It's threatened to take two threads off topic (Evolution & Creation, Can they teach all sides?, Who invented Science?), so here it is to be dealt with head-on...

What, if anything, is there to support the Bible as either a historical or scientific book?

This question has implications for the Evolution & Creation thread, but I would prefer we not bring that topic into this one. I would also appreciate if we could keep this one out of others.

Well I guess you are calling for the positive statement. Ok, I'll bite, but first lets pick a catagory. There is internal evidence (prophecy and reasoning), there is external (archeology for instance). Then there is what distinguishes the Bible from any writting of antiquity, bibliographical testing. Bibliographical testing is how historians gauge the validity of an historical document. The closer it is to the original (autograph) the more reliable.
I'll try external to get things started.

Simon Greenleaf as I mention in another thread was a Harvard law professor who wrote the most important legal treatise in the history of American common law. He believed in what he called the presumption of charity (its like innocent untill proven quilty). He said that something like the resurection should be accepted as true until proven to be undeniably false. He applied legal evidence rules to the Gospels. He went to their motives "As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivores only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution...Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable wih the fact, that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature...If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication." This guy wasnt some hack he literally wrote the book on legal evidence.

Theres a lot of ways to go with this; the empty tomb, the conversion of Paul, the 30,000 extant copies of the Bible, the dead sea scrolls, messianic prophecy.some coming withing 60 years of the original. Maybe you like to define what you mean by proof. Internal external, of bibliograpical?

I can only offer my opinion, but the way I see it, the Bible offers many valuable things. It tells of the teachings of Jesus, it puts forward and promotes the value of other human beings, and it contains a lot of historical details which can be used to calibrate archeological findings and help us understand what went before us.

With regards to the question of why we are on Earth though, I feel the Bible offers no explanation at all. It is a good guide to how to live your life, but thats about it.

Also. There is a lot of old fashioned notions in the Bible which are no longer relevant. I'm not a scholar of it, but I'm told the Bible makes odd references regarding food and customs. These out dated idea's can also provide us with an insight to the minds of the people who wrote the bible, and help us understand the context within which it was written.



If you mean, support its accuracy in historical matters then there is a lot of archeology to give credence to many of the events mentioned in the bible. But if you mean as a religous work, then I don't see how such support can exist outside the faith of the individual.

As a book of science though, I think the Bible only really works on a philosophical level, and provides little real scientific though by our twenty first century concept of what science is.

Well there is no doubt the bible is an historical book. It's origins date back to the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2,000 years ago. I'd say that's pretty historic.

The books of the bible are written by men and therefore subjective. But we do know that many of the people mentioned in the bible have been verified as real including Jesus. One example is his mention in letters written by Pontius Pilate.

http://members.tripod.com/~owen_eir/pilate.html

http://www.nationallibrary.us/booklinks21/...seneca_in.shtml

I think the lessons of the bible are important. The Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, and his parables provide guidance to those who seek it. I'd much rather look to Jesus words for guidance than the subjective writings of Paul.

As a scientific book? Nothing whatsoever, as far as I am aware.

As an historic book?
Well, according to useage, it has certainly been responsible for making history, and it is itself historic by cirtue of being very old.

As a record of history, it has some value (but not much). It has real references to real things, like Egypt, Babylon, and various other cities and civilisations that the Jews and early Christians came across.

Yet it is perfectly possible for any book (or film or other medium) to reference real persons and events, yet be a work of fiction. Witness the works of Alastair Maclean. For instance, in Where Eagles Dare, he mentions Hitler and Churchill and other real people, and some real places, but it is still ot a factual account of real events that actually took place. Perhaps a better example would be the famous hoax "Hitler Diaries", which fooled a lot of people for a long time simply because they wanted them to be true.

Even real documentary makers and factual journalists today get accused of selectively reporting events to fit their own pre-existing theories or beliefs - look at everything Michael Moore ever does. He does use facts selectively, and he does sometimes bend them or even make stuff up to fit his arguments. He isn't perfect. But, if you share his ideology, you find it harder not to believe everything he says, even if you are trying to be sceptical. How much more is this true of the Bible?

I do not believe that human nature has changed that much in the past 4,000 years, so I do not believe that, even if the events described in the Bible are true, it is a reliable as a factual record. Even though there are some limited cross references to contemporary records, most of the Bible has no corroboration to anything else we've found.

So as a history I think it is certainly open to question and most probably deeply flawed. In my opinion, it is the height of foolishness to interpret ANY of it literall. Even the sayings of Jesus himself are open to challenge, in the absence of any drafts in his hand.

Were the Declaration of Independence not written down and the original draft preserved, and widely cross referenced, how would anyone know that it was either an accurate record of what was originally written, or even a well-intentioned piece of forgery made for propaganda purposes in the fledgeling republic? Most people would probably still want to believe in the Declaration and the principles for which it stands, but most people wanting to believe something is not a justification for doing so.

By that reasoning Vishnu, Jesus, Pan the Goat God and Allah exists. Unless I have a very good reason to believe some moldy Rabbi from two thousand years ago is my lord and savior I'm not accepting it as true.
In a few thousand years someone watching Goodfellas would see real cities and real places. That doesn't mean everything in Goodfellas happened.

The resurection as history

The Bible in unique in its religious content for one reason, the resurection is not presented as myth but as fact. All claims against the authenticity have been systematicly answered by Christian scholars by every standard used for any historical event in history. It is the best documented event in antiquity to the point where the harshest critics have concluded that it can be believed or disbelieved. The fact is it cannot be disproven based on historical facts.

Who defines evidence for God

The only explanation for the creation of man and the earth is that God did. There is virtually nothing on how. Arguments against the Bible based on Biology and Geology are based on primary first cause metaphysics (science of intanganbles) not natural science (experimentum crucis). I can demonstrate that anyone who denies this is flatly contradicted by there own reasoning. Assuming of course there argueing this empirically.

The Bibles first cause.

All arguments for or against the existance of God are philosophical. Empirical science does not concern it self with this sort of thing. Belief systems based on anything other then empirical sense data are outside of, not against science. Thomas Aquinas based his arguments on the work of perhaps the most important thinker in history, Aristotle. The principle of the unmoved mover runs throughout science and theology and one of the few substanative things required for both:
There may be any number of proofs used to demonstrate the need for first cause (i.e. light must have a source; sun, fire, candle) but the need for a context never negates the need for a starting point (in geometry you start with a point and draw a line from there). The choice of beginning according to Aquinas is always the same the only things differ at is the context. “For at one time nothing was in if existence it would not have been possible for anything to have began to exist…there must also be something to which all beings have as the cause of their being, goodness and every other perfection…and this being we call God”. That’s causation (first mover), ontology (being), teleology (end to which all thins aim), but it’s always God. At least from the standpoint of the ‘traditional qualities of philosophies problems” (Aquinas, Summa Theological). This was based on Aristotles logic and Rethoric which were considered sciences but refered to as arts, his now obselete scientific works were irrelevant in this context. Educated people used to understand this. Thats why the evolution/creation debate is so crucial, it goes back to primary first cause.

Men created natural science in the seventeenth century,to understand and control the world around them. Anyone wanting a definition of science can get one from my first post in the Science forum. I've been told repeatedly to keep science and religion seperated yet no one definition has been agreed upon for either. This thread calls for proof, but what kind of proof is requried? And more importantly, what is it that needs proven? I'm not going back 5 million years if there is no clear standard for what happened 2000 years ago. Its a lie that the Bible is unproven and has to be taken purely on faith, historical facts for it are measurable and available to anyone willing to examine the evidence objectively.

I consider the Bible to be almost entirely allegorical, filled with stories often times including the names and places that were common at the time they were written. In regards to archeological sites I view the Bible to be moderately accurate historically, but not necessarily as these sites pertain to the events depicted in the book. I don't consider the Bible in any way to be a book of science, and in fact view the various scientific contradictions to further support my idea that the stories within were sensational tales including contemporary people and places.

While there have been numerous sites mentioned in the Bible excavated, examination of other historical texts have revealed some of the stories associated with them to be lacking substance. Of notable mention might be the flood in Genesis, the Exodus from Egypt, and the conquest of Jericho, all from the Old Testament. As I've already mentioned, even those sites verified by archeology say nothing necessarily for the stories associated with them.

That Mr. Greenleaf and other apologetics rely on any inability to disprove something as proof says something for the "proof" many seek to vindicate the Bible. As Rancid has already pointed out, and I'm sure you're already familiar, the inability to disprove something leaves a lot for us to accept as proven, following that line of thought. The fact does remain lurking, however, that much of it hasn't been proven either. And while you may say "it hasn't been disproven by historical facts," it has in effect been disproven by the history of scientific facts, and the fact that while some people have been mistaken for dead, people don't rise up from the grave after three days of decomposition.

Anarchy mentions a defense of the Gospels, but seems to neglect the discrepancies between the Gospels themselves, or the dates they are attributed to. The earliest known Gospel is said to be that of Mark, but the consensus is that it dates around 70 CE (theism.net), roughly forty years after the presumed death of Jesus. As mentioned in the link, when discussing the "Conspiracy of Silence," the earliest writings to mention a Jesus said nothing about the biography of such a man, leading to understandable speculation that the Gospels are less than reliable. Now, this isn't to say Jesus wasn't a historical person but it certainly allows for the writers to sensationalize events, perhaps even create stories about people and places which didn't occur.

The decades long gap between the presumed death of the man and the writing down of events certainly casts a shadow of doubt (imo). This is not to say a person resembling Jesus didn't exist or wasn't executed, but the account of his teaching life remains in question. Somehow we are expected to believe witnesses who, in spite of lower life expectancy, survived 40 years following the death of a man wrote not only accurate depictions of events, but also provided us with an account of his birth and a day in his life at the age of 12. And despite both this, and the election of writings into the compilation we know as the Bible, these accounts still bear discrepancies.

You are wrong about this. I answer it only because I assume you bring it up to say the Biblical account of creation is, to some degree, accurate. I'll elaborate elsewhere, perhaps on a thread desiged to debate the origins of the earth and man (though I've touched on it elsewhere).

Obviously, as ancient text, the Bible itself is historical. As a book of history, however, I hold it to be highly questionable, and as I have previously said, I don't hold it in any regard scientifically (from creation stories, speaking snakes and bushes, global floods, miracles and resurrections).

The bible is isn't babble. It's history and it's philosphy that tells of history of ages.

Please explain why you believe that way. That is the whole point of this debate.

I said that I had no interest in going any further back into antiquity then the first century and there is a good reason for that. The Exodus and Jericho are neither proven nor disproven by standards unique to them. The events in Galilee are the heart of the Christian witness and all investigations of the validity of Scripture should start there. Now admittedly if the possibility of God raising Jesus from the dead is pressumed as impossible the Gospel fails as history unconditionally. As I have argued from scientific reasoning and historical evidence this premise does not stand up under close examination. Its based on unproved assumptions and therefore fails as empircal evidence because the existance of God is untestable as an hypothesis (experimentum crucis).

There are not one but thousands of copies of Mark and the other Gospels. Bibliographical is considered the most scientific investigation of antiquity available. They are all virtually identical with the exception of some misspelled words and some gramarical errors. No major doctrine is involved in these discrepencies and, these doctrines, are certainly not contradicted by them. In legal evidence, the testemony of wittnesses are considered irrelevant to the actuall event. It is understood in our legal system that four different people describing the same event will give you four different versions. It takes a dispassionate examination of this and other evidence to objectivly determine what actually occured. The phrase 'propondarace of the evidence', excludes as a matter of law prejudice in common law courts. Historians are held (or hold themselves) to the exact same standard.

Jesus from 12 to 30 worked as a carpenter like all Jewish boys was trained by his Father, who he obeyed unconditionally. There is nothing to suggest anything else and as a rule of evidence (legal and historical)the presumption most go in favor of the Bible. Its innocent untill proven guilty, not suspected until proven innocent. The resurection is consistant with every standard applied to it except one. Naturistic assumptions based on prejudice against the notion of the supernatural intervention of God in time and space. These presumptions fail as empirical science and historical evidence.

If anyone is interested, we had a good debate going for awhile here called, Jesus a mortal?, Can good Christians believe this?

I noticed some of you had touched on that & I thought perhaps you may be interested in that thread too.

AP,



What is your source of information as to what Jesus did from the ages of 12 to 30?

How do you know he "obeyed unconditionally"?

Innocence until proven guilty? So, if someone proposes that a son of God came down to earth, did a bunch of miracles, and rose from the dead--that has to be taken as true until proven false? Why? We don't do that with any other historical text. For example, the writings of many scribes are taken with grains of salt because they exalt the ruler of the time (the sponsor). In other words, a whole lot of kissing up was going on.

Can you produce evidence "of the supernatural intervention of God in time and space"?

You know, other than Biblical stories.

An empiricle experiment would involve something like this:

Take a goat and put it into a lion's cage. Take another goat and put it into another lion's cage. Have one goat blessed and prayed over for its survival. Do not do that for the other goat.

Then see if one survives.

If the blessed goat survives, that might indicate supernatural intervention. Or it might be chance.

If the not-blessed goat survives, that might indicate no supernatural intervention.

If both survive or both do not, nothing is indicated other than either the lions don't like goats or that they do.

Anyway, I don't take the Bible as reliable history nor is it anything even close to science. It's scripture, and as such, is open to interpretation. The Resurrection may or may not have happened, and to me it doesn't matter. It does matter to theologies based on this fundamental creed. And so comes this appeal to suspend skepticism.

Which naturally makes me skeptical

Belief in the Bible as the Word of God is a matter of faith as with all religious writings.

I'm not going to cite extra-biblical sources to confirm or deny what Jesus did from 12-30, this is neither confirmed or denied in this way. The Bible and history are silent on this point, it has to be infered from the best available information. Anything contradicting the Bible's assertion that he submitted to Mary and Joseph can be considered. Its called the presumption of charity and its established universally: as a legal rule of evidence, scientific investigations of historical events and logical argumentation. The preference allways goes to the positive statement unless substantative proof to the contrary is provided.

Now if you are interested for evidence for the reserection and the implications of this events I'm here for you. I've been into Christian Apologetics for years and just pick the proof you require; internal, external or bibliographical, legal, forensic, or logical. But lets clarify this buisness of experimental method being the litmos test for all truth. This is patenedly absurd, unscientific, and prejudicial. I've dealt this at length in the Science forum where I establish the emergance of the method of establishing empirical facts based on testing of hypothesis did not exist prior to 1676. Also it is by design limited to natural science which is, like theology, only one of the sciences. Any arguments of science, falsely so called, should be taken there.

The Bible itself is the most credible evidence for the resurection. When held up to the light of formal reason it stands up better then any historical evidence from the last 2000 years. A dramatic rush to judgment based on naturistic assumptions is argumentative and lacks substance. I am happy to put my evidence on the table, define what reasonable proofs you require and we can talk about this like adults. But resurecting goats, even if it weren't just childish mockery, would prove nothing one way or the other.

The consistancy of the New Testement wittness based on bibliographical testing is the most scientific form of evidence for the resurection. Anyone interested in a truly scientific examination of the narratives and claims of the New Testement should start here. As I have said repreatedly the insistance on experimentation is not a valid standard for natural history, much less history at large.

You may have no interest in going back to the Old Testament, but the books and stories found there are an integral part of the Bible. As such, whether you choose to acknowledge them or not, they are up for debate and scrutiny here. In relation to the New Testament, the Old Testament should, I think, be additionally important as that's where Christians are to look for the prophecies Jesus was said to fulfill.

How many people across the internet copy and paste newspaper articles each and every day, do you think? Does the repetition or copying of a document somehow give it historical validity? If so, you've made a case for the Iliad and the Odyssey, the existence of mermaids and the entire pantheon of Greek gods (among others). That people have more or less successfully rewritten the same thing over and over and over again adds no validity to the documents over time if they were inaccurate to begin with.

I'm not concerned at all really with what Jesus may have done from birth to 12 or from age 12 to 30. My concern stems from the people attempting to write an account of his birth and a day in his life at age 12.

As I already mentioned, the earilest Gospel is attributed to Mark around 40 years following the death of Jesus. Presumably Mark, the disciples of Jesus and everyone else came to know Jesus at the age of 30 when he began his teachings. Yet somehow we're asked to believe that these authors -- viewed as witnesses -- wrote accurate accounts about the man at his birth and the age of 12. There's no accounting for how the authors are to have written accurate depictions of these two events. For that matter, not all the Gospels agree with one another on the matter, as Matthew depicts the family fleeing for Egypt and Luke has them returning to Nazareth. There are also no extra-biblical accounts of any regionally relevant infanticide at the time either.

Getting back to the resurrection...
Put any evidence out there, by all means.

Beyond that, as I've already said, repetition for any length of time is not going to bestow credit on any story that was likely inaccurate the first time it was penned. I'm at a loss at how you figure it stands up to the light of reason better than any historical event in the last 2000 years when nobody wrote about dead men rising from the dead for over 30 years and even then the accounts from such people seem prone to errors or fabrication.

There is no demonstration of the scientific method in history. History (like literature) is more of an art than a science.

I didnt say that I was uninterested in going into the Old Testement I said the resurection was the heart of the New Testement wittness. I said I wanted a standard of proof for what happened 2000 years ago before we go into Old Testement narratives. I think Messianic prophecy is an excellent place to start. But first a couple of minor points have been raised.

Comparing a document preserved for 2000 years and something published daily is not only apples and oranges. It presumes that historical documents and current events are examined using the same criteria. This is riduculas. The closer a document is to the autograph (original) the more reliable it is considered. This applies to any historical document. You want to compare apples to apples show me the bibliograpical evidence for your favorite first century document, then we have a basis for comparison. Second internal diversity between the book of Matthew and Mark is expected whenever you have two wittnesses to the same event. You will get two versions. I've already dealt with this one at length and I'd like to get on to something more substanative.

Messianic prophecy

God repeatedly proclaims the predictive element in prophecy as confirmation of his revelation. "Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end form the beginning, And form ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, 'My counsel shall stand. (Is.46:9,10)

Jesus appeals to a fulfilment of Old Testement prophecy as one of a number of proofs. "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Matt. 5:17), I could quote a lot more but I dont think its disputed that the New Testement claims fullfillment of Old Testement prophecy. Now if you are going to presume that the supernatural is impossible before we start I'm not going to waste my time. I am not asking anyone to agree that God exists and he does miricles just suspend judgment untill after the evidence is examined.

Having said that lets start at the beginning.

Prophecy

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." There is no seed of the woman, this is a prophecy of the virgin birth. You can recover from a bruised heal but not a crushed head, this is thematic reference to the crucifiction and the resurection. Its expanded on throughout the Old Testement.

Fulfillment

"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman (virgin) born under the law" (Galations 4:3). Now anyone interested in Messianic prophecy, ok. But I'm not going to waste my time if it is going to be assumed impossible, I wont waste my time. There are not one or two prophecies, there are some three hundred references to the coming Messiah. Before I start listing them I need to know that the premise that God exists and intervenes in human affairs is not the issue. If the premise is rejected unconditionally the particulars are irrelevant.

I say again, if someone want some kind of a naturistic hypothesis confirmed or denied. It has to be defined (what requires proof), and the evidence examined (kinds of proofs examined). I just want to be clear on this before we start I'm not interested in argueing with naturistic assumptions here. Having said that I have the virgin birth on the table.

The Old Testament is antiquity and it is before the first century.

I compared it to The Iliad and The Odyssey, whose documentation dates back to around the 8th century BCE. The Bible wasn't actually compiled until the 4th century CE (about 1,600 years old rather than 2,000) so no, it is not like comparing apples and oranges. It is no more "published daily" than the various reprints and translations of the Bible. Rewriting the same thing over and over again, be it the Bible or the works of Homer, does not establish credibility. If it's inaccurate or purely fiction to begin with, it is still inaccurate or pure fiction 30 thousand or 30 million copies later.

Arguing Biblical prophecy based on the Bible (working as evidence of itself) is circular reasoning. That being said, we aren't discussing prophecies or the existence of God here but rather the historical or scientific value of the Bible alone.

I'm not simply talking about different accounts of events, but also asking how we are expected to believe any of the Gospel writers were witnesses to events before the birth of Jesus, at the birth of Jesus, at a single day in his life at age 12 and from presumbably age 30 to 33. The events surrounding his birth are either distant secondary information, pure speculation or fictional story telling. The same goes for his adolescent trip to the temple. Not only do the authors have different accountings of these events, they were likely never there or possibly even alive at the time.

No one ever claimed that Homer was an historical document, thats different. The myth and poetry were understood by the Greeks to be fiction. This is an undisputed fact. Its called internal evidence and it is a time test approach to document authentication. I started on Messianic prophecy because someone had asked me to address the claims that Christ fullfilled prophecy So I did.

I said that the period between 12 and 30 in Jesus life is silent in Scripture and historical data. The absense of data does not implicate error, it doesn't mean anything.

The fulfillment of the biblical prophesies means nothing unless the Bible was written as the events were happening and was never rewritten.
Even if a tree can grow that tall you could only see it from everywhere on earth if it was flat. What accurate science book says the earth is flat?

Homer was the author, not the document. And the epic tales of both the Iliad and the Odyssey are widely believed to be based in truth, only sensationalized (Discovery Channel). Many people also seem to have taken scriptural writings to be fictions or elaborate stories erected around actual people and places rather than accurate historical record.

As to the silence of Jesus's life between 12 and 30, you are missing the point. The point is not the silence, as I believe I was already clear on...Maybe you missed that on the first reading.

Also, I didn't ask you to start in on Messianic prophecy, but rather addressed your stated disinterest in discussing events prior to the first century. I brought up Messianic prophecy merely to question why you wouldn't pay attention to the stories and inaccuracies of the Old Testament in addition to those of the New Testament.

Abs, time out! I'll get back to you but someone else mentioned Messianic prophecy, I responded. I want to start with the resurection because that is, as I have been saying, the locus crucis of the New Testement, Scripture, Christian faith, and God's redemptive history.

I'm taking a break from the debate forums for a little while, but I'll be back and true another approach to this topic. Untill then just hold that thought and I'll get back to you.

Ranciduncle: check the context on the passage, its a dream (vision) its not botony.

Whenever you happen to come back, you might take notice that it was me who brought up Messianic prophecy. And as I said, not as a focus of discussion in this debate.

Abs,

Good job pointing out the circular reasoning going on in this thread. I also noticed a technique that might have a conventional name, but I call it doing "The Grasshopper."

First, a proposal and opening argument is made. Then someone refutes. The rebuttal is dismissed and another proposal with opening argument is made. In effect, no real debate takes place because counter-rebuttal is avoided. The whole thing becomes an exercise in jumping from proposal to proposal with no logical connections.

Anyway, AP left us with the question of the Resurrections truth. That is the basis of most (if not all) established Christian religions. I'm at a loss as to how this could possibly be proven to have been true. People have to either accept it or reject it on faith. The result is an inverted pyramid where only one event supports the rest of it. So loss of faith in Resurrection brings the rest tumbling down.

I personally don't accept the inverted pyramid theology, but it does explain why certain evangelists have such a strident, insistent tone.

I finally lost patience with this, I dont think I have anything constructive to add to this or any other thread on this board. Ive been reading a little too much philosophy the last six months or so and I should have keep my epistomology to myself on here. I was tempted a number of times to offer the better arguments against the Bible that Ive become aquainted with but why? I'm pretty sure my posts are just getting skimmed anyway.

Not everyone uses internal evidence tests like Messianic prophecy. A more scientific treatment of the New Testement is the bibliograpical testing as applied to all anchient literature. There are 5,656 known manuscripts of the new Testement. 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 early versions and 25,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation. In comparison, Homers's Iliad is second, with only 643 manuscripts that still survive. The first complete preserved text of Homer dates from the thirteeth century. (paraphrased from Leach,Early Versions of the New Testement)

Thats 24970 Mss for the NT and 643 for the closest second. The rule of evidence for historical is that the closer the copy is to the autograph (original) the more reliable. The New Testement has manuscripts dating back to withing 50 years of the autograph. Iliad's first complete preserved text of Homer is from the thirteeth. The claim that people have been running around changing the Bible to make it say what ever they want is baseless and fails as any kind of proof.

You can compare it to other documents: Herodotus 8 copies, Thucydides, 8 copies, Caeser's Gailic Wars. 10, ...etc. Now to say that this is insiqnifigant as to its reliability as historical evidence is to throw out all other historical documentary evidence giving us only fargmented circumstantial evidence of the past. These facts are undisputed by any and all critics of the New Testement. The only real arguments against it are redactory criticism, the domumentary hypothesis, incongruities and internal diversity and so called higher criticism. I'm tempted to list the evidence against the Bible myself since no one else seems to be capable of it.

AP can you give more information on how bibliographic testing that shows there are many copies of a document in manuscript form is considered to be evidence of the authenticity of what you call the autograph - the original version (that's right, yes?).

I don't know anything about the subject, but it does seem counter-intuitive to me. Weren't most of the manuscripts of the NT copied from other, older originals? And then the copies were translated into other languages, giving later copiers two slightly different copies to use as their 'master'.

Doesn't this have something to do with early Christianity's origins as something of an underground religion - they couldn't lodge copies with the libraries of the time in Rome that all scholars could use as their source, so the wide geographic spread of the Christians meant they had to have lots of copies - one or more for each little group.

And isn't it widely suspected that the 'virgin' birth was the result of a mistranslation into ancient Greek - that nativity story originally used a word that had an ambiguous meaning that could either be "virgin" or "young woman" - so Mary may just have been a child bride, as was fairly common at that time in that part of the world? And that someone either deliberately favoured the "virgin" meaning to match the OT prophecy, or the prophecy itself was also ambiguously translated and only ever predicted a teen pregnancy?

But besides all these specific points, I can see that your bibliographical testing could prove that the Bible is an authentic document that has stayed much the same since the first draft - I don't find that hard to believe at all, for the most part. What I still don't understand is how it shows the content to be either a historically accurate narrative or a jumble of Bronze and Iron Age Middle Eastern myths and aetiologies.

Anarchy, please stop being so condescending. You say things like this, as though you were somehow brilliant, and tired of our sophomoric arguments, but what you're doling out is just average apologetics; it's only possibly confusing for those who have never encountered it before. And it's entirely typical for an apologetic to want to define the parameters of the argument, so as to have the clever answers ready and waiting. But I've read this script, and I know the answers you will give for redaction criticism and the rest, so why bother?

Religious faith is a function of culture. The Bible contains many truths, but it is not Truth itself, not any more than the Upanishads, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, or any other holy book. There is no reason to see the divine inspiration of the Bible as any different from or less credible than divine inspiration of the Koran, for example. Christianity, for all your pat answers and twisting logical arguments, is ultimately resting on a bed of faith, not cold science. And that's OK! There's nothing wrong with that.

Look, if I write this: "The Lord has spoken to me and said thou shalt not eat of the turnip," having my friends make 5000 copies of it does verify its accuracy to the extent that it can be said with fair certainty that indeed, I DID write that. But it has absolutely no bearing on whether what I wrote was actually true.

I so dont get this. I quote the Bible and appeal to the content and I'm using circular reasoning. I try compareing the Bible to other literature and I'm being sophmoric. How do we determine the historicity of and event? What is the standard? What I've used is the same standard any historian would; internal, external, and bibliograpical testing. There are three hundred prophecies fullfilled in Christ in meticulas detail. Why isnt anyone appealing to the meticulas experimentum in this area of evidence?

To be honest I realize the Bible makes some extraordinary claims; healings, walks on water, dead raised, weather controled, rivers parted, angels and demons running around. In our secular mindset this seems like a big fairy tale. But I did study the evidences for the Christian faith and the are incomperable. Not just the Bible, check out Foxxes Book of Marytrs sometime. I read philosophy a lot and the epistomology for the Christian faith is tenable, its not just because the Bible says so.

I really mean it, I can be as critical of the Bible as any of its skeptics. 20 years of reading on the subject makes it second nature. The hardest part is allways finding a standard, in theology I can use the Bible. In Apologetics you have to use the standard the Bible is being criticised with. If you can ever get a good solid working definition, its duck soup. I try to be clear about what mine is. Undestanding with regard to Holy Script is one of willingness to accept, intellectual capacity is secondary and often irrelevant.

Unless there is another standard of proof proposed, Im going with mine:

None so blind...

"Go to this people and say, you will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes, Other wise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them" (Is. 6:9,10)

...as those...

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)

...who will not...

"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matt 6:22,23)

...see (perceive, understand)

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools dispise wisdom and discipline." (Proverbs 1:7)

"Behold ye scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you." (Acts 13:41)

There it is, anyone want to suggest a better approach to understanding the Bible then quoting it directly, I'm all ears.

We aren't here to "understand the Bible" or seek ways of understanding it. The question for debate is:
What external testing have you cited here? The one time you were asked for sources outside of the Bible you declined to provide them. Attempting to justify the Bible with the Bible (presumably your internal testing) is, as I've had to point out repeatedly, circular reasoning. If you're going to complain when I or anybody else points this out, perhaps it is time you quit doing it. And your bibliographical testing only verifies that the current document closely resembles the text of the original. It does nothing to verify that the original text was ever truthful or accurate to begin with.
Biblical prophecies are notoriously vague and numerous events have been understood to be fulfillments of the same prophecy. In reality it wouldn't appear that any of them were so much fulfillments of prophecy but rather loose interpretations of events so they would correspond to prophetic statements. This is true with prophecies outside of the Bible as well. Regardless, this again does nothing for demonstrating the historical accuracy of the Bible.
Do you happen to have any outside of the Bible to verify the Biblical accounts as being historically accurate? If so, why don't you quit telling us that you know of them and actually provide them for us to discuss.

And your "standard of proof," the completely irrelevant quotes from Scripture, have absolutely no bearing on the historical accuracy of the Bible. As I said at the beginning, that is what is up for debate here, not understanding the messages of the Bible.

Define proof or the conversation will continue to go in circles. Not because the arguments are baseless (circular) but because the central term is meaningless. I'm guessing you mean extra-biblical proof since you dont have the slightest interest in the text. Its like saying, what proof, if any, do we have euclidian geometry? You have to decide what requires proof and what kind of proofs are required. You want extra-biblical confirmation from an historian who actually lived in the first century. Here you go:

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawfull to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receice the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him many Jews, and also many of the Greeks. This man was the Christ. And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross, unpon his impeachment by the principal man among us, those who had loved him form the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive on the third day, the divine prophets having spoken these and thousands of other wonderful things about him. And even now, the race of Christians, so named from him, has not died out." (Josepus; Antiquities, 18.3.3)

This is the most trusted Historian from the first century, who by the way, was not a Christian. He simply reported on what he could confirm by his own research and study.
All standards of proof applied to the New Testement support the wittness as true. Except of course that of the skeptic who consistanly denies that there is a reliable standard of proof for anything. The testimony of an eye-witness is proof, the confirmation of someone that arrives latter and investigates is proof, The statistical probability of the predictions made hundreds of years previous in meticulas detail is proof. Unless you refuse to define your central term, proof. Then you are not even talking in circles, you chaseing after wind.

It isn't that I'm simply not interested in the text but rather the text itself is irrelevant to this particular debate. As I've said we're discussing whether it is historically or scientifically accurate, not the message of it. And as I have also said, attempting to justify the Bible through the Bible itself is circular reasoning. I'll be more than happy to discuss Biblical text on a topic designed for it, but for the topic at hand Biblical text can not serve as evidence of itself.

Regarding Flavius Josephus (37CE- 100CE), there have been several questions regarding the Antiquities text and it's time of placement. Setting this aside for the moment, the time at which Flavius is writing his account still leaves him a secondary source of information writing purely from hearsay and oral tradition. He was not born until nearly a decade after such a time would have passed and wrote nothing of it until half a century later.


What witness might you be referring to? Paul is regarded as the first person to have ever written about Jesus and had admittedly never had any personal contact with the man or his rumoured works of wonder. Even then his writings did not come until twenty to thirty years after the death of Jesus was said to have passed.

The Gospel writers similarly waited between thirty and sixty years after Jesus was said to have died before writing anything down. And as I've brought up previously (though you continue to ignore it), it's odd that any of them would attempt to describe the birth of Jesus or of his day at the temple when he was 12. Having not made any commotion before presumably the age of 30, it's unlikely any of these men would have been present to document either occurence as witnesses. In that light it reads more like a sensationalized story based loosely around the life and actions of an actual person.

Of all the people who were said to have witnessed the miracles of Jesus, 500 of whom were claimed to have seen him after the resurrection, somehow nobody managed to write even a single account for decades. And the first account, oddly enough, was penned by a person with no first hand knowledge. There appear to have been no contemporary writings to verify the accuracy of the New Testament as it pertains to the life of Jesus.

Biblical prophecies are no less vague and open to wide interpretation than those of Nostrodamus, ancient Mayan astrologers and the daily horoscope in the local paper. As I've said before, there have even been numerous events all proclaimed to fulfill the same Biblical prophecy, only to have later generations claim that some event in their lifetime is the fulfillment of it.

If you so desperately want a definition of proof to work with, I'll offer you a definition of what I'm looking for:

Well, yes.

"How do you know Jesus rose from the dead?"

"Well, it says so in the Bible! Why, in Mark 16:9, he appeared to Mary!"

"That's not proof."

"Yeah, but it also says he was seen after rising in Luke 24:36."

Were those people objective witnesses? No. They were believers already. What about Josephus? You fail to mention that the passage Josephus wrote about Jesus has been very controversial since only a few years after its writing. Here is an interesting link about that. Same site, a little bit more general.


It's not anything like saying that. Euclidean geometry can be derived and "proven" by anyone with an understanding of mathematics. The story of Jesus was a specific event or myth in history, not a concept.


Well, the Jews, using the same collection of prophecies, disagree with you. So do the Muslims. The people who became the first Christians did so because they believed those prophecies were fulfilled in Christ; it was, and is, a matter of faith.


Yes, I guess that's why all philosophers are Christians. Not. There are schools of philosophy associated with most cultures in the world. There are Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Confucionist, Zoroaconfucionist, Muslim, and Sikh philosophers. There are many philosophers from the Judeo-Christian cultures who disagree with you as well.


But this is not a discussion in which we are trying to understand the Bible. The question posed was


You have not addressed one point I keep raising, and that is other religions. It's ultimately all about faith when it comes to believing in the supernatural. All your circular reasoning just muddies the water. It would be fine if you admitted that your belief is finally and fundamentally a matter of faith. If you want to base your faith on pure reason and historical proof, you're building that house on the sand, and people will argue it. Faith is the rock. Peter sank because he was "looking for proof," using reason. The house is built on faith alone.

Ad majorem Dei gloriam,
a maximis ad minima,
Adhuc sub judice lis est.

So the Bible is irrelavant to the truth of the Bible while the extra-biblical accounts are hearsay and oral tradition, and you call me circular. Forensic science from the greatest authority of American legal evidence in our history, and this gets the brush off. The fact that no one wrote it down was because everyone either accepted or tried to censor the message. Besides that why do I need a written document when I have a living wittness standing right there. Nothing from the first century suggests that anyone even attempted to contradict the message of the resurection. Because they couldn't, so they just tried to shout it down and have been ever since. By the way, the oldest document in the Christian archieves is not Scripture, its the names of the 500 who actually saw Christ after the resurection. The events described in the New Testement were common knowledge and contradicted by no one, not one voice from the first century denies it. Who wrote the first book in the New Testement and who wrote the last is irrelavent since the message is the same.

Now if thats all the baseless supposition I'll go on to this rationalization about the prophecies being vauge:

He would be born of the seed of the woman (virgin birth), He would be the seed of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, from the tribe of Judah, line of Jesse, House of David, In Jerusalem, presented with gifts from kings, proceded by a messenger, perform miricles, a light to the Gentile and a stumbleing block to the Jews, betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver, pierced through his hands and feet, not one bone broken, raised on the third day.

These are very specific details and there is nothing vauge about them, not if you ever actually read them.

So I ask for a standard of proof and you give me a grade school quote. It is so vauge and general it has no bearing on any of the particulars. If you were asked for proof on Pythagerons theorm and you gave that kind of an answer it would be proof positive of one thing only, you... could care less. Oh I know that circular reasoning muddies the water, so... How do you define proof, specifically, with regards for determining an historical event? I do mean this one, the ressurection. Dont bother with the copy/paste function, you actually have to think about this one. That is why the conversation is going in circles the central term has no meaning.

Uh, yeah. That must be why everyone who ever read the Bible became a Christian! That must be the reason there are no more Jews! They read the prophecies and all became Christians!

Typical. No one's really reading the Bible unless they're getting the exact same thing out of it as you are. How fascinating.

By the way, I like cutting and pasting your posts; it's my new fun time! Why are your arguments on the whole unreadable and garbled? Let's break it down and see!

yep, if by truth you mean actual stuff that actually happened. It IS relevant to the Truth of the Bible, if one is a Christian, but not to the truth of the Bible.

pretty much. Did you explore the writings about Josephus? His accounts of Jesus have been controversial since shortly after they were written.

Give us a link or a real reference to this. Let us explore your source.

?!?!? First we have to define "wittness" (sic). Sorry, please explain this one. After all, like everyone else here, I'm way too stupid to understand your wisdom.


That's called a HUGE leap. Not even worth going into. Very poor construction for your argument.

Where is it? Dating method? How is it verified? Who wrote it?


I have no idea what "gradeschool quote" you are referring to. I have made so many, I can't keep them all straight...


That's a good question. With ancient history, it's very difficult.

But let me ask you this:

I keep coming back to this, and you have yet to even address it. By your own standards, Krishna really had blue skin. Ganesha has an elephant head. Siva has many arms. In the case of the Buddha and Mohammed, there is far more contextual history surrounding them. We acknowledge them to be historical people. I am willing to accept an historical Jesus. But accounts of super-powers? Nah. Every bit of so-called "proof" that you have devised could be equally (or more thoroughly) applied to several other religions on our planet. What makes one choose the Bible and one choose Hinduism? Culture and faith. Not conducting experiments and concluding that the Bible is more true by 10.000362 truthometers than the Bhagavad Gita.

* * * *

On June 27th, 322 people saw Quarkhead fly. I have their names. I have emailed this information to 100 friends, including the list of names of witnesses. Oh, and my mother? She was a virgin when I was born. There was a guy named Fred who I healed once. And my best friends, they all believe me. Instead of being simply web programmers, I have made them web programmers of men.

Prove I didn't fly. Prove I am not the Messiah.

First of all the quote from Simon Greeleaf is in the thread and his books are either out of print or in Law Libraries. If you want the quote I have it, if you want the source I'll cite it. If you want me to do the research into it to be discarded with an off hand remark, forget it.

The list of the 500 names was kept at Antioch and is now in a museum somewhere. Who cares whos names are on it. Its just another document. The Apostles documented their testimony in detail and signed it in blood, you could care less about that. What are you going to do dig them up, get the dna, make a clone, and ask them what happened? Its like the dead sea scrolls, people get all excited that this is the proof that the Bible is wrong untill it supports it. Then its just ignored.

I'll tell you what, if I can produce the documentation for the text will you accept the resurection as an historical event? ...No? Then whats the standard for proof? These arguments are allways based on the circular reasoning of the skeptic: "The fact that the log is on fire is irrelavant to it being turned to ashes" (David Hume) Baseless supposition that doesnt regard any standard of proof as substantive, nor does it suggest that there is such a thing.

Why is it that skeptics simply preach that there is no proof? Never define what needs proven (singulare) or what kinds of proof (plural) are considered evidence?. What do you want? Fossils, pottery, newspaper clippings, photos, reciepts, fingerprints, DNA? Or was the original question just a statement based on nothing?

You have all arrived a little late in this debate, its been going on for a couple of thousand years. Christians carefully collected the evidence and preserved it, this has nothing to do with proof, its pure prejudice.

This is not what I said, Anarchy. I said it was irrelevant to this topic of debate. We are not discussing "truth" of the Biblical message in this debate but the truth of whether or not the Bible is historically (or scientifically) accurate. There is also nothing circular about having explained Josephus (your extra-biblical account) to have been writing of hearsay and oral tradition.
If everyone had accepted it everyone would have been Christians. I don't imagine this is what you are proposing as everybody is clearly not Christian. And again, what witness do you have "standing right there"?
If it was common knowledge, how is it nobody but believers wrote it down? And you have yet to explain my concern over Gospel writers attempting to detail the circumstances of his birth or his visit to the temple at age 12. As I've already mentioned life expectancy was low in those times, he was not of concern to anybody before about the age of 30 and yet we are to believe "witnesses" with extraordinary life spans were conveniently stationed for both these occurences?

Nobody verifies the claims of the Bible for anybody to deny it. You are speculating or simply making things up when you say it was "common knowledge." The point of this debate is to provide support for statements like that.
First of all, you're citing a Biblical prophecy again relying solely on the Bible to verify it. Why don't you try actually reading what circular reasoning so you can finally stop using it.

By the way, would you care to name the Book and Chapter of the verse you are quoting here and in the future?
Provide some sources. Is it an actual account of the 500 people or are you just mentioning an original of Paul's writing in which he claimed there were 500 witnesses? You now say the Apostles documented their testimony in detail and signed it in blood? Are you speaking outside of the Gospel writers, and if so, when and where is this documentation from? I've also already explained my issues with the Gospel writers as well, though you've thus far chosen to ignore them.
Simon Greenleaf's argument works not solely for Christianity either but for any religion for which people have sacrificed their lives. His stance on the matter is not proof of historical accuracy in Biblical accounts, but rather legal supposition.
As I said before, try actually reading what circular reasoning is before you complain or comment on it again. The quote you put forth by Hume appears more related to his views on the problem of induction, thereby meaning that just because a burning log has turned to ashes before does not necessarily mean it will do so now or in the future. If you feel you finally understand circular reasoning, and feel we are using it in this argument, explain where and how by all means.
We have arrived no later than you, Anarchy. You keep talking of this evidence but thus far you have provided none as to the historical accuracy of events depicted in the Bible. And yes, this does have to deal with proof rather than prejudice, no matter how often or how loud you may choose to cry wolf.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I am not yet convinced Quark can fly.

First off, I agree that extraordinary event require extraordinary evidence, so what?

Abs, So the Bible's message is irrelevant to the Bible as history or science. It follows that proof of a statement of fact is irrelavant to the content of the statement. So how am I to know what it is that needs proven and what kinds of proof can support the statement? Its all presumption. This is what is called a vauge referent, so general and vauge it referers to nothing in particular. It easy to deny evidence when the premise in question is never defined, much less the standard of proof. Also, Josephus relies on second hand information like all historical and scientific investigations of the past, so what?

To clarify, I was saying that the reason the message did not get written down is because the Apostles were still alive. Many of the disciples (120+) and other eye wittnesses were peppered out all around the anchient world. It wasnt until it became apparent the return of Christ would not be immediate that the message was canonized in written form for future generations. The writtings of Paul were private corrospodances to the churches that were preserved because of their Apostolic authority. He wrote them, for the most part, because he was in prison for preaching the resurection. I said there was substantial proof, I never said the message was popular.


I really wish I could help you with this period from 12 to 30 in Jesus' life but you ignore the clear testimony of Scripture. The New Testement is not all together silent on this point. I never saw the point you were trying to make here anyway. Also, there are scattered statements in the Talmuld and writtings of historians in the first century. They discuss Christ in the context of Christianity at large. The ressurection and the morality of the message are recurring themes.

Now about Simon Greenleaf, here is another example of a conclusion without regard to the content of the statement. Simon Greenleaf's statements about Christianity cannot be related to any event, religion, or person in history other then Jesus Christ. If he is mistaken about his conclusion that Jesus Christ is the Son of God based on the scientific rules of evidence then our judical system is based on nothing substantial. Do you even know what rule of evidence he was using to determine the truth or falsity of the resurection? You should at least read his statement in context before jumping to conclusions. Unless you think that legal evidence is based on supposition.

The prevalance of naturistic assumptions in these arguments are undeniable and unsupported by either substantive or empirical reasoning. Your simple begging the question of proof by never defining the central term.

I gave you a definition 7 posts ago.
If you agree, what about walking on water, raising the dead, healing incurable afflictions, floating in the air, and rising from the dead doesn't seem extraordinary to you? You certainly aren't providing any kind of "extraordinary evidence"...
Okay, you've clarified. Now, if this is more than mere speculation on your part, provide something to support it.
The point was that if the Gospel writers were indeed witness to the works of Jesus during his years teaching it would be incredibly improbable that any of them were witness to the events leading up to his birth, his actual birth, the events immediately following and his day at the temple at age 12. It would seem the beginning to each Gospel would at best be conjecture and highly open to corruption, as then would the rest of them. It has nothing to do with the silence.
whoisjesus-really.com
He concluded that the Gospel writers told the truth because they persisted and were willing to die for their beliefs. There are countless believers the world over from various religions who were loyal to their beliefs, persisted in the face of persecution and died for them. Greenleaf's justification for the Gospels works for any worldwide religion which has had a martyr.
So, not all historical and scientific investigations rely on second hand information. Eye witness testimony and artifacts are primary sources of information. Writing about something of which was merely heard through the grape vine of oral tradition reduces Josephus to having worked with only questionable second hand information.

By the way: Would you mind terribly disclosing the Book and Chapter of the last verse you quoted? It would be appreciated it!

I mentioned before that history is more of an art than a science. Let me elaborate…

Historians are not merely passive observers. To seize the significant details and discern the relationships between events, piecing together evidence in order to draw reasonable conclusions, something more is needed. They make the past intelligible to the present, using their own sympathies for interpretation. They translate circumstances into terms in order to be understood within today’s context. It is in this sense that history is always written from the point of view of the present historian. It is in this sense that every age will have its history written over again.

The bible has been translated from language to language, culture to culture. It must be assumed that, as with any other historical account, the meaning and interpretation must have changed through the course of a couple millennia.

I can look in my Thompson chain reference Bible, rich with details of archeological findings which correlate to the written scripture, but this doesn’t change the fact that the interpretation of specific details, over time, tends to change. It is a leap of faith to believe that they do not. I believe that Jesus lived. I think it is reasonable to assume that his followers saw something that convinced them enough to become martyrs, even after allowing him to die on the cross without a fight. I believe most of the events in the Bible are true. However, I also recognize that this is a leap of faith on my part, not the result of a scientific, inductive approach.

Eye wittness accounts are rejected as baseless and anything else is second hand. Rules of legal evidence based on the man who wrote the Treatise on Evidence is dismissed with a passing remark. In the discussion on Creation/evolution arguments based on the Bible are off topic, in Science they are off topic, now for proof of the Bible the Bible is irrelevant. I see a pattern here. Before I go on to a real discussion of the evidence for the resurection I'll tell you what the problem is. Modern skepticism lacks any standard of proof, the ghost of the irrationalist Hume haunts the empty halls of science, falsely so called. Answer the rethorical question of the skeptic for proof and all you will hear is denial. The echo from the eastern mystic and the empty mechanical clange of naturalistic assumptions are identical. The metaphysics are the same and the reasoning equally nillistic. Without standards, criteria, or rules of evidence, we have baseless supposition. I said that we arrived late, this abandonment of formal logic is relatively modern. It started late in the, so called, enlightenment. Like eastern mysticism it negates causation.

According to David Hume empirical reason is so important it negates our idea of reality but our idea of self. “It cannot therefore be from any of these impressions (pain, pleasure, grief, joy, passions, sensations) or from any other that the idea of self is derived; consequently there is no such idea. This is so obvious it almost goes without saying but to refute this all you have to do is walk into a room where Hume is sitting and say ‘I’m looking for David Hume’. If he so much as think ‘I’m David Hume’ he proves by that very thought that he has an idea of self. He even has a name for it, he calls it David Hume. This is not just a question of but knowledge itself is suspect. “That all our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or in other words. That tis impossible for us to think of anything that we have not antecedently felt” (Titus, Discussions in Philosophy). You go into a machine shop with this kind of thinking you not only will have wheels with spokes missing, they will have no hubs.

East is east and west is west and never the two shall meet except in empirical and Buddhist thinking. Suzuki, a Buddhist scholar writes: “So we are told that the pleasures and pains they are transitory, like Maya. They have no substantial reality… If Im asked then what Zen teaches, I would answer, Zen teaches nothing. On a later page he writes; the famous gatha (saying) of Jeyne by no means exhausts all Zen teaches. So what does Zen teach, something or nothing? Admittedly logic has its limitations and not everything has to have an antithesis but I can’t accept that Zen teaches something and nothing at the same time. This is what happens when you abandon substantive reason; your circles have no true centers.

Balancing understanding and reality:

Duality of ideas and experience, mind, and body, subject and object (ad infinitum) tends to favor one part over the other. The analogy of man as a machine has led some to conclude that our existence is a purely mechanical one. At the other extreme some would have us transcend our physical frame were we exist as pure spirit. The truth is that our essential nature is both. It always has been and it always will be.

“…In heavy wreathes fold over every nation: cruel works
Of many wheels I view, wheel within wheel, with cogs tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other, not as those in Eden. which
Wheel within wheel, in freedom revolve in harmony and peace…(Blake, Jerusalem)

You seem to really love the verbal dance.

As to this:


This is not the thread for it, but you completely misunderstand Zen.

You still haven't answered my question:



Like you, I've studied philosophy, and theology, both formally and casually for many years. It seems to me you are stuck on a purely verbal level of understanding. Words are like a menu. A menu describes something good to eat, but you don't eat the menu itself.

I still want to know what my "gradeschool quote" was, by the way.

You haven't provided anything to suggest the Gospel writers were indeed eye witnesses or provided any other documentation of witnesses. Eye witnesses have not been rejected because you have not conclusively provided any.

We have also not dismissed any "rules of legal evidence." I quoted Simon Greenleaf and explained why his particular reasoning in regards to the Gospels was not exclusive to the Christian Bible. I said nothing else about his legal expertise, his previous writings or the rules of legal evidence.

Your arguments in the "Evolution & Creation" thread based on the Bible were demonstrations in circular reasoning, which was politely explained to you repeatedly. And while on the subject, I specifically asked to leave that debate out of this thread. Keep it there or drop it.

And we are not simply asking for proof of the Bible. What is being asked for here is proof of the Bible's historical accuracy, which the Bible cannot reasonably provide itself. The Bible proves itself by existing, but that says nothing for whether the events depicted in it are true or accurate. The pattern that is occuring, whether you will face it or not, is that you are twisting and switching arguments rather than providing any of the evidence asked for.

The rest of your post has nothing to do with the topic at hand. I would ask that you please try staying on topic.

And AGAIN: Would you mind terribly citing the Book, Chapter and Verse of the Bible quote you used several posts back? I would appreciate it

There isn't a shred of evidence that the Bible is a scientifically accurate book. In fact, in every case where the Bible claims God did something that can be evaluated scientifically, we find that the Bible is wrong.

Historically is another matter, of course, but simply because a few cities that the Bible claims existed may have actually done so, it doesn't demonstrate that the Bible is correct in any other way.

How does any of that prove that what is recorded in the Bible is true or accurate?

Actually it's more mythology than history. The vast majority of the Bible cannot be demonstrated to have happened and much of it can be shown not to have happened. As such, it is no more demonstrably true than any other religious book.

[quote=Cephus,Jul 17 2003, 05:59 PM] [QUOTE=goamerica,Jun 23 2003, 10:02 PM] Actually it's more mythology than history. The vast majority of the Bible cannot be demonstrated to have happened and much of it can be shown not to have happened. As such, it is no more demonstrably true than any other religious book. [/quote]
lol....the same could be said for evolution....but thats another thread!

btw....what has been shown not to have happened in the Bible?

[quote=valley,Jul 17 2003, 10:23 PM] [QUOTE=Cephus,Jul 17 2003, 05:59 PM] [QUOTE=goamerica,Jun 23 2003, 10:02 PM] Actually it's more mythology than history. The vast majority of the Bible cannot be demonstrated to have happened and much of it can be shown not to have happened. As such, it is no more demonstrably true than any other religious book. [/QUOTE]
lol....the same could be said for evolution....but thats another thread!

btw....what has been shown not to have happened in the Bible? [/quote]
And it would be a false claim if you did say that. I find it funny that the people who support the Bible the strongest are also those who know the least about it.

Now, if you want to start at Genesis 1:1... the creation story, or more properly two creation stories, are utterly false. The flood never happened. Moses never existed. There is a lot of allegory in the Bible but accepting it as truth... is a little ridiculous.