THE BIBLE: God’s Word or Man’s?

Camels were used as beast of burden.. The camel saddle was probably used by the 10th century BC.

Not much evidence for camels (or horses) in ancient Palestine... Donkeys were used to carry stuff and people walked.

 

What "Bonze age culture" do you talk about? And yes, at some extent, the hebrew books were based on older folk tales from the powerful empires that surrounded them. There must have been more ancient texts that were used, thought, but nothing a guy called "Moses" have ever written.

I'll still favor academia over faith.

 

The story of Moses shared many similarities with the much older Egyptian story of Sinuhe.

 

You're a step ahead, as usual.

 

If you believe that then you must believe Titus 1:14 (CEV) = "Don’t pay any attention to any of those senseless Jewish stories and human commands. These are made up by people who won’t obey the truth."

 

Your comment about a circle can be 2d or 3d is incorrect.. A circle lies in a single plane. Did you ever take a Geometry class?

1. Here is a discussion question. How come none of your Bible thumpers could determine the circumference of Earth like Eratosthenes did?

2. Here is another discussion question. Why is the Book of Exodus a fabrication?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus

 

Unless this God thingy came down to write a book, did all the edits, translations, revisions, deletions and then decided to write a bunch more books with other versions of itself the Bible(s) are written by men.

 

The Bible Thumpers have an amazing ability to suspend critical thinking or disregard education.

 

Total nonsense.

 

JET3534:

It is a historical fact that the Eratosthenes of Cyrene was nowhere in the picture when Isaiah wrote that earth is a 3D circle in the 8th century B.C.E. Eratosthenes was not born until the 3rd century B.C.E. -- some 500 years after Isaiah describe the earth as a circle. Isaiah did this at a time in human history when all the pagan nations had incorrect ideas about earth. How do you explain that?

Alter2Ego

 

Ancient navigators used the Kamal before Genesis... Does that count?

 

The Bible stories like Exodus and the parting of the Red Sea were NEVER meant as history or science.. The ancient Jews didn't believe them as such.. They were written as INSPIRATION of survival, redemption, God's mercy and forgiveness.

 

1) Why would people in the time of Isaiah think the world was flat - and not like the spheres present in the night sky ?
2) See answer to 1 ... the planets do look like they are hanging there. This statement conveys nothing about some belief in gravity as per newton's theory - it does however convey that the people at the time noticed that when you drop something on year - it falls to the ground ... Yet .. the spheres in the night sky do not seem to do this. They just seem to hang there.

3) They were just describing what they saw. No big riddle here and certainly not proof of any intervention/ secret knowledge given to man by God or - as ancient alien theorists would suggest - visitors from other worlds.

 

The point about Eratosthenes (which of course you missed) is that humans can and do figure things out without supernatural intervention. Certainly Eratosthenes figured out a lot more that a man who you claimed got his information from god.

 

The bible isn't about how the heavens go, its about how to go to heaven.
Was Galileo the first to quote that?
They said there was no place called Nazareth, until it turned up.
And no king called David, until he turned up.
And no edict of Cyrus re return of the Jews,until it turned up.
And Jews are not a race, just a religious view - until DNA turned up.
And no ten lost tribes until Samaritan DNA from that period turned up.
etc...
The claim of the bible is to its HISTORICITY - it isn't about some Zeus on Mount Olympia.

 

The Jews don't believe the Exodus? LOL, clearly you don't know any Jews.

 

Sounds about right - it was about how "heaven" and "earth" suplanted the Law and Temple; to a certain extent.
Paul's Damascus "revelation" was exactly that...the eschatology was that the "Temple" (i.e. where God and "Earth" met...mingled...however you want to describe it) was Jesus and that heaven and earth were now one through the lad Jesus. Isn't that what pissed off the Jews? All of a sudden their Law was redundant having been fulfilled through Jesus's replacement as the Temple thus allowing all people who wanted "salvation" to obtain it through Jesus not through following the Law, which obviously included Gentiles...shock horror!!....According to Paul anyway.

 

and also according to John, Luke, Matthew, Mark, Peter, Jude and James.
I hate this "Pauline" theory of Christianity - we even read the Messiah as
fulfilling all things in the Old Testament. Long before any guy named Saul or
Paul.

 

Aye...there were a fair smattering of them....weren't "Messiahs" ten-a-penny back in the day? I would imagine market places up and down the country were full of wannbe messianic bozos all expounding their own versions of freedom from oppression...jeez any bloke with a sword seemed to be able to jubjugate the Jews so no wonder they were wheezing out loud for a messiah...any messiah!!

 

Daniel said the Messiah would come while the temple still stood.
And Jacob said the Jewish nation itself would end with His coming.
Isaiah spoke of Him as being the lamb slain, rejected of His people.
Lots of Jews wanted a king, but few if any wanted a Messiah. And
as a result they were driven out of their land for 2,000 years.

 

Dan'el was an old Assyrian poem, written long before there were any Jews.

The messiah the Jews expected was an anointed warrior king like David who would drive the enemies of the Jews out of Palestine.

 

They know Exodus is didactic literature. It never happened. The Jews were never slaves in Egypt and Egypt controlled by Sinai and the hill country of Canaan during the time of the story.

 

There is NO evidence for King David although most scholars think he may have existed and been the bandit king of a small hill top village on the trade route.

Jews have no special DNA.. They share genetic markers with Palestinian Arabs and Christians as well as Syrians, Lebanese and other people of the Levant.

The Samaritans were 4 Arab tribes that Sargon 2 settled in Samaria around 700 BC.

 

The "House of David" is found on several archeological finds.
Calling David a "bandit king" is just secular mockery.
Jews have special markers. Even down to what post Temple group they are. Even the Samaritan
split from the ancient Jews can be seen AND dated. (In this case - the loss of the ten tribes to Assyria
and the Assyrian admixture.)
There are "shared genetic markers" in us all, even for Neanderthal - that means little.
I traced my own Jewish line after finding it originally as a genetic marker. (I am Sephardic, 30% European
admixture.)