Church vs Bible, What to believe?

@papag,

Do you really need to believe any of this for it to have value? Why does it have to be "true"? Many people have been moved and inspired by works of fiction, which they know to be works of fiction. You can even model your life after fictitious characters. Don't ruin a story by demanding a factual interpretation.

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@papag,

You are reading something from Iron Age philosophy, whose internal consistency is profoundly weak.

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@oristarA,

It's a great historical source though, especially from 900 BC onward (earlier than that there are historical inaccuracies). It gives great insight into the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

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@oralloy,

No!

The Bible is not a great historical source. It is a collection of myths. Any historical reference is written to prop up a bronze age theocracy. It isn't written as a history.

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@maxdancona,

That is incorrect. It is a first rate historical source. It provides great insight into Israel and Judah and their relations between themselves and their neighbors.

It was written to prop up an Iron Age monarchy.

It was very much written as a history. And that history is reasonably accurate as far back as 900 BC.

It even describes some historical events from before 900 BC, like the reign of King Saul, and Shiloh being the center of the Jewish faith before they had a monarchy.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

It isn't written as a history.

That is precisely why it is such a good historical source. It is untainted by any historians' interpretation. Just raw happenings from the past that can be taken by anyone to interpret.
You are the historian, do with it as you will.

The gospels attempted a short history of snatches, maybe three years. But that was a small part of the story.

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@Leadfoot,

Well technically it is tainted by the bias of the authors. But that is always the case with ancient writings. Historians know how to critically analyze ancient writings and learn from them despite their bias.

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@Leadfoot,

That's bullshit.

It is no more accurate than Norse Myths talking about giant snakes, or Greek myths with voluptious sirens luring sailors to their deaths. Sure there was a military conflict between Greece and Troy, but the story of the horse is almost certainly made up, as is the story of Achilles being almost importal because he was dunked in a ******* magical river.

There are large lists of things in the bible that never happened. You can start with the founding myth of the Bible...

The Jews were never enslaved in Egypt, nor did they spend time wandering in the wilderness. These are made up stories that we wouldn't know anything about if they weren't in a religious text.

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@maxdancona,

From 900 BC onward the history in the Bible is reasonably accurate.

I doubt that you can establish that the Egyptians never enslaved any Canaanites, or that no Egyptian slaves ever escaped and returned to their homeland.

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@maxdancona,

You can choose to believe the Bible over evidence-based historical fact. But to say that the Bible is supported by historical fact is simply a lie.

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@maxdancona,

I'm not sure what you mean by "supported by historical fact".

The Bible's history is reasonably accurate back to 900 BC.

Accuracy breaks down in the Bible's description of events before 900 BC. But it does describe some historical events from before that time.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by "supported by historical fact".

The Bible's history is reasonably accurate back to 900 BC.

Accuracy breaks down in the Bible's description of events before 900 BC. But it does describe some historical events from before that time.

As I keep explaining to you, facts are testable. A historian says, if this story is true, then I expect to see this and if it is not true I would expect to see that. Then people go out and check. That is how stories (or theories or any other kind of fact) is tested.

A historian will say "If tens of thousands of Hebrews were kept as slaves in Egypt, then I would expect to see this evidence". That evidence doesn't exist. Then they say "if tens of thousands of people are wandering 40 years in the Sinai peninsula I would expect to see this evidence". These historians have experience, they know what to look for when studying migrant populations. They see nothing.

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@oralloy,

The Bible is not anywhere close to accurate back to 900BC.

The Bible mentions kings and kingdome, but it gets the order wrong. They mention battles that never happened. The Bible claims that Esther is famous in this histories of the kings of Persia (she isn't). The Bible contradicts itself in the chronology of Mordecai.

These are myths and stories to prop up a political agenda. They aren't historically accurate at all.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

As I keep explaining to you, facts are testable. A historian says, if this story is true, then I expect to see this and if it is not true I would expect to see that. Then people go out and check. That is how stories (or theories or any other kind of fact) is tested.

The Bible's history as far back as 900 BC passes the historians' tests.

Earlier than 900 BC it starts to fail their tests, although there are some isolated historical events from before 900 BC that still pass.

maxdancona wrote:

A historian will say "If tens of thousands of Hebrews were kept as slaves in Egypt, then I would expect to see this evidence". That evidence doesn't exist. Then they say "if tens of thousands of people are wandering 40 years in the Sinai peninsula I would expect to see this evidence". These historians have experience, they know what to look for when studying migrant populations. They see nothing.

You seem fixated on the story of the escaped slaves. So what if it was just a small band of slaves and not tens of thousands?

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@oralloy,

Quote:

The Bible's history as far back as 900 BC passes the historians' tests.

No it doesn't. I just gave you several examples where the Bible is dead wrong (or contradictory) that is well into the 5th century BCE.

The Bible gets et the order of kings wrong, invents famous historical figures that no one else knows about, and makes claims that can't possibly have happened. It doesn't pass anything.

Do you believe that people survived being thrown into a furnace because an angel protected them (which the stories claimed happened in the 5th century BC)?

These are myths, including well after 900BC.

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@Leadfoot,

Yes! The Bible often compares death to sleep. (Psalm 13:3; John 11:11-14; Acts 7:60) A person who is fast asleep is unaware of what is happening around him. Likewise, the dead are not conscious of anything. Yet, the Bible teaches that God can awaken the dead as if from sleep and give them life again.

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@oralloy,

If a small band of slaves escaped, that kind of ruins the biblical story.

We are talking about how the Bible is historically inaccurate.

It is a collection of myths, it was never a historical text.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The Bible is not anywhere close to accurate back to 900BC.

The historians and archaeologists say otherwise.

maxdancona wrote:

The Bible mentions kings and kingdoms, but it gets the order wrong.

What order do you contend is wrong?

maxdancona wrote:

They mention battles that never happened.

I doubt that you can prove that a given battle never happened. But, what battles are you referring to?

maxdancona wrote:

The Bible claims that Esther is famous in this histories of the kings of Persia (she isn't). The Bible contradicts itself in the chronology of Mordecai.

You are referring to events after the collapse of the Israeli kingdoms I think. Such stories would be unrelated to the history of those kingdoms.

maxdancona wrote:

These are myths and stories to prop up a political agenda.

The same applies to all ancient historical writings.

Historians know this and are capable of analyzing the writings to learn from them.

maxdancona wrote:

They aren't historically accurate at all.

The historians and archaeologists say that you're wrong.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

oralloy wrote:
The Bible's history as far back as 900 BC passes the historians' tests.

No it doesn't.

The historians say it does.

maxdancona wrote:

I just gave you several examples where the Bible is dead wrong (or contradictory) that is well into the 5th century BCE.

The Bible gets et the order of kings wrong, invents famous historical figures that no one else knows about, and makes claims that can't possibly have happened. It doesn't pass anything.

Do you believe that people survived being thrown into a furnace because an angel protected them (which the stories claimed happened in the 5th century BC)?

These are myths, including well after 900BC.

You seem to be referring to stories from after the collapse of the Israeli kingdoms. That has no bearing on the accuracy of the texts from the Israeli kingdoms.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

If a small band of slaves escaped, that kind of ruins the biblical story.

It doesn't ruin it for me.

maxdancona wrote:

It is a collection of myths, it was never a historical text.

That is incorrect. The Bible contains a lot of accurate history.

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Church vs Bible, What to believe?

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