If some parts of the Bible can't be trusted how can any of it?

You mean that the Bible is the Word of God because people twist it to pretend that it predicted events thousands of years after it was written ?In your link it says :

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Ezekiel, another prophet, was also alive at this time, further prophesied in Ezekiel 4:3-6 that God knew that his people still would turn away from Him. Ezekiel was given a mathematical calculation, which clearly stated the number of years that this punishment lasted would equal 430 years. When we subtract the initial 70 years of punishment from the 430 years, we end up with 360 years of punishment that has been added to the initial 70 years.

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If you read the verses this is clearly false. Ezekiel was given no mathematical calculation. He was told that there would be 390 years of punishment for Israel and 40 years for Judah. These are seperate punishments on different people and certainly should not be added together

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4 "As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it.
5 "For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6 "When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year.

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As I point out in this message http://EvC Forum: If some parts of the Bible can't be trusted how can any of it? -->EvC Forum: If some parts of the Bible can't be trusted how can any of it? the page you refer to misrepresents Ezekiel 4, adding together the punishments on Israel and Judah.To add to that. since the people of Israel are gone (the "Lost Tribes") and the modern Jews come from Judah the calculation should use the figure for Judah alone of 40 years instead of 430 years.So the period of punishment "according to" Ezekiel (because the "seven-times" is NOT in Ezekiel) it should take a mere 280 (40x7) years and Israel should have been restored in 326 BC.Since your source misrepresents the Bible to claim a fulfilled prophecy why should we trust it ? Why should we even think that they beleive the Bible is the Word of God ? If they did then surely they wouldn't misrepresent it to advance their own views ? Aren't they REALLY asking us to reject the Bible and accept their sayings as the Word of God ?

I am saying that there are two different punishments on two sets of people. Adding them together - especially when the result is applied to only ONE of the two groups makes no sense at all. The punishment on Israel does not apply to the people of Judah, nor does the punishment on Judah apply to the people of Israel.The ancient Kingdom of Israel is gone and has not been restored - the people are the "Lost Tribes". The modern Israel is better described as a modern Judah - since the Jewish population is descended from the people of Judah. This is quite contrary to the proposed reading of Exekiel 4 - IF the numbers are applied to the people the Bible says that they apply to. If the numbers are used correctly the "seven times" argument has Judah restored thousands of years ago and ancient Israel centuries ago.

The tribes of Judah and Benjamin are suually accepted as staying with Judag (1 Kings 12 esp v21).Israel eventually fell to the Assyrians and the people taken into exile, never to return. (2 Kings 17:6) - this in 724 BC.Judah fell to Babylon in 586 BC so at that point the punishment of Israel had already run well over 100 years.

Israel had already been conquered more than 100 years before. The conquest of Judah was no punishment to Israel.And yes we can agree that it make no sense for the punishment due to Israel to be inflicted on Judah. Which is precisely the problem since everything in the supposed fulfilment relates to Judah and not Israel. And you have the number of tribes wrong - Benjamin was in Judah, not Israel.Nor does it make sense to divide years between the tribes. It is not as if one tribe was doing all the sinning while another tribe was completely blameless.WHen you say that the Bible must be allowed to interpret itself it appears that you mean that the Bible must be twisted to fit in with your beliefs. Because much of what you say does not come form the Bible and seems to be little more than an excuse to make the Bible "say" what you want it to say. Clearly you do not truly beleive that the Bible is the Word of God or you would show it more respect.

Your source doesn't say that Jesus or the Disciples used the Septuagint 97% of the tme at all. Just as well - because Jesus and the Disciples would not have been speaking Greek most of the time.It does say:

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...the New Testament agrees with the LXX version 97% of the time, as opposed to siding with the Masoretic text 68% of the time

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But since 97 + 68 is rather more than 100% it certainly DOESN'T follow that the Septuagint was used 97% of the time. And the usage of the NT authors - who were writing in Greek and may not have even understood Hebrew or Aramaic - doesn't necessarily reflect the usage of Jesus or the disciples.This message has been edited by PaulK, 08-24-2004 03:45 AM

Well at least you begin to understand why you were wrong.Try thinking about it some more.

Oh well time to tackle another of the yfile lies. There's nothing in the Bible to say that a year is always 360 days nor that 360 days must be used whenever prophecy talks about a year.The whole idea was made up to fiddle "prophecy" calculations.

YOu forget another possibility.That ancient civilisations used adjustments which they DID record/ragz-international.com - ragz international Resources and Information.

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It was necessary for the lunar year of about 354 days to be brought into line with the solar (agricultural) year of approximately 365 days. This was accomplished by the use of an intercalated month. Thus, in the 21st century BC, a special name for the intercalated month iti dirig appears in the sources.

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Or even that some used a 365 day calendar16 Black Americans in Astronomy and Space

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The earliest Egyptian calendar was based on the moon's cycles, but later the Egyptians realized that the "Dog Star" in Canis Major, which is now called Sirius, rose next to the sun every 365 days, about when the annual inundation of the Nile began. Based on this knowledge, they devised a 365-day calendar that seems to have begun in 4236 B.C., the earliest recorded year in history.

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This site also indicates that the ancient Egyptians used a 365 day calendar. Calendar

If the choice is between modern historians and Newton then the modern historians are the better source. Newton, for all his genious, simply did not have the same amount of information that we do today. For instance it's well known that Egyptian hieroglyphics could not be deciphered in Newton's day.And I'll certainly take academic sits over unsupported claims on your "yfiles" site.Even the inventors.com site you quote says that the 354 day year was used befor 2000 BC,So to go over your recap:
1) There is no evidence that the Bible understands a year to mena a fixed period of 360 days.
2) Newton's statement is contradicted by better-informed modern sources
3) The "yfiles" claim is unsupported form a site we already know to be unreliable.
4) The Sumerians used intercalation to correct for the problem that the lunar year did not match the solar year.And if you really want to advertise the dishonesty of your sources by saying that they make money from misrepresenting the words of people who disagree with them then go ahead. But it's your side's credibility that is destroyed by that fact.

OK so you go against the evidence to support a crackpot idea from the "yfiles" site.I'll stick with the evidence rather than believing nutty religious apologetics.I've already explained exactly why Newton should not be believed over modern historians on this issue and it was neither due to his methodology nor any suggestion that his claim was a mere "off the cuff" remark. How about actually answering that rather than refuting claims I never made ?