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Article, “Internal Proofs of Bible Authenticity”

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Yom doesn’t mean 1,000 yrs.

But one of it’s definitions can mean an indeterminate period of time; and this is what the text reveals.
But what kind of threat is "If you eat the fruit, you're going to die some time in the next thousand years"?

I repeat, there is no Fall of Man in the Genesis garden story,
or in the Tanakh at all,
and Ezekiel 18 makes the point very clearly that sin can't be inherited,
and none of the gospels mention a Fall,
and only Paul mentions it in passing,
and its origins appear to be in Alexandrian Jewish midrash perhaps 120 years BCE
and it doesn't catch on until Augustine of Hippo realizes it'll be good for sales, c, 400 CE.

And I still have no idea why it was thought necessary to send Jesus on a suicide mission in order to die horribly.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
And I still have no idea why it was thought necessary to send Jesus on a suicide mission in order to die horribly.

Start with the understanding that Jesus was a man
like you who did not come back to life.
And whose purported actions / sayings are variously
dubious or apocryphal.

So why the ressurection story?

In few words, to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat.

As it turns out, it worked very well.

That has little to do with truth though.

I dont think theres any in Islam or LDS either.
Or scientology.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Greetings @Hockeycowboy , long time and hope you are well.

While reading this thread, it occurred to me that If yom can mean an indeterminate period of time, I am wondering if year could also have an extended meaning.

What do you think?
Playing with yom meaning an indeterminant amount of time does not help the fct that the Genesis Creation story is mythology.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Start with the understanding that Jesus was a man
like you who did not come back to life.
And whose purported actions / sayings are variously
dubious or apocryphal.

So why the ressurection story?

In few words, to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat.

As it turns out, it worked very well.

That has little to do with truth though.

I dont think theres any in Islam or LDS either.
Or scientology.
Bur surely the apologists have an explanation for such a simple and central question?

I'm danged sure I don't.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
So you're not okay with beating servants to the point where they die over several days, but you are okay with beating servants to the point where they need up to 2 days to recover? Do I understand you correctly?
It's better than the slavery we had in America. This was ahead of its time. There are other quotes which give the slaves some rights. For instance if an owner strike a slave and the slave loses his or her vision in one or more eyes, the slave ca no longer be their property. If the slave dies, the owner is to be punished. I would cite those now but I can't now. I've got to run.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Ok, youre applying this to the Flood, right?
I wasn't, but it applies. I was responding to your comment that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is when evidence is expected:

YOU: "Absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence."
ME: "The absence of expected evidence is evidence of absence. Modus tollens in logic refers to the idea that if P implies Q (if P happened, Q would be evidence of that) so that if Q if is not the case, nether is P. The absence of Q, the expective evidence, argues against P."

Suppose Bob played hooky from work Tuesday and tried to claim that he had been at work, but his timecard wasn't punched and his coworkers report that they didn't see him at his station when he said he was. Do you expect them to believe and pay him for the day? Absent evidence that would be expected had he worked, no.

On the other hand, Becky was supposed to be babysitting Tuesday night from 7 to midnight, but might have stepped out and left the kids alone and sleeping for an hour according to somebody who thought they saw her at a fast-food place without them. Will she get paid for 5 hours or 4? Probably for 5. There's no evidence that she left if the kids didn't wake up or there are no security cameras apart from an uncertain report that she might have been seen somewhere she shouldn't have been. Thus, no evidence is expected, so absence of evidence means nothing there.

If applied to the flood, we would expect to be able to find enough water on earth to submerge all dry land, but we don't.

We have good evidence that that family could not have built the ark as described. Ken Ham built an ark to those specifications, and it required manpower not available to Noah, lumber not available to Noah, trucks and other heavy equipment not available to Noah, an ability to collect and then return animals from remote continents not available to Noah (Ham didn't actually do that part, but he could have, whereas Noah could not), and Ham used metal nails and braces not available to Noah. If Noah could do those things, we would expect evidence that it was possible for him.
Did God want the vegetation destroyed? That would have worked against Noah & his offspring… that was food, they would have died off.
Terrestrial foliage would not be expected to survive pounding rain or prolonged submersion.
But there is much resultant evidence, i believe. You know I’m not a YEC, the Grand Canyon’s strata were laid down over millions of years. But the Flood cut through those layers & removed the over 1,000 cu.mi. volume that’s missing. The creation of the vast Buttes and Mesas in the western US. (What happened to the surrounding land?)
So a flood event that could carve out deep canyons and shape buttes and mesa would leave vegetation unharmed? That's not reasonable.

Also, why would a flood carve anything? A river like the Colorado over eons, yes, but that's moving water. We wouldn't expect a global flood to carve out canyons anymore than we expect the ocean to carve canyons on the seafloor.
I see no need to comment on your “how religion began” post.
That's unfortunate. I thought I gave you a compelling argument for why the Sabbath exists as well as a Commandment to observe it by taking a day of rest to visit the central synagogue once nomads settled into city life.
But is justified: I gave you reasons, in explaining all the events happening in Day 6. That’s really not fair to overlook those reasons.
YOU: "For a reason: it’s not literal"

ME: "I understand that it is acceptable among believers to simply make proclamation like that one, but it's unjustified. It's a preferred understanding. One can just as well proclaim it literal and be on at least as good a footing"

YOU: "But is justified: I gave you reasons, in explaining all the events happening in Day 6. That’s really not fair to overlook those reasons"

You believe those things happened, but I don't. To justify a belief to a critical thinker skilled in evaluating evidence, you'd need to provide evidence that makes the belief likely to be correct by the academic standards (rules of inference) found in science and law.

I gave you my reasons for believing that the Bible writers meant a week of literal 24-hour days. You didn't comment on it much less try to rebut it. Not surprisingly, my argument and position remain unchanged. And even if you had, you have no factual basis to assert that the myth was not meant literally. What you have is hindsight that allows you to know that the scripture cannot be literally correct thanks to subsequent discoveries, but without that knowledge, and in conjunction with the belief in a tri-omni deity that revealed truth to them, you'd not only have no reason to say that the account was not meant literally, you'd have reason to NOT do that, such as fear of retribution from the deity or the priesthood.

What you and other believers do is called motivated reasoning. You're trying to reconcile scripture written by ancients in the light of knowledge not available to them and the belief that a god exists that knows all, can do all, who loves them, and has left a revelation on earth. The ancients had to deal with the moral dilemmas such beliefs created, such as why do we not live in paradise or have immortality, or why are there so many mutually unintelligible languages in the world, or why would God drown most of the earth. The solution was always to blame man and say he deserved these things.

Today, the believer also needs to reconcile scientific discoveries with scripture, which opens up another avenue for motivated reasoning to go to work such as your arguments for a global flood.
I say there was. Otherwise, Jesus’ sacrifice of a (perfect) life for a (perfect) life - the Mosaic Law’s standard for justice - has no value or meaning if Adam didn’t exist.
That was a response to, "But that's folktale, tribal origins lore. There was no historical Garden of Eden and no historical creation"

Here's more motivated reasoning and circularity. You believe there was a literal Garden of Eden by faith, and you bootstrap that unevidenced belief with other unevidenced beliefs. I say that a literal first man (never existed) and that there is no reason to believe that the crucifixion of Jesus has the meaning that believers ascribe to it.
If the Bible only represented the ancient worldview, then we wouldn’t have the accurate description of the Earth @ Job 26:7…where it’s situated “on nothing”… or Job 38:16… where God asks Job, “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?” Who knew of those things back then? Nobody! Only in modern times, were such things discovered. And they verified the Bible.
And here is more. You cherry pick vague references and assign them modern meanings.

Situated on nothing, which contradicts all of the scriptures that have situated on pillars, hardly qualifies as an accurate description of the earth. What did you teach your children about the earth? That it is situated on nothing? How about that is spheroid in shape, it rotates daily on its axis, and orbits the sun once a year.

Why do you consider springs of the sea and recesses of the deep evidence of divine prescience channeled through the Bible writers? Once again, that is a woefully inadequate description of the oceans and the seafloor with its continental shelfs, mountains and volcanoes, darkness, extreme pressure, fumaroles, deep trenches, subduction, and seafloor spreading.
since Adam died at 930 yrs. of age, this is more proof that “Yom” (day) in this text did not mean a literal 24 hrs.
More bootstrapping of one unevidenced belief using another. There was no first man, no man has lived 930 years to our knowledge, and even if there had been a first man and he lived nearly a millennium, neither of those make the days of creation anything other than a 24-period.
Now these people, according to the Bible, had been slaves! They hadn’t had the freedom to develop a ‘particular style of pottery.’
America had slaves who had a culture of their own - music, dance, jargon, dress - some of which came from Africa and some later. Here's some American slave pottery: American Face Vessels | Smithsonian Institution

Here are slave songs ("negro spirituals"): Slave Songs of the United States - Wikipedia

Do you know what a cakewalk was before it became slang for something easy? Here's more slave culture:
History of the Cake Walk
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
Is that your standard for the supposed wisdom of your God?

Is "meh - it's not perfect, but it's better than some other example I can think of" good enough for God? You don't believe that God is perfect?
Religion has its limits in each time when it is revealed as I see it in pushing human rights forward. The people of that time have to be able to accept it.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
I responded: "Every culture developed a particular style of pottery, and at the time all cultures bought, sold and owned slaves including the Hebrews."
Not when they were slaves! Lol.

Then, you say, “The Hebrews…. owned slaves.”

Not while they themselves were slaves!!
That was the context under discussion.
Both slaves and free made pottery, and freedom is not necessary to develop pottery styles.
Prove it. Show the references.
I think it's funny that @Hockeycowboy has ended up arguing against his own position.
Lol. No I haven’t.

Supposition is what you have.

Facts…
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Not when they were slaves! Lol.

Then, you say, “The Hebrews…. owned slaves.”

Not while they themselves were slaves!!
That was the context under discussion.

Prove it. Show the references.

Lol. No I haven’t.

Supposition is what you have.

Facts…
YouTube videos are not "evidence'. Real archaeological evidence is not found there. Archaeology is a scientific discipline too. If they have evidence they would have published in a well respected professional journal.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
Greetings @Hockeycowboy , long time and hope you are well.

While reading this thread, it occurred to me that If yom can mean an indeterminate period of time, I am wondering if year could also have an extended meaning.

What do you think?
Hey back atcha. Hope you and yours are well too.

Not sure. I think the year they used back then was lunar- based. About 360 days, if i remember correctly. And adding an intercalary month every so often.

If the Hebrew year could reference an indeterminate time period, that would present a hodge-podge of confusion!

There is a Biblical precedent for “a day for a year”… Numbers 14:34 & Ezekiel 4:6. Where a day represented a year.

The Genesis Flood account in chaps. 7 & 8, equate 150 days to 5 months.

The principal Hebrew word for “year,” shanahʹ, comes from a root meaning “repeat; do again” and, like its Greek counterpart eniautosʹ, carries the idea of a cycle of time.

Take care, my cousin.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
But what kind of threat is "If you eat the fruit, you're going to die some time in the next thousand years"?
For us, no threat. It might even be good!

But for Adam, he was created perfect… iow, he would never have died!

Have you never thought why does the Bible, in recounting the generations immediately proceeding Adam — up to several generations, in fact — reveal his descendants as having such long life spans?!

And then, gradually, as future generations arrived, ie., further from Adam’s genetic perfection (which he lost), lifespans were reduced to what we have today.

“…and thus, death spread to all men, because they had all sinned” —Romans 5:12b
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
For us, no threat. It might even be good!

But for Adam, he was created perfect… iow, he would never have died!

Have you never thought why does the Bible, in recounting the generations immediately proceeding Adam — up to several generations, in fact — reveal his descendants as having such long life spans?!

And then, gradually, as future generations arrived, ie., further from Adam’s genetic perfection (which he lost), lifespans were reduced to what we have today.

“…and thus, death spread to all men, because they had all sinned” —Romans 5:12b
You should really take a general course in mythology. Even today if you find very simple people you will find greatly exaggerated ages of ancestors. That is a fairly common trait, stories always grow with the telling.

And if Adam was "perfect" he would never have been tricked. I do not see how creationists that believe that myth cannot see that no matter what God was at fault in the Adam and Eve myth.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
To put it mildly, God screwed the pooch in the tale. He made Adam without knowledge of good and evil. That was the tree that they ate from afterwards they were "Oh ****" and hid from God. Which only works until God remembers to turn his omniscience back on.

God made Adam with a serious lack. He put a tree that fixed that, but also banned them from eating from it. The problem is that what they did not have was the ability to understand what was right or not. Then God also created "the serpent". And for some reason that critter wanted to roil up some trouble so he persuaded Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and then told Adam it was fine. Adam, probably still thinking with his naughty bits at the time of course complied and ate some. Supposedly an omniscient God did not see how this was what today we call a "bad idea".

The story just does not work when read literally.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
For us, no threat. It might even be good!

But for Adam, he was created perfect… iow, he would never have died!
But nowhere does it say Adam was created "perfect" and indeed he was expressly made imperfect since (as the text makes clear) he was denied knowledge of good and evil.

And again I point out that the text nowhere says Adam was created immortal, any more than it says the creatures of sea, air and land were created immortal.

And why "go forth and multiply" if you're immortal? You wouldn't even need two sexes in that case .

I return yet again to the key passage of the Garden story, the specific and sole reason that Adam and Eve were chucked out ─ Genesis 3:22-23.

Have you never thought why does the Bible, in recounting the generations immediately proceeding Adam — up to several generations, in fact — reveal his descendants as having such long life spans?!
Yes. One explanation that used to be popular was that 'year' in fact referred to months or seasons or some other folk-period. Another, which seems much more likely to me, is that attributing great age to people who lived in the past enhanced the prestige of those (actually ordinary) people. You've perhaps come across the Sumerian king-list >Sumerian King List - Wikipedia<, where eg one "pre-Flood" king is said to have lived for 42,200 years and more are attributed to rulers in the distant past.
“…and thus, death spread to all men, because they had all sinned” —Romans 5:12b
But as I said, that's just Paul ─ no one else in the NT peddles that notion, and very clearly it has no historical basis, not only because there was no historical biblical Creation or Garden of Eden, but because in the Garden of Eden tale there is not even the tiniest hint of a "Fall".

Instead there's Ezekiel 18, not least 18:20, saying out loud and unambiguously that sin cannot be inherited.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
But death did ‘enter the world” of mankind; when they rebelled. A&E were created as children of Jehovah; as such, they would still be alive today had they remained obedient. God’s purpose for them, as His children, was to live forever. This is still God’s purpose for mankind. Endless life.
— Psalm 37:29; Isaiah 33:24; Revelation 21:3,4; John 11:26; Romans 6:23.
It was never God’s purpose for mankind to have Endless life on Earth.
It is and has always been God's purpose for humans to live a normal human life span on Earth and then die and continue to live forever in Heaven.
Had it been God's purpose for mankind to have Endless life on Earth, God would have created us with immortal bodies, not with mortal bodies.

Let's look at those verses that you cited. When I say the future I am referring to the New Earth that is described in Revelations.

Psalm 37:29 King James Version
29 The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.
  • That is true. In the future when men are righteous, the righteous and their progeny will inherit the land, and dwell there forever.
  • Where does that verse say that people who have died will be raised from the dead to live on the land forever?
Isaiah 33:24 King James Version
24 And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.
  • That is true. In the future when these conditions exist the people who are dwelling on the land will experience these conditions.
Revelation 21:3 King James Version
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
  • That is true. In the future God will dwell with those who are living in the world and be their God.
John 11:26 King James Version
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
  • That verse does not mean that they will never die physically. It means that whoever believes and lives for Jesus will have eternal life in heaven, which is a state of the soul who is near to God.
Romans 6:23 King James Version
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
  • The wages of sin is spiritual death, since sin is disobedience to God which causes spiritual death.
  • The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
  • Eternal life is nearness to God, in this life on Earth and in our next life in the Kingdom of heaven.
“The immortality of the spirit is mentioned in the Holy Books; it is the fundamental basis of the divine religions. Now punishments and rewards are said to be of two kinds: first, the rewards and punishments of this life; second, those of the other world. But the paradise and hell of existence are found in all the worlds of God, whether in this world or in the spiritual heavenly worlds. Gaining these rewards is the gaining of eternal life. That is why Christ said, “Act in such a way that you may find eternal life, and that you may be born of water and the spirit, so that you may enter into the Kingdom.” 2”
 
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