General Religious discussion

[Renoard]

You can say the bible is not 100% accurate as far as it's limited scope goes.  But you'd have no credibility if you did.  The Qumran texts support rather than dispute the texts we've used in the interim.  As for how tall Goliath was, I'm surprised you're willing to take his existence on faith.   No record claims Goliath was 6 feet.  The measures are in cubits and there were a minimum of 6 different cubits in use at the time the scripture was written.  The Goliath was probably around 7 feet tall (think Kareem Jabbar or Vladi Divacz), at a time when the average commoner was about 5'4".  Royal families in most middle eastern tribes averaged closer to 6'.  So we had a royal cubit which was nearly 24" and a common cubit that was about 15".  The wise merchant bought on the Royal cubit and sold on the common cubit.

This introduces the confusion about Goliath's height.  Were the writers citing the Akkadi cubit or the Egyptian cubit, or Assyrian cubit.  The other question is whether it was the royal or common cubit.  All six were of differing lengths.  What's important is that a shrimpy little tween about 4'5" was not intimidated and faced off against an armed and armored professional soldier over 7" in height and won.

If you really want to be a skeptic with genuine critical reason, you need to study Biblical Hebrew and Hellenistic Greek well enough to work your way through the original text (with liberal use of a dictionary).  It will enhance your credibility.  And you might at least appreciate the poetry of Breshiit/Genesis.

[ryos]

Oooh, I would have loved to bicycle during my nametag days. Alas, in Nicaragua it's deemed too dangerous (bad roads + crazy drivers + your bike would get stolen), so I walked everywhere for two years. I came home in the best shape of my life.

As you may be aware, Mormons do not regard the Bible as wholly correct in every point, speaking not of its historical but its doctrinal content. I've met many Evangelical Christians who think the Bible is a perfect book left fully formed on the earth by God. The reality is far messier, and considering the book's long and storied history, it's literally a miracle that so much truth survived the tarnishing of the ages.

In fairness, I've also met many Mormons who think the Book of Mormon is a perfect book left fully formed on the earth by God. The reality there is that it was not written by God but by men inspired by God, men who lamented their own imperfection in that text. This is the rub of mortal religion: we worship a perfect God in an imperfect manner because we are ourselves imperfect, and we trust in the grace of that same God to make up the difference.

[Patriotic Kaz]

Why does this discussion always lead to man being flawed... as i am Mr. Perfect i am starting my own new and improved race miyabi and you other curious-gnostic what-nots are free to join...first order of business what do we want to name our new race???

[ryos]

Show me a good man and I'll show you the door
the last hymn is sung and the Devil cries, "More!"

Bonus points if you know what that's from.

[Eerongal]

first order of business what do we want to name our new race???

The Awesome-McCool race.

[Renoard]

For the record not evangelical and not really wanting to stir the whose is bigger debate.

I implied accuracy only as far as the Bible goes.  My point is that while the Bible contains the conjecture and opinion of some of the authors, those are framed in such a way as to point this out.  I've met a lot of Evangelical Scholars and never once heard one of them claim that the Bible was deposited fully formed.  It is the position of every Christian denomination I've encountered, barring some tiny splinter sects with all the markings of a cult, that the Bible was inspired as to content and intent but the verbiage is the work of the individual writers.  In a sense, at least 50 or 60 writers acting as ghost writers for God is the accepted model.  So on issues of doctrine and practice the 66 books of the canon are considered to be infallible, while, for instance, Paul's personal convictions on certain issues are considered good advice to be taken under consideration.

This allows for debate on issues of doctrine, dogma and practice.  But debate is good.  It's healthy.  However to claim to believe that a perfect being, capable of creating an entire plenum of universes, is so incompetent that he would not be able to protect his inspired communication from substantive distortion and wholesale misunderstanding, is a logical absurdity.  Faith is trust.  If you trust in the Creator as a competent or omnicompetent thinking being on the basis of the Bible and biblical figures, it is faithless and anti-intellectual to then doubt the integrity of that Bible.

On the other hand the Bible never purports itself to be a history text.  Things are glossed over and only referenced as they are pertinent to the central point of the writer.  In prophecy, foretelling is mixed with, hymns, proverbs and didactic instructions couched in highly allusive and dense poetry.  It stand to reason that it would be difficult to decipher and convey that meaning.  And that some people might mistake allusion and flashbacks for chronology.

I can say I'm not ignorant of other faiths, their assumptions and forestructure, as well as their sacred works.  I am a believer and a zealot because the Bible has provided me with a tool and the tool has made it possible for me to touch the mind of God.  If you want to call him Allah, Brahman, Uhuru Mazda, or the Mystic Hoozis Principle of Life (Mystic Law of Existence N.M.R.K) -- what's critical in my faith is understanding that this being made a way to experience our humanity, share our life, and sacrifice himself for our imperfections.  In doing so, yes, he closed off other avenues that he had held open for centuries and imposed a new standard for achieving a relationship with him.

This realization came not from indoctrination or rejection of the intellectual, but from academic study and scrupulous attention to the science of language and critical analysis.  But as such study progresses, the factuality ofthe Bible is continually reaffirmed by other disciplines.  An honest student can't help but be persuaded of the historicity of the Bible by the very analysis of skeptics.  Archeology, linguistics, anthropology, physics they all ultimately support rather than dispute the veracity of the Bible.  That does not mean that the dogma of a given faith or denomination based on the Bible is equally sound.  And Kaz, I fear your bitterness arises from disappointment in the faith of your early upbringing rather than the text that it was based on.

[ryos]

I wasn't talking about scholars - I think that anyone who makes it their business to study the Bible would have to be pretty dense not to realize that it was written as a series of individual works over a period of centuries and compiled sometime between 200-400 AD. I was referencing (frustrating) conversations I've had with ordinary people.

I agree with your assessment of the truthfulness of the Bible, one point excepted. I think the King James scholars did a marvelous job with the KJV, producing timeless, beautiful language that is unrivaled in its clarity, even by the supposedly more readable NIV. Nevertheless, I believe it a work of scholarship and not inspiration, and so some doctrinal points were not rendered quite correctly. There are also many inspired works that were lost, and passages altered by men of questionable motive and faith.

I do believe that God could have protected the integrity of the Bible, and find the fact that so much of it survived, and that it has permeated so many places, a miracle. However, I also believe that he left the book in the hands of men. To argue that he would prevent avaricious and unauthorized modifications to the Bible by a corrupt Roman church is to argue that he would violate the agency of man.

Anyway, to slightly change gears, I have an honest question for you, Renoard. What do you make of the flood? I ask because it seems, to me, to be a bit of an anomaly - the God I know works by small and simple means to bring to pass great things. The teleportation of trillions of gallons of water onto and off of the earth, the miraculous fitting of every species of animal into a space far too small, the also miraculous ability of said ark to hold enough food for a year for all those animals, and the (again, highly miraculous) ability of 8 people to care for them all...yeah, that's neither small nor simple.

I really do want to know what you think, because it's a part of the scriptures that I don't really understand.

[Renoard]

Well.  As to malicious alteration, I don't believe that it's impossible that copies or translations can be altered.  But I do believe that attempts to do this are thwarted not by direct attack on the malicious person(s) but by insuring that other copies are preserved. A perfect example is the cache of "deceased" Torah's at Qumran or the millions of copies that have been interred in cemeteries around the world.

The flood is an issue.  One that will be debated till Judgement day, and I don't mean the kind in Terminator.    I believe the Biblical account as it is written.  An old man and his family loaded an Arch with mating pairs of animals that were on his list, a list we aren't given.  I believe that it rained for the first time ever witnessed by the population that Noe was a member of and the rains lasted at least 960 hours, but with possible lulls.

Believing this doesn't require that I believe any significant influx of new water entered the system, especially by teleportation.  One theory about the Earth is that it once had a layer of permanent cloud cover.  It is possible that a period of increased seismic or volcanic activity seeding this cloud layer coupled with an sudden, short-lived increase in continental drift could result in a period of global flooding.  Sea life and amphibians might not have done too baldy and we aren't told how long or how deeply the mountains were covered.

Global disaster could go a long way toward wrecking civilization, especially with so few survivors.  I don't find direct intervention anomalous at all.  When I think of the plagues in Egypt, the extermination of the Yevusi, the death of the prophets of Ba'al at Elijah's hand, Sampson, the Jewish hostages in Babylon, Pentecost, Ananias and Sephirah, etc. I realize that small nudges are used when needed, but they are certainly not the only tool at his disposal.

In fact the Yevusi are a direct parallel to the flood.  Melchizeddek was the King of the Yevusi when he taught Abraham.  So by the time the Ipiru or Egyptian Hebrews under Joshua get to Yevus they are the agents of wrath toward the unfaithful, in the same way that the Babylonians are later used against the Jews for the same purpose.  And yeah, no flood, rainbows in the sky and dogleg swords as the means of judgment. 

Commence flames now.

[benvolio3]

I think I can also add on to Renoard's analysis of the flood and say that the transporting of the water is not all mysterious. It says in Genesis 1:6-7 that there was an expanse created between waters, above and below. Along with the volcano and seismic activity thing that Renoard brought up, the water deluged from above like Renoard stated also.  As for the transportation of the water off the earth, I remember reading somewhere in Judges about this but I can't remember where exactly. There was so much water that the pressure broke open caverns deep underground (even rock can't withstand x amount of weight without somewhat collapsing). Those account for the infinitely large caverns that we are also finding underground like under Lake Tahoe or something.
The Flood can also account for other things as well such as; Pangaea (under all that water, of course dirt is going to move around!), The Grand Canyon (I remember hearing about some mountain range around there  holding a lot of water as somewhat of a dam, eventually breaking in a torrent and forming the Grand Canyon), and... I'll think of more...
And contrary to whatever anyone may tell you... Chuck Norris did not roundhouse the flood into action... though many will disagree.

now you may commence the flames. 

[Comfortable Madness]

Why does this discussion always lead to man being flawed... as i am Mr. Perfect i am starting my own new and improved race miyabi and you other curious-gnostic what-nots are free to join...first order of business what do we want to name our new race???

The Übermensch??? That seems to be where you're going with this. Although, the very concept of Nietzche's Übermensch is based on the fact that human beings are currently flawed. So, the  answer to your question as to why it always leads back "to man being flawed" is simply....because they are.

[Patriotic Kaz]

@madness we established that therefore im not man so the question stands what should i call myself and others of perfection?

[Renoard]

@kaz Shuessstaffeln?

[Reaves]

Although, the very concept of Nietzche's Übermensch is based on the fact that human beings are currently flawed. So, the  answer to your question as to why it always leads back "to man being flawed" is simply....because they are.

I notice the conspicuous lack of fellowship you share with other human beings  

[Comfortable Madness]

Although, the very concept of Nietzche's Übermensch is based on the fact that human beings are currently flawed. So, the  answer to your question as to why it always leads back "to man being flawed" is simply....because they are.

I notice the conspicuous lack of fellowship you share with other human beings  

  Whoops! WE. We are flawed...

[The Jade Knight]

Personally i don't see the difference between a bible-beater and a member of a Jihad... you may not be causing death but you are definitely intruding on the first amendment by doing so...

This statement reveals a great deal of ignorance about both the Muslim concept of jihad, as well as of the First Amendment.  The "greater jihad" in Islam is the struggle against one's own natural desires.  All Muslims are expected to engage in this jihad, as it represents overcoming selfish urges and submitting oneself to God.

It is the position of every Christian denomination I've encountered, barring some tiny splinter sects with all the markings of a cult, that the Bible was inspired as to content and intent but the verbiage is the work of the individual writers.

A great many Southern Baptists appear to be an exception to this.

On the other hand the Bible never purports itself to be a history text.  Things are glossed over and only referenced as they are pertinent to the central point of the writer.  In prophecy, foretelling is mixed with, hymns, proverbs and didactic instructions couched in highly allusive and dense poetry.  It stand to reason that it would be difficult to decipher and convey that meaning.  And that some people might mistake allusion and flashbacks for chronology.

Also:  The Bible is affected by issues that affect the historiography of texts in general, including author bias and error (inspired or not, an author's diction and worldview are clearly present) as well as translation issues (even when dealing with the same language, the meanings of words and syntax changes over time).


My personal opinion is that a) it was localized (affecting the "known"/"civilized" world), and the animals on the ark were (a breeding pair of) all of the animals of significance with which humans interacted.  Of course, this is my own personal supposition.  It also helps that there appears to be Geological evidence for a massive flooding in the Meditteranean + Mesopotamia at some time in the distance past.