Your favourite Bible absurdity

buzsaw asks:

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but isn't that what the text prophesies, that the name will become unknown, blotted out except by God's words which are not to pass away??

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Isn't it more than a little absurd for God to say he will completely blot out the memory of Amalek, record his words saying so and then give a relatively detailed history of that very same Amalek in the inerrant book he wrote?If anything, this seems like a prophesy still waiting to be fulfilled. In order to blot out the memory of Amalek, God will necessarily have to blot out the memory of the bible (or at least do a little post-modern redacting), won't he? Sadly, I don't think he's managed to pull this one off just yet.

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I think that's just another cool prophecy fulfilled.

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Do you? That's interesting.

Hi, As Amlodhi says, Abraham does not consider the Pharaoh or King Abimelech’s obsession with Sarah to be absurd, he in fact expects them to find her very beautiful. What he finds absurd is the announcement that he and Sarah will conceive a child in their old age.The story about Abraham and Sarah in Egypt, and in Gerar, and Isaac and Rebekah, also in Gerar, are viewed as reworkings of the same campfire myth. Over the last couple of years (although I haven’t looked into this very much) I have heard arguments presented for each one of the three tales having primacy over the other two, but I find all three stories fraught with historical errors. Of course I shouldn’t be surprised at this since the authors were not intent on recording accurate history here.If you are interested in discussing the many historical errors in these texts, for example the presence of the Philistines around 600 years before they entered Palestine, then we can do so on another thread.Brian.

Hi, pleased to meet you. Well would you like to open a new topic, pick ONE prophecy that you feel has been fulfilled, explain why you believe it has been fulfilled, and we can discuss it.Buz has been trying for a very long time to show us an example of a fulfilled prophecy and he has failed thus far. Perhaps you can succeed where Buz has failed? Who is it that questions His historicity? No He isnt.We know the Josephus account was forged, and Tacitus NEVER mentions Jesus. I think we are all familiar with Christian mythology. These statements are all taken on faith, because there is no proof that any of them are true. I dont think that 'Bible' and 'logic'necessarily belong in the same sentence. I actually think that Jesus acheived absolutely nothing, in fact, he was arguably the poorest example of a messiah that I have ever heard of.If Jesus jas saved the whole world he has done a pretty shabby job of it.Brian.

1Edited by ateuphall, : No reason given.

Hi, welcome to the forum.What makes you think I am wasting my time?Could it be that some of the replies are educational?Brian.

1Edited by ateuphall, : No reason given.

Hiya,Yes, this is a discussion website but members can begin threads in this fashion if they want to, for example, gather information about what other members believe. Not every thread on this site is actually a discussion/debate, some are for gathering information.Another example would be the thread where I asked for a quick example that I could give to students of something that would falsify evolution, I was just looking for some help.This thread was to gain an idea of what other members think is the most absurd thing in the Bible. Others are welcome to ask members what they think are the best examples of truth in the Bible if they want to.So essentially the topic was not really a discussion, it was a question that I wanted to ask my friends here at EvC. If a member did not have an absurdity then I wouldnt see the point in them posting to this thread, just as I have never posted on about 2/3 of the forums here.I am not on any mission, I know what the Bible is and the perverse view that the fundamentalist has of the Bible actually makes a wonderful collection of ancient texts into a laughing stock.What inspires me to speak out in this forum is to illustrate to the misguided souls who think that the Bible is 100% accurate on everything, that they need to get off their butts and actually study it before coming to this conclusion. These absurdities, such as the Abimelech-Abraham-Sarah story, should motivate these people to question the accuracy of the text, since this story is clearly untrue we should be asking ourselves what is really going on here.My ultimate aim, not just in this thread , is to get people to question the way in which they read the Bible. The countless errors in the Bible should be a clue to us that we need to perhaps rethink the way in which we view these texts.Also, I do frequent a high quality academic discussion board that focusses on the Hebrew Bible and Near Eastern Archaeology. However, I really like this site and have made a lot of friends here, so I cannot imagine a time when I wouldn't like to come here.Brian.

1Edited by ateuphall, : No reason given.

Hi,I would be thrilled to start a new discussion about the Abraham/Sarah Isaac/Rebekah using the old wife/sister sting, however, I am going into hospital on Tuesday 30th, and I do not expect to be posting here for around two weeks after that date.As I am certain that this topic would attract a lot of interest, and require some detailed input by me, I feel it would be better to wait until I am fit enough to carry on a continuous discussion.Perhaps some others would discuss this with you, I am sure Amlodhi and Consequent Atheist could indulge you if you wanted to get on with this sooner rather than later. But I think for me to post a detailed outline of the problems, and then disappear for two weeks would not be a good start.The texts in question are:Genesis 12:10-20
Genesis 20:1-18
Genesis 26:1-16These are viewed as three different versions of the one tale.Take care.Brian.

Without prying into why you are going to be hospitalized (Nosy though I am nicked) I hope all goes well. Can you get someone to update us?

Brian, may the food be the worst part of your stay.

This is not realy a reply to ateuphall's post, I just don't know how to start a new post in this thread.I am going to go way off-track to start with as background information, but promise to close with on-topic post I was raised in a fundie environment, but at age ten was lured into a more fundie church that convinced me and my little brother that my parents were liberals and were leading us astray. Our parents allowed us to go to a different church. when I was twelve the pastor of our church returned from the Holy Land (doing one those following the path of Christ tours) and gave us a slide show. One of the most impressive points of the show (to me, a kid) was pictures of a rock with fishing nets on it. This, he said was the remains of Tyre, as prophesied in Ezekial 26. As an ignorant child I brought these points up to a 6th grade teacher who had recently returned from the Middle East as well (who was not a Christian). She told me that she had been to Tyre and it was wonderful. A modern city with an incredible history and great museums. I talked with the friend of my pastor and he told me that the unsaved would make up any lie to deceive the true Christians. So I searched out the information and discovered that Tyre was the fourth largest city in Lebanon, and considered a marvel of fusion between ancient tradition and western technology (I don't know what the status is now, this was the late 70's and early 80's).I guess the point is that fundies will ignore the existence of a city of several million to prove that prophecy happened. "It wasn't obliterated? Well we will pretend it doesn't exist". My personal beef is that I now know that the photo he showed was from a breakwater from which the modern city of Tyre (hotels and all) were directly behind him. He KNEW the slide was a lie.So to be on-topic, my biggest biblical absurdity must be the destruction of Tyre as detailed in Ezekial Chapter 26. This has been hailed in many fundementalist circles as the best example of prophesy. But it NEVER happened.

Take care, Brian.

Not a "favorite", but arguably the most pernicious Bible absurdity is the Passion narrative(s), which managed to transform a butcher into a saint.

Lithodid-Man writes:

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I was raised in a fundie environment...

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That may be, but at least your parents managed to inspire you to question things. They did a good job, it would appear.Welcome to the EvC!