The Bible

I actually looked up re-animation of dead creatures and it was impossible.

 

Jesus was an Essene. More than one authority says that

 

You would dispute the prestigious Universitat Zurich?

 

Welll….I did not say no exceptions and that's on tape so it has some type of evidence.

 

I agree about 'eleph' However the Hebrew for Numbers 1:21 reads 'those that were numbered of them, of the tribe of Reuben, were forty and six thousand and five hundred. {P} using the word eleph. That gives us 46,500 for Reuben. The same word is used for the other tribes. And the same word is used twice in verse 46 giving the total of 600 eleph and 35 eleph and 50.

I stick by No 3. There was no exit. Tribes of Semetics went into and out of Egypt all the time to feed their flocks etc in the fertile Nile delta. This is recorded. There were Canaanite slaves in Egypt taken when the Egyptians invaded, or disciplined, races under their control. But according to the Bible Jacobs family went willingly into Egypt and settled there. 400+ years in Egypt and only a small tribe led by Moses caused all that trouble to the Egyptians? No evidence exists of any invasion of Canaan that can't be explained by natural causes. The plagues were the natural result of the Nile drying up, and the firstborn death is a good dramatic touch..

 

Another explanation of eleph from Hebrew scholar:
https://hallel.info/does-‏אלף-elef-mean-thousand-or-clanchief-in-exodus-and-numbers/

Pdf article here:
https://hallel.info/wp-content/uploads/Numbers-use-of-elef-to-mean-clan-or-thousand.pdf

The point of this is ambiguity in the translation of 'eleph' as 'thousands', or 'clan', or 'large number', depending on context and intent.

I can go either way.. either a mistranslation, if indeed the area could not support their herds, or an accurate English translation, and the area could support the flocks and herds.

But there is no compulsion to conclude, 'error!', from these eleph passages.

 

Thought the Essenes didn't eat meat or believe in Animals sacrifices.

 

Lol!

We found a catholic school that doesn't teach catechism and where religion is taught in theaccomplish. It isn't tied to a specific church.

The result is that our daughter can create written argument like a champ. And, that came from a nun who was famous for what she demanded.

That nun woke my daughter up to what she could actually acomplish.

 

If we take the eleph explanation we end up with about 18,000 armed men over 20. They would have been married according to their culture. That makes 36,000. Then we have children. Look at the compulsion for large families in that day. Look at the size of many bible families. Then add the men and their families that were under 20. Women often had several children before they were 20. That has carried on in the Arab community in the Middle East under Islam. We are talking around 100,000 in the migration.
If we accept that, or even a few thousand less, the Sinai could not support that number as a group. Even the Bible admits that. They needed manna, they needed quails, they needed water. Where did they get the corn from for bread? They needed the Kenites to help them. (Ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt) We KNOW the geography of the Sinai at the time. It's been like it for about 4 - 5 thousand years. It is part of the Sahara desert, though split from it by the Red Sea. Whatever figure you put on the Exodus - it never happened. The Bible itself shows that the people could not survive - without miracles.

And miracles don't happen.

 

That's my wife's experience. She was told not to ask, no matter the topic.

She loved university and turned from organized religion.

 

Sounds like you know just enough about religion to be innoculated against it.

 

Not sure what the connection is, lots of people have come to faith in Christ at a university.

 

I agree.

And you know that how? You can discount miracles only if you ignore the testimony in their favor. That is circular reasoning.

 

"Testimony" is really bad evidence - as shown in science, in law, in politics, in religion, in psychology/sociology, in daily lives.

There is nothing circular about being highly suspicious of "testimony".

In fact, skepticism is a general requirement.

 

I'm sure that's true.

However for many kids, university is an early or even first exposure to rigorous thought, examination of evidence, and questioning of what one has accepted at face value as a child.

It's not a question of beliefs. It's a question of how one goes about thinking.

The whole idea of university is to bring people to a point of being able to make significant contributions to human knowledge - that level of how to think. In fact in the sciences one phd requirement is a demonstration of that ability - independent research that answers some hitherto unanswered question. One hopes that those who have earned a phd are prepared to independently advance human knowledge in their field.

 

!. No,we don't know the exact route but the barren wasteland is not an assumption it's a fact. There was little surface water and plants that flourished in dry areas. A very few areas where suitable for flocks, and once the pasture was grazed nomads moved on. Even in Palestine the problem occurred and that was fertile, wet ground. Remember Agram and Lot quarrelling?.
2, Miracles are for believers. Fact is for everyone else.
4. Sinai can't even support mire than around 50,000 people of nomadic tribes today - with all modern advantages. The figure you quoted includes tourists, and they are mainly on the coasts or taking trips inland to various places.
5. Yes weather patterns change over thousands of years, and geology and science can give fairly accurate dates.

 

I wouldn't call fish raining down from the sky a miracle, but it does happen during tornadoes and typhoons, and an ancient rabbi would surely take it as a miracle if he were praying "Lord, please send me a fish" and a mackerel suddenly bounced off his head.

 

In the biblical fairy tale other people rose from the dead so why aren't they also worshiped?

If he was still wiggling on the cross you might have a point. But when you believe that a zombie will save your soul that verges on insanity.

What do you feed your unicorn? I know what you try to feed us.

 

Corn as we know it did not exist in the Old World until after the year 1500 A.D. In Bible speech the word corn is used for various types of grains.
https://www.campsilos.org/mod3/students/c_history.shtml

So if the Israelites ate corn they imported it from Mexico.

 

He most certainly would. Mackerel are salt water fish. The lakes in Palestine are freshwater and the Dead sea is too saline for any fish. Some say that Jesus was a magician/trickster. Personally, I believe he was just an ordinary man and have no reason to believe he did any miracles.

 

It doesn't have to be a mackerel. I just like to say mackerel. Guy walked in to a way station in the old west and sees a big dried fish and a pot of mustard on the table. He asks the station manager for something to eat. Manager says, "Why, there's enough mackerel there for ten men." Guy says, "But I don't like mackerel." Manager says, :Well, help yourself to the mustard." I always thought that was funny.

But seriously folks (rimshot), you have to admit that whatever the secret of the origins of the universe: 1) it was always here, with no beginning; 2) it just happened; or 3) God did it ....

It was miraculous in the sense that it did not follow any scientific law, and cannot be scientifically explained.

 

In this country the term corn is used generally for most cereals. It's used regularly in the Bible for cereals.

 

Neither can god.

Seriously? So god decided 13bn years ago he was lonely and wanted some companionship. So he created a universe so large, and getting larger. 9 bn years later he created a small insignificant world in one of billions if galaxies, to house his creation. A world that was so terribly made that his creation from that worlds imperfections, and billions died, become ill, born defective in body and mind.

There are things in the universe we don't understand. Some things that appear to go against the scientific laws we accept now. Up till the last century we knew nothing about the Higgs boson particle. Then someone suggested it must exist to explain certain things. Then it was discovered and progresses areas of science.

 

Okay, If we have eliminated God, then we are left with:

1) it just happened one day (no miracle there -- just a monstrously big universe materialized ... from nothing); or

2) it didn't happen -- it was always here.

I find both those scenarios more incredible than Jesus rising from the dead.

You have another scenario? How about 3) it didn't happen and it wasn't always here. We are all just imagining that we are here and make moral and immoral choices.

So far, I think the Deists are winning the debate ... easily.

 

I haven't heard of any physicist who guesses that the universe came from nothing.

And, they are the ones who developed the evidence that our universe was VERY different a few billion years ago.

Even today, people live after being pronounced dead by medical persons who are FAR more advance than those of year 0.

God ALWAYS wins the debate when one accepts "God did it" whenever we don't actually know.