There is an appalling lack of historical evidence backing the Bible's veracity

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To completely discount the book as myth and ignore the painstaking effort that went into preserving it and the lifetimes spent copying it, is almost like slapping your oldest ancestor in his face.

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Respect does not require dishonesty. We can respect their efforts (although you exaggerate even there) without insisting that the words are literally true.However we can NOT respect their efforts while misrepresenting and distorting those words to support our own personal beliefs as you do.

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As for me, I will consider it an important link to the past and am continue to be amazed at the accuracy of it.

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Since the "accuracy" is the intentional product of your distortions and misrepresentations there is nothing amazing about it.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Say what? Language dawned tens of thousands of years before the stories in the Bible were made up, let alone written down. And every time you turn around, the words in the Bible are being changed into some other language or some more modern form of an existing language. Do you read ancient Hebrew, olletrap? And Greek? If you do, good for you! If you don't, don't talk about words being preserved.

There's no need to get personal. the fact is that even though it was written over 2000 years ago (at least) and you can't come up with any glaring falsehoods, (like let's say, the earth is flat) shows me that there is enough to call it amazing.there are many stories in the Bible that could not be literally true to the letter. I'll give you that. But I find it to be as a multi-layered onion with many lessons and much good advice and yes, a record of Man's interaction with God, creator, higher power, whatever. I'm sure parts might have been tampered with, but I'm equally sure it is a minute amount.Th thing is that I do not use IT to justify my beliefs, I honestly try to believe what it teaches and refer to it for guidance when in doubt. I know there is a big problem with those who get it wrong. there always has been and always will be. I can certainly understand why some would find offense in some people's interpretation of the Bible. I certainly do. that though is not the fault of the book, but the reader.There are wars fought and atrocities committed in the name of God. There are charletons that manipulate people and justify it by misusing the Bible. All that is true and terrible and should be stopped. But you can't throw the baby out with the bath water. To me, the Bible is a magnificent work and when read with the major principles in mind, that we love one another... there is alot to learn in it.one of the reasons I actually started reading or myself is because I had an ignorant "Born Again" brother in law, who kept quoting passages that to me didn't sound very God-Like. Sure enough I found that he had omitted certain things and strung together different parts to prove his own beliefs. It was not at all what was meant by the writers.People will believe what they want to believe. And many will say the Bible justifies their hate or even violence, but the fact is that most of them haven't even read it for themselves. It just isn't about that. There's an old saying hat goes something like this... Lord please save me... not from your enemies, but from your followers.It's sad. I think most major religions get it wrong to some extent. But it's not the books fault.

It is a fact that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, the parts of Isaiah that were found, were pretty much the same as we have today. So I think for the most part there was an honest effort to faithfully reproduce the text as best they could in most cases. You don't need to read Greek or Hebrew, thee are concordances that will give you the meanings of any questionable word and it's possible alternative translations. Mostly unless you are a biblical scholar, there's no great difference.Those who misrepresent what they read do it purposely. It's not honest language problems.Anyway there is evidence that it comes to us much the same as it was at least two thousand years ago.

Really?It says that the Earth was created before the Sun....

Whoa there!Take a look at Daniel 4:10-11

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4:10 Thus were the visions of mine head in my bed; I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great.
4:11 The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth;

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Even in a vision, this only makes sense on a flat Earth, where a suitably tall tree could be seen by everyone. At the centre of a sphere, it would be seen by no-one.This is only one example. The cosmology of the Bible is that of a flat Earth with a dome-like vault of skies above it. This is consistent with the Babylonian and Egyptian cosmologies of the time.I don't want to get caught up in this especially. This thread is primarily about historical figures in the Bible and the corroborating evidence for their existence, or lack thereof. That means we're more interested in figures from within the reach of human history, such as David, Moses or Jesus.If you think that the Bible is so accurate, why don't you provide some evidence for their existence?Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Science shows that the "global flood" which biblical scholars place around 4,350 years ago, did not happen.Likewise, the genetic bottleneck which would have resulted by reducing the human population to eight individuals at that same time never happened.The story of the "global flood" is a glaring falsehood if there ever was one.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

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There's no need to get personal.

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I think that there is every need to point out just what you are doing.

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the fact is that even though it was written over 2000 years ago (at least) and you can't come up with any glaring falsehoods

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I've already pointed out two, of many. Firstly that there are stars billions of years older than the Earth - which Genesis 1 totally ignores, saying instead that the stars were created AFTER modern flowering plants ! (Message 232). Secondly that Genesis 1 has the day/night cycle set up BEFORE the sun (Message 254).On the other hand we've yet to see one example of "amazing accuracy" from you.

"TRUTH" never changes, it's the same today, tommorrow, forever.Archeological/Evolution theories keep changing as new discoveries are made, evidence the theories are based on "assumptions", not "truth".This thread questioned the verscity of scriptures based on those Archeological/Evolution theories, I simply made the point,Judging the verscity of scripture on "Assumptions" which keep changing day to day is "bad science" in anyone's book. The link is mine, my own words,As they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words".A farmer plants a "seed" in the earth to become the "Bread" to feed the "Natural man".God planted a "seed" (Jesus) in the earth to become the "bread" (of life) to feed the "Spiritual man". (soul)God said the earth would last six days and the seventh day would be a "day of Rest". (millennial reign)We plan our schedules according to a six day work week, day of rest.The "Natural light" (Sun) was created on the "fourth day", and according to biblical chronology, the "Spiritual light" (Jesus) came into the world on the "fourth day".How many have noticed that these "physical patterns" in/of the world are "reflections" of the "Spiritual patterns" in scripture??You want "extra-Biblical evidence", it's all around you, the whole world is patterned according to something "Spiritual", so much so that no one can correlate the connection between all of them.Ro 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,Personally, I wouldn't attempt to question "God's word" until I first understood it, certainly not on "Asumptions", but then understanding removes any questions about the verscity of his words.My last post for this thread.

I believe the day/night thing was an indication that measurable time was created when light was created. Actually that's a big part of the genius... there could not be a day and a night until God said "let there be light". Because without light...there is no time. As for the billions of stars...I would say that they were mentioned when God separated the light from the darkness. That is, the stars were lights, being separated from the vast darkness of space. Perhaps they were only visible on earth as stars, after the flowering plants... Actually, since there was no one to observe them, they weren't really stars in the sky... since that is a very human perspective.I'm sorry. I guess my first post wasn't deep enough. I also pointed out that the length of time this actually took could be much more than five days... since a day simply means a period of time, and before the earth there was no measurable 24 hour day.

As has been explained to you several times, questioning the veracity of scriptures is not the topic of this thread. This thread is discussing the common but mistaken Christian belief that the accounts in the Bible are supported by a lot of real world evidence. The con side of this issue would take the position that the belief is not mistaken and that there is actually a lot of real world evidence for Biblical accounts, in which case the task becomes to present some.But this is not what you apparently want to talk about, so you should not be posting to this thread. It doesn't matter whose words are at the other end of the link, we try to discourage debate by link here. See rule 5 of the Forum Guidelines. Unless you address the topic, I'm holding you to this.--Percy (aka Admin, EvC Forum Director)

This always surprises me as well. In a court of law, an eyewitness testimony is enough evidence to hang a man. Yet when it comes to the Bible, eye witnesses don't count for anything... Why would you doubt that historical figures are accurate. That seems like a waste of time. I can't believe there are records that go back that far to prove one way or another whether a person actually was. I think I'd just as soon take the Bibles word for it.As for a flat earth from that dream/vision... I think that's stretching it, though no doubt people thought the earth was flat. All the more reason one should be surprised not to find that mentioned in the story of creation.

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I believe the day/night thing was an indication that measurable time was created when light was created.

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It's clear that it means day and night - on Earth. There's nothing to suggest anything else.

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As for the billions of stars...I would say that they were mentioned when God separated the light from the darkness.

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Except that they weren't. Not at all.

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Actually, since there was no one to observe them, they weren't really stars in the sky... since that is a very human perspective.

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If that was what was meant (and it would be pretty silly) the creation of stars would have to come after the creation of humans, not before.

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I'm sorry. I guess my first post wasn't deep enough.

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It was also flat-out wrong.

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I also pointed out that the length of time this actually took could be much more than five days... since a day simply means a period of time, and before the earth there was no measurable 24 hour day.

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The Earth is assumed to exist at the actual beginning, and the day/night cycle is set up right at the start. So you're wrong there, too.

Science also shows that all humans are descended from one female ancestor according to our mitochondrial DNA. as for 4500 years ago, I think most scientists place the flood at at least 8000 years ago and there is evidence of such an event in sediment from around the globe which all contains volcanic ash from around the same time period.certainly there is science for and against everything.

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Science also shows that all humans are descended from one female ancestor according to our mitochondrial DNA.

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But it does NOT tell us that this woman was the only one alive at that time (or give us any reason to believe it). In fact given the way mitochondrial DNA is inherited it will inevitably narrow down to a single female ancestor if you go back far enough.What you see is a statistical inevitability, not evidence that Genesis is literally true.