Archaeology 'Demonstrates the Reliability of the Bible,' Leading Archaeologist Says

But you haven't said anything!
All you have done is avoid issues you don't like.

 

So let's get this straight.
You dont believe what countable facts can prove but do believe in what cannot be proven.
Where is your definition of observable reality?

 

Many societies have viewed theft, rape and murder as moral behavior if directed against other tribes.

Right, wrong, and conscience are created by both social and genetic evolution. Behavior that is good for functioning societies and survival becomes both socially propogated as culture and religion, but also becomes hardwired. The ability to have a conscience is a function of having a brain (lateral frontal lobe).

The Bible considers genocide and slavery moral and accepted behavior because these behaviors provided for the success of the Hebrew tribe

Your need to look up the definition of the word supernatural. Here, I will do it for you.

1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
3. Of or relating to a deity.

You can claim God is real. Yet you cannot provide any empirical evidence that he is real. You can deride me as a mortal creature saying "who are you?" But yet here I am having a real discussion with you and not an imaginary conversation.

 

Pixie... look at the videos and webpages I linked.. then let discuss.

 

Webpages and vidéos give personal perspectives on an issue.
I wasn't interested in theirs.
I was interested in yours because I don't want to spend years of my time debating à myriad of other views.
Please understand that discovering that something mentioned in thr Bible is true DOES NOT MAKE THE MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE TRUE.
It is like saying the movie Indiana Jones is true because it mentions à true place where à battle took place.
Or Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman met and fell in love was true because there is a place called Casablanca.
It has been called historical fiction for a long time.

 

asingular event left the imprint of a body on a piece of linen... the image is very shallow and has been proved to been caused by a radiation event, it left behind the information for a 3D image.. a photograph is 2D representation of a 3D object. Because it left over a trillion data points (3D) the image can be read much like LIDAR reads terrain that finds lost cities in the jungle. The linen has collected linen for it's travels, travels alleged to have happened to the burial shroud of Jesus Christ.. pollen of flowers around 1st century Jerusalem, Constantinople, etc.. the reporuductoinj of the 3D info shows a man that was tortured, who bears nail marks in th ewrist and feet, with wounds described in the Bible.. The evedence is overwhelming!

 

Haha link me to thread with your evidence of a stolen election.

 

not again... So what's your position in the new totalitarian regime? Cause you must be paid alot to ignore the 3am ballot drop... and the slow drip drip of evidence slowly making it main stre3am when it no longer matters..
You know what I find telling is Dem on Dem vote fraud.

BTW nice user name.

 

No link? Let’s not side rail this discussion.

 

Fine.. look up 2000 Mules for starters...

BUT.. There is no evidence that you will accept.. been down this road before.. You guys get paid by the line or suptin?

 

Good point, but there is a difference in perspective. Modern academics start from the perspective that nothing in the Bible is true, there was no Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David, Jesus, Pilate. So when evidence of David or Pilate turns up it’s big news.

 

Actually much of it used to be accepted as fact. Secular academics took the Bible to be just another item of ancient literature and they treated it just as they treated the Iliad etc. They assumed it was a fictional story set in a real place and time, it reflected real cities and real geography and real cultures.

There is also another aspect. The Bible contains eyewitness accounts of Jesus and the early church. Nobody doubts Jesus lived, some doubt he did what was in the Bible. The same for Paul, Peter, John, etc - they were real people. Skeptics reject their writings because they don’t like the contents not because they are actual fiction.

 

Today and always it is all people who choose to believe in Him and worship Him while living a life that reflects our love for Him.

 

That’s really not true though. Pontius Pilate is known to have lived. There is archaeological evidence of his existence. That doesn’t mean that the supernatural aspects of the biblical stories he is featured in are real.

The Hebrew Scriptures can be divided into the Pentateuch, the prophets and the writings. The writings are typically considered to have historical merit whereas the Pentateuch and the prophets are more mythological. So the part where the talking snake leads the first man and woman astray is not given the same weight as, for example, the battle between Egypt and Israel at Megiddo, although of course just like any source the bias of the author is given due consideration.

We can learn all these things without accepting every word as literally true.

 

No. They don't.

 

Crucifixion was à common death at the time.
There is no direct link to Christ.
The cause of the imprint is unknown.
Hardly overwhelming unless you really want it to point to what you want...à confirmation bias.

 

if you won’t look at the evidence this discussion is at end

 

Paul never met Jesus.
And whether jJesus existed is in no doubt. But there were hundreds of mystics wandering around at the time.
I have no issue with Jesus' message . It was counter to the then current Jewish tradition of revenge, militaristic solutions and à totally subordinate relationship with what they called god. Jesus suggested à huge sea change in the new covenent , tricky when Rome was undergoing such difficulties. Today one might call such ideas weak or those of àn appeaser.
And I have no issue with the fundamental message of coopération rather than confrontation.

This BTW this seems to me a conundrum. Jesus preached coopération, equal division of sustenance, helping the poor and sick, empathy and sécularisation. Yet those who declare allégiance to those values are usually the very people who support conservative values of self help, individualité and religious interférence in the state. They get upset when the less able get "free stuff".

I see à huge mismatch between Jesus' message and those who act in his name
Just as I see those who follow him doing some of the most wicked things in history. In his name.

I don't have to stick on a label, follow the official line slavishly and prove anything. I don't need historical accuracy to prove my values. Every day as my own choice I live the ideas of modération , coopération, secularity and support for the less able.

And for that I am considered " à lefty".

Think about it.

 

No evidence is conclusive!
And frankly I don't care about evidence of the supernatural . I care about what the message was and I am frankly horrified
at how believers have corrupted it...used it for their own evil purpose, twisted its meaning and have destroyed the simple message of humility and coopération.
I don't care if Jesus was some divine being. I DO care that he would be horrified at what believers and non believers have done to his values.
And the idea that God will forgive believers is a wonderful spiritual get out clause. I wonder if God has forgiven all those priests, Bishops, vicars, who have abused children and enslaved women in his name.

Instead of celebrating the existence of some oblique historical fact perhaps you should reflect on the simple central messages and live them.

 

“the bias of the author is given due consideration “ is your key comment. In secular academia the biblical authors are assumed to be extremely biased and academics fear anything that corroborates any aspect of the Bible. They fear if any part of the Bible is true then it lends credence to the religious aspects.

While they look at the Iliad for example and wonder if parts could be true and investigate, with the Bible they start from the position of its false and many leave it at that point.

 

Im going to skip all your points for now (and they are good points) and ask you some questions.

How do you know what Jesus preached? The only source is the New Testament, and you seem to choose to believe some parts and not other parts - why? How do you know which parts are true and which to reject? If Matthew for example exaggerates or makes up part of the story, why would you trust anything he writes?

 

There is a difference between recognition of à message and recognition of facts about place and time.
Everything about the teachings of someone called Jesus and his scribes and disciples resonate. The weight of the thèmes in the message is huge.
And even if he didn't suggest such a moral direction, I think it is worth living.
And by the same token we know what Buddha taught, what Abraham, Solomon and David stood for and what Muhammed taught.
There is also à rich continuous line of western monotheistic thought that can be traced by study of eccleastical writings by such as dead sea scrolls, early monks, and verbal worship, prayer, including metaphorical ritual...bread and wine etc.

As for what I hold to, it is the overall message. I see it as what is was described as, à new relationship between man and god and à real change in how god chooses to direct the behaviour of man to man.
IOW god is changing his mind and wants to turn more to love and acceptance instead of the previous revenge and punishment.
Whether this is some directive from god or à man who saw another way, is up to belief, not evidence.
I don't think there is a "god" but men who could see the world around them and another way of ordering society. That they are part of à human awakening to à kinder more civilised world, building on changing what came before.
Personally I doubt that the example of being born simply, living "rough" and homeless and surviving on "donations" included à model of greed, grasping profit, as little générosité as possible and àn astronomical sum of money to build enormous édifices in which people pay hommage to Christ's simplicity.
I try to stay close to the message and turn my back on all the rest of the paraphernalia. It is a message I think is important and in the right direction in building à civilisation , no matter how it happened.

 

you might believe that, not everyone believes that

 

What are you talking about??? Don't you know that New York City existing proves Spiderman is real?

 

On the contrary, the Iliad was considered myth until Heinrich Schliemann found the lost city of Troy. You have to look this up if you haven’t read about it before. Schliemann is the character they made Indiana Jones after. It’s a great story. Someone could make a movie.

When I say that bias is considered, that is true of any archaeological find. You don’t just take Pharaoh’s word for it that he won the mighty battle. You search for evidence. That’s what makes the field fun to read about and it’s that curiosity that causes the story to unfold. As soon as you say “I know everything about this topic” you have closed the book and the adventure ends.