Is belief in God or the Bible necessary to believe in a massive flood.

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if you start saying ''the jews never were in egypt'',''Moses never existed'', ''David never existed'' etc. then at some point you have to replace it with something. you can't just say, well the Jewish people were actually a small tribe in the desert who invented themselves a history

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Er... Why not? And why would we insert a mythic history when more exhaustive and reliable accounts dry up? Just because we don't have a full answer doesn't mean that we should embrace un-evidenced stories.

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I mean, no one questions Julius's Caesar Gallic wars even though we have a total of only 10 documents speaking about it, with the oldest one being 1000 years after the event.

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Who told you that? We have Caesar's own account of the Gallic Wars.

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But everyone seems to question the jewish account of their own history, even though they have a shitload more manuscripts and very accurate methods of transcribing it.

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But that's just not true. It's just a lie that Christians tell each other in order to feel less silly about believing a mythic account as if it were fact.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : Missed a bit.

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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

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I didn't say we don't have any manuscripts of the gallic wars, I'm saying we have few, and that they are much later then the event.

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And you are wrong, as Caesar's personal account proves.

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The Caesar's account of the gallic wars we have is not the copy Caesar himself wrote,

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What do you want? An autographed copy in Caesar's own hand? Maybe an personal inscription? "To my dear friend Brutus, hope you enjoy the book, I trust you will always be watching my back..."Do you put the Bible to so extreme a test?

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it is a transcripted copy from copy from a copy ... from the original.

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Just like the Bible, except that there is no doubt that in the case of Caesar's account of the Gallic wars that Caesar was in fact the author. There is, at the most generous assessment, grave doubt that traditional attributions for the books of the Bible are correct.

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May I ask how do you know it isn't true ?

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Because the writings from Roman antiquity provide multiple sources confirming events like the Gallic conquest. These events are also confirmed by archaeology. Many of the events depicted in the Bible simply do not have the same backing. I'm sorry, but that is simply a fact. There is an copious evidence that Caesar was a real person, from coins and monuments to writings by those, like Cicero, who knew him first hand.The same cannot be said of Moses, who only seems to exist in the Bible.

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Besides, the OT remained the same to about 99,9% from the dead sea scrolls up to our current day bible. Why couldn't the Jews achieve similar transcription accuracy ?

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I'm not casting doubt on the transcription methods. You can transcribe a fairy story as accurately as you like, it won't make it true.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

Peg, you are being ridiculous. It does nothing of the kind.The novel The Wizard of Oz features Kansas. Kansas is a real place. Thus Oz is a real place and Dorothy, the Tin Man and the gang are all real as well. Right?How about this; In Flashman at the Charge, the central character, Harry Flashman, takes part in the Battle of Balaclava. Balaclava is a real place, where there was a real battle. He takes part in the Charge of the Light Brigade, a real event. He encounters Cardigan and Raglan, both absolutely real people. Thus, Flashman is a history of real people and real places. Right?Or... not right?You are over-reaching on the thinnest evidence imaginable. Just because story contains a single real element, doesn't mean that the whole story is true.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : Fixed quote boxes.

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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

Yes. Why?(Barely seems worth writing "Mutate or Survive" for such a brief message.)

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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

Then perhaps you might restrict yourself to saying that the cedar was real, instead of trying to use it to prove other matters. Your assertion, to which I took exception, was that the cedar provided evidence that Solomon was real, which is clearly ludicrous.The cedars don't provide evidence of Solomon, they only provide evidence that the Bible authors knew the region, something that no sane commentator would deny.Interestingly, Wikipedia has this to say on the Lebanese cedar; So is this evidence that Gilgamesh was real? Or are you going to stop being silly?

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oh, and Lucy?Do you have anything of substance to say? Only I have things to do and I'm not planning on hanging around all afternoon waiting for you to make sense...Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : Added reply to lucytheape.Edited by Granny Magda, : Typo.

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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

Dr A is right; this thread has lost touch with it's topic. I just can't let this slide though. Must you insist upon quote-mining me? I thought Christians weren't suppose to give false witness?For the record, here is what I said; Quote mining someone is always pathetic, but doing it when the full quote is only up the page for all to see is both pathetic and incompetent.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