biblical archaeology

So that's one which you consider to be in question. What about all the others?

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

Is this another Jar obfuscative word games? Are we discussing biblical theology or are we talking Biblical historical credibility here? So we'll do do the round about long process, i.e. the jar modus operandi. I'll raise the bar for you to see how you do. Jar, do they lend any support to the historical credibility of the respective Biblical accounts to which they pertain?AbE: 1st sentenceThis message has been edited by buzsaw, 01-07-2006 04:08 PM

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

No, most do not. They add NO historical support and, as I said, in many cases they prove the Biblical account wrong.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

"Most do not" looks like you think some do. Sepecifically which ones do you think lend some support to the historical credibility of the respective Biblical accounts to which they pertain?

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

Well, none actually support the historical accounts other than very indirectly. For example, I can write a complete fiction where I mention the B&O roundhouse. The fact that the B&O roundhouse exists, is not support for my fictional account beyond the simple fact that I used something that does or did exist as color in the fiction.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Presumably you mena my bias against frauds and liars ?Archaeology is useful against the BoM because the BoM makes up many things. It refers to animals, plants and technologies that are either not found in the Americas or found to no significant extent.Wehreas the most important parts of the Gospels are things that archaeology simply cannot investigate. Can you use archaeology to even confirm that Jesus really said even one of the teachings attributed to him ?As far as I am aware the finndings she reports also do not deal with items that have been contested to any great degree and so have little usefulness there. And as I have stated that Jehoash tablet is a fake and so of no value at all.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere in this tedious exchange. So you seem to imply by your analogy that those archeological discoveries, Jackie has cited, which verify that certain controversial Biblical people, events or places actually existed do lend some support to the historical credibility of the respective Biblical accounts to which they pertain.Is that correct?

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

No. Can't imagine where you got that idea.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Perhaps no value for supporting the Bible, but great value for alerting everyone not to get too carried away with an artefact before it has been properly verified.Remember the James Ossuary? Christians were wetting their pants over that one, they seem to have gone very quiet now.But, the Jehoash case is a timely reminder that we should be careful not to allow archaeology to be dragged back to the dark days of the early 'Bible Archaeologists' who simply asserted that every find in the Near East supported everything in the Bible. Artefacts were never examined by themselves, they were always examined in light of the Bible texts.Too many people do not understand what archaeology is. Take the case of the ossuary, how many people thought that the ossuary supported Jesus being the son of God! It is not what archaeology does.Jesus being God on Earth is something that can only be affirmed or denied, even if archaeologists found a contemporary inscription that gave an account of Jesus' ressurection, it means nothing other than someone took the time to inscribe a tablet.I get bewildered at the leaps people make when they read about archaeology, I really wish they would take time to find out what archaeology is.Brian.

Amen Brother. Preach the gospel.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

It doesn't help that the media usually gives some over simplified sensational report. I was visiting some relatives and they were watching the Discovery Channel which was running this long series on dinosaurs which was mostly well rendered computer animations illustrating speculation about how dinosaurs behaved, fought, built nest etc. There was so little palentology in that series I could hardly believe it. No sites were shown to explain why dino nests were being illustrated they way they were for example.The programs weren't science but a kind of best guess science fiction entertainment. I suppose there was a disclaimer buried somewhere. But no wonder people think Ron Wyatt's hoaxes are archeology. Popular media has blurred the distinction to the point that unless someone seeks out college classes in the subject they will assume that science is one big dramatic colorful exciting discovery after another. Just read the headlines!If I were more paranoid I'd be claiming that Christians are running the media and creating stories like this just to make people more gullible and ripe for recruiting, but obviously religious people have their own objections to the media.lfen

whoa whoa. don't confuse appeal to generalized audiences with lack of scientific foundation. we have lots of very scientific reasons for just about everything that was covered in that series short of coloration. the idea, basically, was to portray dinosaurs as how they lived -- the conclusions of paleontological research -- not the research itself.the problem, imho, is that the discovery channel got confused, much the same as you just did. the bbc knew what it was doing, but the discovery channel treated it as a way to show off computer graphics and make wild speculation.the thing that did the most damage were the subsequent (animal planet?) cg-spec-fests. there was one about future evolution, and one about space aliens. especially the aliens. people saw that, and it was plain as day that it was nothing but pure and unadultered fantasy. even the scientific plausibility was dubious at best.and so people now look back at "walking with dinosaurs" and think that paleontology is the same -- pure speculation. it's most certainly not. but this is just part of the whole "i don't believe in science" movement.

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אָרַח

I believe that is possible but I still think it should have been tied into those reasons. Without some explanation it isn't educational but merely entertaining. I think making science entertaining is a good thing but ... you have to keep some science in there, some educational focus.Walking in cold all I saw was one unsupported assumption after another without any way to know what the conclusions were based on or how they were arrived at. And much of it is still best guess approximation. Later finds may call some or much of it into question. I've no problem with that but it shouldn't be presented as if that was the way it was.The interesting part should not the King Kong aspect but rather how do you study these things, how do you develop the evidence and the conclusions. Beyond entertainment what did that series accomplish? It's not like dinos are endangered. They don't need friendly press. They're already extinct.lfen

"infotainment." i agree, really. the issue that started it was the lack of actual depiction of the science behind the theories. i've seen a ton of documentaries that do this. this one got popular because it was easily digested, i think. well, i don't really pay that mush attention to the actual scientific end of things anymore, but not much of it was new to me. i understood how we arrive at reconstructions, how musculature and posture is determined, and even how some behaviour gets preserved. we can tell for instance that some dinosaurs (like hadrosaurs and ceratopsians) hatched and nurtured their young, and we can tell that others (like ceolophysis) ate them. well, there is always debate, and things are always questioned. this, of course, is a little different than just making shit up. probably not, but hey, it sold well! lol, true, true.

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אָרַח

Hi Brian. I didn't mean to ignore you in the chat room. I didn't know what I was doing, but had a pleasant visit with all you friendly folks there. Anyhow as per topic, it bewilders me when secularist folks throw out the baby with the bath water with Biblical archeology. I guess many are sooo afraid that if they acknowledge one significant find, especially involving miracle, they're in trouble ideologically.What is archeology? I defined it, according to my dictionary. Is there a problem with that?

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.