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

Even if all that is so, no, that isn't overwhelming evidence that it was Jesus's. Jesus wasn't the only one with a shroud. It could have been from lots of different people.

 

Satan does evil in Gods name. Then he condemns God for the evils done. Though laughable, it is an effective technique. Next he will say he doesn't exist, and that it is all the work of men.

 

2,000 Mules was complete garbage, involved blatant lies, and has nothing to do with archaeology.

 

Thanks.

How do you get the overall message? For example, Matthew wrote that Jesus said he believed every word of the Old Testament and it was all accurate, and He (Jesus) was here to fulfill the Old Testament. How do you reject that claim but accept other teachings of Jesus that Matthew recorded? If Matthew made that part up how can you trust what he wrote?

Or in the religious side, again in Matthew, when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was he answered - 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.

The greatest is to love God, then the second is the Golden rule. God first, then your neighbor. So how do you reject the first (you don’t believe there is a god) but keep the second? Did Matthew make it up/lie? Or was Matthew accurate and Jesus was mistaken?

 

Secular academics treat the Bible the same way they treat all other historical sources: potentially valuable but often fallible. It's only the religious followers who demand that their sources be treated with infallibility and that it is all-or-nothing. Secular historians NEVER take an all-or-nothing approach with sources. Ever.

 

Well, for one, the two rules are in contradiction as they are (according to the Bible) often in conflict. For example, killing someone for working on a Saturday or following other gods, or sleeping with someone of the same gender, or wearing the wrong clothing, or saying things that make your religion upset, etc. etc. is as far from "loving thy neighbor" as you can possibly get.

 

I know about Troy, that’s not the result of modern science. That was the late 1800’s when people were more open minded about the Bible as a reliable source of people, places, geography. I’m talking about current bias, the last 50 years.

The Iliad was assumed to be myth by many but people were willing to look into it. The Bible was treated as more reliable than the Iliad partly because many archaeologists back then were also Christian or in a Christian society (England, US, Germany).

Today, academics don’t want any part of the Bible to be used or verified.

 

Homer, or whoever wrote the Iliad, said that Athena punched Aphrodite. Does that mean we should reject EVERYTHING that the Iliad says? If Homer exaggerated or made up part of the story, why would you trust anything he wrote?

 

Look around. Your society of evolving conscience is coming apart at the seams, with people doing what they esteem to be beneficial to them rather than what is right and good, to which they give no heed, and for which they have no love. This is because they have chosen to love evil, and call it good. So by your own rationale, you must honor their self serving reasoning. You cannot prove the veracity or existence of goodness to them, because they esteem it as foolish and subjective. The alternative is to threaten them with punishment, thus presenting yourself as an unjust overlord, vacant of reason. Such is your measure of God, whom you call a fantasy. Are you a fantasy. Is your measure of what is right, meritless?

 

I don't worry about précise text particularly as it has been retranslated more than twice.
Whoever Jesus was lived around Jewish people so he would believe the stories in the OT . The "fulfillment" referred to the coming of the Messiah, of which there were many claims at the time. Whether this mystic used the promise, or it was broadcast better or people were ready for it after Roman rule I don't know.
But IMO it doesnt matter. I am less interested in the whole "God 's plan " and working out some divine puzzle than I am doing what I think best contributes to à healty civilisation today.
There are many ways to love whatever you think God is. It God is good then just live in ways that support that good.
It doesnt have to be obsessive scholarship or grand buildings or trying to read gods mind. Just be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Ask yourself what Jesus would say if he saw the Christian world today. I think he would be horrified. And all the analysis, research squabbling over intent and meaning and syntax and spéculation is IMO à waste of time. I unhitched myself many years ago from orthodoxy because it chains you to someone else's interprétation and therefore their power. IOW please dont tell me what to think.
All that doesnt matter. Just live your life the best way you can and be free to enjoy your own understanding. You don't owe anyone anything.

 

Well I suppose historiens do.
But once again the facts of geography or events do not IMO affirm he etetnal and immutable veracity of à religious faith.
Anymore than the mountain of the Andes affirm the eternal véracité of the Aztecs.

I suppose there is some need to find that finally mank8nd has discover3d the one true path and then go l9oking for evidence that it is the Golden ticket.
I also wouldn't be surprised if in 1000 years christianity will be a dead branch of à new tree. History says so.

 

This makes no logical dense and is full of assumptions.
You start by accusing everyone except you of confusing good and evil.
Christian teaching calls this "pride" and is one of the deadly sins.
The bold part is à huge leap of disconnected illogical. There is no undeniable cause and effect. It just sounds condemnatory and another reason to feel guilty and mistaken.
Which then means the accuser has power over yout.
The last couplé of sentences make no sense. They just sound thundrous and intimidatory and forces you to examine ...something.
Of course your measure of what is right is not méritless. Why should it be? You don't need god to know what is right and wrong. In fact those who worship god have done great wrong. And those who dont, have done great good.

 

Not sure why posting this to me .. sarcasm perhaps ?

 

Then he says that God is a fantasy as well. This is to further his efforts to separate mankind from God. Note that in it all, diminishing God is the goal. Satan is at war with God and has been since the beginning. All that he says is designed to deceive. So while Gods servants are committed to Gods honor and glory. Satan is committed to destroying Gods honor and glory, because he wants it for himself. And he can't have it. So he sets his sights on us, to destroy our souls, a little at a time, and then more and more, so as to make us miserable and at war with God like himself.

 

Today, academics don’t want any part of the Bible to be used or verified - The reverse of what you say is true. The Last 20 years has been a Biblical Hay Day in terms of archaeology.. showing that many things in the Bible have some historical truth .. Take King Omri for Example .. and Stele's mentioning Israel from around this time from the Moabite stone mentioning King Ahab and how Israel had been subjegating the Moabites .. Israel was highly Prosperous during Omri's time .. was a "House Of Omri" known around the Region .. had control of major cities .. was rich and had major building efforts complete

criticism of the Bible has to be re-written as of 2010 -- according to theologians like M. Heiser -- as our understanding of the peoples and customs and religious beliefs has increased so much.

what has also happened is that while many things in the Bible have been verified ... many things have also been refuted.. or show the the Biblical take is embelished .. which is what we expect a story told and retold..

We hace also learned about the writing of the Bible .. that much of the Bible was written and/or "redacted" many years after the events. Not to say that they did not have older source material they were drawing from .. but some of the additions added to the story later make some historical mistakes .. that would not have been made by a writer at the time .. talke about cities that did not exist at the time ... such as the Walls of Jericho which did not exist at the time of Joshua .. along with a bunch of other cities that he supposedly conquered..

The folks that have the problem are the fundamentalist / evangelicals .. as the Bible has been proven to be errant ..as opposed to "inerrant" not all inspired .. not all "Gods Word"

 

Homer was telling a story, he has creative license.

Matthew was telling his eye witness account of Jesus. Matthew states he is relating true events he witnessed. Not “this is based on real events” but “these are the real events”.

 

Josephus also purported to be relating historical events, and we treat much of that seriously, even though he wrote nonsense about fish coming back from the dead. And can you quote Matthew ever claiming to be an eyewitness?

 

Wrong. Matthew was not written by a direct witness to supernatural events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew

Most scholars believe the gospel was composed between AD 80 and 90, with a range of possibility between AD 70 to 110; a pre-70 date remains a minority view.[11][12] The work does not identify its author, and the early tradition attributing it to the apostle Matthew is rejected by modern scholars.

 

Matthew is a book that is known to have been based on earlier manuscripts. No one is quite sure who wrote Matthew but it probably wasn’t Matthew. The document was compiled 80-90 AD, so that’s not exactly a first hand account.

Josephus’ writings are wholly attributed to him. He writes of some things he witnessed himself and a lot that he didn’t. Josephus is not taken seriously by everyone. Jews often consider him a traitor. His works are scrutinized just like any other.

 

Hey! I said that!

 

Exactly.
It's a myth, not a historical record. It's meant to uplift and instruct, not tell us what happened where and when

The worst part is realizing that many people back THEN realized that most of what they were writing was metaphor while many moderns accept all these impossibilities as blithely true and expect all of us to do the same.

 

A lot of people displaying behavior that has been traditionally considered immoral will not be reproducing and therefore not passing on their DNS. That is how evolution works. There is nothing supernatural about the process.

I don't call a god a fantasy. I simply ask the people who belive in a god to provide empirical evidence for their claims and of course they never do. I do call the god stories that I am aware of mythical, but that is not the same thing as claiming there is no god.

 

It sounds like you take what you like and discard the rest regardless of the source.

You would read Matthew, think Jesus was either delusional because he says he is God and his primary teaching is to love God, or Matthew is exaggerating or lying about Jesus, and discard all of that God stuff. Anything left over that resonates with your current beliefs you keep.

What if your current beliefs feel good but are wrong? You might not ever find out because you self censor anything contrary to your current beliefs.

 

Exactly my point (regarding Josephus). His works are treated like other historical sources. It's silly to treat any source as all-or-nothing. Most sources will get some things right and some things wrong. The Bible, for example, was wrong about a global flood, but that doesn't mean it was wrong about everything. Agreed on Matthew as well, especially since there is good textual evidence that the author of Matthew copied entire sections of Mark almost word for word, and Mark wasn't even an eyewitness according to tradition. Why would a supposed eyewitness need to copy someone who wasn't an eyewitness? My question was really around whether or not the author of Matthew even claims to be an eyewitness in the text. I don't recall him ever doing so, but it has been a couple of years since I read it.

 

Moreover... Does anybody else find it interesting that the best "evidence" we get for these God claims is uncertain possible eyewitness accounts of events that took place thousands of years ago?

And this is for a God who is claimed to be all powerful, could do such miracles here and now, and also has the power to simply make us know whatever he wants us to, so no such events would even be necessary?

Yet we still need "faith" in order to believe these claims that the believers don't even all agree on the exact details of?