'm not sure I'd make such a statement since it's almost meaningless, the whole thing is about a continuious series of miracles. It's like saying a baseball stat book is always in agreement with the MLB except when it comes to pitching and hitting. The context of statements like that normally makes the statment mean something like: "the history recorded in the Bible in terms of major charecters and world events correlates with archeology and other research" in which case I'd have to admitt that I know little in that arena, but I doubt it.
quote:Actually the Old Testament has had the strictest rules ever in its copying than any other ancient text. Priests had to follow rules like they could not copy whole words at a time they had to copy each individual letter so each word was a pain from small words and bigger words; spacing had to be exact in margins between lines, centering, and outside margins; and if there were more than 3 errors in the WHOLE copied document it was burned. That is just a few examples of how strict the copying of the Old Testament was, as you can see there was no room of error.
As for the New Testament, original manuscrips and texts are around, science proves dates and handwriting to be valid. On top of that each translation has been scrutinized and all can be traced back to the original Greek language, it is a statistic that each translation on average does not have more than 15 errors.
If we were on the gong show I could've played "Mary Had a Little Lamb" to that one.
quote:If the Bible was appealing to the people in a political or cultural way then the message would have to shift to accommodate each of those political or cultural agendas.
I don't even know what that one means, sorry.
quote:"There is no evidence of a global flood at the time the bible claims (or really any time, in fact) and not only that but Egypt was flourishing long before this "flood" and nothing ever interrupted it."
Bull. There is plenty of evidence, even non-christian scientists agree. Read some magazines now and again.
Who the heck cares? That's always been an argument that held almost no interest to me. I believe the Bible, one expert agreeing with me doesn't increase my faith any more than one disagreeing. When the Apostles asked Christ "Lord, increase our faith" he didn't quote statistics or explain the scientific method, who told them that their faith would increase through service in the Kingdom.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: For one thing, Adam lived to be 930 years old. For another, how did God create the world? For yet another, how many species were there at the time? You assume there were millions. Why?
I assume there were millions because thats how many we have today and I see no plausible explanation for how that many species could have appeared in 6000 years if they were not created during God's supposed creation. There is no evidence for the rapid amount of evolution that would have been required to produce the millions of species that we see today in 6000 year time span.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: There are theories that species evolve not by random mutations, but rather that the genome includes the potential for massive variations and that environmental cues can be responsible for what appears to be speciation. Who knows?
But there isn't any evidence for that. For example, we've never observed an entirely new mammal species appearing in
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: But at least recognize that your question is predicated on an assumption that you can't substantiate.
My assumption is substantiated because it is only logical to assume that the vast majority of the species that existed today also existed 6000 years ago. We don't know of any method that could produce a rapid production of new species in such a short amount of time. Its intellectually dishonest of you to act like you've discredited question by presenting some unfounded theory.
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posted
It's been years since I read anything about the Bible, its history, and its interpretation, but I sed to read quite a lot about it and there were several theories that rang true to me. (I apologize in advance to Lisa, whom I respect highly but will prolly get rightfully annoyed at this)
One that stuck with me was that the main purpose of the Bible was to forge the tribes of Israel into one race. As they came together different versions of scriptural tales were combined, not always perfectly (different Genesis stories, three slightly different sets of Ten Commandments, etc), but the goal of giving Jews a unified history and mythology was achieved and it was this common bond that helped them remain Jews during the times when Jews were largely imprisoned or enslaved.
The leaders knew that it would be easy for any race, when scattered and immersed in a different culture, to lose their identities over the generations. By having stories of their people to pass along, by keeping specific dietary and other restrictions that no one else shared, by keeping their own worship and holidays, they managed to avoid being absorbed into other cultures.
This theory is also the only thing that makes the story of Job plausible to me. Seen as literal truth, which is how I was taught it, it makes me think that the Almighty is a cruel bastard indeed. But seen as a useful metaphor for the Jews in captivity to hold fast against all the hardships they would endure to be someday rewarded for their forebearance, it makes a great deal of sense.
The New Testament also benefits when you look at it as a collection of books brought together to encourage and inspire Christians to go make more Christians. Each of the Gospels, when read in the order they were apparently written, gets progressively more miraculous.
The Bible itself is a masterpiece of poetry, moral instruction, action tales, romance, and history, and even when I believed I never quite understood the absolute necessity for it to be literally 100% true. I can remember back when the Good News Bible was being published there was an outcry from many of the people in my congregation. One woman wept openly that "those people" thought they could rewrite the words of Jesus from the original, completely convinced to the core of her being that two thousand years ago everyone in the Middle East spoke in Shakespearian English.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:To be direct, what is your reaction to this statement? How true is this?
The Bible was a work penned by man. It rebelled. It evolved. There are many copies. They make no sense. They offer internally inconsistent contradictions. Same copies are taught differently by everyone. Some things are read literally by some people. Some things are read figuratively by some people. Some things are translated by the word. Other things are not translated literally. Some explicit statements are handled explicitly. Some explicit statements are tacitly ignored. Different Christian factions have vastly different ways of doing this. Different Christian factions translate this perfect text differently.
There is absolutely nothing in the Bible which has not ended up being a matter of interpretation.
This includes the big things, like the nature of god, creation, life, the universe, everything, jesus.
The bible is only as perfect a text as we could write it. The bible is only as accurate a history as we can inerrantly interpret it. That is to say, not very. The bible as a perfect text that exists to be inerrantly interpret does not exist anymore even if at one point there was a perfect version created by beings endowed with the perfect truth in the perfect language by which this truth was endowed.
There is way way way way way too much wrong with the notion.
quote:What's amusing to me is the number of Biblical literalists who are themselves so unreasonable that, rather than shrugging it off as a simple issue of significant digits, they've come up with an explanation that includes the thickness of the container in question and thus the difference between its inside and outside edges.
The thread exists to amuse you, then.
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posted
We are arguing science here when the question is one of history.
Lets not bother with yet another thread of Evolution/Evil-lution, and skip to the straight human history part.
There are some theories I've heard, but don't have the facts on. Could anyone enlighten me on the following:
1) The Timing of Jesus's birth and the Roman Census. The story goes that Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem in order to fulfill the requirements of a Census the Roman's had ordered. Yet historians have documented dates of when those censuses were taken, and they are off by a couple of years.
2) Their is no record of a mass child execution that the Bible has Herod ordering.
3) The end of the Jewish imprisonment in Babylon, and the return to Jerusalem is documented to have happened on different dates as that given by the Bible.
oh,
and as far as the PI thing...
I've looked into it, and do not find the Bible guilty of misrepresenting PI. However, there was a Kentucky politician who, upon reading the above passage, did come to the wrong conclusion--that PI = 3. He then tried to legislate that all state school books should "be corrected" so that PI =3, not some irrational number.
That is the danger, that the wrong information will be extracted from the Bible and forced upon the world.
It seems the greatest danger of Biblical Literalism is when the Literalist misinterpret the Bible.
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posted
"We are arguing science here when the question is one of history"
Thank you for noticing. I am talking about the history of the text and the history the Bible presents. Most literalists have pretty much rejected scientists (except for one or two minor pick and choose instances), but they seem to rally around the idea the text has never changed and the history is exact.
How about this; what are some books I could refer innerantists to that would be evidence the Bible text and history is not perfect and exact?
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I've looked into it, and do not find the Bible guilty of misrepresenting PI. However, there was a Kentucky politician who, upon reading the above passage, did come to the wrong conclusion--that PI = 3. He then tried to legislate that all state school books should "be corrected" so that PI =3, not some irrational number.
That is the danger, that the wrong information will be extracted from the Bible and forced upon the world.
It seems the greatest danger of Biblical Literalism is when the Literalist misinterpret the Bible.
Leave it to one of us Kentuckians!
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: I've looked into it, and do not find the Bible guilty of misrepresenting PI. However, there was a Kentucky politician who, upon reading the above passage, did come to the wrong conclusion--that PI = 3. He then tried to legislate that all state school books should "be corrected" so that PI =3, not some irrational number.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: But at least recognize that your question is predicated on an assumption that you can't substantiate.
My assumption is substantiated because it is only logical to assume that the vast majority of the species that existed today also existed 6000 years ago.
Lots of things are "only logical to assume" in the absence of any hard data. It doesn't make them true. Just useful until data comes around. But it makes them very weak arguments, since they're only assumptions.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: But at least recognize that your question is predicated on an assumption that you can't substantiate.
My assumption is substantiated because it is only logical to assume that the vast majority of the species that existed today also existed 6000 years ago.
Lots of things are "only logical to assume" in the absence of any hard data. It doesn't make them true. Just useful until data comes around. But it makes them very weak arguments, since they're only assumptions.
There is plenty of hard data that clearly shows that not all of the earth's millions of species could have been created in a few thousand years.
EDIT: Alright, Dan_raven has a point and my posts have partially derailed this thread so I won't continue this debate.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: I've looked into it, and do not find the Bible guilty of misrepresenting PI. However, there was a Kentucky politician who, upon reading the above passage, did come to the wrong conclusion--that PI = 3. He then tried to legislate that all state school books should "be corrected" so that PI =3, not some irrational number.
posted
Even fundamentalists such as my own Seventh-day Adventist church do not hold that the Bible is verbally-inspired (word-for-word), and incapable of ever being in error about anything. There are some obvious scribal glitches in the text. We do hold the Bible is essentially correct, and is supremely reliable in everything that matters.
Actually, the Bible is not nearly in error as much as some people have claimed. Most of the claimed errors merely reveal the ignorance of the critic, or a failure to recognize poetic devices, and a failure to treat such things in a fair manner.
The old cavile about I Kings 7:23 and the value of pi, as some posters here have already shown, is based on a failure to comprehend what was really being described. Basins for the sanctuary most likely had curved lips. You would need an indication of the interior measurement to determine volume and capacity, and an indiction of the exterior measurement to determine how much space it would take up in the sanctuary.
In Genesis, the first statement is that the animals went in by twos. The second statement is that they went in by sevens. But a little scholarship will show that it was the "unclean" animals (mainly predators and scavengers) who went in by twos, and the "clean" animals went in by sevens. Noah then sacrificed one each of the clean animals as a thank offering after the Flood Waters receded, and the earth began to produce vegetation again. The ratio of one mated pair of predators to three pairs of mated "prey" approximates what is necessary for the populations to be balanced.
Really, whenever I hear anyone claim there are all kinds of contradictions in the Bible, I have to ask for them to be cited. Then I or others can proceed to show how each claim is mistaken. But it seems like no matter how often we do this, someone keeps coming up with the same already refuted criticisms.
The Bible is in fact amazingly accurate in everything it says, in every field. Especially the Old Testament shows a remarkable preservation of meaning through the ages--a tribute to the carefulness of Jewish scribes. Admittedly, Christian scribes were not always so careful, as evidenced by the fact that we have many ancient manuscripts that contain minor variations, so that translators generally follow a policy of comparing them, and going by the majority, where this can be done.
Bar none, the Bible has proven to be the most accurate source of historical information in existence. Every claim that it was mistaken has been later refuted by further historical research. Yet there is a large number of historians these days who assert that the Bible is not reliable historically--but that is because the fashionable belief among most professional Bible scholars is that no miracles ever happened. Since so much of Jewish history is connected to miracles, some would deny it all, and claim it was all made up.
Of course anything connected with the Exodus is considered fair game for the faithless revisionists. For example, most scholars now actually deny that Joshua ever existed, and all the details given of his military compaign to subdue the inhabitants of the promised land. It is interesting that the Bible says that Joshua only burned three cities to the ground--Jericho, Ai, and Hazor. Interestingly digs in these places have found a layer of burned ash about two feet thick that dates to the time when Joshua was said to exist. No other ancient city in Israel has such a layer of ash. A former pastor of my church, who now heads the Biblical archaeology department at Southern Adventist University, is directing a dig at Hazor. He visited my local church recently for our tenth anniversary (he was our first pastor), and mentioned finding this layer of ash at Hazor.
Seventh-day Adventists still have faith in the Bible. As a result, our dig at Hazor is one of only two Christian-sponsored digs in Israel. There are dozens of digs sponsored by Jewish groups, universities, etc. But the other denominations, the great unversities of America, Britain, and Germany, which only a few decades ago were the main sponsors of archaeological digs in Israel, now have lost their faith and hence their interest in Biblical archaeology.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I am suffering from a hangover and don't really feel like responding to anything else at this time, however I do want to say something. That phrase is completely idiotic and has been used as an example time and time again, despite the fact that I have NEVER EVER EVER heard that used.
Nobody would ever say that seriously because everyone realizes that by saying that they are saying that god exists.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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