Does A Biblical Historical Record Exist?

Firstly, none of the Bible is a modern history. All of it is highly partisan and must be carefully filtered for bias.Secondly, the current mainstream view of archaeologists is that there is little to no history -in so far as it affects the archaeological record - in any book of the Bible prior to Judges. There was no recent creation of all life, including humans. No Flood. No Exodus.Although Judges has some historical basis, it too is full of legend. I suspect you need to get to 2 Kings before you find much reliable information and even that is heavily biased.Since none of the Bible is reliable history in the modern sense it will depend very much on what you are claiming and what book it comes from. If it is a relatively mundane claim, which is unlikely to e affected by authorial bias and from one of the less unreliable books you will need little if any corroboration. If it requires miracles you will always need corroborating evidence (and high-quality evidence at that). And you will always need to show that it really IS in the Bible. If you try to pass off creationist speculations like the vapour canopy as Biblical expect to get mauled.

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1. Actually there is an alleged history of Judaism from Abraham up to Jesus the Christ as well as a significant amount of alleged world history. Regardless of how much can be verified, it is a Biblical record of alleged history. This is why I use terms like, according to the Biblical historical record, thus & thus. However when I as much as say such a thing, I get flak for saying it.

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So let us be clear. Do you just want to say that it is something you BELIEVE to be a historical record, or do you want to claim that it IS a historical record.

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2. So far as supporting, verification and substantiating, that's what I/we attempt to do when applying the term. For example one might be debating the Exodus history. In attempting to make a case, one might say, "According to the Biblical Historical Record, Mt Sinai is in Arabia." The usage of the term here is simply to state what the Bible has to say as to where Mt Sinai is suppose to be. Speaking the term would not be the evidence perse. The evidence comes from the physical observation of the specific mountain in Arabia near the Nuweiba sandbar and the possible evidence of chariot debris and near a rock which fits the description of the Biblical account.

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Well the "sandbar" can't be physical evidence because it doesn't exist. And the Nuweiba site fails to fit the Biblical evidence because it is in the wrong place. And there is other evidence that indicates that the Exodus account is unreliable, late, and almost certainly ahistorical. It is not even true that the Bible claims that Mt. Sinai is in Saudi Arabia - that is an inference drawn more from the alleged evidence, than from the Biblical account itself.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Actually I'll agree that Isaiah contains some material that could be fairly categorised as a "historical record".But back to the original issue. The vapour canopy is not part of the Bible's "historical record". It isn't in the Bible - it's just speculation. And the parts of the Bible it is based on is more fairly characterised as myth, not any form of history.

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In past discussions about this, it has been shown why many creationists believe a canopy is implied in the Genesis record of origins. Admittedly however the further back we go, the less we can catagorize as historical.

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Nevertheless the Bible does not recrod any such canopy, and it is not even clearly implied.

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We aren't as adamant about a few thousand years back as secular mainline science is about billions of years back.

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By which you mean that you take completely crazy speculations as adamantly as science takes plausible suggestions with reasonable evidential support.To take just one example you keep referring to the idea that the alleged pre-Flood atmosphere somehow affected radiometric dates. But you keep evading the question when anyone asks you to even explain how it could possibly produce the results that have been observed. If any scientist acted like that we'd call him a crackpot.

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Surely you are aware of how a terrarium works, needing no watering or rain etc. The Genesis record clearly depicts a terrarium type planet with enough of a canopy in the atmosphere to collect the evaporated moisture which would in turn fall as a mist back to the earth. According to clear Genesis implications, there being no rainbow, a mist type rain watered the earth. The length of life claimed and the evidence of large animals etc also imply a super climate before the flood.

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A terrarium is not maintained by a vapour canopy. You might appeal to the solid firmament as a roof instead but this would be conceding my point. The reference to a "mist" appears in Genesis 2:6 - long before the Flood and there is no indication that it represented a continuing state of affairs right up to the Flood. The long life spans are NOT a likely result of a "super climate", and the "large animals" are not found in the Bible. So all in all it is as I said,the bible neither explicitly states nor clearly implies a vapour canopy and the references you use are from sections that are better labelled myth than history.

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This thread is not about this perse so I don't want to get into a discussion on this. You keep on keeping on charging that I never lend reason for these things. I'm calling you on it here and that is the only reason I went into it to the extent that I did.

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But you did so only to prove me right. You would have done better to concede the point

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Go figure. You should be science apprised enough to know that a radically different atmosphere would effect dating methodology designed for present day conditions if such an atmosphere existed.

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I am science apprised enough to know that a radically different atmosphere would be more likely to kill all life on Earth than to affect the decay rate of atoms sealed in deeply buried rocks !No, Buz the reason I challenge your statement is BECAUSE of my knowledge of science - which tells me that your idea is completely crazy.

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That's the only problem I see, given you agree with most of my points. The problem with the above is that no matter what any of us Biblical fundamentalists produce in debate for substantiating our case we are accused of not substantiating. Of course the majority view has the bully pulpit here. Case in point is the last exchange with PaulK. He will likely go on and on and on making he same demeaning unsubstantiated charges as is his MO, and of course his friends all listen to them and agree, including some other admins.

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Well that's intesetsting since you did a great job of substantiateing the charges. And you were the one attempting to occupy the "Bully pulpit" instead of supporting your claim about the pre-Flood atmosphere affecting dating methods. And it is the case that you have repeatedly refused to provide any substantiation for this claim.

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Evolutionists, imo, need to begin understanding that if they want anyone to debate they should expect the minority viewpoints to be aired and tolerate them expressing their viewpoints as they see them. But no, until we agree with mainline science, we will likely never be tolerated to the point that good ID creationist debaters will feel comfortable at this site.

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The problem here is the difference between airing your opinions and expecting others to believe them or to take them seriously as arguments. When I suggested that you wanted your references to "historical record" of the Bible to be only expressions of opinion you violently objected, calling it "demeaning". But that appears to be exactly what you are asking for above. SO which is it ? Do you just want to express your opiniosn as opinions ? Or is it as it seems - that you want to suppress valid criticism ?

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Aside from you totally missing Buzsaw's point in referring to the Biblical historical record, you are severely tempting me to divert this conversation into another Exodus debate.

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It's hard to say I'm missing the point when Buz himself won't say what his point is. And if you want to be thrashed again on an Exodus debate, I'm up for it.As I remember you posted the map which showed that there was no sandbar, and no special crossing route. As Brian has pointed out the Red Sea is NOT the sea that was crossed in Exodus so Nuweiba is unquestionably the wrong place.And quite frankly, given Moeller's hopeless lack of competence I'm not about to beleive that some unnamed Korean doctor made any dramatic discoveries either.

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I'm still waiting for your proof against all these things PaulK. Ever since I've known you, you deny evidence, yet you never have evidence to prove our evidence wrong. I'm still waiting, and I believe that I shall forever be waiting.

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You're forgetting that it's your job to show that this is credible relevant evidence. You failed utterly. All you give is the word of Wyatt - a fake and a fraud - and Moeller - at best incompetent. Did we ever see any evidence that the coral formations contained chariot wheels as alleged ? No ! Where evidence IS actually available I did very well - for instance completely demolishing the rewrite of Egyptian history you are so fond of and demonstrating Moeller's incompetence as a consequence.But how tell me, am I supposed to show that thre are no chariot wheels in coral formations that have never been properly examined - by anyone ?

If you want to make comparisons then you belong with the crowd that deny the moon landings. Just like them you don't have a real case. As we found out.